In the '90s, calorie counting went out as we shifted our dieting focus to fats. You even have glucose available to exercise. Lower-fat diets were helping many people clean up their eating and lose weight. So, as Americans gorged on fat-free frozen yogurt, bagels, cookies, potato chips and pretzels, their weight went up again. As a bonus, the dieter quickly drops some water weight in the beginning.
Starchy foods hold onto water and when they are removed from the diet, a diuretic effect occurs.
So, the falling numbers on the scale inspire the dieter. As the body is depleted of glucose, it adapts to this abnormal diet by developing ketosis, which causes fat and protein depletion, kidney stress, anorexia, diuresis and bad breath. As glucose and glycogen stores are depleted, the muscles lose their main energy source. The dieter is more fatigued, cannot sustain aerobic exercise to maintain cardiac health and cannot perform enough strength training to protect the body from muscle loss. At some point, calorie intake meets the lower body-weight needs and weight loss stops.