I have a bizarre cow-orker…um…coworker…who is on the oddest diet, and I can’t imagine it’s good for him. My SO, who used to be a pretty active person in competitive swimming and biking until injuries got to him, agrees with me that this diet isn’t healthy, especially for someone as active as my coworker claims to be.
Here’s the situation as I know it.
The guy is 23, of italian-canadian descent (not that this likely matters, but perhaps there are genetic predispositions that might be considered). He works out for about 2 hours a day, at least on weekdays. As far as I know, he does mostly weight training, not cardio, but I may be wrong on that.
The man eats nothing but meat and fruit/veggies. He doesn’t eat any carbs AT ALL - no bread, no pasta, no potatoes or other tubers, no sources of starches at all. He claims he gets all his carbs from fruit and vegetables, but aren’t 99% of the “carbs and starches” in fruits and veggies cellulose, and therefore unavailable as a source of energy to humans? (Yes, I made that number up, but I know it’s most, at least!) He also seems to consume TABLESPOONS of oil on his “salads”, although that appears to be olive oil and may not be so bad. Until recently he says he ate 3-4 egg yolks every morning, but a recent blood test showed that his cholesterol was through the roof. He’s getting tested again in August apparently, and has cut back on the eggs.
My SO says that lots of egg yolks and little cardio exercise is a good recipie for heart disease, and that a no carb diet will likely mess up his body chemistry and may cause other problems, but I’m curious to know what? Is his body using fats/proteins as fuel too much? Is he getting a build-up of Bad Things, like ketones in his body? Liver damage? Kidney Damage? or is this actually somehow healthy?
Fruits and vegetables are chock-full of carbs–and cellulose.
Cellulose != Carbs.
Cellulose is just another word for “fiber,” which is indigestible, and contains no calories. Where did you ever get the idea that non-starch carbs were cellulose?
So far as your other questions, who knows? Diet theory is very controversial, and almost like a religion.
Fiber is listed under “carbohydrates”. The thing is, that it is indigestible and so they don’t “count” when you’re counting carbs. But fruits also have a lot of sugar. Carrots and corn particularly have a fairly high sugar content (which is probably why they use corn to make alcohol).
FWIW, milk has about 10-15 grams of carbohydrates in a serving.
No bread, pasta, potatos at all? Meat and fruit and vegetables only?
I’ll bet he’s staying pretty healthy! Pretty low risk for diabetes on that diet, that’s for sure! I’d have to see his cholesterol fractionation to know if it’s really a problem.
Problems from avoiding starches in the diet? None, really.
This sounds like a fairly conventional low-carbohydrate diet, much like the one that I am on. Your co-worker will be getting very little effective carbohydrate in his diet, but not none exactly because there are some sugars and starches in nearly all fruit and vegetables.
What will this be doing to his body? Well, in the first place it will be drastically reducing his blood insulin level and somewhat raising his blood glucagon level. Check a basic endocrinology textbook to see what that does, or even a decent resource like the Encyclopaedia Britannica. And with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables he ought to be getting all the vitamins and mineral he needs.
Reduced insulin and raised glucagon will signal cells in your co-worker’s body (except for nerve cells and red blood cells) to metabolise fats rather than carbohydrates.
Reduced insulin and raised glucagon will signal cells in your co-worker’s liver to stop converting sugars to fatty acids and instead convert proteins into sugars and release the sugars into the bloodstream to power his nerve and red blood cells. This is okay because he is getting plenty of protein in his diet. But if he were on a diet low in both carbohydrate and protein this process would require the consumption of his body protein, which would mean that his muscles and organs would waste.
Reduced insulin will signal fat cells in your co-worker’s body to stop taking in fatty acids and laying down fat reserves.
Reduced raised glucagon will signal your co-worker’s fat cells to break down their reserves of fat and release the resulting fatty acids for metabolism. This will raise his HDL ‘good cholesterol’.
Reduced insulin and raised glucagon will signal cells in your co-worker’s liver to reduce their production of cholesterol. This will lower his LDL ‘bad cholesterol’.
Reduced insulin and raised glucagon will signal cells in your co-worker’s kidneys to secrete more urine. This will lower his blood pressure.
Unless your co-worker is eating the wrong fats (margarine, partially-hydrogenated vegetables fats, flaxseed oil, corn oil, canola oil, walnut oil, fats from obese animals high in arachidonic acid etc.) and too little of the right fats (sunflower oil, safflower oil, olive oil, nut oils other than walnut, oils from blue-skinned deep-water fish, etc.), reduced insulin and raised glucagon will inhibit the action of delta-5 dehydrogenase in your co-worker’s eicosanoid synthesis process, resulting indirectly in vasodilation, immune system enhancement, bronchodilation, an anti-clotting effect, an anti-inflammatory effect, inhibition of proliferation of cells, and this to decreased blood pressure, a measure of protection from stroke and coronary occlusion, increased endurance, diminished pain etc.
Reduced insulin and raised glucagon will inhibit the formation of smooth muscle cells in artery walls. This will confer some protection against arterial disease.
Reduced insulin will reduce the fatigue of your co-worker’s insulin receptors, and thus halt the development of insulin-resistance and eventual type II diabetes. If his diet has abundant chromium he might even re-build his insulin receptors (and incidentally cease to crave starchy and sugary foods).
All that resistance training your co-worker is doing will in the first place burn off energy, and in the second place build muscle, raising your co-worker’s basal metabolic rate and burning off even more fat.
All that resistance training will stimulate the release of pituitary growth hormone, which will tend to stimulate the increase of lean body mass, reduce body fat, improve the density of bone, and increase the thickness and elasticity of skin.
So, the net result is that your co-worker will lose fat (especially from around his waist), put on muscle, look healthier and less wrinkled, and generally look up to ten years younger. His blood pressure and ‘bad’ cholesterol will fall and his ‘good’ cholesterol will rise. He will look better, feel miles better, and receive significant protection against heart attack, stroke, cancer, and Type II diabetes.
Links to the main sources for these assertions my be found at <www.eatprotein.com/biblio.htm>. Or you can read about it in Protein Power (Eades, MR & Eades, MD, 1996. ISBN 0-7225-3961-4).
Note: this subject is surrounded by controversy that is pursued with an almost religious fervour. You might find the arguments or the counter-arguments convincing or not. I found them convincing, and tried the program. After seven months I have come down from 127 kg (280 lb) to 97 kg (214 lb). My blood pressure is down from 150/83 to 130/70. My cholesterol is down from 43 to 11. I no longer crave starchy foods. Lots of people say that I am looking great. And I didn’t go hungry at any stage. I didn’t even exercise very much.
There’s alot of people eating like that (well not all the fruits…) and they’ve been doing so since the 70’s. So far no devestating long-term effects have been shown for people who follow it properly.
In the beggining stages of an Atkins-like diet, your cholesterol will go up, yes. After 6 months or so (according to the Atkins center) it will go down. My cholesterol was 249 after 1 month of doing Atkins, and my doctor wasn’t worried and doesn’t want to do a repeat test until October (8 months).
For lots of good reading on low-carb diets and the science behind them, check out www.atkins.com I’m pretty sure your coworker isn’t following Atkins, but that site’s the best source for low-carb science on the Net. Most of the other popular plans (The Zone, Protein Power, South Beach Diet) don’t have as much information online, you have to get their books. You can find good information in their FAQs, especially on ketones.
Actually, I’ll post it for all to read: (from this page
BTW thanks QtM for being a low-carb supporting doctor!!
the food pyramid is WRONG get it ? nobody even tries to deny that. in fact it was known to be wrong when it was being created, but they needed something simple the public could follow and the truth is just too complicated.
that said, myself, i do eat carbs but i have also done low-carb in the past and lost a whole bunch of weight like that.
People need to work out what constitutes good evidence to cite in their discussion (this is GQ, after all). How can ZipperJJ possibly recommend the Atkins website as an impartial source of information? Atkins and his organisation makes a very large amount of money from promoting these diets. AgBack points us to another site for information, which is selling the Protein Power Lifeplan. Are there any impartial organizations promoting high-protein diets?
A high-fat low-carb diet does have known short-term health risks, including kidney stones (cite). There are many methods of losing weight, of which the Atkins diet is one. However, some of the most effective are also the most dangerous (e.g. very restricted diets). If anyone has a study that shows following an Atkins diet is better for your health than a balanced calorie-controlled diet, I’d be interested to see it.
In answer to refusals intrest to see studies:
Quote refusal^^^^^
''If anyone has a study that shows following an Atkins diet is better for your health than a balanced calorie-controlled diet, I’d be interested to see it."
refusal
Studies are out that show the atkins diet is completely safe (see below) The point is that most people have a tough if not impossible time on restricted calorie diets and drop of them shortly after they begin, therefore no wieght loss. Atkins offers a safe solution and another safe option for certain people.It also lowers cholesterol in people who follow it correctly(see sites).
Atkins is NOT a high-fat diet. It’s just that it’s not a “low-fat” diet, so people someone get the idea that it advocates gorging yourself on bacon and fried eggs and drowning your salad in dressing. In fact it recommends that you limit your intake of butter, cream, cheese, and oil, and eat lean meat plus poultry and fish. There’s nothing “high fat” about it - it’s just regular fat. What normal people would eat. You’re not supposed to load on the fat just because you’re on Atkins. Some fat, yes. “High fat” - no.
no missbunny. if you take out the carbs without adding the fat you will be really hungry
if you try to keep yourself full on lean meat you will then be having problems from too much protein in your diet, such as amino-acidosis. but on a more down-to-earth note it will mean gas problems
so yes, it is high fat. in fact, protein is glucogenic meaning it converts to glucose in the liver so a high-fat diet is more ketogenic than high protein diet.
fat is not bad for you, if its something like Olive oil, or Flax oil. of course if we’re talking about butter or even worse margarine then its another thing.
I understand that you’re supposed to eat fat. My point is that it’s not a HIGH amount of fat. It’s a normal amount. The normal amount that a normal non-overweight person would or could eat. You’re not supposed to eat MORE fat than a normal person would just because you’re on Atkins. Looking at a week’s worth of suggested menus will show that quite easily.
