More on Diet and Carbohydrates

Atkins was right.

Atkins was right about the health benefits of low carb eating, not just losing weight. His books include a lot of research on the health benefits, especially the good fat/bad fat ratios.If you follow his diet you will lose weight rather dramatically. Carbs are restricted down to the level of a green salad per day for the first two weeks and then they are gradually added back in with careful attention to their effect on weight.I found I couldn't keep it up myself. I get "carb cravings." Potato chips in my case. I also find it easier to eat a sandwich these days than to make a meal for myself, which of course includes the "bad" bread carbs. So although I continue to avoid sugar and desserts and most fruits and potatoes and rice and flour, I've regained all the weight I lost. I think I'd be happy with steak and asparagus and bacon and eggs for the rest of my life, or Coyote's diet or Omni's grandmother's, but it's too hard to keep the bad carbs out completely.As far as weight goes, and perhaps the health issues as well, the worst thing you can do is eat Atkins style, not avoiding fats, WITH the bad carbs, even a couple of slices of bread per day.But my cardio tests have been fine anyway.ABE: Just a comment on the Lewis and Clark diet of nine pounds of meat per day. I've seen a couple of documentaries on that 4expedition and those guys worked harder than any of today's super athletes, pushing, pulling, poling, oaring a heavy boat up river for weeks, then carrying it over land, then climbing the Rockies. Such an exclusive diet of meat, knowing now that you can lose weight on just meat, doesn't seem like the right choice. Not that they had much choice I suppose, but today's super athletes eat something like 6000 calories a day in training and a lot of it is carbs, which I'd think would be better fuel for heavy work than meat. The reason we get fat on them, besides eating too much of the bad kind, is that we aren't that active these days.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I don't know how the timeline goes in relation to the guidelines and published medical opinion which no doubt preceded them but the average consumer (me I guess) knew Low Fat was the Way to Go way back there somewhere. When my daughter was born in 1970 2% milk was the wisdom of the day -- they'd prefer skim but were realistic enough to pick a percentage that still tastes more or less like milk -- and the stores stocked it in abundance as the demand for full fat milk fell off to the level of a very short stretch of one shelf. Of course I wanted to follow the best advice for my baby and 2% is what she got for her entire childhood. Now she buys full fat and so do I. I even get cream for my coffee. Because the higher the fat the lower the carbs (milk is a high-carb food believe it or not, when the fat percentage is low; I had assumed it was higher protein and never guessed about the carbs) and I am more concerned about my blood sugar than fat. Besides which I love cream. And both full fat milk and cream are showing up more in the stores lately.I knew someone in the nineties who ate carbs to avoid eating fat and kept gaining weight. Some of the boringest possible carbs too, like dry rice cakes. Don't know about following guidelines but she certainly had a clear idea that it was fat she was to avoid. I thought she was probably cheating and eating fat when nobody was looking, but maybe she really did stick to the carbs, it's enough of an explanation for the weight gain in retrospect.The whole low-fat phenomenon took time to manifest fully but it's at its peak right now I think even while this new information about carbs is finally hitting the public consciousness. I just saw that Paula Deen is coming out with a new low-fat cookbook. Don't accuse me of anything about Paula Deen, it's possible I used a recipe of hers from time to time from my online searches but all I know about her culinary views is that she's been vilified for cooking with too much fat, that being very Southern of her. Too bad she's going the wrong way, it should be a low-carb cookbook. Or maybe just leave it alone for pete's sake.So, what's on the store shelves is to my mind a big indicator that people are at least trying to follow the latest scientific information, which they get from whatever source, not necessarily official guidelines but advice on the internet and in women's magazines and other popular sources that are always passing on what they glean from diet and nutrition experts, and it takes time for the market to catch up with the science.

I'm not sure why you posted that data and it just made me want to know what they consider to be "healthy eating." Turns out they are still recommending against fat, as here in their 2010 Dietary Guidelines: They are also still concerned about salt, which many current nutritionists consider to be just as false a concern as saturated fats, and even having soy on the list as a healthy food is highly questionable. There may be some move toward the recognition that carbs are the problem rather than fats, but it isn't a very big move yet. Or maybe it will show up on their 2015 recommendations, which aren't out yet.And I have to mention that some nutritionists are REALLY behind the times: when I was in rehab after surgery about a year and a half ago they actually brought squishy white bread and margarine on the tray (both of which I regard as poison) plus fruit juice, which I try to limit because it's pure sugar, and of course the milk was some kind of low fat, maybe 2%, not whole milk anyway. When I tried to explain my problem with all this to the "nutritionist" who came around to find out our likes and dislikes, she was astonished and said "but you want to get better don't you?" Well, that WAS the idea, but I decided there was no point in saying more. Three weeks in rehab didn't kill me, but I did lose four pounds because of all the stuff I just couldn't or wouldn't eat.ABE: The 2015 Dietary Guidelines aren't out yet, but more of the same is what they are projecting, according to this report: cutting back on fat as usual, also red meat, and keeping grains high on the list (whole grains are better than refined grains but they're still carbs and still have an effect on your blood sugar, just a somewhat slower effect). At least they also recommend against sugars: ---->I think I must have misunderstood something. I thought you were saying the guidelines were changing so I didn't expect to see the same old same old which is what these guidelines seem to be. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I don't know why you are being such a stickler about exact following of the guidelines. I think Percy has answered you well enough about that, also pointing out that the same health problems the guidelines were put in place to prevent have been continuing in spite of them.But I think most of us followed the guidelines for years where it counts: in cutting back on saturated fats and choosing the lower fat versions of dairy products and the leaner meats in the markets, some totally eliminating red meat, and cutting way back on eggs and the like. I think just about everybody has at least been doing that much as a general rule, which is a definite effect of the guidelines. This is a subjective impression but it covers a lot of observations and I would expect you to have the same impression because it's been hammered into us.And that particular emphasis in our diets, even if we consciously changed nothing else, would cut down the calories, especially the KIND of calories, that satisfy hunger, which increases our cravings for carbs, especially sugars, to make up the difference, and it's that pattern of eating that is now associated with obesity, Type 2 diabetes and so on. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well, I'm very surprised that you haven't known people who insisted on avoiding fats because my experience has been that everybody around me was concerned to avoid fats because of the nutritional advice we've all been aware of. But then the stores also have been stocking those same low fat items because of their popularity too, as Percy brought up earlier. Getting an old fashioned "marbled" steak has been just about impossible in most stores for decades, for instance, and where you do find it you can't afford it. And the other effect is the proliferation of "low fat" processed items that contain sugar. All this certainly reflects the low fat diet guidelines and should certainly contribute to blood sugar problems at least. Anyway, my experience of people being super conscious of fat and avoiding it has been so total I'm amazed you or anyone wouldn't recognize it.I'll have to review the thread about the other points.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I was specifically talking about the saturated fats that have been condemned on health guidelines for decades now, not all fats. I'm sure people probably ARE eating plenty of fats, but not the fats I specifically listed, thanks to the health lore that has made them verboten and less available in the markets. Consumption of deep fat fried foods shows more of the trend to carbs, soaked in a different kind of fat than I'm talking about. But I didn't say they follow the guidelines, what I said was that they are a marketing reaction to the guidelines, and this should be taken into account in assessing their impact on diet over the last few decades. Eliminate solid fats and you open the door to "low fat" processed food creations that rely on sugar to boost the taste lost through the lost fat. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Yes.

Dropping the recommendations against cholesterol would be great. There is nothing more unappetizing than those fake eggs, which they also served us scrambled in rehab, so that there were some mornings I couldn't eat anything on the tray what with the squishy white bread, the margarine, the low-fat high-carb milk, the sugary juice and the nauseating fake eggs. Of course I was starving so I did eat some of it anyway. Then one morning somebody slipped up in the kitchen and sent us real eggs. My roommate and I were beside ourselves with joy and gratitude and I even sent the kitchen a thank-you note. Didn't affect the next meal offering though, sad to say.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Looking for information that might keep this topic alive for a while, just because I'm interested in it, I found lots of "alternative nutrition" sites that oppose the USDA guidelines while pushing their own favorite nutrition agendas and diets. It's all interesting I think but I wanted to find something more comprehensive. THIS SITE maybe comes closest as it discusses the last official set of USDA guidelines (2010) fairly thoroughly.It starts out with an anecdote about a woman who claimed to have been following the guidelines very closely but still gaining weight and being unhealthy. Which implies that even closely following them does NOT promote good health after all.Some nutritionists, like diet guru Mercola, get into conspiracy thinking about the USDA, claiming the guidelines exist to promote profits rather than health. This article I've linked does say that the USDA has the task of promoting agricultural products, which can create a conflict of interest, without getting into a conspiracy theory, but that they also step on the toes of the industry in their recommendations too, such as when they recommend against major agribusiness products such as beef, dairy and eggs.Far better we get our information from less politically influenced sources, but the problem is that the USDA IS the source of diet information that gets disseminated to the population at large. Maybe they should just admit their conflict of interest and stop issuing their guidelines altogether.The more I read what's out there, though, the harder it is to understand how anyone (Jon?) could not be aware of the artificial diet standards we've all been trying to follow for years to one degree or another, the demonizing of animal and dairy fats and cholesterol in particular, the proliferation of low fat products in the markets and the continuing health problems that are clearly linked to diet.Anyway I think there's a lot in that article that could be chewed on in this discussion. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well, the anecdote is about a real named person, but although I think it interesting that she did try to follow the guidelines and kept gaining weight, I'm not primarily interested in the health questions myself, and was willing to concede that you could be healthy if you followed the guidelines strictly.That may not be true after all, but I'm more interested in the fact that an artificial diet has been pushed on us for decades that does have questionable effects on health, and I'm still very surprised that anyone could have lived through those decades or any part of them without noticing this influence.I'm also not primarily interested in the source of the influence though it certainly seems the USDA recommendations must have played a huge part in that. But they got their information from other sources to begin with, such as Ancel Keys' studies as Percy pointed out. Could be that diet has very little part in the health of the southern Italian centenarians Keys took for his standard, nor half as much influence on anybody's health as these nutrition people think. Stress factors could be a big part, or simple genetic inheritance. Food must be SOME influence, certainly, but then the investigators can miss the factors involved there too, noticing the fats or lack of them and missing the carbs or lack of them and so on.Just the fact that the USDA does represent agriculture suggests they should stop trying to tell us what to eat even if they are trying to be honest.How much health is affected by the USDA recommendations is less interesting to me than how you could not have noticed the influence of these dietary commandments, whatever their source, over the last few decades. I mean it's pervasive, Jon, and it's still out there.On the health question, you could be right that it's the fast foods that are the main culprits as far as American health problems go, but that would be hard to pin down as long as these other factors are so influential as well. We do now know that cholesterol is not and never was a problem, yet that was a biggie on the guidelines, which kept millions of people from eggs, which are good for us, and from dairy fats, the lack of which makee dairy high in carbs which we know causes blood sugar spikes which we know can bring about diabetes, and from animal fats, the lack of which promotes hunger that promotes carb eating that also promotes diabetes. I mean we know all this now, and I don't know where you've been but the nutritional advice that brought this about is rampant in the US whether you want to lay it at the door of the USDA or some other source.They made a lot of us feel we were being irresponsible if we ate food we actually liked, that we now know is NOT bad for us and may even be necessary to our health. That's maybe what I hold against them the most. If you weren't affected by this you must have been living on the moon. And I don't care who's at fault, the USDA or whoever, it's a crime against the people of the USA.Yes, I'd like to see some comments on other parts of that article. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Yes, and I really didn't make much of the anecdote, I just think it's interesting and PROBABLY reflects the biggest problems with this low fat regime we've been subjected to for so long. And the claim is that when she reduced the carbs, increased the vegetables and allowed herself to eat more meat and fats that she did lose the weight and did keep it off, and I'm inclined to believe that she does represent the solution in doing this. BUT, again, I'm not making much of it and we can ignore it if you like.Am I remembering correctly that like Jon you too haven't been particularly aware of a pervasive national concern to avoid animal fats over the last five or six decades?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It's OK with me to think about the low carb diets at some point if you like, but before we do would you please confirm the impression that you aren't aware of what seems to Percy and me to be the rampant insistence on avoiding animal fats and cholesterol in our diets, and the symptomatic proliferation of "low fat" offerings, from every conceivable angle of our experience, in the stores and restaurants and all over the media for decades? This has been such a huge part of my own experience and of everybody in my life that I don't know what to make of such a claim.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Right, nothing but bacon, what's not to like?I'd still like to know how anyone could have lived through the last few decades and managed not to notice the relentless emphasis on avoiding animal fats and cholesterol everywhere you look.As for low carb eating I pretty much agree with Percy's list except that I can really love eating nothing but steaks and chops and veggies, bacon or ham or sausage and eggs and salads, and I know from experience that I can lose weight this way and it does lower cholesterol counts and drastically lowers blood sugar counts. HOWEVER, there are various reasons it's hard for me to keep it up consistently, and in my case my arthritis prevents me from doing the amount of exercise necessary to burn off any carb intake. I too easily get into the habit of relying on sandwiches because they're easy meals, but that puts carbs back in my life. Carbs are good for very active people, they are great fuel, but if your lifestyle is sedentary any significant carb intake is going to put on fat.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

While I was putting together my not-very-carb-free lunch it occurred to me that you were wrong about the anecdote in the article. The poor success rates you are talking about don't occur while a person is ON a diet. All the weight-loss diets seem to work for losing weight if you follow them carefully. It's when you go off them that you regain all the weight you lost because it's just hard to stick to them for one reason or another.The thing is the USDA diet is a health diet, not a weight-loss diet and she stuck to it for years though she kept gaining weight while ON it. She DIDN'T "fail" at it at all, she stuck to it and gained weight and felt miserable. It was only when she tried a different pattern of eating that she was able to lose the weight.So you missed the whole point.However, on the subject of regaining weight after losing it on a weight-loss diet, I don't know if there is a diet anybody can really sustain for lifelong eating. I know some people can stick it out with their diet of choice but I think they are rare.I can't even stick to the Atkins diet which works great and is my favorite, because I get carb cravings and eventually that is what puts the weight back on. I know if I want to lose in a hurry, though, all I have to do is get the carbs off my plate.A lot of people don't do Atkins right. Coyote, listen up! I don't know if you can go on with your apparently almost exclusive meat and fat diet but even Atkins doesn't tell us to eliminate the carbs completely forever. You're to do the drastic carb elimination in the first two weeks, maybe longer in harder cases, but then you are to add carbs back in to the diet one at a time, watching their effect on your weight, and that means complex carbs, beans, whole grains etc., no refined flours, rice, potatoes or bread or sugar. When you get through with the diet you add a few of those back but in small portions and at long intervals and that's it. You are not supposed to try to live on a diet of nothing but bacon. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.