When you start a diet to lose weight something strange happens. Your body isn’t all that happy about getting rid of your fat. Instead, you begin to lose lean tissue, such as muscle and bone density.
A research study conducted in Denmark and published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in May 2002 found that when men dieted, less than 60% of the weight lost was fat. The rest were lean tissues. When the men regained weight, only 24% of the weight they regained was lean tissue; more than 75% of the weight regained after weight loss was more fat. That means that for people yo-yo dieting (living in a cycle of losing weight and gaining it back), their body’s lean tissues are gradually being replaced by fat.
The same research showed that the image for women is even worse! During the diet, 35% of the weight lost was lean tissue, initially less than for men. BUT when regaining weight only 15% was lean tissue. When the women lost and then regained weight, lean tissue did not regain enough: 85% of the weight regained was fat!
Do you find this surprising? I must say that when I first came face to face with this information I was dumbfounded. So much so that I decided to check it out with a man who could tell me how hard it is to maintain muscle and how easily lean tissue can be lost. That man is an accomplished bodybuilder: Stuart Garrington. Mr. World 2012. Currently reigning Mr. Britain and preparing for the Mr. Universe competition in October this year.
Stuart tells me that a top-tier bodybuilder will probably be able to gain a maximum of 8 pounds of pure muscle in a year, and that’s with all the training, extremely high-protein diet, and creatine supplementation that goes along with the sport. Also, if a bodybuilder takes his eye off the diet and starts introducing too many carbs instead of protein, the muscle starts to disappear very quickly; he estimates that it would be easy to lose 2 or 3 stones of muscle mass very easily. .
Simply put: it’s hard work to gain muscle and it’s very easy to lose it if your diet doesn’t positively protect your body composition.
Body composition is intrinsically linked to health. Although this was reported by research scientists in 2002, it finally made it to the mainstream media in 2011, making it front-page news in The Daily Mail. The logical conclusion is that diets that don’t protect your body composition do harm! your health!
What is incredibly disappointing is that in the last decade (and more) since the facts surfaced, the food and diet industries in general have not responded and continue to perpetuate the same misleading messages and promoting the same products. This means that you continue to lose lean tissue instead of fat and risk your health.
Daily Mail adverse effects of weight loss diets on health article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2026106/Being-fat-healthier-constantly-trying-diet. html
