New year, new diet?

Mediterranean, Sonoma, Protein, Wheat Belly, Body Type, Paleo, Atkins, Scarsdale, Low-Carb, South Beach, Dukan — it all sounds like a riff from a Billy Joel song.

All of these are diets that, at one point or another, have been or are, the “flavour of the month” (forgive the pun).

The reality, however, is that almost all of these diets have two things in common: one, they’re based on restricting carbohydrate intake or at least eliminating processed carbs; two, chances are they won’t work.

Correction. They will work if only you could stick to them over time and methodically and permanently change your eating habits. So, why then, every time you turn on the TV or pick up a magazine there’s a “new” wonder diet being promoted, especially at this time of year?

Just follow the money. According to 2011 figures from MarketData Enterprises, an independent research firm, the U.S. weight loss market is worth about $61 billion. The average dieter makes four attempts a year, MarketData says, with more than 100 million Americans on a diet at any given time, some 85 per cent of whom are female.

But Canada’s obesity rates have risen since 2002, according to a University of British Columbia study published in 2013. In 2003, some 22.3 per cent of Canadian adults were considered obese; now it’s an average of 25.3 per cent. In Ontario, 29 per cent of us tip the scales at obese levels.

Clearly, something isn’t working, and it’s us.

“It’s easy,” laughs Dr. David Jenkins, a University of Toronto professor of medicine and the Canada Research Chair in Nutrition and Metabolism Department of Nutritional Sciences. “Just cut out all the things you like and you’ll be healthy.”

He’s joking of course, but our biggest hurdle is indeed psychological.

“Nothing scares people more than changing their behaviour around food,” says Nishta Saxena, a lecturer in the department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto and a clinical dietitian at University Health Network “It’s wrapped up in who we are, our memories, our ethnicity, social standing, all those things.”

The core concept of all these diets isn’t the problem, stresses Jenkins: “The problem is we want to have our cake and eat it too. That’s why we’re always flailing around looking for a quick fix.”

Indeed, it seems like science has ripped us off. Weren’t they supposed to have magic pill by now? They did but it turned out drugs like Fen-Phen (fenfluramine/phentermin) and Meridia (Sibutramine) were dangerous.

“Everyone wants a pill because it’s much more taxing to change their behaviour,” Saxena says.

In the early 1980s, Jenkins, a vegetarian, cocreated of the Glycemic Index, which rates food according to how it affects blood sugar. The GI has gone on to be the basis for many diets, including the South Beach Diet, though Jenkins did not participate or profit from them.

Eating more whole grains (Wheat Belly fans will disagree), roast nuts, leafy vegetables, plant proteins, fibre and “good” carbs will, over time — and with at least 30 to 60 minutes of exercise daily — stop weight gain and start fat burning.

“I’ll probably get shot for saying it but some salt to add flavour on top of the vegetables is just fine too,” Jenkins said; coincidentally Hypertension Canada agrees, recently upping the recommended daily intake of salt to 2,000 mg from 1,500 mg.

As Saxena says, there are many theories driving diets but little in the way of large scale studies or science to back them up. In the absence of evidence, she says, we have to go with what we know.

“We have to change the spectrum of macronutrients in our diet,” she says. Translated, it means drop the chips, snacks, pastries and processed foods and get back to basics — but you already knew that.

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The value in Atkins, Scarsdale, Paelo and similar diets is that they generally push eating habits back to whole foods like fruits, nuts and vegetables.

Even the 30-year-old, high protein Dukan diet, which has made a comeback, still relies on Dr. Jenkins' Glycemic Index at some point.

“We try and stay ahead of the game because patients are always walking in talking about a new diet and wondering if they should try it,” Saxena says.

With some many diets available, there’s a good chance one will match well with someone and they will have success, she says. In the long term, however, it’s about making a commitment to changing eating habits and incorporating regular exercise, which is where most patients need the most support.

The biggest barrier to success, she says, are psychological, and the patients who fail most often are those who aren’t ready to totally commit. Conversely, though who are either at crisis or have decided to change — whether it’s quitting smoking, exercising or dieting — will be more successful in making better choices.

One of the keys in modifying behaviour, she adds, is to not be dogmatic. Successful diet plans are flexible enough to allow for side trips, as long as the other fundamentals remain in place.

Colleague Janet Polivy, a psychology professor at University of Toronto who studies our relationship with food, agrees.

“Diet by definition is temporary,” she said. “Temporary measures are always temporary. We have to permanently change the way we eat. We all want a magic formula and we buy into the latest diet rage because we want to believe the weight will fall off easily and painlessly and somehow our lives will also be magically transformed.”

It’s important to manage those expectations, and to recognize your own body type.

“There’s a struggle between biology of what is normal and the myth of size zero,”she adds. While there’s no quick fix, she says, the key is not to be too rigid.

“If you want a chocolate chip cookie, have one or two but not six,” she says.

“Start doing things that work for you and recognize the unrealistic promises made by new diets which just want to seduce followers in thinking they’ll lose weight quickly and easily,” she said. “Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.”