Cris LaBossiere

Cris LaBossiere
Strength training and mountain biking. My two favorites

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

The Baby Food Diet: Does it work?

As heard on The Drive with Karen Black on CJOB 680 am radio. Go to CJOB's audio vault, click on May 11, 3 pm, then fast forward about 40 minutes to catch my interview.

________________

Come on now be honest with yourself..  Do you really think such a goofy idea will "work"?  And just what does "work" mean?

Lose weight?  So seriously.. the best way to lose body fat is to eat baby food.  What is the connection between body fat and baby food?

There isn't any.

Like any fad diet the "plan" always has some apparently unique quality that finely once and for all will make it easy for the  masses to lose weight.

Are we overweight because we don't eat baby food, or because in general we eat too much and don't exercise enough?

You know the answer.  We don't need to eat baby food to lose weight, we need to consume fewer calories than we burn off.

While there is not official baby food diet a popular version is consuming 14 servings of baby food during the day, and one "healthy adult meal" (whatever that is) for dinner.

One serving of baby food is around 30 to 60 calories.

14X30 to 60 = 420 to 840 calories. Who knows what the content of the "healthy adult meal" is, but if we go by what fad diets usually promote, the total calories for the day will be 600 to 1000 calories per day.

The problem with this and all fad diets is that the diet is yet another diversion away from what healthy eating and healthy weight loss really is.  A person is likely to get caught up in the hype and the promise of hope and not spend too much time contemplating how to be healthy, but rather how to lose weight rapidly.

How's that working for Canadians?  Not so well as we become more overweight year after year.

Risks of ultra low calorie diets and rapid weight loss include:


  • Low energy and irritability 
  • Not meeting daily minimum requirements of essential vitamins and minerals
  • Dehydration, lose of important lean muscle mass and bone mass
  • Reduced white blood cell count and compromised immune system
  • Continued emotional turmoil connected to food, weight, and body image


Some of the pro baby food people stress the point that baby food is pure and healthy.  This creates a false dilemma, one of the more popular manipulative tactics used by fad diet promoters.

Stressing that baby food is pure and full of vitamins makes it sound like other food is not, leaving you with the only real option.. the baby food diet.

The reality is fruits, veggies, and grains are nutrient dense. Further more.. think about it.. what is baby food made from?  Mashed up fruits and veggies.  So eating a mashed up mix from a jar will make you lose fat but eating an orange is not going to help you?

The baby food diet is also promoted as a short term cleansing diet that gets rid of toxins.  What toxins?  How was this measured? (it wasn't).

Normal healthy eating, such as a salad with almonds, blueberries, spinach, strawberries, chic peas, and broccoli is good tasting and easy to make.  Don't need baby food as an adult.

The baby food diet gets a thumbs down.. two thumbs down and a sad baby face!

No comments:

Post a Comment