Dr. Layne Norton is back, shedding light on some nutritional strategies to help you achieve your physique goals this summer. In a recent interview with Chris Williamson, Norton discussed sustainable dieting strategies for fat loss.
Having made waves in bodybuilding and powerlifting as a natural athlete, Dr. Norton has long been a staple of the fitness community. Having earned his PhD in nutritional sciences, Norton continues to give back to the community with insightful tips and tricks for health optimization.
Effective dieting strategies have long been on Norton’s radar. From a deep understanding of ketogenic and carnivore diets to other sustainable nutrition plans, he is on a mission to find programs that best suit an individual’s needs.
Dr. Layne Norton Discusses ‘Best Diet’ Strategies: ‘You Have to Do Some Form of Restriction’
According to Dr. Norton, after looking at various diets, he found ‘none of them were any better than the other ones for long-term weight loss.’
“One meta-analysis looked at four different popular diets, another one looked at 14. They ranged from low-carb, high-fat, to low-fat high high-carb, to everything in between. When I say low-carb, I mean ketogenic up to Ornish diet, which I think is like 80 percent carbohydrate. What they found was over the long term, none of them were any better than the other ones for long-term weight loss.”
“There’s another meta-analysis done that’s what one of my favorite studies when we get in these arguments about low-carb versus this, it looked at equating calories and protein, varying carbohydrate and fat, it’s important to equate calories and protein,” shares Dr. Norton.
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To achieve high adherence to diets, Norton explained that subjects had to be put in a type of ‘food jail.’
“When they vary carbohydrate and fats, this meta-analysis used only studies where at minimum all the meals were provided to participants. Very controlled feeding studies where adherence was very high.”
“They basically had them in food jail and found that there was essentially no practical difference in fat loss between these diets. In fact, it actually slightly favored the low-fat diets but it was like 16 grams of extra fat loss per day it was clinically irrelevant.”
Dr. Norton says the best diet is the one ‘you can adhere to consistently.’
“The best diet for you as an individual is the one that you can adhere to consistently. And to lose weight, I like what Peter Attia says, he puts types of dietary strategies in three different buckets: you have tracking restriction, tracking calories, macros and restricting that way.
You have dietary restrictions where you’re doing low-fat, low-carb, clean eating, paleo, insert whatever type of diet, and then you have time restriction. Intermittent fasting, alternate-day fasting, any sort of those buckets.”
He underlines that there are three strategies for dieting, all of which include some form of restriction. To achieve fat loss, he emphasized that macro restriction, food option restriction, or time restriction should be implemented.
“Those are kind of your three strategies that you can use. You have to do some form of restriction. All those involve some form of restriction. I like training macros and calories because I am brutally absurdly consistent when I can kind of eat the foods I like but just track it. Some people hate that. Some people have a lot of anxiety about training. It feels very cumbersome for them, for me, it’s five minutes a day and it doesn’t matter.”
“Some people like the dietary restriction, ‘Well, if I just eat these foods, I lose weight.’ Okay, cool as long as those can be sustainable for you. You have to practice some form of restriction but you should choose the form of restriction that feels the least restrictive for you and also don’t assume that it will feel the same for everyone else. This is where we get into the diet wars.”
Aside from Dr. Norton, retired powerlifter and bodybuilder Stan Efferding has been after the best diet. He created the Vertical Diet, a food plan designed for active individuals with higher daily caloric intakes. Similar to Norton, Efferding says the best diet is the one you’ll follow.
“The best diet is the one you’ll follow. The weight loss itself is the primary driver of health benefits,” said Efferding.
Boasting over 394,000 followers on YouTube, Norton is dedicated to providing his fanbase with actionable steps backed by science. He believes dieting can be individualistic but doesn’t underestimate the power of restriction in its many forms.
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