Many people are looking for fast ways to lose weight and among the most popular weight loss diets, there are the dissociated diets.
The dissociated weight loss diet, although it can have many variations, is based on not mixing nutrients from foods on the grounds that our body is not prepared to properly digest and metabolize carbohydrates and proteins at the same time.
Thus, dissociated diets divide food into three main groups:
- Carbohydrates – Such as cereals, potatoes, sweets, bread, and so on;
- Protein – Such as meat, fish and shellfish, eggs, dairy products, and other similar foods;
- Neutral – Those foods in which neither hydrates nor proteins predominate – vegetable oils, butter, and various (non-starchy) vegetables;
In a dissociated diet is recommended not to mix carbohydrate foods with those rich in proteins. However, recent studies published by Belgian scientists suggest that the enzymes in our body act simultaneously and can digest carbohydrates and proteins at the same time without a problem.
In fact, in most foods, in their natural form, we find both nutrients, as is the case of whole grains in which there are carbs and also vegetable proteins. On the other hand, the dissociated diet recommends the consumption of at least one neutral food at each meal, as well as reducing sugars and fats.
Dissociated diets are not as good as they are advertised to be
Most of the dissociated weigh loss diets found on the Internet, in magazines, or books include a preset menu with a low intake of calories, which similar to a ketogenic diet, triggers the ketosis in the body, which is the process that promotes weight loss.
In other words, such a diet favors weight loss by producing a caloric deficit and by promoting the ingestion of proteins without carbs, which stimulates ketosis.
However, as a study published in the International Journal of Obesity points out, the combination of foods does not influence weight loss, so dissociated diets do not work because they are dissociated but because of other factors.
Science does not support the effectiveness of dissociated diets and the different proposals that respect their premises are not free of side effects, therefore, following such diets which promise fast weight loss is discouraged by nutritionists.
