Slim fast: Is Your Fad Diet Making You Old?

It seems that many of us are obsessed with our weight and nobody relishes the idea of getting older. However, insight into our hormonal system is revealing that our quest for a thin waist is likely prematurely aging us.

A simple review of biology shows that our unconscious body systems are run by the autonomic nervous system (ANS). This nervous system is equally regulated by a sympathetic (dominated by the adrenal glands) and parasympathetic branch (dominated by the thyroid). These two branches regulate the "break-down" and "repair" cycles of our body. In a balanced, healthy individual, the sympathetic system functions during the day to give us energy and stamina for mental clarity and activity throughout the day. When night falls, the parasympathetic branch kicks in delivering a cocktail of hormones to help us to repair the damage done by the activity during the day and replenish brain chemicals. In other words, when we have a balanced ANS, we repair at night what we break down during the day and our system remains healthy and vibrant and energetic.

So, you may ask, what does this have to do with dieting? The preferred route for dieters seeking a smaller pant size is the calorie deficit; cutting down calories and eating less to create a deficit in the body to burn fat. Sounds great right? Well, if someone is clearly eating too much, then the calorie intake will clearly have to decrease to obtain an ideal weight. However, most people who are consuming too many calories are entirely malnourished. This means that they are eating the wrong kinds of foods in excessive quantities. Instead of staying satiated, their hunger increases so that the body can obtain the needed nutrients in the next meal. This kicks off a vicious cycle of malnourishment with over-consumption of calories and weight-gain.

When your body is malnourished, it unbalances the autonomic nervous system. If this person decided to cut calories without improving the nutrient values in the food, then he or she is getting even LESS of the bad food and LESS of the little nutrition they were getting before. The body becomes even more malnourished and more unbalanced. This is particularly true, in my opinion, when people use the popular diet foods like Slimfast and other ultra-processed alternatives. At what point in human evolution have we ever consumed food like that and how can we justify them being "good for us" simply because it helps us lose a dress or pant size for a week? Compounding the problem is the fact that our bodies produce more cortisol through the adrenal glands when we are in a calorie deficit and under stress. Cortisol is our breakdown hormone and this level rises, and remains elevated, until the original weight is gained back again.

Too much cortisol results in a sympathetic over-dominance (meaning that our "break down" cycle is greater than our repair cycle.) Add smoking, drinking, lack of sleep, stress, excessive cardio exercise, and poor food quality to the weight of the load already put on the nervous system and we get severe cortisol/adrenal dominance in our ANS. This dominance of our breakdown cycle is a little like driving your car 3000 miles and then only swapping out half of the oil when you get it changed. Over time, the oil becomes very dirty and the car stops running so great. This happens to your body. Like having an ever-increasing list of deferred maintenance issues, your body cannot hope to repair because you are always breaking down more than you are repairing.
This imbalance can manifest itself as anything from skin problems, loss of muscle tone, increased body fat, or disease. It is, in effect, a cycle of continual degeneration and rapid aging.

The key to addressing this problem lies in providing your body with the nutrition it needs and avoiding calorie deficits like the plague. When you begin to feed your body the nutrients it needs to balance itself, your body returns naturally to an ideal weight and vigor. I recommend metabolic eating and organic and hormone-free food sources to achieve this maximum balance. Perseverance and starvation is NOT the answer; play the game intelligently and maintain your youth, energy AND ideal body weight. Go for the quick fix and you are bound to pay the price of accelerated aging.