While reading Longevity by Dr. Peter Attia, I came across his very interesting and enlightening simplification of diets. With the New Year resolutions around the corner and many of us desiring to lose weight, it would be interesting to introduce this new perspective and hopefully help you in your journey to health and wellness.
Take any diet that aims to help you lose weight, remove the labels and the ideology, and what it boils down to are the following three strategies:
- Caloric Restriction: eat fewer calories than you burn. Famously known as Calories In, Calories Out or CICO. There is no attention paid to what you are eating. You are simply focused on the calories.
- Dietary Restriction: Eating less of specific foods within the diet. It can be restricting carbs and not eating sugar or meat. Limiting what you eat often (but only sometimes) will consume fewer calories than you are burning, which will cause weight loss.
- Time Restriction: You restrict your eating to a specific window of time. This includes fasting for a day or more.
Breaking it down simply allows us to talk about dietary interventions more objectively and rationally and avoid labels such as “low-fat” or “Mediterranean” that don’t tell us much.
It’s important to note that each method has its pros and cons. Many diets will include more than one of the strategies above.
If you have tried to lose weight repeatedly but have returned to your old ways, I invite you to contact us for a complimentary consultation. We are here to help you reach your health and wellness goals.