What the Sirt?
The Sirtfood Diet hit the headlines recently due to some pictures of Adele appearing where her apparent weight loss was credited to this particular way of eating. But what is the Sirtfood diet, and does it actually work? With some big claims of ‘not being a diet’ I dug into it so see what the fuss was about….
Spoiler alert - it’s a diet.
With some lofty weight loss claims, I knew there had to be something going on - lo and behold, the first week requires you to consume mostly green juices (oh, and joy! a square of dark chocolate…). Now before I get any letters about juicing - there’s NOTHING WRONG with green juice, but, as with any food stuff I am unlikely to recommend it become your sole sustenance. Also, I would argue that the fibre being thrown away could be the best bit…. but I digress. There are some meals allowed but as with all these things there is a list of foods that you ‘should’ be eating, and a load of other things that aren’t as ‘good’, whatever that means.
Does Sirtfood work?
The reason for the big claims in the first week or so? Water. As with most new diets, stored glycogen in the cells (the preferred energy source for the body) is used up and the water that is stored with the glycogen is lost (mostly as urine). This is the hook for most diets - drop carbs/calories, get quick results, then spend the REST OF TIME wondering why you can’t repeat it.
Now. They go straight in with some big words - polyhenols, sirtuin pathways, skinny genes - but actually, what is there to support the claims, and is there anything in it long term?
It’s appealing - science-y, some buzzwords, some genetics…and the need for it to be ‘the one’. Realistically, it is based on very little new research. There is some science around SIRT but that research is largely in rodents so we are really far from it being a thing for humans. There’s nothing that we can concretely point to in terms of it making a diet work long term, which let’s face it, is one of the biggest problems with dieting.
In reality, this is an attempt to improve adherence by including things like red wine and chocolate, but accompanied by a tiny calorie allowance which is where the results are. At worst, this will result in some difficult weeks following, where appetite is ramped up (clever brain) and our appetite hormone levels are changed (possibly forever).
The question I am always left with is - if any of these diets worked why would there be the need to invent new ones? (The diet industry is worth $72 BILLION in the USA alone….).
Have you tried it? I’d love to hear your experience 👇👇
So - if not that, then what? Instead of trying every which way to shrink, maybe focus on a healthy relationship with food and a balanced intake of the things we know work. Find out more here.
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