You want a diet that really works, that you can easily stay on indefinitely, and which can accommodate almost any menu with a wide variety of options? My mom found one such, and she’s been on it for something like ten years now. What she does is she eats ten servings of fruits and vegetables per day, and whatever else she wants. That’s all there is to it. That way, you get plenty of fiber, vitamins, and all the other good stuff that fruits and veggies offer, and you’re not hungry for junk food.
Exercise also ramps up your metabolism, so you get more calories burned along with what the math tells us.
Yeah, a recent study"The Chair of Harvard’s nutrition department went on record before a 1973 U.S. Senate Select Committee investigating fad diets". Note my recent 2008 study printed in the New England Journal Of Medicine.
Of course your brain needs glucose to function. All the glucose your brain needs can be produced by metabolizing protein. You may feel a bit foggy the first couple of days on a ketogenic diet, but it really does pass in quite a short time.
Someone up there said you’d lose weight on an all butter diet, which is true, but you couldn’t function. Your brain, needing glucose, will metabolize protein to get it, and if you don’t eat any will scavenge it from your own tissue, and it’s not that particular about where it comes from. It will metabolize cardiac muscle to make glucose. I aim for around 140 grams of protein a day, which is enough for my activity level. I’m also not on the induction level of carbohydrates, which means I do eat around 40 or so grams a day of high quality carbohydrates.
What bothers me about all of the quotes saying, “Sure it works, you lose weight, you feel better, your tryglycerides, blood sugar and HDL all improve, but what about in the long term?” is that none of these people propose a mechanism for how a diet that is proven safe and effective for six months or a year magically becomes dangerous at 5 years or ten. What is it in white sugar and starch that is so damn necessary to your body that you can survive just fine without it for a year, but not a decade? If you just say that something might become dangerous in the future, but don’t have any reason for it, aren’t you just guessing?
Fantome, from your cites:
This is a misrepresentation of what the Atkins diet is about.
As is this. I’ll listen to those people when they demonstrate they actually know what Atkins recommends.
The body needs glucose to function, yes. Which you can get from veggies and fruits as well as protein, all allowed on Atkins.
The body does not need sugar or processed grains to survive. Evolutionarily speaking, we’ve only had those foods in our diet for a very short amount of time…we survived just fine for thousands of years without.
I’m sorry, I just don’t believe a diet of lean protein, veggies, and fruit with the occasional potato thrown in can be unhealthy. Why? Because you can’t eat bread or pasta or sugar? Why does the body need those things?
Here’s an experiement
a)I’m on a new weight loss plan. I’m eating lean meat and all the high fiber veggies I want. I’m supposed to avoid excessive sodium and processed foods, as well as sugar and all “white carbs.” (potatoes, white rice, pasta)
b) I’m on Atkins
These are the same statements. But say a) and people will praise you for your healthful approach, say b) and they will tell you are in danger of imminent death.
For some reason people are scared of a diet that allows ranch dressing but not “Snackwells” cookies. To me, it’s completely inexplicable.
So, you want to throw the baby out with the bathwater because one of the quotes is from the The Chair of Harvard’s nutrition department from 1973? Then lets look at what the current Chair of Harvard’s nutrition department has to say along with taking a look at the lies of Taubes.:
Okay, and?
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Long-term-low-carb-diet-leads-to-cholesterol-rises
http://www.atkinsexposed.org/atkins/114/Cleveland_Clinic.htm
You’ve determined that the official spokesperson of the American Dietetic Association doesn’t know what the research or lack of it concludes about the Atkins diet because of some possible exaggerated statements?
Fantome, I think you’re reading some biased sources. Google Michael Greger, the guy behind atkinsexposed.com. He’s a vegan activist who is opposed to eating animals in any form; of course he has a beef (ha ha!) with Atkins. There’s a PETA front called “Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine” who are similarly anti-Atkins.
If someone calls ketosis “dangerous” they are mistaken, if not deliberately trying to mislead.
When people say that Atkins is just bacon wrapped in bacon fried in butter, they are mistaken, if not deliberately trying to mislead. At best, they have a shaky understanding of medicine or of the tenets of the diet. At worst, they have an axe to grind. In either case, they’re not gospel.
If he or she doesn’t know enough about the diet to accurately represent it, then yes that does make me doubt his knowledge about the research. If the research is so pat in his favor, seems to me exaggerated statements wouldn’t be necessary.
I feel like we’re talking past each other. I’m saying “what’s unhealthy about cutting sugar and white starches from your diet?” And you’re throwing in all these responses from medical experts talking about how unhealthy eating nothing or even a lot of red meat and eggs and saturated fat is for you. Which isn’t the Atkins diet.
This meme has been mentioned too many times in this thread to mention each poster individually, so I’ll address the issue itself and hopefully the proponents will take note. The studies that “concluded” that high protein intake resulted in adverse renal function were done on patients with already impaired kidney health. There are numerous studies that show no relationship between protein intake and renal function in healthy patients.
The impact of protein intake on renal function decline in women with normal renal function or mild renal insufficiency.
Conclusion: “high protein intake was not significantly associated with change in estimated GFR [Glomerular Filtration Rate] in women with normal renal function.”
*“Do regular high protein diets have potential health risks on kidney function in athletes?”*Poortmans JR and Dellalieux O.
Conclusions: “To conclude, it appears that protein intake under 2. 8 g.kg [equivalent to 330g for a 180 lb man] does not impair renal function in well-trained athletes as indicated by the measures of renal function used in this study”
Changes in renal function during weight loss induced by high vs low-protein low-fat diets in overweight subjects. Skov AR, Toubro S, Bülow J, Krabbe K, Parving HH, Astrup A.
Conclusion: “Moderate changes in dietary protein intake cause adaptive alterations in renal size and function without indications of adverse effects.”
Now, on a different topic.
I agree with you completely. But I also think that a diet of lean protein, veggies, fruit, and the occasional potato is much more likely to be less caloric than a more typical american diet (with pasta, sugar, bread, cookies, etc.). I think this is a significant factor in the health of the lean protein, veggies, fruit diet.
Sorry for the double-post, but I just did some quick research and discovered that the ADA receives funding from food-selling corporations such as Wendys. Yep, no conflict of interest there!
Linkfor evidence: This ADA nutrition fact-sheet sponsored by Wendy’s. (Link goes to .pdf file.)
So what we have here is classic begging the question. Ketosis is unhealthy, why? Well, because it’s ketosis. And since a ketogenic diet induces ketosis, it’s automatically unhealthy.
A low-carbohydrate diet results in more weight loss after six months than a low-fat diet, but long term could raise bad cholesterol and increase the risk of heart disease, claims a meta-analysis.
Could raise cholesterol, raise how is my question? It lowers it for six months, for a year, in my case for eight years, yet because some guy says it could raise cholesterol I’m supposed to assume it does? Talk about your appeal to authority. Do you have some kind of peer-reviewed study that says it does?
High-Fat Ketogenic Diet Lowers Cholesterol in Children with Epilepsy
That study went on for four years.
Long Term Effects of Ketogenic Diet in Obese Subjects with High Cholesterol Level. This one was a 56 week study.
I’ll skip right to the conclusion:
Conclusion: This study shows the beneficial effects of ketogenic diet following its long term administration in obese subjects with a high level of total cholesterol. Moreover, this study demonstrates that low carbohydrate diet is safe to use for a longer period of time in obese subjects with a high total cholesterol level and those with normocholesterolemia.
A Low-Carbohydrate, Ketogenic Diet versus a Low-Fat Diet To Treat Obesity and Hyperlipidemia
Again, conclusion:
Conclusions: Compared with a low-fat diet, a low-carbohydrate diet program had better participant retention and greater weight loss. During active weight loss, serum triglyceride levels decreased more and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level increased more with the low-carbohydrate diet than with the low-fat diet.
A Ketogenic Diet Favorably Affects Serum Biomarkers for Cardiovascular Disease in Normal-Weight Men
The conclusion:
Numerous studies now suggest that high-carbohydrate diets can raise TAG levels, create small, dense LDL particles, and reduce HDL cholesterol (i.e., atherogenic dyslipidemia)—a combination along with insulin resistance, that has been termed syndrome X (42 ,43 ). Syndrome X is postulated to be resistance to insulin-mediated glucose disposal by muscle (44 ), 30% of adult males and 10% to 15% of postmenopausal women have this particular syndrome X profile, which is associated with several-fold increase in heart disease risk. Replacing saturated fat with carbohydrate appears to accentuate insulin concentrations and the atherogenic dyslipidemia associated with syndrome X (44 ,45 ). The ketogenic diet in this study resulted in favorable responses in fasting TAG, postprandial lipemia, HDL-C, LDL particle size, and insulin levels in healthy normolipidemic men. Although the duration of the diet was short (6 wk), these data suggest that a ketogenic diet does not have an adverse effect on accepted biochemical risk factors for CVD and improves those associated with syndrome X.
You’ve got a lot of editorial opinions, let’s see some actual evidence.
Note that what you have there is a long list of opinions by various dudes. I have provided a cite of a peer reviewed study.
When have facts, not opinions, come back.
I have not read Taubes’s book, nor do I try to follow the diet. But I don’t believe much that standard nutritionists say. For example, leading nutritionist Marion Nestle was quoted in a Scientific American article as saying that if you cut out 500 calories a day, you will lose a pound a week. I wonder if she has ever actually studied this. What I know is that in general if I cut out 500 calories a week (during this season) I will sit around my living room wearing two sweaters and gloves and generally feeling miserable–and not lose a pound a week since my body goes into famine mode in which it conserves calories. This seems (and I emphasize this is subjective) to be less severe if what I cut out is mainly carbohydrates and keep up the fat and protein.
So while I don’t know if Taubes is right, I am certain that the standard nutrition advice is mistaken. Remember when they said cholesterol = poison? We now know that, while total dietary saturated fat is (crudely) correlated with blood cholesterol, the intake of actual cholesterol makes little or no difference.
Maybe it varies from individual to individual, but the basic math certainly works for me. When I went to an 1800 calorie diet (starting from 200 lbs; no diet restriction, but basically tried to lower carbs to maybe 30-40% of total calories consumed), I was dropping about a pound to two pounds per week. To be honest, all the standard nutritional advice has worked out pretty well for me. I think you just need to find what works for you and your body.
Careful though, the nutristrategy chart you link to does not appear to subtract out the basal metabolic rate. Note that “fishing, ice, sitting” is listed as burning ~150 cal/hour - an activity that is hardly more strenuous than sitting on a couch, watching tv.
My girlfriend told me about this thread. I read Gary Taubes’ book the other month, and I thought that I’d share my thoughts:
He’s a journalist, not a doctor. Warning bells going off? Mine did. However, he’s not just any journalist. He’s a science reporter with a hard science education, and is at the top of his field. This guy is high IQ.
Now, the book is simply amazing. I have never seen more thoroughly researched material. In an interview, I heard Taubes talking about his research for it: he had a half dozen graduate students working for him, and among other things, he ordered every proceedings of every obesity conference up until the 1980s (when they just got to be too many).
Taubes’ main point is that the pre-WWII (European) research on obesity was correct, and the dozen or so American researchers that remade the field after WWII were extremely bad scientists.
Why does a teenager grow taller? Because he eats more, right? Wrong. It’s HGH, and everybody knows it. Hormones cause the body to grow (taller), not calories.
So why does a person grow fat? According to Taubes, hormones. There is a fair body of research out there, and Taubes does a great job of documenting it, that says that insulin drives fat storage. Carbohydrates (sugar especially) drive insulin.
Taubes points out the Pima Indians. They were tall and lean before the California gold rush, before they were driven off their lands and sent to live on the reservation. They ate a high fat diet and were very lean. On the reservation they were dirt poor, ate mostly government rations, a low fat, high carbohydrate diet. And now they’re the fattest people on Earth. Something about the Western diet is killing them. Taubes thinks it’s carbohydrates. And he has a lot more examples like that one.
Fat is a tissue like any other. It’s not inert. It’s constantly taking in energy and giving up energy. Someone who is maintaining his fat weight must have fat cells in homeostasis: they must be taking in as much energy as they’re putting out, otherwise he’d be getting fatter. Now, say that insulin comes along. This causes the fat cells to take up more energy. In turn, this leaves less energy for the other organs. The brain notices this and replies with hunger. If it can’t get more food, it replies with lethargy to conserve energy (basal metabolic rate goes down too, but not nearly as much as most people on the intertubes say – ‘starvation mode’ is not backed up by PubMed). Eventually the person’s fat grows until he reaches homeostasis at another (higher) weight. No part of this involves eating too much. The person is getting fatter because he’s eating just enough to supply energy to his internal organs in light of his fat taking up more than its fair supply.
The body is very, very, good at making sure that you have just enough energy to live. This is why most people stay very close to the same weight all their lives. If you run the numbers, you will find that they’d have to be counting calories down to 1/10th of a calorie to manage this consciously. Actually, the brain handles it all for them. If you overeat one day, you’ll be less hungry the next, etc. The same is absolutely true for fat people. They are eating exactly as much as their brain is saying they should. It’s just that they’ve got fat cells that have elevated demand for energy due to chronically high insulin levels.
None of this is Taubes’ idea. He’s just reporting on the research of others. But he cites a huge amount of evidence.
Now, is there anything wrong with Taubes’ approach? Yes, I think that Taubes neglects genetic variability between population groups too readily. The Pima Indians are not acclimatized to a Western diet because they’ve only been on it for a few hundred years. Europeans have evolved to live on a Western diet (sugar has only been around for a couple hundred years though). How much does that matter? While on the same diet, the European diabetes rate is about 1/3rd that of other groups. I don’t think that this invalidates anything Taubes says, but it’s a flaw in his worldview.
There are some great links out there. Read the critique of Taubes by Fumento in Reason. Pretty strong, huh? Now read the reply. Taubes absolutely destroys Fumento. I’ve never seen anything like it on the net. Here’s a video of Taubes, which isn’t nearly as good as the book, but still good.
Now, about me: I lost 160 pounds on a low calorie (900 calories a day) diet a few years ago. Once I got to 170 pounds, I finally snapped and left my diet. Nothing I could do would make me get back on it for more than a week. And I was desperate. Let me tell you, I have a lot of willpower, but I couldn’t do it. So despite the fact that I was running 5 miles a day, I gained 20-30 pounds a month, and eventually got up near my initial weight.
Okay, so I read Taubes’ book in December. I started a low-carb diet at the end of December (about 20 grams of carbs a day). I was prepared for flu-like symptoms for the first couple weeks, and I had them. Most people do. The body doesn’t like to switch gears like that. The symptoms went away though. So did the (intense!) sugar cravings after about week 3.
So far I’ve lost 30 pounds since December. I’m not amazed by that part of it (I’ve lost more!). But I haven’t been hungry. I’ve been eating absolutely huge quantities of meat every day (until I’m full) and losing the weight. I’ve been weightlifting and haven’t lost any strength. Look, I know how much willpower is necessary to lose this much weight on low-calorie. I’ve done it (more than once). It takes constant mental control effort. On low carb, it’s been, well, easy.
Easy is actually hard for me. I have to keep climbing on the scale to believe that it’s working without any hunger at all. But it is.
You’ll forgive me if the fact that he’s a science reporter does not give me any confidence whatsoever in his knowledge or ability in any scientific field.
So how does he get around those pesky laws of thermodynamics? All weight loss plans that work fundamentally work the same way: Burn more calories than you consume. If you do this, no matter what kinds of calories you’re consuming, you cannot fail to lose weight. If you do not do this, you cannot possibly succeed.
Why is it that many people are continually seeking some kind of reducing diet that lies in bare contradiction to known facts of human nutrition and biochemistry, and often from sources who have no education or grounding in those fields, nor any realistic basis for them.
Chronos is essentially correct; if the body is using more calories than are being digested, weight loss will occur. The problem comes in that most people who are not well-educated in nutrition tend to cut out those calories in the wrong proportions or fail to eat foods that provide satiation. For the average and relatively healthy person food consumption should be in proportions of about 50-55% carbohydrates (with an average glycemic index of less than 60), 25-30% proteins (preferably lean animal or vegetable complete proteins), and 20% fats, the requisite minerals and vitamins, and about 1.5-2 lbs of food mass per day.
Athletes training in highly aerobic regimes might increase the percentage of low GI carbohydrates, and people doing intensive weight training/body shaping regimes might increase the lean protein to around 30% or up to 1.5 grams of protein per body weight and reduce the fats proportionally, but even for the average active non-extreme athlete one doesn’t need to alter these overall percentages, just the total calorie intake. High protein/low carbohydrate diets (those with 30%+ protein and less than 40% carbs) are nutritionally recommended only for medically necessary reducing diets for the extremely obese; there is simply no reason for Atkins-type ketosis-inducing low carb diets. The vast bulk of epistemological nutritional studies indicate that diets that are high in complex low-GI carbohydrates, fibrous and leafy green vegetables, and a moderate amount of lean meet and low-fact dairy provide the greatest long term health benefits. Like a cite? How about the most widely used exercise nutrition and physiology text in the United States.
Stranger
The problem is actually consuming less calories. Yes, if you consume less than you burn, you’ll lose weight. But simply reducing caloric intake can lower your base metabolism (thus negating a portion of the reduction) and make you feel like shit. In order for a diet to be successful it requires ease, satiation, and metabolism maintenance. Ease and satiation allow the subject to actually follow the diet, which is a major obstacle. Metabolism maintenance keeps the body from slowing itself down so much that even further intake reductions are required. Does it seem reasonable that what you eat might affect these three factors?
A fourth factor to consider is long-term consequences. The hypothetical all-bacon diet (mmm bacon :)) might result in weight-loss, but I suspect there may be some problems down the road with that one.