Navigating Extreme Diet Risks

Source: Courtesy of Natahn Dumlao on Unsplash

I learned to devour vegetables when my mom was on the Rotation Diet (a diet that cycled between 600, 900, and 1200 calories, respectively). The vegetables that captivated me were drowned in mouthwatering Hollandaise sauce. We were at a restaurant and the enormous platter of veggies overshadowed the size of every other meal on the menu.

My mom, who was glowing at the time, winked conspiratorially and said I could eat ALL of it without gaining weight.

I was a developing teenager who had a high metabolism, an even larger appetite, and a culturally-reinforced belief that a woman could never be too skinny. I was riveted by her pronouncement and dove in with ecstasy.

To this day, I can still remember that meal and the extreme joy I felt from tasting something so delicious—Hollandaise sauce is basically savory fat filled with butter, egg yolks, lemon, and pepper—and feeling like I was consuming something that would help me lose weight. Except I was already twig thin.

Sadly, my mom passed 12 years ago from chronic health conditions compounded by type 2 diabetes. She would have been considered a normal size when we shared that meal together long ago but grew obese at the end of her life and died at 62. The extreme dieting probably harmed her health and metabolism.

For now, please note this post is not about Ozempic and the other GLP-1 RA injectables that could have been prescribed to her. Nor is it about the fascinating findings that the KETO diet could be a positive intervention for Alzheimer’s Disease, bipolar disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and schizophrenia—along with weight loss.

Instead, I want to share some information about how the many books, documentaries, and other related media advice on diet and health can inadvertently create harm. I share this with the greatest sincerity and care because we are all more vulnerable than we realize—and it is easy to fall prey to well-intentioned information that promotes an extreme dietary health solution.

Let me give you an alarming example: In a report in Clinical Pediatrics, a 6-month-old baby was rushed to the emergency room after having seizures. It turns out the parent had weaned the baby off breast milk at four months and transitioned them to a mixture of coconut water, hemp seed, and sea moss combined with some pureed vegetables and fruits. The baby developed rickets and the doctors had to restore the baby’s health with cow’s milk along with vitamin D and calcium supplementation. The baby finally began to stabilize three months later.

Another child in the same report briefing was not as lucky. That 3-year old girl developed goiter (an enlarged thyroid gland). The parents had fed her a plant-based diet and avoided exposing her to added salt, canned and packaged foods, and animal products. Unfortunately, the girl’s thyroid was permanently ruined, affecting her long-term health and development in numerous ways.

Before you jump to judgement and declare that you would never do that, I would like you to pause and ask yourself what extreme dietary measure(s) you have tried throughout the span of your life? And if you are a parent, what poor food choices have you allowed your children to eat? Conversely, what healthy diets, if any, have you encouraged your children to consume?

Let’s return to the parents who placed their children on a plant-based vegan diet. They probably meant well but did not have enough information. Moreover, they may have been led astray by many popular media reports that promote a plant-based vegan diet as the healthiest diet for human development and the planet.

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Take the popular You are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment documentary on Netflix that portrays one identical twin as having better health outcomes after following a plant-based vegan diet compared to the twin who did not. The original study by Landry et al. (2023) contains a statement that points out that a strict vegan diet in adults does not provide adequate nutrition and would require supplementation. The authors also point out that long-term effects were not measured in the study and acknowledge other research revealing that omnivorous diets are heart healthy when an ample quantity of vegetables and fruits are combined with moderate to reduced meat choices.

If you are now thinking, “Okay, let’s eat meat. And how about that KETO diet that can treat all the things you described earlier?” There is a caveat to the KETO diet. It, too, does not provide adequate nutrition on its own and it can pose challenges long-term. Worse, it can be dangerous for people with endocrine health conditions like Addison’s Disease, autoimmune diseases, and thyroid diseases.

I know it can be frustrating and confusing, especially when there are so many experts and high quality media telling you different things. What I can tell you—and what I hope you are inferring—is that we need adequate nutrition and adequate calories to thrive.

Believe it or not, consuming lower calories can reduce and harm our metabolism. That is a big contributing factor that led to my mom’s decline in health. A lifetime of fasting, yo-yo dieting on a dozen or more different “expert” published diets (and fads), impacted her metabolism and health in multiple ways. She was probably under-nourished and when weight gain crept up, she gave up.

A lifetime of restrictive eating and vilifying foods can lead to overcompensating by eating a lot later. It’s the starve-recharge-starve-overcharge cycle that can be dangerous. In fact, studies (Consiver et al., 2017) have found that children with forced eating restrictions due to chronic illnesses are more at risk for disordered eating. Which makes sense. It feels punitive and lonely when everyone else is enjoying birthday cake and you cannot.

While I may not have one grand solution, I do have four tips for easier eating:

1. Find Your Formula. Work with your doctor to assess your current health, nutritional absorption, metabolism, and your personal caloric range of weight loss (it might be far higher than you realize). There are also apps that can tell you the latter.
2. Think Like a Video Game. Vegetables and fruits are filled with antioxidants, which means they can donate a magical electron to neutralize the mean free radicals trying to destroy our bodies. (Don’t forget, we need healthy protein too.).
3. Diversify. Try a new food every day. Trying something new can eliminate food boredom and often sates a person faster. It can also create new neural pathways of healthy food pleasure.
4. Rock & Roll. Having ups and downs is normal. No one is meant to be perfect, yet self-abuse for failing can cause more harm (and perpetuate continuously binging on the junk that’s loaded with free radicals). So, rock and roll with it and be proud you’re trying. Maybe you can even dance about it.