rotation diet plan
AN ASSESSMENT OF 2 POPULAR DIET BOOKS
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By MARIAN BURROS
Published: July 2, 1986
ANYONE can lose weight by taking in fewer calories than are expended. This is not a secret, nor is it magic. But most diet books promise both - a secret that works like magic, producing instant weight loss without pain. It is a promise they cannot keep. And sometimes dieters get more than they bargained for - weight loss at the cost of their health.
Martin Katahn, a psychologist with a Ph.D. from Syracuse University who is the director of the Weight Management Program at Vanderbilt University, makes weight-loss promises that apparently can be kept - at least over the short term. He has done so with ''The Rotation Diet'' (W. W. Norton, $15.95).
Instead of having people on a highly restrictive, low-calorie diet until the desired weight is achieved - that is, with an end some unknowable time in the future - Dr. Katahn offers a built-in psychological boost, a diet that limits its restrictive phase: for women, 3 days at 600 calories; 4 days at 900 calories; a week at 1,200, then a week of the 600/900 calorie plan.
Two studies of the diet's effectiveness are under way at Vanderbilt, one of them involving 60 subjects. According to Dr. Sharon Shields, the research director of the university's Health Promotion Center, ''a significant weight loss is achieved by people who comply with all the restrictions, who follow the meals exactly.''
In the group of 60, at the end of 4 weeks those who complied with the diet had lost an average of 10 pounds; those who had cheated - which was discovered through interviews - had lost 4 pounds. Results of a 12-week follow-up are not yet available, so it is too soon to know if the dieters have maintained their weight losses, something most dieters cannot do.
The Rotation Diet is not nutritionally balanced during the 600-calorie days, and the American Dietetic Association has criticized it for this and other reasons. Dr. Barbara Levine, an assistant professor of medicine and the director of the Nutrition Information Center at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, says the 600-calorie days are ''a little bit restrictive, but overall this is not one of the really awful diets.'' To compensate for low caloric consumption, Dr. Katahn recommends multivitamin supplements.
His program touches on the three cornerstones of weight loss: food, exercise and behavior modification. Except for the 600-calorie days, the diet is balanced, high in fiber and carbohydrates and low in fat. But the book needs more detail about exercise. As for its behavior modification chapters, Dr. Shields acknowledges it is doubtful that people can learn behavior modification from a book, without a support group.
As a short-term, quick weight-loss diet, some nutritionists, like Bonnie Liebman, a registered dietitian at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington consumer group, say that this one may be reasonable for normal, healthy people who have consulted their physicians before embarking on it, as anyone should before beginning any diet. The Rotation Diet is not recommended for children, pregnant women, diabetics and people with heart problems or hypertension.
''Fit for Life'' (Warner Books, $17.50) by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond has sold 1.85 million copies since its introduction last year. Mr. Diamond is a former woodcarver with a certificate in nutrition from the American College of Health Science in Austin, Tex., which, he said in a telephone interview, was ''definitely a correspondence school and definitely not accredited.'' Mrs. Diamond has a certificate in nutrition counseling from the same school and holds a degree in Romance languages from New York University. Their book is based on ideas discredited 40 years ago. Chief among these is the notion that weight loss is achieved only by eating certain foods in combination with other foods.
Improperly combined foods, the Diamonds say, will not be properly digested and will move out of the stomach - but not before putrefaction and fermentation set in. ''Nutrients affected in this way,'' the Diamonds conclude, ''cannot be incorporated into healthy cell structure.'' The Diamonds never make clear how this contributes to obesity.
Correction: July 3, 1986, Thursday, Late City Final Edition
