Avoiding the New Year’s Dieting Blues

Well, you’ve made it through another year and if you’re like most of us, you have probably already made a pact with that New Years resolution. You know the one I’m talking about. The same one hundreds of thousands of people—just like you—make each and every year around this time, the “I’m gonna diet away all these extra pounds” one!

This months article is dedicated to all those who actually believe that this year’s diet is going to be different from any of the other years.

Unfortunately, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, over 40 percent of women, and 28 percent of men are on a continual search to either lose or maintain weight by dieting.¹ This problem is so large—no pun intended—that according to the same journal, North Americans collectively spend over 33 billion dollars every year on the diet industry, with very little success to show for it! Many of us still blame our ever-expanding waistlines on our poor genetics; however, this argument doesn’t hold much ground once you consider the research, which shows that the human gene pool has remained virtually unchanged throughout obesity’s rise.² The fact remains that dieting changes the way our bodies react with their environment and since the vast majority of our genetic makeup was programmed thousands of years ago, our genes for the most part, are switched on to feast or famine mode.

The Mineral Connection
Here underlies the main reason most diets fail. In feast and famine mode, your body will do anything to ensure its survival. This means that your brain does not recognize the difference between true starvation, or an unhealthy restriction of essential nutrients through dieting (aka: fad dieting). It’s as if our bodies go into a type of panic when we diet, “Oh no, not another famine!” In many cases, the body can actually reduce overall metabolism by lowering the overall output of thyroid hormones. In fact, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine showed that obese people who followed a very low calorie diet experienced a decrease in T3 levels by as much as 66 percent.³ T3 is the most metabolically active of the thyroid hormones and any decrease in its activity spells disaster to the amount of calories your body can burn each day.

Researchers have known for quite some time that a deficiency in the mineral selenium can also cause a decline in T3 levels, among other health problems. This is because the enzyme that’s responsible for converting T4 to T3 is heavily dependant upon selenium. In fact, studies confirm that getting sufficient quantities of selenium can not only increase thyroid function, but also may be able to fight cancer, reduce cardiovascular disease and help reduce inflammatory disorders like arthritis.⁴

The problem is that most people rely on otherwise nonorganic man-made forms of minerals—including selenium. Even though all minerals are the same, it is what they are bound to that matters in terms of whether our body is able to use them properly or not. This is why the calcium from the sidewalk you stroll on every morning is not the same as the calcium that is found in a stalk of broccoli. Plants have already done the work for us, by taking in the inorganic minerals from the earth and organically binding them to various proteins. This is also one of the reasons I am not a big advocate of most mineral formulas on the market, because they are man-made instead of coming from Mother Nature herself.

Whether it is selenium or any other mineral you are after, LeafSource™ is the only mineral formula I recommend at the moment. It is derived from a 100 percent organic mineral deposit made from highly decomposed organic materials that have been fossilized for millions of years—they are a rich, pure source of organic trace minerals that can be easily absorbed and used by your body to promote optimum health.

The hardest part about dieting is the lost pounds that seem to magically reappear once the diet is over. Aside from a decline in thyroid function, another reason people experience this dreaded “rebound weight gain” is because of lost muscle tissue. Along with healthy thyroid metabolism, lean body mass (muscle) influences how effective your metabolism is.⁵ Unbalanced/low calorie diets—in the absence of high quality protein and proper exercise—can often cause the body to lose valuable muscle, eventually leading to a diminished metabolic rate and eventual rebound weight-gain.

The obvious solution to a declining metabolism and the New Year’s dieting blues is not to go on yet another diet. Instead, it is best to consume smaller nutrient-dense meals (making sure to include plenty of protein) approximately every three to three and a half hours throughout the day. This, along with at least three sessions of resistance training every week and a proven organic mineral formula, will help you reestablish a sluggish metabolism in the New Year.⁶

For more information on LeafSource please visit: www.LeafSource.com

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1. Serdula, Mary. Prevalence of Attempting Weight Loss and Strategies for Controlling Weight. JAMA. 1999 Oct 13;282(14):1353-8.
2. Koplan, JP, Dietz, WH. Caloric Imbalance and Public Health Policy. JAMA. 1999 Oct 27;282(16):1579-81.
3. Wadden TA, et al. Effects of a very low calorie diet on weight, thyroid hormones and mood. Int J Obes. 1990 Mar;14(3):249-58.
4. Rayman MP. The importance of selenium to human health. Lancet. 2000 Jul 15;356(9225):233-41.
5. Forbes, G.B. Body fat content influences the body composition response to nutrition and exercise. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2000 May;904:359-65.
6. Bryner, R.W, et al. Effects of resistance vs. aerobic training combined with an 800 calorie liquid diet on lean body mass and resting metabolic rate. J Am Coll Nutr. 1999 Apr;18(2):115-21.

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