The diet industry

• Fasting for 1–3 days.
• Drinking fresh fruit and vegetable juices, smoothies, water, and tea.
• Drinking only specific liquids, such as salted water or lemon juice.
• Eliminating foods high in heavy metals, contaminants, and allergens.
• Taking supplements or herbs.
• Avoiding all allergenic foods, then slowly reintroducing them.
• Using laxatives, colon cleanses, or enemas.
• Exercising regularly.
• Completely eliminating alcohol, coffee, cigarettes, and refined sugar.

Detox diets rarely identify the specific toxins they aim to remove. The mechanisms by which they work are also unclear.

There is little to no evidence that detox diets remove any toxins from your body. However, your body can clear itself of most toxins through the liver, feces, urine, and sweat.

Scientists are continually finding links between genetics and nutrition. Many of us have a gene called FTO that makes us more likely to be overweight. You can get a genetic test to tell which variant of the FTO gene you happen to have.

However, scientists who study the genetics of nutrition think it’s premature to base nutritional advice on your DNA. That FTO gene, for example, has only been shown to make a few pounds’ difference in body weight.

The coded messages of your DNA are billions of letters (nucleotides) long. Personalized nutrition companies only care about a few of your DNA letters and can tell you which "variant" you have at each of those locations (known as SNPs) along your DNA strands.

Genetic testing companies can learn what SNP variants you have by supplying them with a vial of spit.

Drinking water may speed up your metabolism for about an hour. This calorie-burning effect may be even greater if you drink cold water, as your body uses energy to heat it.

Drinking water can also help you fill up and help you eat less, especially if you drink it half an hour before you eat.

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) involves short, intense bursts of activity and help you burn more fat by increasing your metabolic rate.

The brain’s response to caloric restriction tends to be to increase cravings for foods that are highly rewarding and reducing our perception of being full. 

Diets frequently fail because they have an endpoint and are not a real lifestyle change. Maintaining a lifestyle that promotes a healthy weight and metabolism is often a lifelong journey. 

The actual food you eat isn’t the main thing that enables you to keep weight off.

Maintaining a weight-reduced state is a lifelong journey and many dietary approaches can work to facilitate weight loss and keep it off.

• Basal metabolism is the energy our body needs to keep our cells working and accounts for 65-80% of most adults' caloric consumption.
• The thermic effect of food is the energy our body uses to process food and accounts for 10% of most adults' caloric consumption.
• Physical activity accounts for 10 - 30 % of most people’s caloric consumption .

Not everyone overeats and becomes overweight, and not everyone who becomes overweight or obese develops illnesses like diabetes or heart disease. 

There was never a special diet, exercise regimen, or supplement that worked universally to control weight. Through trial and error, we have to discover habits and routines we can stick with that help us eat less and move more. 

For half a century, doctors and researchers have known two things that could have improved, or saved, millions of lives:

• Diets do not work. Not just paleo or Atkins or Weight Watchers or Goop, but all diets.
• Being fat does not necessarily mean being unhealthy.

• A 2016 study that followed participants for an average of 19 years found that unfit skinny people were twice as likely to get diabetes as fat people, who were relatively fit.
• Americans spend more on dieting every year than on video games or movies.

Dieting often involves “giving up” more pleasurable foods in an attempt to reduce calorie intake. But if we are asked to avoid eating the food we enjoy, researchers have found that we will crave it.

The behavioral and cognitive response to deprivation may inadvertently be creating more temptation.

A problem with dieting rules is that only a small violation—a sneaky slice of cake, for example—is enough to derail the whole diet. Researchers call this the “what-the-hell effect”. 

Diets that require the dieter to follow rigid rules or forbid them from consuming foods they enjoy appear to be problematic, as they paradoxically increase the risk of overeating. 

Eating can be an emotional activity, with deep connections on how our brains and bodies work. Emotional overeaters are:

• Having a feeling of resentment after neglecting one's own needs to appease others.
• Feeling undeserving of their success, with a fear of being shamed.
• Being a perfectionist and being constantly anxious about the possible mistakes.
• Suppressing of all negative emotions.

Overeaters tend to have an 'all-or-nothing' approach oscillating between an all-good diet or an outright unhealthy one, depending on the particular underlying emotion.

To be in control does not mean restraining. A person who is in control should have the capacity and freedom to self-govern.

Rather than fighting with your body, provide it with an autonomous control by allowing all kinds of foods back in your life, yet eating consciously, paying attention to your meals, savoring them fully. Being mindful can maximize your pleasure and minimize your eating.

Everybody seems worried that, during the ongoing pandemic, they will gain weight. 

However, a recent review has shown that individuals tend to gain the weight back after a diet in less than five years, even during regular times. Therefore, quarantine or not, you should pay attention to your eating habits, if you want to have a certain weight.

While quarantined at home, we all have the tendency to eat foods that trigger that feeling of safety and happiness, that only by consuming these vary foods we can experience. 

As nice as this idea might sound, you should also try sleeping or spending virtual time with your friends, as these can work wonders as well.

It is a common belief that slim people have a higher metabolism and overweight people have a slower metabolism. But, this is rarely the case.

Overweight is in most cases a result of a lifestyle in which one group generally consumes more calories than they need. There isn’t much we can do to significantly change our resting metabolic rate, but long-term strategies, such as increasing muscle mass, may eventually have an effect.

Anabolism is a succession of chemical reactions that build molecules from smaller components and usually require energy. Anabolism allows the body to grow new cells and maintain all the tissues.