Low-Carb Diet Trumps Low-Fat Diet In Major New Study 588
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times reports on a new study (abstract) showing that low-carb diets have better health benefits than low-fat diets in a test without calorie restrictions. "By the end of the yearlong trial, people in the low-carbohydrate group had lost about eight pounds more on average than those in the low-fat group. They had significantly greater reductions in body fat than the low-fat group, and improvements in lean muscle mass — even though neither group changed their levels of physical activity. While the low-fat group did lose weight, they appeared to lose more muscle than fat. They actually lost lean muscle mass, which is a bad thing,' Dr. Mozaffarian said. 'Your balance of lean mass versus fat mass is much more important than weight. And that's a very important finding that shows why the low-carb, high-fat group did so metabolically well.' ... In the end, people in the low-carbohydrate group saw markers of inflammation and triglycerides — a type of fat that circulates in the blood — plunge. Their HDL, the so-called good cholesterol, rose more sharply than it did for people in the low-fat group. Blood pressure, total cholesterol and LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol, stayed about the same for people in each group."
What they don't tell you (Score:2, Insightful)
Eating a balanced diet and getting plenty of exercise is better than any fad diet.
Re:What they don't tell you (Score:5, Funny)
So, in a word: a low fad diet?
Re:What they don't tell you (Score:4, Insightful)
A low fad lifestyle, strictly speaking.
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A low fad lifestyle, strictly speaking.
Don't forget though, that the high carbohydrate/low fat diet is in itself a fad.
And veganism is completely unnatural and artificial for humans. We're designed for protein, fat, complex carbs, starchy carbs, sugar, and small rocks, in that order.
Re:What they don't tell you (Score:5, Insightful)
And veganism is completely unnatural and artificial for humans.
It is fortunate, then, that vegans aren't claiming otherwise.
There's a difference between denying the diet of our evolutionary ancestors, and having a problem with the way animals are treated in modern farms. I'm surprised by how often I have to point this out.
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It is pretty easy these days, to buy meat from local farms which treat the animals in more humane ways, yet still many of the vegan types say that isn't sufficient that NO animals should be sacrificed, even humanely, for human consumption.
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Tell me about it. Large rocks are so much tastier.
The proper way to prepare small rocks is to heat large ones in a campfire until they glow, then toss them in a cold bucket of water. Then they become small rocks, and unlease their rock-star like nutrition for your eating pleasure.
Re:What they don't tell you (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy to make such glib statements, but the whole point is to find out what is the ideal balanced diet. Both the groups in this study were eating all the things you'd include in your balanced diet, however the low carb group took a greater proportion of their calories in the form of fat, whereas the low fat group too a greater proportion in the form of carbs.
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They took a greater proportion from fat. Instead of 30 fat 30 carb 30 protein, they took 30 fat 20 carb 30 protein, 33% fat instead of 30% fat and 22% carb instead of 30% carb.
The fat group did the same, but with fat. I imagine the total intake was scaled for similar caloric intake--at the very least, for similar satiation (i.e. neither group went hungry for a year). They said no calorie restrictions.
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That's kinda the point. No, humans don't need carbs. We did not evolve eating carbs, and we don't really gain anything very much by eating them (other than a craving for more of them).
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Re:What they don't tell you (Score:4, Informative)
There are essential fatty acids.
There are essential proteins.
There is no such thing as an essential carbohydrate.
Overeating is a tautology - you only decide if someone over ate based on *outcome*, not on *activity*. Two people who eat and exercise the same amount, but one gains weight, and only one is "overeating".
The fact of the matter is that fat accumulation is driven by insulin. Insulin is driven by blood sugar. Blood sugar is driven by carbohydrates.
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Were is the science that backs your theory?
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Re:What they don't tell you (Score:4, Interesting)
Were is the science that backs your theory?
The whole situation is a little complex, but we might start out with what we evolved to deal with. This seems to work with wild animals. It is obvious in the case of frank carnivores, and frank herbivores. Horses seldom seek out a juicy steak, and Cheetas don't often beg for loaves of bread.
With omnivores like humans, it is a little more complex. We're designed to eat a lot of different things.
So what has happened? Why do people have so much trouble maintaining a healthy weight?
Ever since I can remember, we have been bombarded by th e concept that there is a scale of healthy eating, and that elimination of as much fat as possible is desirable, and the ne plus ultra of healthy living is veganism, followed by vegatarianism, then low fat/high carb, then the unwashed masses of high protein, and the soulles spawn of Satan - the Atkinists.
So here's one citation from the NIH:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm... [nih.gov] Less central obesity in men consuming a high milk fat diet. It's a narrow study, but interesting.
Here's one from Harvard. An opinion piece, but well done:
http://www.foodandnutritionres... [foodandnut...search.net]
Here's a nice link with references.
http://authoritynutrition.com/... [authoritynutrition.com]
I tried a low fat vegetarian diet for a time in the very late 80's, specifically, I ate eggs for protein, otherwise, all "healthy" veggies and starches.
Aside from being hungry all the time, losing only 2 pounds, and having my GI tract all bitched up for months, it was awesome. After 6 months, I gave up and ate a nice juicy medium rare steak. In around a week, I was back to feeling normal,
Interestingly enough, my parents ate probably 4 times the fat I did. And had absolutely no weight problem at all.
Where did we go wrong? Just an educated guess on my part:
Bread and pasta. That stuff is awesome and versatile. It's also a great way to fill a person up with not much more than empty calories.
Sugar. Likewise great tasting stuff. But seriously, just how fucked up is it that we as a nation are debating how Mexican Pepsi is healthier than US Pepsi? It's sugar asswipes.
Now the latest and weirdest one. Soybeans. Seen how many American men have tits now? Even ones who aren't obese?
Our friend the phytoestrogen, brought to you by soybeans and peas. And we are consuming a whole lot more of that stuff than we should. And I'm not certain that the rise of testosterone supplements isn't a backwards way of trying to treat men with bitched up hormone levels.
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You seem older than I and so our perspectives are a bit different. I started cooking my own food around 10 years ago. I always got the impression t
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"Now the latest and weirdest one. Soybeans. Seen how many American men have tits now? Even ones who aren't obese?" "Our friend the phytoestrogen, brought to you by soybeans and peas."
I'm going to bet for the typical American guy that's probably more due to hops in their beer than tofu.
'course, there's various estrogen compounds in the water supply too, so, maybe that as well?
By the way - don't forget Bisphenol A in plastic. An Estrogen mimic.
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Yea. The obesity epidemic in the US correlates strongly to the publication of our food pyramid recommendations by the USDA.
Prior to that, obesity affected a very small number of people in the US.
The diet is unimportant... (Score:5, Informative)
Simply eat what your body needs... beyond that, exercise. That is why people are getting fat. Not because they're eating too much but because they're not doing anything.
Look at what Michael Phelps ate. Something like three pizzas a day or something. And he was in great health at the time. Won Olympic gold medals and everything.
The diet is the wrong way around to solve a problem. Which is how to stay healthy without exercising. Now maybe there is a diet that does that but most of them say "oh and exercise"... well, if you exercise the rest isn't important.
Re:The diet is unimportant... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone that has tried to exercise and eat what they want can tell you that it doesn't work. You also need to eat fairly cleanly. Phelps is like 7 feet tall, extremely active, very muscular and was taking both legal and not-so-legal supplements. You can't equate the nutrition needs of someone working out 2+ hours a day doing high-impact strength and endurance training with your average person.
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All this hyped-up talk about what to eat i
Re:The diet is unimportant... (Score:5, Insightful)
When people have a strong will, they are healthy.
Sorry, that's complete nonsense. The reality is that few people over the age of about 30 have a fully working, fully healthy body. Stuff goes wrong and it has nothing to do with will power, it's just genetic defects, the lasting effects of illness, accidents and age. Some people are lucky, some are not and telling the unlucky ones that they just need more "will power" is both insulting and unhelpful.
Careful selection of foods can have a huge impact of many people. I suffer from CFS and a diet that specifically supports the parts of my body that don't work very well any more really helps. The CFS developed as the result of an infection, it was nothing to do with my "will power" and no amount of will can snap me out of it.
Re:The diet is unimportant... (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason rates of obesity and associated afflictions like diabetes have skyrocketed in the past 30 years, is not because Americans' willpower has somehow become more lacking. It's because of the atrocious job the authorities have done in demonizing fat, and encouraging a high carb low fat diet. Fat does not make you fat carbs do by triggering an insulin response that converts the sugars in the blood stream into fat to be stored in cells.
That and the fact that we subsidize corn and soy at the federal level. Processed foods like Cheetos and Hot Pockets end up being cheaper than healthier foods. So people on a budget (most Americans) can stretch their dollar by buying cheaper food that is higher in simple carbs and salt but not very nutritious.
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I think that generally speaking what you're saying is accurate, but it does depend upon what you do during the day.
I used to run 6 miles every day at lunch (this was when I worked down in Mill Valley/Sausalito so running was fun) and I could eat lots of whatever I wanted - and I did.
How I miss May Lee's kung pao chicken, San Jose La Taqueria (on 4th street San Rafael?) chorizo super burritos, Dave's quesadillas and tamales in Corte Madera, and Max's fries and caramelized brie sandwich.
That stuff would give
Re:The diet is unimportant... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone that has tried to exercise and eat what they want can tell you that it doesn't work.
THIS. Some people just have better regulating systems in their bodies -- either they have better genes, or they good about recognizing when they are full and stopping eating, or they have strong willpower, or they naturally gravitate toward eating things that their bodies will regulate well... or some sort of combination.
But the simple fact is that -- unless you're a professional athlete or a manual laborer who does REALLY hard work for many hours per day -- chances are dietary inputs have a MUCH greater impact on weight than exercise.
I know there are people here who will chime in and say "all calories are not the same" and that's true. But we can at least use calories as an approximation. It takes VERY little imbalance for your body to get way out of whack. Say you eat enough that your body stores an extra 100 calories per day. Roughly speaking, about 3500 calories will equal a pound of fat. If you maintain this, you'll gain about a pound per month. Do this for a few years, and you could end up 50 pounds overweight... all because of an extra 100 calories per day.
Now, think about what it would take to correct that extra 100 calories per day. In terms of exercise, that's roughly running a mile, or doing some other sort of less vigorous workout for a longer period.
But in terms of eating, 100 calories can be pretty small. That's less than a typical can of soda. Or a SMALL cookie. Or a tablespoon of butter or mayo. Did you squeeze an extra packet of mayo on your sandwich today? That could be your 100 calories.
So, roughly speaking, which is easier to correct? Refrain from squeezing that extra packet of mayo, or running a mile every day? If you start talking in terms of real desserts -- like a large cookie or a piece of cake or a bowl of ice cream, you can easily get to 300-700 calories. If you eat dessert most days, you'd have to run 3-7 miles to correct for that.
Of course -- it's not quite that simple. Different types of calories will produce greater or lesser feelings of fullness. Protein and fats seem to be better at reducing hunger than carbs are (in general -- again, this is speaking very roughly), which is probably the reason for the results seen in this study. So, chances are if you have the right balance of foods in your diet, you'll be less likely to accumulate that 100 calorie/day excess or whatever, because you'll feel more full without eating more.
Anyhow, that's all in the details. My general point is: it takes a lot more work to offset extra caloric input through exercise than it does to just eat a little less. If you stop and buy the giant cinnamon bun in the mornings with a large latte, you may have already consumed more calories than a typical large steak dinner. And when a single cinnamon bun or a large dessert might be 800 calories or more, offsetting that with exercise would be just insane.
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Re:The diet is unimportant... (Score:4, Informative)
That's because in actuality, you're eating healthier than someone eating two cups of rice with coconut milk in a thai chicken dish that most people think is healthy. A burger with fries is actually better in terms of protein:carb content and could be healthier. There's a lot of confusion about what "eating clean" means. It does not mean "eating low fat." The sushi on the other hand - not good for you, really. It's about 85% rice, which has virtually no nutrition beyond white carbs.
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My office mate's car broke down {we didn't know each other at the time or share an office other wise I would have just let him car pool} and he dusted off a bike he had bought to stay in shape and started riding it to work. He was miserable the first couple weeks, but a few months later when he was able to buy a new car he had dropped about 15-20lbs and was feeling fairly good so if it's nice out he still rides his bike now years later. {He says he didn't realize how the extra weight had made him feel until
Re:The diet is unimportant... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The diet is unimportant... (Score:4, Interesting)
If the equation to be healthy is (and I'm not arguing that it isn't)
Caloric Intake == Exercise (or at least approximately equals)
You are assuming that people want to maximize the Caloric Intake variable. I think most of us are trying to minimize the Exercise variable instead. To do so, we are looking for the maximum Caloric Intake that requires the least amount of Exercise so that we can still be healthy. Low-carb seems to be better at this than Low-fat.
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You can't do that though and remain healthy. The body assumes a baseline of exercise. It needs the exercise to remain healthy indifferent to caloric intake.
So once you're exercising enough to remain healthy INDIFFERENT to caloric intake... you now need more calories to support the exercise.
At which point you're eating what people ate about 50 years ago and not any fatter.
End of discussion.
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Re:The diet is unimportant... (Score:5, Insightful)
You will be an unhealthy, lean couch potato. Exercise builds blood vessel networks, breaks down old body mass, and allows your body to remain healthy. Physical activity causes consolidated fat cells to deflate and get replaced; it causes muscle cells to rework and replace; and it moves fat storage from fat cells to highly-active muscle cells, allowing burning of fat for energy via oxidization rather than lipolysis. The physical movement of blood helps wear down arterial plaque; the heart becomes stronger with increased load; and the metabolism of more fat during increased load cycles out the blood-borne cholesterol (necessary for life!) and corrects the balance of HDLs and LDLs of various types.
I'm not gonna say it removes toxins from the body, but it does free some up if they're absorbed into cells which get deflated or replaced. Urination removes toxins from the body--that's what the renal system is for; otherwise you'd just sweat and conserve water by not pissing. Putting load on the body does tend to free float things, though: your body will engage in demolition as well as building, restructuring things instead of just adding more dense muscle mass on top of less-dense muscle mass.
The only thing you particularly emit from the process is salt (magnesium, sodium, etc.), which is not toxic; but some soluble compounds constricted within cell membranes will become free-floating, either being re-absorbed or filtered by the renal system. Most of the toxic compounds are heavy metals (chelation required), which don't move around readily, and gases (CO2, chlorine, NOx), which move around quite easily anyway--you'll accelerate the removal of everything but CO2, which is scaled, simply by accelerating respiration and blood movement.
In short: exercise has structural effects which greatly enhance health. It also accelerates the removal of some free-floating toxic compounds that your body eliminates anyway, and can temporarily make bound toxic compounds free-floating; but the removal of "toxins" isn't a major effect. Nevertheless, the slight increase in motility of nitrous oxides, the more rapid oxidization of free radical oxidizers, the more rapid elimination of excess salts and other compounds normally removed by the lymph and renal systems, and the replacement of overprovisioned forms of cholesterol with a more correct blood stream balance are, in combination and across decades, an important enough effect to warrant consideration.
The major and minor effects of physical activity are interesting to me.
Too simple (Score:5, Interesting)
That is a bit too simple. Lots of modern food contains so much energy that our internal alarm switches are blown off-line. Therefore, you don't feel full anymore and you keep eating. That is called Insulin resistance (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ) It is hard to overeat on apples. It is easy to overeat on sweets.
Off course, the food industry just loves to create food that makes you keep eating, because that will also make you buy more of it. That is why even organic meat contains sugar and all kinds of syrup nowadays. The first step to a healthy life is to eat real food.
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That is why even organic meat contains sugar and all kinds of syrup nowadays.
Uh, what? Only processed foods, and then frankly, almost none of them. The lack of unnecessary ingredients is part of the draw to most Organic brands. Only the fake-ass organics like "O" (Safeway's brand) are full of bullshit like that.
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That is why even organic meat contains sugar and all kinds of syrup nowadays.
Uh, what? Only processed foods, and then frankly, almost none of them. The lack of unnecessary ingredients is part of the draw to most Organic brands. Only the fake-ass organics like "O" (Safeway's brand) are full of bullshit like that.
There isn't any regulation around "unneccesary ingredients" in regards to organic foods. It mostly just means they aren't GMO and have used approved fertilizers and pesticides, which are about as toxic as the synthetic ones. Organic lunchmeat is still organic as long as the sugar and syrup it's loaded with is also organic.
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal... [usda.gov]
Doesn't say anything about "no additives", only that any additives need to follow the same certification.
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There isn't any regulation around "unneccesary ingredients" in regards to organic foods.
Straw man.
Re:Too simple (Score:5, Funny)
" It is hard to overeat on apples."
It's because fruit has a built in regulation system, eat 8 apples, and your system will do a high pressure speed purge out the other end. I ate 2 pints of blueberries once... I spent the evening on the toilet afraid to leave it.
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I ate three bowls of Grape Nuts one day.
I spent the next morning shitting razor blades.
Who knew Grape Nuts contain tiny razor blades.
Simply ignore studies ... (Score:3)
Interestingly, you are using a topnotch athlete's condition to apply to the rest of us. In the criticisms so far applied, they left out age.
More appropriately, try cutting down on carbs and focus less on fat.
Re:Simply ignore studies ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bulldust.
I can walk on a treadmill for an hour or simply avoid two thin slices of wheat bread. They are calorie-equivalent.
Weight-loss is best accomplished by reducing caloric intake. Trying to exercise weight off is fruitless.
Exercise is great for muscle toning, avoiding injury, increasing balance, beefing up air intake, and strengthening the heart.
It's a huge mistake to think weight-loss can be accomplished by exercise.
It's a huge mistake to think that wellness can be accomplished by diet.
The two should be used together to work on two separate issues.
Re:Simply ignore studies ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong, it isn't just the exercise. Its the muscle mass.
It isn't enough just to walk a little. you need to build some muscle so your baseline metabolism goes up. That muscle needs to be sustained with a constant extra supply of energy. If you stay in bed all day you will still burn some calories. If your body is very fit then your baseline metabolism will probably be a great deal higher.
Exercise is not magic pixie dust (Score:2)
no, I was making an extreme example to make a point and some people have a very hard time dealing with arguments made with a sledgehammer.
Using an irrelevant example to hammer home a point isn't really a very good persuasion tactic. Yeah if we could all work out for hours a day that would be great. Problem is that the real world has other constraints that make maintaining a healthy weight difficult. Your basic point (exercise more) is a good one. You don't need hyperbole to make it.
The point I made is that exercise can make a 12 thousand calorie diet of pizza healthy.
Healthy? Not so much. Just because you can burn the calories doesn't mean that pizza magically becomes health food. The proportions and composition of the f
What pro cyclists eat (Score:3)
And I can assure you: the guys riding Tour de France are eating pizza but mainly they eat pasta!
A bit here and there but as I said before it's not a staple of their diet, particularly while racing. My father is as I type this on the staff for a pro cycling team in one of the major tours so I get steady reports about what they eat during stage races. I've hosted a continental pro cycling team at my house for a week and yes I've taken them out for pizza among other things. I know exactly what they eat and how much. (it's a LOT) Yeah they'll eat pizza but generally it's a lot of pasta, cereal, fruit
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From a quick Google search, it looks like 10,000 steps a day will burn 3500 Calories A WEEK. That's only an extr
The diet is unimportant... (Score:2, Interesting)
I recently lost 40+ pounds in ~6 months using Atkins and no exercise (just started exercising this week). I'm 46.
My takeaways:
1. If calories in calories burned, you'll lose weight.
2. The hardest part about that is controlling appetite.
3. The best way to control appetite is with a low carb diet.
This is the second time I did Atkins. The first time (10 years ago), I lost 60+ pounds in 6 months and I exercised 5 days a week. A guy at my gym had a shirt that read "Look great naked! 90% diet, 10% exercise" and t
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How do you handle eating low carb for extended periods? Meat, cheese, eggs, pork rinds. I knew a guy that lost 100lbs eating like that. Other things as well, not just those foods, but the key was to keep his carbs at about 30gm as day.
I am lucky, high metabolism and eat a healthy diet anyway, but I could not imagine eating heavy type foods like that in those quantities.
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One "trick" I found when trying to control appetite when you are getting proper nutrition is to eat foods that satiate you, keep you full. Drinking lots of water, eating carrots and apples, etc. The
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Re:The diet is unimportant... (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with your statement but what people *need* to understand about exercise is that its not really about the calories you burn while you are doing its about your overall metabolism.
If you say go hiking most weekends in summer and cross country skiing most weekends in winter, you are going to have a great deal more muscle tissue on your legs are arms than someone who spends their weekends in front of their xbone. You will also have cardio-pulmonary development to support sustained high output.
That muscle tissue and elevated metabolism is going to sit there burning more calories during the week while you sit in the office at your desk. So in the context of exercising to lose weight its not really about the energy expenditure in performing the direct act, its about about turning your body to "run hotter".
Diet is very important. (Score:5, Informative)
Then why were people from 50 years ago not hugely fat? Because they were not eating all your little hipster diets and they were not fat.
The lack of understanding betrayed by this is almost ludicrous.
They didn't need to eat a "hipster diet" 50 years ago to avoid getting hugely fat, because an enormous part of the problem is the percentage of our food today that is processed, and the percentage that contains vast amounts of sugar (and particularly high fructose corn syrup). Which is exactly what (many of) the "hipster diets" strive to emulate.
I realize that on Slashdot, where people tend to be highly math-oriented, it's a popular fallacy to believe that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. However, studies like this one have been coming out for years now showing that that's simply not true.
Some kinds of energy are easier for our bodies to extract from food than others. Some kinds of food make our bodies feel more full than others. And our bodies need more in terms of nutrition than just calories—so, contrary to one of your other posts, no, a 12 thousand calorie diet of pizza cannot be healthy, unless the toppings on that pizza are very carefully selected to provide the nutrients that our bodies actually need.
It would be nice if nutrition were a simple formula, where you could just calculate calories in minus calories expended and come out with a nice, pleasing mathematical formula. But the human body isn't a spherical body in a vacuum, and "calorie" isn't a unit of nutrition, no matter how much you try to make it so.
Dan Aris
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This "feeling more full" idea is only relevant if people eat more calories if they don't feel full. If you eat a pre packaged processed meal and regardless of feeling full or not just stop there... then that aspect doesn't matter.
If we talk about calories in... the feeling full aspect only matters if you increase the calories in.
As to a calorie not just being a calorie... if you were interested in surviving... as in not starving to death... a calorie would actually be a calorie.
Do different calories get pro
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Up until my late twenties, that worked fine for me but the further into my 30s, the more I had to watch how much I ate and when despite keeping active.
A young man's metabolism can be a wonderful thing, but it doesn't last forever.
Not easy (Score:3)
Simply eat what your body needs... beyond that, exercise. That is why people are getting fat. Not because they're eating too much but because they're not doing anything.
That's not nearly as easy as you so casually make it sound.
Look at what Michael Phelps ate. Something like three pizzas a day or something. And he was in great health at the time. Won Olympic gold medals and everything.
Michael Phelps is a professional athlete who worked out at a high intensity for 3-6 hours every day. I assure you that no one reading this is doing workouts anywhere close to what he did because it is not our job. You could not find an example which is less similar to the life most people have or want to have. I had a coach in college who was an Olympic gold medalist. I've seen what it takes up close and I'm pretty sure you haven't. It's not g
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It's math. Burn more calories than you consume. Impossible when watching 40hrs or TV a week stuffing your face with crap.
Re:The diet is unimportant... (Score:4, Informative)
The other problem is that cheap food is full of crap and calories that are not needed. all foods should have the calories and servings printed in large print on the front.
Many poor people will eat an entire box of mac and cheese dinner for a meal, that is 1450 calories if prepared with skim milk or powdered milk. That is an UNGODLY amount of calories for a single meal, and they will feel hungry in 1 hour because it's all empty calories with no fiber or substance to it.
If all someone eats is the pre-packaged processed crap in boxes, they will gain weight because a sane calorie amount of that meal is so small, they will over eat because they think they are eating a sensible meal but in reality the calorie count of the pre-packaged crap is sky high and not printed in big letters on the front.
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You clearly are not a consumer of cheap food. The point of those meals is that they have calories. The same people that buy them could very easily buy something as cheap or cheaper without calories.
The point of those meals is that they are very cheap and have a lot of calories. A single frozen pizza for example has all the calories you need to live for an entire day... if not more. And at a cost of about 5-8 USD.
As to this notion that people don't know how many calories are in the food... yeah they do. Firs
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The diet is the wrong way around to solve a problem. Which is how to stay healthy without exercising. Now maybe there is a diet that does that but most of them say "oh and exercise"... well, if you exercise the rest isn't important.
That's really not true. You are correct that exercise is an integral part of being healthy. But what you eat is just as important. If you do an hour of cardio a day and weight train, but eat McDonald's french fries and milkshakes you will not realize the benefits of your exercise. Will you be better off than someone who eats the same but doesn't exercise? Sure, but you will not be better off than the person who exercises and eats lean meats, whole grains and lots of fruits and vegetables. The lean meat
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stop it with the whole grains. Whole grains are still just grains. Maybe with a tiny bit of nutrients and some fiber that the refined don't have but still produce a tremendous glycemic load. The point of the study is that whole grains should be avoided. All carbs should be avoided. Don't attempt to conflate grains with meat and vegetables, they don't belong in the same class of food, that is what the study under discussion meant to separate.
Re:The diet is unimportant... (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate carbs ... (Score:4, Funny)
... they have that gasoline taste.
The Swedish LCHF diet? (Score:2)
A change in diet - from what? (Score:5, Interesting)
What kind of diet did they start from? If the participants were typical Americans, it was probably something that was very heavy in sugar and other refined carbohydrates; more so that in fat, if I'm not mistaken, so cutting down on carbohydrates is no doubt the most important improvement to the diet one could make. Cutting back on fat would probably be the next, big step.
It is sometimes hard to remember just how extreme the typical Western diet is; it is perhaps particularly visible to me, because I have completely stopped drinking sweet drinks (including fruit juices and artificially sweetened drinks). Now I find I can't get through a whole glass of Coke - it's just too much, but only a few years ago I could drink whole liters of the crap.
As others have remarked, there is no need to follow any special diet, just stop eating and drinking crap. Of course, with the selection available, that in itself is actually not easy.
Re:A change in diet - from what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of studies such as this is to find out exactly what is the crap that you need to avoid, really. That part certainly isn't common knowledge.
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I would think fruits, vegetables, grains and meat/protein products that come from one mother are good stuff. Water is the only beverage your body needs. The rest starts bordering on crap.
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I would think
Studies like these are how we end up with less of the 'I would think' and more of the 'we are pretty certain and here is why...'. You probably are right of course - but that's not the same as knowing for sure. Nor does it give any kind of thought about in what kind of ratio's one could best eat food. Lots of grains with a few vegetables is probably not so good as few grains with lots of vegetables.
This study allows writing a hypothesis (Score:3)
This study allows writing a hypothesis, but doesn't actually provide us much in the way of scientific knowledge.
This study really does tell us very little, except that they don't know how nutrition variables affect health outcomes. They don't have any idea why the one group lost weight over the year of the study, and there is no long term result (i.e. over your lifetime). There also aren't any details about the kind of LDL. The summary is either intentionally misleading or the submitter didn't read the whol
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This is just my personal experience but I went from eating a heavy refined sugar and carbs to a high fat diet and everything improved with the exception of LDL.
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Perhaps they meant a change from the old food pyramid:
http://www.powerprooatmeal.com... [powerprooatmeal.com]
Growing up the mantra I remember that the mantra was to avoid fat at all costs because duh... eating fat would make you fat. However, you could eat pretty much as much grain as you want (with no distinction made for refined grains and/or sugar).
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Just want to point out, I think this is the big thing that everyone seems to miss. You can cut out soda all you want, but fruit juice can be just as bad for you and you should cut back on it, too. It is chock full of calories and sugars and sometimes acids -- Orange Juice has the same effect on your teeth as Coke, for example.
How much? (Score:2)
The abstract lists significant % changes for the low-carb group - but doesn't show the numbers for the low-fat group. If the change is significant but tiny then it may as well be insignificant.
It's easier than that (Score:2)
Just restrict calories. I lost the most weight doing that. I was eating 2200 calories a day and I was never hungry except when I woke up in the morning. After mastering the calories, I went to restricting sodium and increasing protein while decreasing carbs. Just one step at a time. It eventually became habit. Exercising is a must to maintain (or increase) lean tissue. The net result should be fat loss.
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Personal mistakes vs. governmental ones (Score:4, Insightful)
A person can choose to eat this or that and it is his own responsibility. But, when the government decides, what's good for you (based on some "settled" science [wsj.com]), it not only affects citizenry's opinion and makes us less responsible for ourselves, it also leaves millions directly controlled by the government — such as pupils in government schools [nytimes.com] — without choices at all.
Now, I don't doubt, that some of the stuff removed from schools by our omni-scient and caring Congressmen [usda.gov] will never be considered good for anyone again. But they still force fat-free chocolate milk on kids, for example, in seeming contradiction to this new study. Maybe, both ought to be available — and parents, rather than the Federal government, be allowed to control the children's nutrition?
Sadly, the movement seems to be in the wrong direction. Some parents are already being punished for children eating incorrectly [yu.edu]. And though in this case (200+ pound 8 year old), it is fairly obvious, that the parents are, indeed, screwy, it is likely to be a "poster-boy" for future interventions in cases less and less obvious.
What is essential (Score:4, Informative)
Polyinsaturated fats (omega 3 and omega 6) are essential. The body cannot produce them, and they are required for major functions. Cutting fat means starving the body for something it needs
On the other hand, carbs are just fuel, and we can create glucose from amino acids if we need some.
Does anyone know if its possible (Score:2)
My weight loss diet last January (Score:5, Interesting)
A couple months ago, I posted a detail of the diet I was on during January. [slashdot.org] I'll repost it here. It isn't the best argument that a high-fat diet causes weight loss, because of how radical it was. And it was short-term only. But it did work.
=======================
Let me tell you the long version of my one month diet. The short version is I lost 30 pounds in 31 days, and never felt any different.
On January 1st, I started a month-long diet plan. I had scrambled eggs in the morning, with mushrooms, onions, red bell peppers, and breakfast sausage mixed in them. I sauted the vegetables first in butter, added the sausage, and then the eggs, with some salt and seasoning. I made four days worth at a time, using eight eggs and half a package of sausage. So on average I had two eggs and two ounces of sausage. The calorie count was about 600 calories.
For dinner I had a salad. For a good salad, start with a big bowl. The ones I used hold a quart or more. Shred four leaves of iceberg lettuce, add a couple leaves of romaine, throw out the stalk part (or eat a couple as I'm making the salad). Add half a large tomato, diced, handful of chopped onion, sliced hard-boiled egg, shredded cheese, halved black olives, a few croutons, and small amount of ranch dressing. I prefer Thousand Island, but would have used too much, so went with Ranch, which I don't actually like. If the wife had made chicken the previous night, add a piece of chicken, sliced or pulled. Calories without the egg or chicken was about 100 calories, and is what I had half the time. With an egg add another 80, and with chicken add 300.
So for a month, Jan 1st to 31st, with only a couple exceptions, I had 1000 calories or less a day. The biggest exception was because I was out of town with my wife for a doctor visit one day. I ate a healthy dinner, but a few more calories than a salad. The other exception was a salad at Wendy's for lunch, also out of town, and a salad for dinner at home. Also, for a snack during the day, I would have eight to ten black olives, or a banana. I ate a banana on five or six days, and the black olives on fifteen to twenty days. The other days, I had nothing more than scrambled eggs and a salad.
To round that out, I drank at the most, a quart of water a day. One glass in the morning after breakfast, small sips during the day when my mouth was dry, and one glass after dinner. Again, the two exception days, I had diet soda or tea with the meals. With the salad of course, I got some more liquid, but the water my body used was simply provided by breaking down the fat cells. And I broke down a lot of fat cells. When I got up in the morning and used the toilet, my urine was a very dark orange. That was from the debris, solids and liquids, of unneeded cells.
During that month, I never felt tired, worn out, or light headed. I went from 230 pounds to 200 pounds. I did the same work I do all the time, fixing computers, crawling under desks, carrying them out to the car and back, installing network printers, etc. I didn't go to the gym at my apartment complex, or do any other workout.
As for hunger, I am always hungry anyway. I usually snack whenever I have the chance between jobs, tv shows, slashdot flamewars, and am still always hungry. So going a month being slightly more hungry wasn't really noticeable. Really, it's more boredom than hunger to begin with anyways.
Of course in the five months since I went off the diet, I regained some of the weight. Eight pounds in the first two weeks, as the depleted-but-surviving fat cells refilled with water. But that means I managed to destroy twenty-two pounds of them in one month. I want to go back on the diet, and get well below 200 pounds, but just haven't yet. Maybe now that my daughter's finished school, I can plan my life a bit more again.
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A closed-loop feedback diet system (Score:4, Interesting)
I also lost about 30 lbs, with no exercise, by changing my diet to a low-carb diet. But I used a closed-loop feedback for food selection for less than US$20.
I (and several others) purchased a blood sugar meter. Basically, we would check our blood sugar levels (BSL) at 1 and 2 hours after eating. We all found that some foods would take us up to 120 (the upper limit for our experiment), but some foods blasted BSL up to 200. Avoiding foods that triggered high levels caused us all to lose weight, feel less hungry, and we snacked less or not at all. All of us saw significant-to-radical improvements in our health. The real surprise is how many foods affected some of us, but not others. The more we compared notes on food, the more we realized it to be dependent on the person's response. Foods that affected all of us tended to have wheat, corn and related by-products.
I share this, hoping others will give it a try and report back.
The idea of a one-size-fits-all diet makes as much sense as a one-size-fits-all shoes and clothing. I'm convinced we need to take advantage of the feedback tools available and customize your own diet, based on your body's reactions.
Re:My weight loss diet last January (Score:4, Informative)
That month of only a quart of water a day just sliced about 10 years off the life of your kidneys. If your urine is dark orange you are actively damaging your kidneys. There is a reason everyone (all doctors, all dieticians, everyone) says drink lots of water, the more water you push through your kidneys keeps the contaminant load lower and works the kidney's less. The less water you drink ups the contaminant load and force the kidney's to process it with less available flow. This damages the kidney's. This is basic knowledge about how the kidney's function and you shortened the life of your kidney's significantly. What you did was very very stupid.
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I'm about 5'10''. When I finished boot camp 20 years ago, I was 155 pounds of lean muscle. So going up to 230 meant almost 100 pounds of fat.
Basically, that diet was my New Year's Resolution: Eat very little for one month, and see if I can get below 200 pounds. Without dying.
*not* a low fat diet (Score:2, Interesting)
This is not a low-fat diet. The 30% recommendation was an incredibly tepid compromise: the standard American diet is around 35% fat. So this its along the lines of telling peoople "Oh, you smoke 35 cigarettes a week? Try to keep it to 30."
For comparison, the Ornish plan i
The comments in this thread are embarrassing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone posts a scientific article about dieting and everyone posts their wild unproven theories about dieting.
If I wanted to read wild speculation by uninformed nobodies I can find that elsewhere.
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Strange, when I want to read wild speculation by uninformed nobodies I usually come here.
There are other factors that influence weight (Score:3)
I track my calories quite closely. Have for a few years now. Late last year, I went off meds - steroid-based - that I'd taken for decades for a chronic condition which had gone away. In the course of about 2 months, I gained ten pounds without changing my caloric intake. Freaked me out because I'd worked so hard to lose the weight.
That strongly suggested to me that there are in fact, other factors at play than just calorie balance. Calorie balance is a significant component but there seem to be other significant factors at play as well.
Another wasted research project (Score:3, Interesting)
All those foundings in this study could have been 'discovered' by an internet research (google is your friend). ... and how much a simple big mac with french fries (plus ketchup! plus the coke!) is in calories. ... so your willpower only helps to resist a cake with cream. ... actually they eat low carb ... funny, isn't it?
We know since 30 years or longer how nutrition works and how to proper eat and stay healthy. Well, we as 'we who care' or 'we, the scientists who researched it'.
It is astonishing, amazing even, that an american institute does a study about a topic that is basically 'researched out'.
But I guess that is the typical american arrogance. Assuming first no one ever really did 'a study' and if they figure 'oh, someone did' they jump onto the wagon: 'yeah, but that was in europe'. So european studies are not trustworthy? Or is it that 30 year old insights aged somehow and are no longer valid? Hint: http://www.montignac.com/en/th... [montignac.com] or Atkins(Atkinson?), btw an American as far as I know. He also solved everything around nutrition. But well, instead of simply understanding what is going on you call it 'diets'. Sigh, I believe Atkins lost his credibility when companies started to sell pre packed food for the microwave with his name on it.
Anyway, lets get a few things straight many people here falsely assume about diets and nutrition.
EXERCISES
Exercises make you more healthy, but they don't help you to stay or become slim in case you eat to much
You can easy verify this by googeling how much energy you burn, sitting, sleeping, running, swimming
LACK OF WILLPOWER
Will power does not help if you eat the wrong things or fall into the american myth that you should eat a snack 6 times a day (rofl, those six snacks alone have more calories than the rest you eat over a day). Hint: exercising does not help
GENETICS
The influence of genetics is nearly non existing (for a white anglo saxon christian american). Yes, Maori or Inuit have a slightly different metabolism, they even become really 'fat' by only eating proteins or 'fat'
SWEETENERS
(chemical) Sweeteners have no calories in themselves, but they
a) are triggering some responses in the body, like insulin levels, but also change absorption of other carbs in your guts. So the prime mistake e.g. is to eat an ordinary cake/torte with a coffee containing sweeteners. That will increase the 'calorie bomb effect' of the cake a ten fold, a normal coffee with sugar is much better.
b) most (chemical) sweeteners are suspected to cause cancer (well known since over 30 years, but it seems the food industries can avoid to make this public somehow, Aspatam, Saccarin, Cyclamat etc.)
c) Fructose or other 'sweeteners' are proclaimed to be not digestible. Well, see below, that actually depends on your personal gut bacterias.
GENETICS AND BACTERIA
While the genetics of humans have a low influence, the genetics if the hut bacterias have a high one.
The general mantra that it is healthy to eat lots of fibers is wrong in many cases. If you believe you are eating super healthy but you are fat nevertheless chances are you caught some bovine bacterias that can indeed prepare the fibers (which should be undigestible) into carps that your body happily is digesting. The estimate is that about 25% of the 'super fat' harbour bacteria like that.
Now the explanation: INSULIN
Suppose you eat to fat. Extreme example: you eat a pound of butter. You would never do that? Wow, ever ate 100grams mousse au chocolat? That mousse contains roughly 90grams of butter, a bit of chocolat and a bit of eggs. Well, perhaps only 80.
What happens if you digest that? Well, the simple answer is: nothing. That is one of the reasons it is a famous dessert. On paper it has a lot of calories but they are all fat. That means: if you eat that as a breakfast, 90% of the fat w
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That's all completely wrong.
Please, shut up.
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1. Exercise changes your metabolism. So does being sedentary. It is not simply a matter of calories-out when it comes to exercise or calories in when it comes to diet. Exercise not only has been shown to boost your overall metabolism (some of it is from repairing damaged tissue and the other is from poorly understood short-term or long term metabolic changes), but also to do things like prevent tissue cannibalization (encouraging fat-burning) and leading to long-term changes in your metabolic rate. Som
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6% to 85% is not the "chance of being accurate". It is the max and min of individual studies' conclusion.
Studies have found between 0% and 100% chance of gravity always being an attractive force. Does gravity not sound like a very reliable science to you?
Someone that exercises a lot and eats very little is an idiot who is undertaking a very serious health risk. The reality is:
1) Exercise is not a simple "calories out" model, unless you are actually hooked up 24/7 to a machine that measures your metabolis
Damned dyslexia! (Score:4, Funny)
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I absolutely packed myself with steak fried in butter, salads with massive wads of bleu cheese, and six-egg omelets with cheddar and some sort of pork product (usually sausage, sometimes bacon) for nine months of ass-sitting and lost ninety pounds. I've kept it off. The thirty more pounds I lost after that while working out and putting on muscle and eating pretty much the same stuff, but less steak and more fried chicken, I've pretty much put back on. But I'm eating "normally" now, including occasional frie
Re:Empty Calories (Score:4, Interesting)
"fried chicken, I've pretty much put back on"
It's the crap on the outside of the fried chicken causing the problem. If chicken places would use a good soy based flour the carb content of fried chicken would drop like a stone. Buddy of mine created a batter for his out of soy that tastes better than anything I have ever had at a chicken joint.
Restaurants sneak in carbs because carbs are cheap.
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Oh actually, I don't really eat fried chicken with breading. That's not because I won't eat it, it's because I can't find any worth eating. We used to have a broaster in town but the local supplier closed up shop. When I was on Atkins I was just frying chicken thighs in oil as a means of fast, complete cooking. Add soy sauce, powdered ginger, and powdered garlic for an easy asian-ish flavor...
Re:Calorific value? (Score:4, Insightful)
More important than either of these is the calorific value of the relative diets. Both of them (low carb / low fat) ultimately work by restricting the types of food, and therefore the calories,
No, in fact, that's the opposite of what this study shows. I'm not surprised you got this wrong, because you are simply parroting the prevailing thinking, but it is plain wrong and this study shows that. Of course, so did the ketogenic/Atkins diet, but you ignored that so it's not surprising that you're ignoring this.
Irony: Holding forth with an obsolete opinion as a reply to an article about a study which proves your opinion obsolete. You may try again, but you have failed abjectly and you're spreading bullshit misinformation to make yourself appear relevant.
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There are several diets out there- particularly Keto, that people have had a lot of success with. In just 2 months I almost lost 30 pounds (call it water weight all you want) and it was a low carb, high fat diet. My bad cholesterol even went down a couple points, and I still feel like I have my muscles. There is a lot of research supporting this idea out there, if you realize that the FDA is probably bought out by people who make high-carb, high-profit foods.
The old school food triangle is garbage. Schools feed kids based on guidance from the govt and look what we get. Sugary sodas, high carb grains, meal replacement candy. None of this is for your health. The real problem is that none of it in combination is good for anything but heart disease and diabetes.
The studies on lchf have been out for a while and really put the pressure on the whole concept of shutting down glycogens and generating ketones. As noted in the study, bad cholesterol dives while good cho