Fad Diets

By Casey Pontrelli on August 29, 2016

There’s a phrase that strikes fear into the heart of many a college student: the dreaded “freshman 15.”

Due to the newfound lack of structure during mealtime, many new college students end up eating things their parents would have never served, like Pop-tarts and ice cream for dinner — I know I did. A couple nights of eating like that and it’s easy to gain that 15 pounds.

At Cal Poly, it’s widely said that “it’s more like the Cal Poly five” — because it’s a hilly campus and everyone walks, we have a beautiful Recreation Center, and Cal Poly has an overall reputation of being “healthy” and “fit.”

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If anything, though, this just adds to the pressure college students feel to have the ideal body type. According to this study, although the majority of the students surveyed were realistic in their goals for weight loss, 46 percent of the women wanted to be underweight or slightly underweight.

All these pressures and fears lead students to try all kinds of fad diets to lose weight, or keep off that freshman 15. However, these diets are, the majority of the time, ultimately unhealthy and cause more problems than they solve.

Andrew Silva, Kinesiology professor and coach, teaches a course called Healthy Living, and said he spends an entire class period going over fad diets, what works and what doesn’t, and the importance of exercise and eating healthy above all else.

“Losing weight shouldn’t be the ultimate goal for any lifestyle change,” Silva said. “The important thing is changing negative habits to have a more healthful life.”

There are so many diets out there — but how many actually bring about healthy weight loss and help people keep the weight off?

With some diets, like the Paleo diet, the effectiveness isn’t even known. Diets such as Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, and the Atkins diet have proven effective in the short term, but the results are questionable in the long term.

“Those diets typically make people lose weight quickly, but keeping it off is a whole other thing,” Silva said. “That’s usually because these diets either cut out carbs entirely, which is never good because it’s an important macronutrient that our body needs, or have a very strict meal plan that is hard to stick to for long periods of time.”

Other diet plans, such as the Mediterranean diet or the Biggest Loser plan, are both effective in the long term and are good for reducing disease risk.

“Both of these plans focus more on lifestyle changes, and aren’t nearly as strict as the other diet plans,” Silva said. “That kind of flexibility not only makes it easier to stick to long term, but also makes people feel like they have some control.”

But the best diet for making more healthful lifestyle choices is also one of the best known — Weight Watchers. Medical researchers monitored more than 700 overweight adults for one year and found that those under a doctor’s care lost on average five pounds per year, whereas those on the Weight Watchers diet lost an average of 11 pounds.

“Weight Watchers has a built-in support group,” Silva said. “Not only does it hold you accountable, but it puts you in contact with people who are interested in being healthier, just like you. That makes making these big lifestyle changes a lot easier for a lot of people.”

The one problem with Weight Watchers, however, is that it’s not cheap. Even the cheapest plan is $60 for the first three months, plus a $20 starter fee. And while there are occasionally discounts available if you sign up at the right time, it’s still not exactly affordable on a college budget. That’s okay though — Silva has some advice about how to follow a similar plan as Weight Watchers without having to spend all that money.

“I think the most important thing to start with is a group of like-minded people who want to go on this journey with you,” Silva said. “Because one of the reasons Weight Watchers works so well is because of the meetings and weekly weigh-ins. So, if you get a good group of people who agree to hold each other accountable, the rest becomes easier.”

Next, Silva recommends downloading an app like MyFitnessPal or some other food log so you can track what you eat.

“The food log apps are great because you can add things like exercise,” Silva said. “You can also adjust the amount of calories you give yourself in a day, and it lets you know if you’re eating so little it’s unhealthy.”

Silva said that a pound of fat is 3,500 calories, so in theory, a good way to lose that pound is to cut 500 calories a day. In order to do that, you first need to calculate your basal metabolic rate (BMR) to get the amount of calories your body burns in a day. Then, you can decide if you want to exercise to have that 500 calorie deficit, cut those 500 calories from what you’re eating, or a combination of the two.

“The most important thing to remember is that you won’t see huge changes immediately,” Silva said. “It may take a little while to get the results you want, but you’ll end up much happier than if you choose one of those get-thin-quick diets. And you’ll stay in good shape, too.”

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