trial and error

I've always told my clients, and those who seek nutritional advice, to try one thing, but try it for more than a couple of months. Our bodies have to adapt to what we put it through. Try eating less calories, but try eating less starches first. If after 8 weeks or so, they don't feel better, maybe this doesn't work for them. Here is why...

"Over the past century, numerous studies have addressed this issue of how much more easily some of us fatten than others. One of the most famous was from Vermont State Prison. Endocrinologist Ethan Sims raised convicts food consumption first to 4000 calories a day. Then as much as 7000 per day, while remaining sedentary. There were "marked differences between individuals in ability to gain weight", he reported. Of his 8 subjects that went 200 days on this regimen, two gained weight easily and six did not. Once convict manged to gain less than ten pounds after 30 weeks of forced gluttony. When the experiment ended, all the subjects "lost weight readily, with the same alacrity," in fact, as that with which obese patients typically RETURN to their usual weight after semi-starvation diets. Sims concluded that we're all endowed with the ability to adopt our metabolism "in response to both over- and undernutrition," but some of us, as with any physiological trait, do it better than others."

In another study...
"One of the most telling observations that emerged from these studies of metabolic rate was how greatly it might differ between individuals of equal weight, or similar it might be between those of vastly different weights. In 1915, Francis Benedict studied basal metabolism translated into the minimal amount of energy expended over the course of a day, measured in 89 men and 68 women. There were huge variations. For men who weighed roughly 175 pounds, the minimal expenditure ranged from 1600 to 2100 calories. Implying that one 175 pound man could eat 500 calories a day more that another 175 pound man, and yet would gain no more weight by doing so, even if physical activity were identical. Heavier women also tended to expend more energy, but variations were striking. One of Benedict's female subjects weight 106 pounds, whereas another weighed 176, and yet both had a basal metabolic rate of 1475 calories."


WOW! Talk about varying body types. So one may ask, "why does one diet work for one person, and not for the another?" Above are your answers.

Trial and error.