400 Calorie Fix: Terrible Diet Advice from Prevention Magazine

400 Calorie Frauds

on May 04 in Commentary, Diet and Exercise tagged 400 calorie meals, diet, garbage, lies, myths, prevention magazine, weight loss by GT

Recently I logged into MSN Messenger and had that MSN Today box pop up. Normally I close it without so much as a second thought, but I happened to notice a link saying “Eat anything & lose weight”. Naturally curiosity got the best of me and I clicked…

The link brought me to Prevention magazine. I’ve never read Prevention magazine before but I surmised that it is some kind of women’s lifestyle and wellness mag. Anyway, I found myself reading an article entitled, “Slim Is Simple! Eat 400-Calorie Meals. 20 easy and satisfying ideas to fit any lifestyle.”

At first I thought, “hey this could be cool. An article about portion control is never a bad idea.” But then I noticed the line, “The best formula for weight loss? Watch calories!” This is when I started to get worried. Obviously weight loss requires caloric restriction on some level, but telling someone that losing weight is a simple matter of calorie counting… well that’s a recipe for failure.

Big Letters, Tiny Logic

In fact, when we consider that about 95% of individuals who lose 10% of more of body weight ultimately regain that weight within two years, it strongly suggests that calorie counting is an astonishingly poor method of weight control. But then again, what do I know? I’m just a guy who actively reads original research studies, forms my own opinions of how best to produce fat loss then actually applies that knowledge with the people I work with.

Anyway, I figure it’s always good to find out what kind of information is out there in the popular media so today I figured I’d walk you through what our dear friends at Prevention magazine have to tell you about weight loss.

I’m sure you’ll find this exercise as enlightening as I did.

#1. Hearty egg sandwich

Maybe not my idea of the best diet food, but I can accept this as a reasonable meal. I like the fact they at least use whole eggs and not just egg whites. Hopefully they continue this progressive line of thinking.

#2. McDonalds hamburger and vanilla ice cream cone

Wow… that didn’t take long for this list to deteriorate into pure trash. They seemingly justified this selection by telling people to only use 1 pack of ketchup on their burger. Heaven forbid you use too much high fructose corn syrup with this meal of refined carbs, simple sugars and faux meat.

#3. Pasta Bolognese

White pasta… a dieter’s dream! This list is starting to spiral out of control… and we are only 3 items in.

“No-salt tomato sauce keeps sodium in check” – seriously, do they think the salt content of this meal is the problem?

#4. Lean Cuisine® chicken Tuscan Panini + ¾ cup grapes

Microwave dinners. Why not? I mean, Prevention magazine considers McDonalds to be fine for healthy weight loss.

At this point, why even bother with the real grapes? Maybe as well include a pack of grape flavoured Starburst candies.

#5. Single serving sundae

I kid you not.

1/2 c Ben & Jerry’s chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream
Drizzle 1 Tbsp chocolate syrup
Add 1/4 c non-dairy whipped topping
Top with 2 maraschino cherries

I am so dumbfounded I am losing my ability to type.

#6. Frozen blueberry waffles

Yay! More microwave food. Who cares about vitamins, minerals or enzyme content of food? Give me highly processed cardboard any day.

#7. Milk chocolate pie

“Unsweetend cocoa is rich in antioxidants”. This is true. However, even 10 cups of antioxidants couldn’t nullify the damage from all the sugar in this recipe.

#8 Bagel and Joe on the go

And I quote “Love a carb-loaded breakfast? You can have it!” Excellent. I’m beginning to think this article was written by the sugar growers of America… or at least someone with a financial interest in metformin.

#9. Mediterranean munchies

I’m confused. Carrots, peppers and hummus? This meal doesn’t suck. Looks like this one got by the editors…

#10 Spring risotto

Eh… I suppose this could be worse. Peas, rice and parmesan cheese. Pretty devoid of protein, but in comparison to some of these offerings, this looks like a spinach and tuna salad.

#11. Peanut butter on an apple

Peanut butter on a apple, a glass of milk and some crackers. They refer to this as a protein packed snack. I calculate the protein content of this meal at less than 20 grams… to me that isn’t protein packed at all. Maybe protein-containing would be a better choice of words. Still, it’s miles better than 90% of the options thus far.

#12. Yogourt with granola

Amazingly, they suggested greek style yogourt (high in protein) and real blueberries. If only they would have omitted the high sugar granola, they would’ve been on to something.

#13. Chocolate Raspberry Oatmeal

Why did they have to go throw chocolate chips into what was shaping up as a reasonable meal? I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

#14. Tarragon Chicken Salad

Sure it’s a sandwich, but at this point I’ll give them kudos for anything not consisting of 90% sugar.

#15 Caffeine and cake

Spoke too soon. Since when is a tall skim latte and a reduced-fat cinnamon swirl coffee cake considered appropriate diet food? I’m convinced I’m having a nightmare.

#16. Personal pizza

Homemade pizza on a whole wheat pita. Partial credit, this could have turned out a whole lot worse.

#17. Peanut butter shake

Peanut butter, milk and a banana. I’ll give them a mark for trying, at least this one can’t be prepared in the microwave.

#18 Spicy crab cakes and mandarin orange salad

Hmm… the first meal I’d consider eating myself and we are only 18 recipes in.

#19. Sub with a crunch

Telling someone to go get a 6 inch subway sub isn’t enough, Prevention feels the need to top it off with a bag of baked Lays potato chips. Makes sense to me.

#20. Pasta dinner

Awesome. Another refined carbohydrate-based meal to be eaten a couple of hours before heading off to bed. In true Prevention style, they suggest pre-made, microwavable pasta to boot. They must be basing these kinds of diet recommendations on the fact that people deplete 100 grams of liver glycogen while they are sleeping… oh wait, that not true at all.

Seriously, how does garbage like this get published? Maybe I’m missing something… but is the full name of this magazine actually:

“Prevention… of losing weight”
“Prevention… of healthy eating habits”

Or my favourite

“Prevention… of common sense”

If anyone can come up with a better suggestion, feel free to post it in the comment section.

So there you have it folks, 20 recipes from our dear friends at Prevention magazine. Honestly, this list was so terrible I just had to share it. Frankly, I hope if any of you have a prescription to this magazine or know anyone that does you demand a refund. When only about 25% of these meals could even remotely be considered appropriate for good health, whoever put together this list deserves to be fired.

Ok, enough knocking of mainstream media’s treatment of dieting for one day.

Till next time, train hard and eat clean!

Alex Mailis

Wow… What a scam and the funniest part is people believe it because of all the media hype. I actually was watching TV about a month ago and I stopped at Rachel Ray's show (my girlfriend did actually) and the owner of the company for this 400 calorie fix was on. Just like you Graeme, I became interested, but when I started seeing the food choices I started getting angry. What it really comes down to is that people want to have their cake and eat it too and scam artists like the 400 calorie fix diet provides that false perception that you can lose weight and still eat the crappy foods you want. Maybe if these people were very obese and they overeat all the time they might see some weight loss but the calorie composition is horrible.
Keep up the posts for they are very informative and some are pretty funny.
Alex St.Pierre

Great post GT!
I checked out the '400 Calorie Fix' quiz online. My favourite bit of advice is that "although a fruit smoothie may sound healthy, it can add 100-400 calories to my meal." Here I was thinking fruits and vegetables were good for me! I guess I should probably just stick to eating all my meals off the McValue menu or better yet, refrain from consuming anything that is not in bar form.
http://graemethomasonline.com GT

@ Alex M. I feel sorry you had to suffer through a full interview with the originator of this scam. It's a shame that people like that get valuable air time in the mainstream media to perpetuate this foolishness.

@ Alex S. I love how they bash the fruit smootie, but plug the McDonalds meal. Did you happen to notice one of their approved snacks: popcorn/cashews/raisins topped with parmesan cheese and washed down with a beer… I kid you not.
Pingback: 400 Calorie Fix - XTS
Kate L

*Sigh* Another diet snob heard from. Here's reality for you: long-term dieters *aren't* long-term when someone tells them to just munch on veggies and chicken breasts ALL the time until they're miraculously svelte. Dieters have to live in the real world where they can't always control what's available - and where they don't always want to. They have to interact with friends, family, and co-workers who do go out to lunch, do go to movies and ballparks, do invite their dieting friends to barbecues, do order in food for meetings, and so on. They get cravings, too, just like everyone else. Sometimes you have to make compromises BUT you have to be able to do it without blowing it entirely. That means that if you're stuck going to McDonald's with coworkers, you can do something besides just sit there and watch your friends eat. This diet is about integrating good choices with less-bad choices, and with each meal, the author presents a color code to tell you what you're getting. As for turning up one's nose at counting calories, last I heard, 3500 calories is still a pound, whether it comes from a bag of sugar or a bag of broccoli. I've never been on a successful diet that didn't include some form of calorie-counting (and I've lost 55 and 80 pounds at different times).
It's a shame you're not familiar with the LONG-established, health-centric Prevention brand. (And rather amazing, really!) I've lowered my cholesterol 13 points into a healthy range thanks to them.
http://graemethomasonline.com GT

Kate,

Always good to hear someone of dissenting opinion and it’s tremendous that the Prevention diet has assisted you in lowering your cholesterol 13 points! But let’s remember that at no point did I, nor would anyone with a background in nutritional science, ever suggest that the best or only diet success comes from exclusively consuming veggies and chicken breast.

I also empathize that it can be frustrating to realize that we live in the “real world” you describe where we don’t have full control over what’s available. However, this is the same world all my clients also live in (as do I), and we’ve had tremendous success navigating the minefield that is fast/processed foods without derailing our diets. So speaking from a wealth of experience, I’ve seen even the biggest junk food addicts learn proper meal preparation and food intake strategies that they are able to execute for life long weight management.

In terms of your analogy that 3500 calories is 3500 calories, I’ll agree only insofar that you are basing your analysis of caloric content on bomb calorimetry (the research tool used to calculate caloric content of foods). However, in free living humans, we know that different nutrients have very different endocrine and metabolic effects, which is why consuming 3500 calories worth of broccoli, lentils and chicken breast will result in a far different physique than someone who opts for 3500 calories worth of McDonalds french fries and ice cream.

And while I applaud your previous weight loss achievements (which are substantial and should be commended), I should also point out that if calorie counting was such a successful approach, there’s a good likelihood you would not have had all that weight to lose a 2nd time.

I’m sorry, but we’ve got about 50 years of data now that shows calorie counting does not produce much in the way of sustainable weight loss. It may offer some initial success, but the long term success of dieters who base their food selection solely on calories is pretty abysmal.

This is why I work hand-in-hand with every client I take on, teaching them about nutrient quality and helping them construct a way of eating that works with their lifestyle but also produces the kind of properly functioning endocrine and metabolic environment that allows them to successfully manage their weight over the lifespan.

If you’d like to learn more about how this works, you are more than welcome to contact me and I can describe it in far greater detail. To your weight loss success!
Chris

Sometimes you have to do one thing at a time. I have been using Loseit! to track calories for two and half months losing 26 pounds (of 44). I eat whatever I want in the allowed portion and excercise 3 times a week.

I have tried to eat heathy to lose weight but I end up going back to poor choices. This time I figured I would keep eating the garbage for phase 1.

Once I’ve lost enough weight (in 9 more weeks), I can focus on changing what I eat in phase 2. I sugested this to my sister who has struggled with a lot more weight for a lot longer and she is doing great.

On diets that try to change too much too fast people tend to fail. If you have a 300 pound person and started them off by suggesting they count calories until they get down to a good weight, it will be easier to switch to a heathier diet later. Besides, do the negatives of a trash diet reduce the benefits of becoming a healthy weight?

Saturated fat and cholesterol take 40 to 60 years to build up. I can lose my 44 pounds in 3 months and begin focusing on eating healthier. And if I fail to get better food in my diet, at least I will be a healthy weight.
http://graemethomasonline.com GT

Chris – I agree that trying to change too much is a recipe for failure! However, calorie counting unfortunately misses the big point – nutrient quality always trumps nutrient quantity when it comes to improving health and physiques. And using weight as the sole barometer of progress only compounds the problem. When too much weight is lost in the form of muscle mass (which often happens with low calorie diets that aren’t providing enough high quality nutrients), then a rebound weight gain is quite common.

Not only that, but nutrient devoid foods do little to satisfy hunger or support metabolism. When it comes to looking as to whether a strategy will work long term, these are two of the major considerations that predict long-term success. Personally, I’ve had tremendous success with my clients teaching them strategies for hunger control (which involves a little instruction on portions and a lot of teaching on nutrient density) and the great part is that this leads to great long-term success, no matter the “phase” of diet someone is in.
http://www.easydietstricks.com Easy diets Tricks

Bravo, Bros! keep going like this, more good info again.

400 Calorie Frauds

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