You may have read recently about Charles Saatchi’s drastic but effective weight loss plan. Husband of Domestic Goddess Nigela Lawson restricted himself to a diet of nine eggs a day and absolutely nothing else. He did manage to lose four stone in nine months but at what price?
Any diet which completely cuts out whole nutrient groups may jeopardise health, as each nutrient group performs a distinctive and different function in the body. A diet consisting totally of eggs would predominantly be a high protein diet and completely devoid of carbohydrate, the bodies preferred source of energy. Energy is not only important as a means of effectively getting us through the day, but every cell in the body needs energy to carry out its unique function. Such a diet could be seen as an extreme form of, ‘Atkins’ and therefore open to the same sort of criticisms i.e. the lack of grains, fruits, and vegetables may lead to deficiencies of key nutrients, including dietary fibre, vitamin C, folic acid, and several minerals. Such high protein diets may be very acid forming increasing the risk of osteoporosis and accelerating the rate of deterioration in kidney function associated with aging.
It would be interesting to see is Charles Saatchi actually keeps the weight off, as such a diet would do nothing to re educate eating patterns which should be the real keystone of sustained and health weight loss.