Why Weight Watchers is actually a low carb diet - Invariably I get asked the question, “If carbohydrates are so bad, why did . Obviously, this is an important question and a pretty complex one. There are several layers to this and, frankly, there are some things we can’t fully explain – I’ll always acknowledge this. That said, many of the successes (at least weight- wise, though hopefully by now you realize there is much more to health than just body composition) of popular diets can be explained by a few simple observations. Above is a list of this year’s most “popular” diets, according to Consumer Reports. Popularity, of course, was determined by a number of factors, including compliance with current government recommendations (sorry Atkins), number of people who have tried the diet, and reported success on the diets. So it’s actually quite misleading when the report says it’s reporting on the “most effective diets.”Keep in mind the average American (i. High Protein, Low Carb, Healthy "Brownie" Dessert, black bean brownies, high protein brownies. Strange question, huh? Before you get too excited, I’m not about to tell you that a low carbohydrate diet is a remedy for back pain. Instead, I am going to explain. Is it possible to Reach your genetic potential in 6 months? Sleep 2 hours per day and perform better than on 8 hours? Lose more fat than a marathoner by bingeing? Latest Episode: "Cool Tools for Travel - Tim Ferriss and Kevin Kelly" Click to Listen. What is a low carb diet, really? When can a low carb diet be beneficial? Should everyone follow a low carb diet? Or, can a low carb diet ruin your health? NHANES to USDA will give slightly different numbers for this, but this range is about correct), of which about 4. You can argue that those who are overweight probably consume an even greater amount of carbohydrates. But for the purpose of simplicity, let’s assume even the folks who go on these diets are consuming the national average of approximately 4. Take a look again at the figure below, which shows you how many calories folks are consuming on each diet and, more importantly, where those calories come from. In other words, these numbers could actually be wrong, but it’s what we’ve got for now. Even the Ornish diet, which is the most restrictive diet with respect to fat and most liberal with respect to carbohydrates, still reduces carbohydrate intake by about 4. The reason, I believe, most of these diets have some efficacy – at least in the short- term – is that they all reduce sugar and highly refined carbohydrate intake, either explicitly or implicitly. No one on the Ornish Diet or Jenny Craig Diet is eating candy bars and potato chips, at least not if they are adhering to it. Hence, these diet plans do “clean up” the eating habits of most folks. Someone made a great point in response to my post on why fruits and vegetables are not actually necessary for good health. The point was, essentially, that telling people to eat 5- 6 servings per day of fruits and vegetables can hopefully drive a beneficial substitution effect. If you tell someone who eats Twinkies, potato chips, and candy bars all day to eat more fruit (and they do), you’ve almost guaranteed an improvement in their health if they eat bananas and apples instead of the aforementioned junk food. That doesn’t mean bananas and apples are “good for you” – it just means they are less “bad for you.” Here’s the kicker, though. We’re led to believe that the reason such folks get leaner and more healthy is because they are eating more fruits or more vegetables or more grains or more . I have no intention of engaging in a battle with proponents of plant- based eating or no- saturated- fat diets. February was a busy month and I didn't get around to posting much. Since things have cooled down a bit and I need to get back into the habit of writing, I'm gonna. Share Follow us 114.4k. When it comes to ideal carbs intake, I've discussed it in my post here: How Many Carbs per Day on Low-Carb Ketogenic Diet? I’m reasonably confident that the proponents of these diets are good people who really want to help others and have nothing but the best intentions. But that doesn’t mean we can or should overlook the errors being made in drawing their conclusions. Many people do very well on plant- based (e. Histamine is a neurotransmitter which is involved in our local immune response. Here is a quote from an excellent post by That Paleo Guy on Histamine Intolerance. Start Here Don't drown in the details. Get the fundamentals for free. Just submit your email to get: - The first 50 pages of the 4-Hour Workweek - 11 simple must-use. The Gluten-Free Low-Carb Paleo (GFLCP) is now hitting the mainstream. This is essentially the same kind of high-fat, moderate-protein, low-carb diet I’ve been. But why are they doing well? That is the single most important question we should be asking ourselves. Why did the people in the China Study who ate more plants do better than those who ate more animals (assuming they did)? Parenthetically, if you actually want the answer to this question, beyond my peripheral address, below, please read Denise Minger’s categorically brilliant analysis of the study. I know a lot of people who eat this way and, I’ve got to say, these folks do not eat a lot of sugar or a lot of highly refined carbohydrates. In fact, many are so conscientious of their health that they actually have far better carb- habits than most (e. While I do plan to write an entire post on this topic of what one can and cannot conclude from an experiment, I do want to at least make the point here: The biggest single problem with nutrition “science” is that cause and effect are rarely linked correctly. Stated another way, it’s one thing to observe an outcome, but it’s quite another to conclude the actual cause of that outcome. Let me digress for a moment to provide an important example of this phenomenon. One of the most prominent figures in the diet/nutrition space is Dr. Dean Ornish. I don’t know Dr. Ornish personally, and I can only assume that he is a profoundly caring physician who has dedicated his life to helping people live better lives. He is nationally, and internationally, regarded for his efforts. One of the reasons for his prominence, I believe, is the work he did in the early 1. In particular, Dr. Ornish was the principle investigator on a trial published in the journal The Lancet in 1. An abstract of the paper can be found here. But as always, I STRONGLY encourage folks with access (or folks who are willing to purchase it) to read the paper in its entirety. For people who don’t want to read the study completely, or who may not have much experience reading clinical papers, I want to devote some time to digging into this paper. Well, for starters, reading abstracts, hearing CNN headlines, or reading about studies in the NY Times doesn’t actually give you enough information to really understand if the results are applicable to you. Beyond this reason, and let me be uncharacteristically blunt, just because a study is published in a medical journal it does not imply that is worth the paper it is printed on. My mentor at the NIH, Dr. Steve Rosenberg, once told me that a great number of published studies are never again cited (I forget the exact number, but it was staggering, over 5. Translation: whatever they published was of such little value that no one ever made reference to it again. I am, to be clear, not implying this is the case for this trial, but I want you to understand why it’s important to read papers fully. This trial, The Lifestyle Heart Trial, prospectively randomized a group of not- so- healthy patients into two treatment groups: the control group and the experimental group (or what we’d call the “treatment” or “intervention” group). The experimental group (2. Change their diet to a low- fat vegetarian diet (1. Smoking cessation. Exercise regimen (minimum of 3 hours per week, at minimum of 3. Stress management (e. Join social supportgroups for help with adherence (twice weekly)The control group (1. One aspect of this trial that made the results particularly interesting was the use of angiography to actually measure and document the coronary artery lesions (i. The study was not powered to measure “hard” outcomes (e. In other words, there were not enough subjects in the study to determine a difference in these “hard” outcomes, so we can’t make a conclusion about such events, only the changes in “soft” outcomes. I’m not discounting soft outcomes, only pointing out the distinction for folks not familiar with them. So what happened after a year of intervention versus no intervention? First off, and perhaps most importantly from the standpoint of drawing conclusions, compliance was reported to be excellent and the differences between the groups were statistically significant on every metric, except total average caloric intake. In other words, for every intended difference between the groups a difference existed, except that on average they ate the same number of calories (though obviously from very different sources), which was not intended to be different as both groups were permitted to eat ad libitum – meaning as much as they wanted. Who was “healthier” at the end of a year? The table below shows the changes in both groups. If you want a quick primer on p- values, this is as good a time as any to get one. These tables (i. e., results tables) are a bit cumbersome if you’re not used to looking at them, so let me walk you through one row in detail. Let’s look at HDL cholesterol concentration. In the experimental group, HDL- C fell slightly from 1. M (3. 9 +/- 1. 0 mg/dl for Yankees like me) to 0. M (3. 8 +/- 1. 5 mg/dl), while it slightly fell from 1. M (5. 2 +/- 2. 0 mg/dl) to 1. M (5. 1 +/- 1. 5 mg/dl) for the control (i. It’s hard to tell if this change was statistically significant by inspection, so you glance at the p- value which tells you it was not. That is, how did the actual measured lesions in the subjects’ coronary arteries change? But that’s it. Can I conclude that a low- fat vegetarian diet is the “best” diet for reducing the risk of heart disease? Unfortunately, we do not know. SLIGHT DIGRESSION: Tragically, all of U. S. Maybe their conclusions are correct. The other group gets randomized to a cocktail of 1. Ornish’s study? I argue that each of these diets does some good, especially with respect to eliminating the worst offending agents along the insulin- fat- metabolic derangement axes. And, the majority of the benefit folks receive comes from the reduction of sugars and highly refined carbohydrates. But now I’m repeating myself, aren’t I? You Don't Need To Go Low- Carb To Burn Body Fat, Study Says : The Salt : NPR. Low- carb diet or low- fat one? Either diet will trigger the body to burn off fat, a new study finds. Mistry/NPR. . hide captiontoggle caption. Mahafreen H. Mistry/NPR. Low- carb diet or low- fat one? Either diet will trigger the body to burn off fat, a new study finds. Mistry/NPR. If you've ever tried to lose weight, you've probably gotten drawn into the argument over whether it's better to cut carbs or fat from your diet. A new study doesn't completely resolve that question, but it does provide an important insight. Some proponents of the low- carb diet insist that you must cut carbs to burn off body fat. Their reasoning goes that when you cut carbs, your body's insulin levels drop, and that's essential in order to burn fat. To put that question to the test, Kevin Hall at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and colleagues recruited 1. For two weeks they were kept in a lab around the clock, where scientists could provide them a precise diet. One group got a low- carb diet that reduced their total calories by 3. Another group went on a low- fat diet that also reduced their total calories by 3. Then, after a few weeks of rest, the two groups switched diets. As Hall now reports in the journal Cell Metabolism, cutting carbs did work. In fact, the low- fat diet also led to the loss of about 1 pound of body fat. So it was just as good. Hall says, so much for the idea that only low- carb diets can help people shed fat. She says it cuts through an amazing amount of noise that surrounds diet advice. And this a really good, high- quality study that helps get rid of some of the confusion. She says with this bit of physiology settled, researchers can step back to ask some more practical questions, such as what is in fact the best diet to reduce body fat. That's not just a matter of body chemistry. And it's no use having a diet that people can't maintain. Hall says some people might find it's easier to cut calories by limiting fat. Other experiences suggest that some dieters do better on a low- carb diet. He cites some studies that show that, over a six- month period, people do tend to lose more weight on a low- carb diet compared with a low- fat diet.
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