Hi everyone this is Monica Reinagel and you're listening to the nutrition

divas quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous. Eat as much as you want and still lose weight. Well I don't know about you but that sounds good to me. Many popular diets are promoted with the claim that as long as you follow certain rules you can eat as much as you want and still lose weight.

Usually the rules involve eliminating certain foods or whole food groups, such as carbs or sugar or meat or dairy or wheat from your

diet. The implication or in some cases the overt claim is that calories don't matter. Eating the right foods and avoiding

the wrong ones somehow fixes your metabolism or regulates your hormones or

otherwise turns your body into a fat burning machine that stays lean no matter how much you eat.

You can see why this approach is so popular.

By far, the biggest drag about trying to lose weight is having to give up foods or portion sizes

that you would otherwise enjoy. And to be honest, many of these diets do lead to weight loss.

However, there's far less metabolic magic

than these books and magazine articles would have you believe.

It's not that eliminating food allergens or toxins triggers the release of fat stores.

It's not that cutting out carbohydrates turns off your fat storage genes.

When people cut back on carbohydrates or sugar or wheat or processed foods or whatever,

they usually end up consuming fewer calories,

even when they're not trying to restrict their calorie intake.

For example, one recent study found that people who followed a strict low-carb diet,

but were otherwise allowed to eat as much as they wanted,

ended up reducing their calorie intake. otherwise allowed to eat as much as they wanted,

ended up reducing their calorie intake

by about the same amount as people who were following

a low-fat diet that also put a limit on how many calories they could eat.

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