Q: What is the baby food diet? I’ve heard it’s nutritious and additive free. So would you recommend it?

A: The baby food crash diet means that you trade a regular sized meal for a jar of baby food. Similar to portion controlled diets, the baby food diet uses jars of baby food as a ‘healthy’ alternative to snacks and sometimes a meal because baby foods have fewer preservatives and additives than regular processed foods. The baby food is eaten right out of the jar at room temperature. The jars consist of liquidised or pureed versions of the food that we enjoy chewing daily.

 

The baby food diet is a diet I would never recommend to my patients for a number of reasons.

 

On the baby food diet, you’d be eating between 2 and 3 jars of baby food a day which is a significant drop in calories. Not only will this slow down your metabolism making long term weight loss harder, it will leave you feeling weak and tired and will not satisfy your hunger.

 

If you want to diet and nutrition is important to you, the baby food diet is lacking in nutrients that are essential for your health and well being. It also won’t do what it says on its label; help you lose weight. You may lose a few pounds when you start but this is just water and muscle weight and in the long run you’ll end up putting it all back on again as fat and more besides because your metabolism (fat burning) has slowed down. Not to mention the fact that eating bland and unsatisfying pureed baby food instead of a healthy meal you can chew and savour isn’t doing your digestive system any favours.

 

I’ve said it before but it’s so important I’ll say it over and over again. Crash diets and fad diets like the baby food diet never work when it comes to weight loss. Crash diets remain popular despite the unhealthy effects that crash diets can produce. In 2007 the world’s largest study of weight loss at the University of California showed that dieting is damaging because of the tendency to regain weight which is associated with an increased risk of heart attack and diabetes.. The only way to lose weight healthily and successfully and keep it off in the long term is to lose it gradually at a rate of no more than 1 to 2 pounds a week through eating a healthy diet rich in metabolism and health boosting whole grains, fruits, vegetables, oily fish, legumes, nuts and seeds.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 1st, 2008 at 1:30 am and is filed under Ask Marilyn, Weight Loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.