If losing excess pounds is a goal of yours, then read on. An amazing new diet has been discovered by a medical doctor. The Catabolic Diet includes over 100 foods that require more calories (energy) to digest them than the total caloric value of the food. As a result, stored fat is burned up from your body. According to the doctor, this “diet works three times faster than starvation” with an average daily weight loss of one pound a day. Accuracy and results, of course, are guaranteed.

If this sounds too good to be true, it is. This diet is an old gimmick that has been repackaged. Several years ago, there was a widely circulated list of 19 foods that cause you to lose weight. (No food causes weight loss). The promotional literature stated that these foods have negative calories, and even if you ate too much, you could still lose weight easily. In fact, the more you ate, the more weight you would loose. A partial list of these “exceptionally healthy” foods included coffee, celery, cauliflower, onions, and apples.

The concept behind this diet is that a person will burn more calories chewing the food than are in the food itself. Plus, the body will burn up more calories during digestion than the total calories in the food. Best of all is that you didn't have to make any dietary changes. You could eat cake, pastries, butter, ice cream, or anything you liked. Just add some of these negative calorie foods to your usual meal and watch the pounds of fat disappear.

Some people quickly figure out that weight loss won't happen by chewing certain foods. But the idea of negative calorie foods obviously has staying power. What weight loss method could be easier than having no accountability for total caloric intake and being able to eat all of those high fat foods? After several years, this weight loss method faded into history, only to resurface as The Catabolic Diet. The Catabolic Diet uses the following examples: “A 300 calorie piece of cake may require 50 calories to be digested resulting in a net gain of 250 calories to be added to your fat storage. On the other hand, a 25 calorie catabolic food may require 100 calories to digest, resulting in a net loss of 75 calories from your stored fat deposit.”

The Catabolic Diet is another example of slick marketing. One of the ways nutrition fraud survives is through creativity. People are always looking for something new to help with weight reduction, especially when the latest weight loss craze doesn’t work and no longer is appealing. Like all weight loss gimmicks, The Catabolic Diet takes the physiological fact that the body requires energy (calories) to digest food and builds a falsehood around it. The digestive process is very complex and well regulated. It is a myth that foods have negative calories. If the previous examples were true, weight loss would happen by eating rice cakes all day, regardless of how many were eaten. Apples, celery, cauliflower, and other low calorie foods have nothing magical about them. People lose weight in two ways: they are taking in less food than their body requires and/or they are expending more calories than they are taking in.

The attraction of The Catabolic Diet has several components, all of which appeal to the millions of people who are desperate to lose weight. It is scientific sounding. It requires no work because it is easy. It offers over 100 foods that can be eaten. It “works like magic and results in a very substantial weight loss.” It includes catabolic foods, not negative calorie foods. Plus, it's very inexpensive. You get all of this for a mere $19.95 plus $3.75 shipping and handling. (The old diet cost $15.90 plus $2.00 shipping and handling. But, this diet gives you more food for the extra cost).

One big drawback of The Catabolic Diet is that it sets people up for failure. Another is that muscle mass is lost because weight loss happens too quickly. Muscle helps raise the metabolic rate, and with less muscle mass, the metabolic rate drops. It also sends out the erroneous message that there are good foods and bad foods. Worst of all, the promotional literature won't tell you what 100 foods qualify as catabolic. For me, these foods will remain a mystery.

Copyright© 1999-2006 Kevin Kelly, LRD. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use prohibited.

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