Diet industry “disruptors” such as Joan Breibart, CEO of PhysicalMind Institute, are tapping into a growing consumer anger against diet advice that “just doesn’t work”.
If the diet advice of the New York Times’ wellness writers — Gina Kolata, Tara Parker Pope, Jane Brody and Gretchen Reynolds — is so good, why is America getting more and more obese?
That’s the question Joan Breibart, diet contrarian and CEO of the PhysicalMind Institute, a Pilates and body centered organization based in New York, wants answered.
Breibart and Meredith Luce MS RD LN co-founded 80Bites.com, a weight loss program that allows you to eat any food you like, but restricts the quantity you eat to 80 bites a day “We’re Gangsta, they’re Establishment,” says Breibart of the New York Times and others.
These are the diet myths that Breibart is working to dispel.
1. “You have to exercise to lose weight”
Recently the New York Times has admitted this is wrong: The facts: Exercise is not a weight loss solution. And if you are among the 60% of the population who are obese, strenuous exercise (aka “calorie torching”) causes elevated cortisol levels, releases more free radicals, and increases inflammation and thus impedes weight loss.
2. To Lose Weight you have to Eat ‘Right’
“Filling up on anything — even veggies and protein – desensitizes and stretches your stomach which leads to hormone imbalances, says Breibart. “You can lose weight eating your favorite foods — even donuts and fries — — if you eat mindfully.
A diet author on NBC’s “Hoda and Jenna” demanded that dieters run out and buy 22 different vegetables. “That’s not a diet, that’s a fetish,” Breibart says. “And Hoda and Jenna were eating it up.”
3. They recommend diets that are too complicated to stick to over the long term:
“These diets the Gang of Four recommends are in search of the ultimate food manipulation: Everything in Column A, some from Column B, and fast when its raining on Tuesdays in Bermuda.”
“These complicated diets are unsustainable, so you give up and blame yourself,” says Breibart. “But you never blame the diet, which is the real issue!”
4. They recommend routines suited for the elite:
“Obviously, and now more than ever, most people can’t afford trips to spas, massages, personal wellness trainers and year-round, out of season fruit and vegetable purchases,” Breibart says.
“We need to stop maligning peoples’ food choices. Putting Americans down hasn’t worked,” says Breibart.
Co-diet-inventor Luce treated bariatric surgery patients at Florida’s largest hospital for several decades. Decades of stomach reduction surgeries proved that hormones were rebalanced almost immediately: the patient’s diabetes disappeared and hunger was curtailed even though the patient was still morbidly obese.
“Overeating and, in turn, stretching your stomach has a direct effect on two of the most important gut hormones: leptin, which makes you feel full, and ghrelin, which makes you feel hungry,” warns MaryBeth Langlinais, MS, RD, who teaches the 80Bites program in Louisiana. “When they go haywire, you’re always hungry.”
“We are going back to our native common sense which everyone knows means eating less, less often,” says Breibart. “This is the “diet” people are now stumbling into.
