No Diet Is Coming to Save You

No diet is coming to save you.

But many people keep thinking that one day the right diet is going to come along and solve all of their problems.

They have one particularly big problem they can’t see:

There’s no such thing as a diet savior:

“Compared with usual diet, moderate certainty evidence supports modest weight loss and substantial reductions in systolic and diastolic blood pressure for low carbohydrate (eg, Atkins, Zone), low fat (eg, Ornish), and moderate macronutrient (eg, DASH, Mediterranean) diets at six but not 12 months. Differences between diets are, however, generally trivial to small, implying that people can choose the diet they prefer from among many of the available diets without concern about the magnitude of benefits.” (1)

This isn’t what it seems like in pop culture.

Some are absolutely convinced that carbohydrate is demonic and that fat is angelic.

Others are absolutely convinced that fat is demonic and that carbohydrate is angelic.

But when researchers compare diets head-to-head, it turns out that they’re all wrong. All diets are basically the same, and none of them are sustainable:

“Moderate certainty evidence shows that most macronutrient diets, over six months, result in modest weight loss and substantial improvements in cardiovascular risk factors, particularly blood pressure. At 12 months the effects on weight reduction and improvements in cardiovascular risk factors largely disappear.”

This doesn’t stop people from believing—with religious fervor—that they just haven’t found their diet savior yet.

Weight-loss charlatans prey on this misguided hope. They hype their diets as nothing short of the Second Coming.

But anyone who takes the time to read even a little of the available scientific evidence can see right through their nonsense:

“In this 12-month weight loss diet study, there was no significant difference in weight change between a healthy low-fat diet vs a healthy low-carbohydrate diet, and neither genotype pattern nor baseline insulin secretion was associated with the dietary effects on weight loss. In the context of these 2 common weight loss diet approaches, neither of the 2 hypothesized predisposing factors was helpful in identifying which diet was better for whom.” (2)

“Low-carbohydrate and low-fat dietary programs were associated with more weight loss than no dietary intervention over a 12-month period; behavioral support and exercise enhanced weight loss. The weight loss differences between individual named diets were small with likely little importance to those seeking weight loss. This supports the practice of recommending any diet that a patient will adhere to in order to lose weight.” (3)

Stop falling for it.

No diet is coming to save you.

You need to gradually create harmonious relationships with food, with your body, with yourself.

It’s the only way:

“The similarity of mean bodyweight trajectories between long-term diet interventions, whether targeting macronutrients, calories, or food patterns, is explained by the fact that no diet has yet been shown to be uniformly easier to stick with than another in the long run. If there existed a diet that led to substantially improved long-term adherence in most patients—because it better addressed appetite changes, provided a sustained metabolic advantage, or was simply easier for patients to maintain—such effects would result in substantial and sustained differences in mean bodyweight. This result has not been observed despite repeated efforts using widely different diets.”

“Fewer resources should be invested in studying whether or not a low-carbohydrate diet is marginally better than a low-fat diet, or whether intermittent fasting provides marginally better short-term outcomes than a so-called Paleo diet. Crowning a diet king because it delivers a clinically meaningless difference in bodyweight fuels diet hype, not diet help. It’s high time we started helping.”

“Over the past several decades, dozens of randomised controlled trials have compared various diets for the treatment of obesity. Ideally, such studies should have provided strong evidence for clear clinical recommendations and also put a stop to society’s endless parade of fad diets. Unfortunately, the evidence base remains contested and the ‘diet wars’ continue unabated.” (4)

Seek help not hype.

If not now, when?

(1) Comparison of Dietary Macronutrient Patterns of 14 Popular Named Dietary Programmes for Weight and Cardiovascular Risk Factor Reduction in Adults: Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis of Randomised Trials. The BMJ, 2020, 10.1136/bmj.m696.
(2) Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 2018, 10.1001/jama.2018.0245.
(3) Comparison of Weight Loss Among Named Diet Programs in Overweight and Obese Adults. JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association, 2014, 10.1001/jama.2014.10397.
(4) Weight Loss Diet Studies: We Need Help Not Hype. The Lancet, 2019, 10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31338-1.

About Jason Gootman
Jason Gootman is a Mayo Clinic Certified Wellness Coach and National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach as well as a certified nutritionist and certified exercise physiologist. Jason helps people reverse and prevent type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other ailments with evidence-based approaches to nutrition, exercise, stress reduction, holistic wellness, and, most importantly, lasting behavior improvement and positive habit formation. As part of this work, Jason often helps people lose weight and keep it off, in part by helping them overcome the common challenges of yo-yo dieting and emotional eating. Jason helps people go from knowing what to do and having good intentions to consistently taking great care of themselves in ways that help them add years to their lives and life to their years.