Video Transcription:

Interviewer: Time to eliminate the word diet from our vocabulary. I’m with Dr. Raymond Singer, my special guest on Everyday Health. Dr. Singer is the author of the book. I Used to be an Athlete. He is a cardiothoracic surgeon. Tell me why we should get rid of the term diet, Dr. Singer.

Well, if you think about the first three letters of the word diet is D-I-E, die. And in fact, if you are on a roller coaster of going on and off diets over time, you will hurt your body. Let me explain how that works.

What you really wanna be looking for is a lifestyle change. The problem with going on a diet is by definition, if you go on a diet, you have to come off of a diet. Now look, when you go on a diet and there are hundreds of diets out there, you will lose weight. But problem is you’re gonna lose weight much more quickly than is healthy. And when you do that, you lose fat, you lose weight, but you also lose protein. See the body won’t tolerate not having enough glucose in your body, particularly your brain.

And so the body will break down proteins in your liver, your muscles, and your heart in a process known as gluconeogenesis. The problem is that, yeah, you’ll feel great for a little bit. You’ll lose weight. You’ll think everything’s fine, but you’ve lost some protein. Now, when you come off the diet, you tend to take in excess calories and you work off again. And the simple formula is calories in versus calories out is weight loss or weight gain. And the body only knows how to store excess calories in one form, and that’s fat. And so here’s the vicious cycle, Brian.

You go on a diet, you lose weight, you lose fat, you lose protein, but when you come off the diet, you only gain fat and the fat is very dangerous fat because it goes into your heart muscle, your liver and so on.

Interviewer: A serious message from my special guest, Dr. Raymond Singer on Everyday Health. Thanks for listening.