10 Signs a diet suffers from OCE

1. 10 Signs that your Diet Promotes Obsessive Compulsive Eating
By Brad Pilon, MS
It was back on March 12 of 2007 that I first wrote about the now famous A to Z
weight loss trial (you can see my original blog post here http://nutritionhelp.blog-
spot.com/2007/03/newest-diet-study-what-does-it-really.html).
In this ground breaking study, 311 over-
weight women were recruited to follow
one of the following popular diet pro-
grams: The Atkins Diet, The Zone Diet,
the LEARN diet or the Ornish Diet.
To start the study, each woman was given
a copy of the popular diet book that she
was randomly assigned to follow.
Then, to make sure she was an “expert” on
her program before she started dieting,
each woman attended a series of 8 classes
(each lasting an hour) explaining exactly
how to follow her assigned diet.
(Side note- This just shows how OCE
these diets are considering that it takes
EIGHT classes for these women to know
how to properly follow each diet!)
After the courses were completed the women then set off to follow their assigned diet
plan for a total of 1 year.
The results were pretty much exactly what I expected – everybody lost a lot of weight
in the first two months, after that the diets tended to even out and by the end of the tri-
al the weight loss was far from impressive – none of the groups averaged more than
10 pounds of weight loss after an entire year of dieting.
And while many people used this study to ‘prove’ that diets simply didn’t work, or
that the body somehow adapted to dieting, my take was much simpler – Firstly, this
trial is in agreement with most research that shows it is very hard to accurately meas-
ure how many calories a person eats in a day, and secondly I thought that these results
showed that the number one reason diets fail is compliance.
In other words, the more complicated and the more rigid the diet is (or the more OCE

2. it is), the more likely it is going to fail in the long term. – People just can’t stick to
these types of diets for long periods of time.
Apparently I wasn’t alone with my analysis.
In a study published in the International Journal of Obesity titled “Dietary adherence
and weight loss success among overweight women: results from the A to Z weight
loss study” researchers re-examined the A to Z weight loss trial to see if there was an
association between the level of compliance and the amount of weight that was lost.
Guess what they found?
Astonishingly only ONE subject in the ENTIRE study followed the diet as directed
for the whole 12 months. This means that every other subject was not following her
assigned diet properly at some point during the research trial!
The researchers also found that adherence was significantly correlated with 12-month
weight change for all three-diet groups. So the better a woman was at following her
diet, the more weight she lost.
The fact that adherence was so low is very interesting considering that these women
spent eight class sessions reviewing their assigned diets with a registered dietitian be-
fore they even started the diet…you can imagine what adherence must be like for
someone who simply bought one of those books, read it cover to cover and then gave
it a try!
The findings from this follow-up analysis also suggest that the difference in dietary
macronutrients had only negligible effects on the participants weight loss success.
The bottom line is that you can generally figure out how successful a diet will be by
looking at how complicated it is.
More rules = more complicated = low chance of success
Less rules = less complicated = high chance of success
In my opinion weight loss can be incredibly simple if you let it.
Find the easiest, most comfortable way to reduce the total amount of calories that you
eat. The less intrusive a diet is on your lifestyle the greater chance you have of stick-
ing to it long term.
For me, this is flexible intermittent fasting. After all if you can fast for 24 hours once,
you know you will always be able to do it. Some fasts maybe harder or easier than
others, but you know you can do it!

3. Obsessive Compulsive Eating habits that make diets complicated and difficult spell
doom for long term weight loss.
10 Signs a diet suffers from OCE:
1. It contains a list of foods you can and cannot eat
2. It lists specific times of every day that you are allowed or not allowed to eat
3. It contains specific diet plans that do not take into consideration your own per-
sonal food preferences
4. It lacks flexibility
5. It focuses on macronutrients and micronutrients excessively
6. If fails to point out the importance of long term compliance
7. It requires you to pre-pack and carry certain foods with you while you travel
8. It promotes certain foods because they PROMOTE weight loss
9. Over reliance of food Journal
10. Metabolic Typing
****
Brad Pilon is a nutrition professional with over eight years experience working in the
nutritional supplement industry specializing in clinical research management and new
product development. Brad has completed graduate studies in nutritional sciences
specializing in the use of short term fasting for weight loss.
His trademarked book Eat Stop Eat has been featured on national television and
helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat without sacrificing the
foods they love.
For more information on Eat Stop Eat, visit www.LiveProof.info/eatstopeat/