Nutritionally Speaking: Cambridge Diet Limits One to 330 Calories

The following question was addressed to me about three weeks ago but the letter has been inadvertently misplaced. Although the writer’s name is unknown, I do remember the question as I have been gathering data about it. Her question was a request to comment on my opinions about the Cambridge Diet for weight control.

 

Dear Questioner: The people you suggested have been very helpful in sending full particulars about the Cambridge Diet. I had previously come across some references to it but the information they gave me was most helpful in preparing this reply.

The Cambridge Diet is a very-low-calorie-diet (VLCD). It limits calorie intake to 330 and adds supplemental formulae developed by the company. There is no question that those following the plan lose weight as the total food intake is very small. This is not complete fasting but is close to it. Three-hundred-thirty calories is much less than the normal requirement need of 1,800 to 3,000 for the average person.

The local people who are presenting this plan and selling their supplements are highly-dedicated individuals. They feel competent because the Cambridge company staff has given them data showing many successful weight reduction cases with comparatively few side effects.

Fasting and many fad diets cause loss of weight not only of fat but of muscle and other tissues as well. Consequently, people following such diets experience a rapid weight gain, when regular eating is resumed, during the process of restoring these lost tissues. The idea in back of the VLCD was to supply a supplement of concentrated protein along with minerals and vitamins in order to stop the wasting away of normal tissue on the small amount of food permitted each day. The main advantage proposed by the Cambridge Plan is the addition of carbohydrates to the diet.

Most weight reduction programs fail during the follow-up period after the weight is lost. This usually occurs because the individual goes right back to eating the foods that caused the problem in the first place. The secret is not necessarily to eat less food but to change the diet to eliminate the fat-producers and add the nourishing foods necessary to normal health. This must be a permanent dietary lifestyle change.

The Cambridge Plan, while it prevents loss of body tissues, embraces a number of poor dietary practices: The formulae they sell to make the program palatable and easy to follow contain, among other things, fructose, artificial sweeteners, cocoa, sodium products and saccharine, all of which I feel are objectionable for a variety of reasons.

The company wisely advises its representatives to have clients consult their doctors before starting this diet and warn those with heart disease, kidney trouble, diabetes, gout, hypoglycemia, chronic infections, the young and the old or anyone under medical care to follow this program only under medical supervision. They also advise the diet be limited to a four-week period. Side effects could multiply and become serious by prolonged use of this method.

Evidence indicates that the principle involved in this VLCD is very effective in reducing weight in a high proportion of the obese population. However, the last sentence of a report in the International Journal of Obesity on this subject is well to quote: “The chief thrust of the scientific debate and research should not be whether VLCD should be used in treatment, but how weight maintenance can be achieved once normal body weight is established.”

The Cambridge plan is not a bad one, but it needs some definite improvements in the foods and supplements proposed. The heavy use of sweets is one of the main reasons for obesity. The daily use of sweets in their supplements makes participants like the program and probably accounts for numbers staying with it until they lose weight. This can lead the individual to believe such foods are satisfactory.

Once normal weight is achieved and resumption of regular eating takes place, the basic need to change past eating habits that caused the obesity still remains. Successful weight control is established, not by a calorie intake that is too low to maintain good health, but by a plan that permanently stops foods that create weight gain and adopts in their place nutritious items needed for normal body maintenance.