“I don’t think I’m eating enough!”

We often hear this phrase from dieters during their first few days on Phase 1.  It’s true that before nutritional ketosis kicks in, one of the most common side effect of the new IP dieter is hunger.  But putting that aside, many have concerns that they just don’t seem to be eating enough to eat (granted, part of that may be comparing the portion sizes of IP food vs. a typical local style Hawaii plate lunch!)

Let’s do the math.  Plugging in the daily allotment of IP foods + protein and vegetables into a calorie calculator, most dieters come up with a number between 900-1100 for their daily calories, which we are told is “not enough food” and alarms many of us.   Does this drop in caloric intake truly lead to a nutritional deficiency, and is it harmful or dangerous?

You’ve probably guessed that the answers are no, and no, and of course you are correct.  Here’s why:  even if dieters are taking in 900-1100 calories of IP food + vegetables + protein, remember that the body can generate up to an addition of 1000 calories per day from stored fat, once the dieter enters nutritional ketosis.

So dieters are far from starving – they are just accessing stored calories in their body (from fat) rather than eating them.  In addition, the vitamins and supplements recommended by our program help bolster our dieters’ nutritional status so deficiencies do not develop.

An interesting piece of just-published research on bariatric surgical patients also supports this conclusion.  It has long been assumed that nutritional deficiencies in the post-surgical bariatric patient were due to malabsorption of critical vitamins and minerals.  Turns out, this is only partly true.  When investigators at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine did nutritional analysis on a pool of pre-surgical obese patients, they found a myriad of deficiencies, even before surgery ever occurred.  Most common were iron deficiencies (36% of all pre-surgical patients) and vitamin D deficiencies (71%), much higher than in the general population.  These results fly in the face of conventional wisdom which states that not eating enough (quantity) leads directly to nutritional deficiencies in dieters (quality).  Lead investigator Kimberly Steele MD states “Our results highlight the often-overlooked paradox that abundance of food and good nutrition are not one and the same.”  Here at OSR Weight Management in Kailua we couldn’t agree more!

 

Read more here: http://dgnews.docguide.com/nutritional-deficiencies-common-weight-loss-surgery?overlay=2&nl_ref=newsletter&pk_campaign=newsletter

 

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