Whether with low carb, shakes or everything just reduced in fat, everyone has probably tried a diet. But what happens when you get caught in a diet spiral and can hardly find the way out on your own? The influencer Nina Kutschera told us her story.
“It drives me crazy to see something like that” is one of the first sentences that comes up in conversation with Nina Kutschera, who is on Instagram under the name “ohgottdiesenina”. She saw the advertisement of an Instagram colleague and her past caught up with her – in her Instagram story, she sometimes vented her anger with tears.
“Just replace the meals and you lose weight”, one way or another, the colleague is said to have advertised a weight loss shake. “A shake has 300 calories,” says Nina. “If you then replace three meals, you have 900 calories, which is well below the basal metabolic rate, and then it becomes dangerous for the body.” Why she is so upset has to do with her past.
Nina Kutschera: Close friends told her not to “eat” so much
“My story begins at a young age,” Nina remembers. “I already had lipedema at the time, but couldn’t even tell.” She had gained weight, her hair had fallen out and instead of supporting her, even close friends told her not to “eat” too much. “I didn’t do that at all.” In addition to lipedema, Nina also suffers from insulin resistance and struggles with strong hormone fluctuations.
“At some point you just get into a vicious circle, you are always reduced to your looks,” she says and remembers tearfully that she was even prevented by supposed friends from being with her band – because Nina is one excellent singer who has even been on the “The Voice of Germany” stage. After numerous diets and a lot of sport, the inevitable solution came for her: simply stop eating.
Because of hostility and rejection: Nina Kutschera stopped eating
“Of course it worked at first,” she says. “But I didn’t lose any weight on my legs because of the lipedema.” Through hostility, rejection and casual sayings, Nina developed a disturbed relationship to food: Food was the enemy that had to be fought. Only her current husband gave her a hold in the downward spiral of diets, exercise and refusal to eat.
But as soon as she started to eat again, the biliary colic came. Even when the colic became more common, she did not see a doctor. Because, like many other fat people, she only experienced rejection and stigmatization there. “Lose weight” is always the magic word for women and men in white. It is not even investigated that this may not always be the only cause of the complaints. Her husband only took her to the hospital when the pain was not colic but rather constant. Diagnosis: burst gallbladder.
If I’d got to the hospital just a little later, I wouldn’t have survived.
With formula shake diets, you eat below your basal metabolic rate
Why was the trigger of her anger now this influencer with the weight loss shakes? Because in principle she advertises exactly what made Nina so sick: refrain from eating, shut everything down and do more harm than help to the body.
“As a rule, the calorie intake of many dieters with these so-called formula diets is less than 1000 calories a day, although at least 800 to a maximum of 1200 calories are recommended,” confirms ecotrophologist Sabrina Thaden from Hamburg. “This calorie intake is below the basal metabolic rate, which is also the reason why people lose weight with it so quickly,” says the expert for nutritional advice and therapy. The problem in our society is: “You are only successful if you lose a lot of weight in a very short time. That is then discipline,” says Thaden.
Expert explains: Our bodies are not used to overeating
Thaden explains that when we look at diets we have to keep the following in mind: We have only lived in an affluent society since the 1960s. All the years before that, humans were busy getting enough to eat. Our body is still in the same mode as it was over 50 years ago. If there is a period of hunger, in this case a formula diet with shakes, the body does not immediately go to the fat reserves, but uses muscle mass as an energy source and lowers the basal metabolic rate. In this way, the important organs can continue to be supplied with even when there is little food consumption.
What we like to forget: Our genetic makeup does not change within two or three generations. Humans have ideal conditions to survive periods of hunger, but no genetic makeup to be able to cope with excessively high weight.
If you are constantly on a diet, you lose your relationship with food
“So it always comes back to the yo-yo effect,” she says. As a result of the diet, we have reduced the basal metabolic rate from, for example, 1500 calories to 1300 calories, even if you are now eating ‘normally’ again, you will gain weight. “The more diets someone goes on, the harder it is for them to lose weight,” says Thaden.
The problem with many who start new diets all the time is that they have lost touch with food. The body’s signals – whether hunger, thirst or satiety – are often alien to them. “Many fluctuate between two extremes: on the one hand, strict discipline with many prohibitions during the diet phase and, on the other hand, loss of control if the diet fails,” says Thaden. The natural eating behavior has been forgotten and often leads to fat people becoming even fatter – a spiral that is still being fueled by society and the diet industry.
Sources used: Interview with Nina Kutschera and Sabrina Thaden