A nutrition guru explains the pros and cons of a controversial diet technique
BY KIM GOSS ention crash dieting to most health professionals and you can count on plenty of cynicism and warnings about the unhealthy nature of severely restricted-calorie diets. After all, in the 1970s there were 58 deaths associated with one such diet, a low-calorie plan based on a liquid-protein drink. Ten years later a similar diet, also featuring a liquid-protein drink, was associated with the deaths of 30 people. Crash dieting must be bad news, right? Before answering yes or no, listen to what Lyle McDonald has to say.
Among serious athletes and coaches, Lyle McDonald of Taylorsville, Utah, is considered one of the most respected authorities on dieting for athletes. His book The Ketogenic Diet is regarded as one of the ultimate sources on both the benefits and risks of low-carb dieting. A UCLA graduate in kinesiology who has worked with elite athletes and mere mortals alike, Lyle has made diet research his lifelong passion. His books are widely consulted, and recently he raised more than a few eyebrows by writing The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook: A Scientific Approach to Crash Dieting. BFS takes an official stand against crash dieting, as would most coaches who deal with young athletes.
However, the fact is that crash dieting is a common practice among not only athletes but also the general population – and it’s also true that there are far safer ways to crash diet than by relying on those liquid protein diets that they are often associated with. For these reasons, we asked Mr. McDonald if he would share with our readers his ideas on crash dieting and why he would risk his reputation by publishing a book on Msuch a controversial topic. Here is what we learned: BFS: Lyle, what on earth were you thinking when you decided to publish a book about crash dieting?
LM: Knowing what I know, I would love to see everyone who needs to lose weight make small or moderate changes in their diets, but the reality is that some people are going to crash diet no matter what you tell them. It’s also a fact that there are a lot of bad ways to crash diet, and I want to at least put a way of doing it out there that is nutritionally sound, based on good science and as safe as it can be made. I say this because crash dieting is never completely safe, but there are comparatively better ways of doing it. BFS: In what situations might a crash diet be appropriate?
LM: Let’s say there’s a wrestler who has two weeks to make weight, and if he doesn’t make weight all his dreams for that national championship go right out the window. In working with bodybuilders, I’ve found that many of them often get behind on their contest preparation. Then of course there are folks who simply want to get in shape on very short notice for spring break, a wedding or a high school reunion.
Lyle McDonald coaches Sarah Mawson at The Edge Strength and Conditioning Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
BFS: What about those diets that simply have you substitute a protein shake for a meal – isn’t that the simplest way to diet? LM: Simple, no doubt, and yes, I would love for people to take a longer-term approach, rather than taking 12-20 weeks to lose the weight. The problem is there are situations where a moderate approach simply won’t work. BFS: There has been a lot of bad press about crash dieting. Take, for instance, the uproar over the diet in the book The Last Chance Diet after it was associated with the deaths of many individuals. What was the problem there? LM: That is probably the most infamous crash www.bigger fasterstronger.com NUTRITION diet, which came out in the early 70s.
It is only superficially similar to what I describe in my book. The 70s diet was based on nothing but lean protein in the form of a protein supplement that had zero bioavailability. On top of that the book failed to recommend vitamin-mineral supplements. As a result, several people got into problems where their bodies were burning cardiac tissue because of the totally inadequate protein intake, and they were suffering from other deficiencies from mineral depletion. In later studies using similar types of diets based instead on whole foods and providing high-quality protein and vitamins and minerals, individuals experienced none of these problems.
BFS: Two popular books that deal with crash dieting are Extreme Crash Dieting by Dr. Eric Serrano and The Radical Diet by Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale. What do you think about those books? LM: They are based on similar concepts. What is unfortunate about Dr. Serrano’s diet – and by the way Dr. Serrano and I are good friends – is that it’s very heavily supplemented. To follow his diet requires about $300 to $400 worth of supplements each month. The diet probably works, but I don’t think it does anything to help with long-term adherence because when someone finishes with the diet they still don’t know how to eat.
I think it’s just as easy to use whole foods, which are cheaper and typically taste better, than to take a lot of pills and powders. I don’t want people trying to live on protein drinks. As for Dr. Di Pasquale’s book, that is almost a carbon copy of his Anabolic Diet, which was a five-day low-carb diet alternated with two days of carb-load, just with lower calories. He didn’t really change anything. But my biggest problem with his book is that of the 97 pages, it’s about 20 pages of information and 70 pages of supplement ads that he tells you are required to make the diet work.
BFS: Is it also true, then, that one of the advantages of premeasured meals is that you can follow the diet precisely, but the drawback is that it doesn’t teach you how to eat properly when the diet it over? LM: Precisely. These meals are convenient and can be prepared quickly, but as far as helping you to keep that weight off in the long term they are less than ideal. I would rather get people into the habit of eating whole foods while they are on a crash diet so when they get off, all they have to do is add other foods to what they are already eating. BFS: What about the benefits of fasting, such as cleaning out toxins and giving the digestive system a rest?
LM: The liver is amazing at clearing the toxins out of our systems, and I’ve never seen any research that suggests that the digestive system needs a rest. BFS: The subtitle of your book is How to Lose 4-7 Pounds of Fat and 10-20 Pounds of Weight in Two Weeks. Why do you emphasize the distinction between fat and weight? LM: A significant part of the weight loss in a low-carbohydrate diet tends to be from water. This was one of the reasons for the popularity of the Atkins Diet, because it was very motivating to watch the scale drop by seven pounds in the first two or three days.
But what you have to realize with that diet is that people are primarily experiencing water loss, not fat loss – it's not fat loss yet. And it's doubly important to realize that if the Atkins dieters eat carbohydrates again the water weight tends to come back just as quickly, which can be very demoralizing. In my book, right up front, I wanted to make certain that the reader is not being misled into believing that losing 20 pounds in two weeks is the same as losing 20 pounds of fat tissue. BFS: What kind of results can a person realistically expect on your diet? LM: The results have been about what’s promised in that subtitle.
I get e-mails that some people are dropping 10-20 pounds of weight in two weeks, and losing about 4-7 pounds of bodyfat. Some larger individuals have used it for extended periods and have lost tremendous amounts of weight, 150 pounds and more, whereas lighter females tend not to lose as much. However, lighter females tend not to lose that much on any approach simply because their requirements for maintenance calories are so much lower. Even leaner individuals have reported no loss of muscle mass, no loss of strength, no loss of performance – as long as they did it exactly the way I set it up in the book.
BFS: We often hear trainers and people in medical fields saying if you go on a diet, you should never lose more than two pounds a week. Where did that idea come from? LM: That’s a really good question, and I don’t have an answer about its source. When they’ve done research looking at the type of diet I’m recommending, usually involving very obese individuals, fat losses of 4-7 pounds a week are not uncommon.
If you diet smartly, you don’t have to lose muscle while losing fat. Four years ago NFL veteran Ethan Brooks dropped 6.7 percent bodyfat in six weeks while gaining strength and building muscle. Ethan’s story was featured in our Spring 2003 issue.
BFS: When you look at top competitive bodybuilders you worked with, are such ultra-lean athletes following the types of guidelines for crash dieting you’re recommending? LM: Probably not to quite that degree. The typical natural bodybuilder may start dieting at about 10-12 percent bodyfat, but they may start 16 weeks out from their contest. If they know what they are doing, they will give themselves a very long time to get into shape, because their goal is to lose as much fat as possible without losing any muscle so they can look their best on stage.
Typically what they’ll do is start with a diet that is moderately calorie-deficient while they weight train intensively, and as they get leaner they’ll start to eliminate more foods.
BFS: When you pick up fitness magazines, you read about celebrities who have “discovered” a new way to lose weight quickly. Do you think it’s a big problem in the United States for people to follow what celebrities are doing? LM: Yes, because celebrities are in a situation where if a producer tells a celebrity you have to lose 15 pounds or we are not going to pay you 10 million dollars to do this movie, the celebrity is going to get into shape. If average people had ten million dollars on the line, they could do it too. Celebrities also have the ability to hire personal trainers, cooks and other facilitators that the average person cannot afford.
The American public is getting a little bit misled in that they are trying to get the same results as celebrities without having the same support network. BFS: Do you have any formulas to determine specific caloric intakes on your program? LM: Typically I recommend 10-12 calories per pound as a starting point, so if you weigh 150 pounds you should have 1,5001,800 calories. I find that usually works pretty well for most people. But on this diet, rather than starting from calories and working backwards, I find it works well to start from protein and let the calories fall where they may.
BFS: How does that work? LM: The way I set it up is that people have to determine their bodyfat percentage and their activity level, and this determines how much protein they’re going to need per day. Since the diet is primarily all protein, that is going to set their calorie level.
BFS: Are you concerned that some people who hear about your diet will simply just eat protein and think that’s all there is to know? LM: It never is that simple: Being haphazard about nutrition is asking for trouble. For this type of diet the information in the book is essential. There’s a lot of information in there about what is necessary to eat, what protein sources are best, what vegetables are allowed, along with advice about getting essential fatty acids.
BFS: But you wouldn’t recommend going on this diet for months at a time? LM: In general, no, but there are some exceptions. The way I have it set up, the fatter you are, the longer you can stay on essentially any diet. Lean individuals may only want to stay on it for two weeks at a time, because any longer than that they will get into performance loss and muscle loss. For these reasons, the last four chapters of my book detail how to move from the rapid fat loss diet to either a more moderate or maintenance diet. BFS: Are most of the meals basically the same?
LM: Yes, pretty much every meal is going to contain a lean protein source, such as chicken or tuna, and some sort of fibrous vegetable source. You should also have some source of essential fatty acids, such as fish oil, and a multi-vitamin/mineral supplement. BFS: Why do you recommend a multi-vitamin/mineral? LM: Even though we are trying to ensure you get all the essential nutrients with this type of diet, as the calories go down it becomes more difficult to get all your vitamins and minerals. Also, low-carb diets tend to cause the excretion of minerals such as calcium, magnesium and potassium.
Champion weightlifters such as Heather Snethen must carefully monitor their bodyfat to ensure maximum performance.
BFS: Would people on this diet have to take dosages of vitamins that are much higher than usual? LM: Not really, because this diet consists of whole foods. This type of supplement certainly wouldn’t hurt, and will absolutely cover any potential nutritional deficiencies. BFS: What type of exercise is better when using this type of diet: weight training or aerobic exercise? LM: Weight training, definitely, as it will help maintain muscle mass much more effectively than aerobic training. BFS: A lot of people have a hard time starting a diet because it can be overwhelming to commit to doing something for such a long period, say, six months or more.
Would you say that this is an advantage of your diet? LM: Absolutely. In fact, I believe one of the biggest advantages of my diet is that it gets you motivated. There is research to show that initial quick weight loss seems to help with moving into a longer-term approach. In my book I suggest that you might use the diet for two weeks to take off some fat quickly to get things moving, then move into a more moderate, traditional diet. The crash diet is not supposed to be maintained for the long term. It is a short-term solution for when people have to lose weight quickly. JULY/AUGUST 2006 BFS is proud to endorse and provide the full line of Pharmanex® nutritional products.
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From BFS Magazine — July/August 2006. Part of the BFS Magazine Archive (1980–2014).
