The Shocking Truth: Diets Have a 90% Failure Rate, Says Expert Andrei Beloveshkin

Want to Lose Weight? Remember the Golden Rule: “Do No Harm”

In this article, we’ll debunk eight common dieting myths and trends, offering healthy alternatives to harmful practices. It’s crucial to understand that mistakes in dietary experiments can be far more dangerous than they seem. Dieting and self-experimentation can lead to disordered eating, disappointment, health deterioration, and even weight gain.

Scientific Research Reveals the Harsh Reality of Dieting

According to recent studies, individuals who maintain a consistent diet without experimentation have a higher chance of keeping their weight stable over five years. Shockingly, those who go on diets have a 90% probability of gaining more weight within a few years than if they hadn’t dieted at all. Only 5% of people manage to maintain their weight loss after five years.

Myth 1: I’ll Find a Personalized Diet and Start Immediately

Personalized diets aren’t necessary for everyone. Most diets share 80-85% similarities, with only 15-20% being debatable. Even the most ideal, individualized program won’t solve all your problems if you can’t maintain it long-term. Beware of attempts to drastically change your diet overnight, such as basing it on blood type, zodiac sign, or other unproven methods.

The Dangers of Fad Diets

These approaches don’t work, and neither do specialists offering extensive, individualized programs that you can’t handle immediately. While it’s true that different people require different nutrition systems, it’s essential to focus on basic nutrition rules rather than details in the beginning.

Finding Common Ground Among Diets

Most diets agree on the benefits of vegetables and berries and the harm of excess sugar. Individualized nutrition should be discussed with a doctor or dietitian only after a comprehensive examination. Typically, personalized nutrition is necessary when serious issues with eating behavior arise, or when there are accompanying diseases and restrictions.

Making Sustainable Changes

Any dietary changes should consider your strength and energy reserves. Choose and apply general rules that you can maintain, even if your willpower weakens. Start with rules that are easy for you to follow at this stage. For example, replace half of your cereal serving with vegetables, ensuring you have a stock of veggies in your fridge. Or, avoid drinking coffee after 4 PM to improve sleep, as losing one hour of sleep can lead to consuming an extra 250 kcal the next day.

Identifying and Addressing Food Intolerances

Individualized nutrition involves personal experiments with foods to identify and exclude individual intolerances. For instance, some people can’t tolerate lactose (milk sugar), while others can’t handle peas. An intolerance doesn’t mean you should avoid an entire food group; often, replacing one food with another (e.g., lentils instead of peas) is sufficient.

Myth 2: I Want to Lose Weight as Quickly as Possible!

Rapid weight loss is dangerous. If you push your body into stress, your progress will stall. Crash diets are particularly harmful to internal organs. While you may lose weight externally, fat can accumulate in your liver, internal organs, and blood vessels.

The Dangers of Rapid Weight Loss

Many people want to lose weight or gain muscle quickly, but this idea is extremely dangerous. For living beings, accelerating natural life processes can be harmful and even fatal. Imagine pulling on the top of a tree to make it grow faster—the tree would die. The same applies to humans. Drastically reducing calories, increasing exercise without adjusting nutrition, or worse, restricting calories while increasing exercise can lead to severe deficiency.

Reframing Your Weight Loss Goals

This means that weight loss will come from muscles and subcutaneous fat, which gives your face and body a rounded, smooth, and attractive appearance. Crash diets are the most dangerous for internal organ health. Externally, you may lose weight, but fat accumulates in your liver, internal organs, and blood vessels. Additionally, crash diets can cause serious mental health issues, such as depression, aggression, and fatigue.

Focus on Health, Not Just Weight Loss

Reformulate your goal: aim to become healthier, as thinness doesn’t equate to health. Beauty encompasses muscles, which maintain your shape, subcutaneous tissue that enhances your appearance, and a slim waist that indicates the absence of internal fat.

Prioritizing Basic Nutrition Rules

Basic, general nutrition rules are more important than details and individualized nutrition. If you push your body into stress, your progress will stall. It’s crucial to determine the minimum number of calories that won’t switch your body into deficiency mode. When increasing physical activity, correspondingly increase your caloric intake.

Monitoring Weight Loss Progress

Focus on the dynamics of weight loss—it’s essential that the process is ongoing, even if it’s slow, but in the right direction. Drastically reducing fats or carbohydrates in your diet can also lead to stalled weight loss.

Myth 3: I Want to Cleanse, Detox, and Remove All Toxins

In medicine, there’s no concept of “toxins.” Detoxification and cleansing are purely commercial projects that not only won’t help you but can also cause serious harm. All you need to do is not interfere with your body and create conditions to activate its protective functions. Avoid overloading your liver, get enough sleep, and manage stress.

The Truth About Detox Diets

When people realize they’ve been leading an unhealthy lifestyle, they often want to fix everything quickly. A prolonged unhealthy lifestyle can create a feeling that the body is “dirty” or “impure,” leading to the desire for cleansing. This is a form of indulgence or absolution, a way to atone for past sins.

The Dangers of Detox Products

Feeling “dirty” is often a manifestation of low mood or hidden depression. You can’t “wash” your organs in a couple of days, get rid of “impurities,” and start a new life. The market now offers cleansing for the entire body or individual organs (liver, intestines, kidneys, etc.), including charcoal cleanses. Unknown individuals suggest enemas, colon hydrotherapy, and consuming dubious herbs and supplements. Advertisements also promote detox diets, detox shampoos, detox teas, and more. It’s essential to understand that any detoxification, toxin removal, or cleansing (except for drug and alcohol detox) is purely a commercial project that won’t help you and can cause serious harm.

The Origin of the “Toxin” Myth

“Toxins” are a fabrication of detox sellers; there’s no such concept in medicine. All you need to do is not interfere with your body and create conditions to activate its protective functions. Avoid overloading your liver, get enough sleep, and manage stress. National Center for Biotechnology Information.