The DANGERS of the Kardashian Diet No One Is Talking About

Kim Kardashian lost 16 pounds in just three weeks to fit into a dress. Could this work for you too? Well, maybe, but at what expense? Here's what I think is a triple board certified nutrition expert. Now, years ago, I helped actors get ready for roles, including Brandon Routh when he debuted as Superman and another actor who needed to look like he had AIDS for the movie rendition of the Broadway show Rent and an actress who had dramatically had to slim down for a role in Reality Bites. And to me, when I looked at this situation, I go, you know, this is just like when you're getting ready for a film. I mean, when you think about it, Kim was channeling Marilyn Monroe by wearing her dress to the Met Gala. She was basically getting ready for a one night role. So let's get into what she did and if there's any strategies that you could use. I mean, bottom line, is this healthy or is it dangerous? So you may have heard that she dropped 16 pounds in three weeks. So how did she do it? Was it healthy? Could it work for you? There are some things that she did that I do myself and I recommend to clients. And then there's one thing that's really dangerous for more reasons other than just the obvious. So here's what she did. Now this is her regiment in her words, right? I would wear a sauna suit twice a day, run on the treadmill, completely cut out all sugar and all carbs and just eat the cleanest veggies and protein. I didn't starve myself, but I was super strict. She also exercised two times a day. All right, let's unpack this now. First, let's talk about the big thing she did that I definitely don't want to do. Wear a sauna suit while exercising. And I'm going to tell you this one because this reminds me of back when I was the Nutrition expert on Dr. Phil for two. Two years. On Dr. Phil, we the first season we had the weight loss challenge going on. We had these two groups that we put into two teams and we said, you know, at the end of this one period, a four week period, whoever's lost the most weight collectively as a group is going to go to the Canyon Ranch Spa. Well, you can imagine they're like, oh heck yeah, I want to win this. So when I went to weigh them in and I was using a bioimpedance scale and I go to weigh the teams in the morning of and what was mind blowing was one team had lost 1/2 pound total more than the other team that Team won by a half a pound. But what I started to see when I was looking at the bioimpedance scale was the team that was winning was clearly super dehydrated that day. They didn't eat anything, they didn't drink anything. They worked out as much as they humanly could that day. Loads of time on the treadmill, so they were sweating a lot. Then they all went into their rooms, they stuffed towels under their bathroom doors, they turned on the showers to full steam, and they sweated as much as possible. So you can see clearly like they shed a lot of water weight. I mean, they could lose a pound or two in a day, right? Boom. Just like a fighter does to make work. So if you look at a sauna suit, it's this garment that's designed to hold in heat and make you sweat profusely. And so, gosh, this is what's going to help you supposedly lose weight, but that is that weight, that's just losing water right now. That might be something if you're trying to fit into a dress for one night. This is something. If you're trying to make weight as a boxer, you know, this isn't something that's a sustainable, obvious thing thing. You don't want to walk around dehydrated. It actually makes your body hold on to weight and raises your stress hormones. You know, one of the things you don't know about me is that I actually used to coach heavyweight boxers. I totally know about this trick besides seeing the thing on Dr. Phil and then being with around all these heavyweight boxers. But I also know, like, this is not the thing for long term. This would be like a short term. I got to make weight a short term. I'm going to get into the stress. And it's especially not healthy to put on a sauna suit and go work out. This is not what you want to do. And I did a really cool episode with Dr. Rick Johnson on the Ask the Health Expert podcast where he talked about dehydration and that when your body is dehydrated, it actually holds on to fat more. It raises stress hormones, so it's going to negatively impact your metabolism. Again, I do some hot yoga, but remember hot yoga, I'm doing electrolyte drinks and they're turning the fans on periodically. Right. So my body can breathe and my body can thermo regulate. So that's step one. Next up, she said she cut out all sugar and carbs and she ate the cleanest veggies and protein. But, you know, I kind of go, what if you cut out all carbs, then you can't eat vegetables because vegetables are carbs. So first off, I'm all for cutting out sugar. You know that I wrote the sugar impact diet after all. It's actually not that you have to cut out all sugar, you have to know which to choose and which to lose. Like, hey, blueberries are great and those are sugar. But fruit juice, it's like drinking a soda, especially apple juice. But the big reality here is vegetables are carbohydrates. So what I think she really meant there is she went super low carb, but she didn't eat no carb. And that's fantastic because in eating really, really focusing on those non starchy vegetables, she's getting the polyphenols and the fiber. And that is so important for your gut microbiome. The bacteria in your gut can actually make the difference between you losing weight or gaining weight. When you've got better gut microbiome, you have less cravings, you have better nutrient absorption, right? And you have poor gut microbiome, you actually can extract more calories from the food you eat and store them as fat. Now I especially love the combination of protein and non starchy vegetables. Like that is my favorite all time combination. Because when you're eating those together, you're going to have better blood sugar control, you're going to have the thermic response that happens from protein. Because here's the thing, if you want to lose weight, I'm going to just make a guess. If you want to lose weight and be healthy, protein is key. In fact, cranking up your protein a little bit as you're trying to do this is going to be important because protein is the most thermic macronutrient. Take 20 to 30% of the protein. Calories are used in digestion and metabolizing. Assimilating that protein plus protein is more satiating than any of the other macronutrients. And that's super important when you're trying to eat less is that you're not hungry. And protein and veggies together, that fat and protein combination is the perfect combo, right? There was this study in 2018 in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine and they asked 298 middle aged obese women to reduce their calorie intake and increase exercise. They kept food journals and they weighed weekly. Now they divided these women into three categories and they divided them into these categories based on the rate of weight loss during the first month. So there was fast weight loss, moderate weight loss, or Slow weight loss. And here's where things get wild. The fast and Moderate groups were 5.1 and 2.7 times more likely to achieve 10% weight loss over 18 months than the slow group. So what came out of this is that there were short and long term advantages to faster initial weight loss. And in fact, those who lost the weight in the shorter period of time lost more weight and kept it off longer than those who went slow. Which flies in the face of everything that we've always talked about. Slow and steady wins the race. You know, you should, you should lose a pound a week. And so the reality is losing weight faster, as long as we can really make sure we're holding on to muscle, can be inspiring, but also help you lose more weight and keep it off for the long haul. But here's the risk. The risk is more in what you're losing. What you want to make sure of is that if you are losing weight, you're losing fat and you're holding muscle. Because let's say that Kim wasn't exercising and wasn't eating protein. And that's really key because Kim, by prioritizing protein and exercising meant that she was probably holding on to the majority of her muscle and she was losing fat and obviously because of the sauna suit, dehydrating and losing water. So if she's holding on the muscle, fantastic. That's going to be super duper important for her because if she lost a bunch of muscle, then she's going to really damage her metabolism and it makes it easy for her to gain fat back and shift her body composition to being less healthy. Now, as far as the actual diet, what we want to make sure too is that when she moves out of the rapid weight loss stage, that she's getting in enough healthy fats as well. Because we need protein and healthy fats and water. We can actually live without carbs. We don't have to have them. But I think if you look at a diet of protein, non starchy vegetables, healthy fats, you've got it. Then the next thing she can start to add in here she goes into maintenance are some slow, low carbs. And that means things like berries, winter squashes, legumes, things like that. All right, let's talk about the exercise. Now, I don't know her actual routine. I could not find it anywhere. So I know we don't want to model the sauna suit workouts, right? We pretty much made that clear. But here's what I would love you to model. I know that she did Resistance training. She was lifting weights and she was doing cardio, which is fantastic. I'm going to give you what will work really well here, is to do resistance training, lifting heavy weights. Because you want to make sure you're holding onto your muscles, you're losing fat. And that would be hitting each body part. That's upper body pushing, that's hitting your chest, shoulders, triceps, upper body pulling. That would be like a pull down. That's hitting your lats and your biceps and your shoulders, hips and thighs. Things like squats for your quads and your glutes and then power core sit ups, back extensions for your core muscle. Then cardio high intensity interval training plus zone two training three times a week. And zone two is working just below. It's where you are breathy, but you can still talk. So you hit that hit into zone two about 30 minutes or so three times a week. Then I'd love to see you do hot yoga once or twice a week. It's great for the core, it's great for challenging, it's great for mindfulness, it's great for detox. Bonus points. Every day after one of your meals, especially evening, take a walk. It lowers the blood sugar response to the meal. So there you go. That's how you do it. You would add that exercise in. So you do your protein, your fat, your non starchy vegetables, lots of water in between meals, green tea, throw that exercise in. And then if you need some extra hacks, because I'm going, all right, if you want to do this for yourself, the saunas and cold plunging are great. And cold plunging especially, I actually have a cold plunge at the house. It causes your body to what's called brown your fat. So we have white fat and brown fat. And brown fat's the metabolically active fat. A lot of mitochondria, easy to burn. Cold plunging helps get that white fat brown, so it helps you lose more body fat. Both cold plunging and asana are very metabolically active. Help boost your metabolism. The other important thing here, and this is kind of more of a bigger mindset vision thing, so she channeled Marilyn Monroe and went after that dress. And I really, again, I look at this and go, she was really playing a role. And I think we have to think of it that way. But we, we need to look at, is what's our best self. You know, when you're thinking about, okay, I want to figure out what my ideal body weight is. And I do that by looking at my frame size and my height. And then the range and going for me, do I want to be more lean and fit? Is that my body type? Am I more curvy? Like, what's your best ideal body type? Right. And body weight and body composition in terms of body fat and fat free mass. Get to where you want to be as fast as possible because we know that's more motivating. But then build in the habits that are going to maintain those shifts for the long haul. You got to think about, okay, I'm going to take some time, I'm going into a burning phase where I'm going to burn fat, then I'm going to stabilize there, then maybe I'm going to put on some muscle, then I'm going to stabilize there. Right? But remember, the worst thing that you can do is go in and say, I want to lose weight quickly, so I don't care where it comes from. You've got to focus on what your weight's made up of. And it's very damaging to lose muscle. It's something you want to make sure you're holding onto or building, which is why we've got to use scales differently and we've got to look at what your weight's made up of. We've got to look at how much your body is is muscle versus fat. Because if you're losing more muscle and gaining more fat, that's that yo yo dieting that really hurts you. Now if you want to get into how to lose fat fast and more importantly, how to keep it off, I go into this in depth in my video on 6 Simple Strategies for fast and lasting fat loss. So do yourself a favor, Skip Kim Kardashian sauna suit. Check this one out instead. Sam.