The CSIRO Diet

Here's the truth about the CSIRO Diet

The CSIRO Diet
It seems that every few weeks a new diet appears on the market touted by the media as being the another answer to people’s weight-loss woes. Inevitably, people who are desperate to shed the excess flesh decide to give the new diet a go hoping it will be the ‘holy grail’ of weight-loss.

Of course, while they are on the diet they lose weight, it seems to simply fall off their body. They feel ecstatic even though this feeling is mixed with feelings of hunger, tiredness and lethargy.

Then, once they achieve their goal weight or complete the time period required, they go off the diet. The day they do this is the last day they remain at that weight. Almost immediately the weight piles on and usually with re-inforcements! This results in the person feeling depressed and angry that they weren’t able to maintain the weight they achieved on the diet. This scenario is typical of the majority of popular diets on the market. Overall, most are too hard to stick to long-term and often are nutritionally incomplete.

So is the CSIRO diet any different? Maybe, maybe not. The CSIRO is Australia’s national science agency and is one of the world’s largest and most diverse scientific research organisations; it is very well-respected. The diet has been prepared as a collaboration of several nutrition scientists from the CSIRO.

Plus, the diet is not a low-kilojoule/ calorie diet as many of the fast crash diets on the market are. The overall food intake is adjusted for body mass and activity level, which is absolutely essential if long-term sustainability is desired.

Carbohydrate and fat are important fuel sources for the body. Previously, most diets focused on reducing the intake of either of these macronutrients. For example, the standard nutritional recommendations of nutritionists and dietitians are high carbohydrate low fat diets

More recently however, most of the popular diets have focused on reducing the carbohydrate intake and allowing more fat and protein in the diet. For a variety of reasons neither of these approaches is effective for long-term weight control in healthy individuals.

The CSIRO Diet, on the other hand, has a much more balanced macronutrient profile. It provides 36% of its kilojoules from carbohydrate, 33% from protein, 26% from fat and 3% from alcohol. This type of macronutrient profile has been used by fitness people and bodybuilders for decades to help them lose body fat and keep in great shape, much to the opposition of many nutritionists and dietitians. Now, however, the research is proving this approach to be the best.

Often people will try to lose weight by skipping meals or starving themselves. Unfortunately, both of these approaches are ineffective in keeping the weight off. The best way to lose body fat and keep it off permanently is to incorporate a combination of good nutrition, exercise and correct supplementation. Most diets only recommend making changes to the nutritional habits of the individual. On the other hand, the CSIRO Diet recommends regular exercise in combination with the diet in order to achieve the best results.

Many diets often have a limited period of time that they need to be followed for, i.e. 1 week, 4 weeks or 12 weeks. The CSIRO Diet is a 12-week diet with a maintenance plan, which is what some diets around at the moment provide. It suggest following the plan for life and considering the vast array of meal options provided it is understandable why it should be sustainable long-term.

The CSIRO Diet does have some flaws though that need to be taken into consideration before following it. Firstly, the fact that it only recommends three meals a day is an issue. Most nutrition experts recommend eating small meals more frequently because of the positive effect it has on the metabolism. For example, 5 or 6 small meals a day as opposed to three.

Admittedly, most people don’t feel they could fit in that many whole-food meals so they will often use meal replacements, like shakes or bars as an option for their mid-morning or mid-afternoon meals.

Another obvious concern of the diet is the endorsement by powerful organisations. For example, Meat & Livestock Australia and Dairy Australia are two organisations that provided funding for the research that was conducted by the CSIRO. Whenever powerful organisations provide the funding for research, vested interested often prevail.

Without exception, the CSIRO Diet has a high recommendation of meat and dairy foods throughout the diet. This doesn’t necessarily mean it is wrong, it simply means you need to put a question mark next to any statements relating to these foods. Plus, what if people have dairy intolerances that are so common in Australia today? No accommodations are made for these individuals.

The fact that the CSIRO Diet doesn’t recommend any supplements at all is a concern to many nutrition experts. Our bodies have a requirement for at least 20+ minerals, 13 vitamins, 8 essentials amino acids and 2 essential fatty acids every day (that we are aware of at the moment).

If we don’t supply these to our body it doesn’t function as well as it should. The average Australian diet contains many processed, refined, packaged and often early picked foods. Plus, the soils in Australia are considered to be ‘ancient’ soils, which means they are often depleted of many minerals required by the body.

Furthermore, chemical fertilisers are often used to ensure maximum growth of plants but unfortunately they don’t contain all the minerals the body requires. Perhaps the occlusion of supplements from the diet was because no supplement company provided any funding for the research!

Overall, compared to the average person’s diet it is a vast improvement however, the various flaws it contains need to be addressed.

To discover the facts about diets that work and how you can lose all the weight you want get a copy of my e-book, Look Good, Feel Great!

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