I’m reading “Good Calories, Bad Calories” by Gary Taubes right now. It’s a look at the various studies and science around nutrition over the past 150 years or so.
Taubes is sympathetic to the low/no-carb diet, but he honestly if critically reviews the history of medical advice around the low-fat diet. It is hard to read this book and not develop a serious suspicion of the government’s methods around public health advice in the area of nutrition.
The descriptions of people who have been in studies which attempted to prove the usefulness of calorie reducing diets or exercise regimes will be familiar to many of us who have attempted to lose weight or protect our health through diet or exercise.
Here is an interview with Taubes if you want to get an idea of what he has to say.
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/11/taubes_on_fat_s.html
I have changed my eating as I read the book, and I’m not done, so I’m not going to recommend a diet to you… I have seen some changes in my health for the better and not just in the area of weight. I can only say that I’m hopeful (and scared) enough to keep going.
Science Saturday: Why We Get Fat
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/35831
I recently came across a new diet that seems interesting.
http://www.sardinediet.com/
There is a lot of danger in dealing with the overweight people, I think they are a group which is psychologically vulnerable. I’m suspicious of his presentation of the science and he seems like just the kind of arrogant jerk who will get too much influence among people who have been failed by the establishment.
ON the other hand, I’ve tried everything else.
My BMI just tipped into obese, though no one believes I weigh as much as I do. But with Type II diabetes and cholesterol, I need to lose the weight.
Unless there’s a lot of good, empirical evidence, I keep a healthy skepticism for things like diets. I have a lot of skepticism for diets backed up by analogies like the paleo-lithic diet, which says that stone age people didn’t have heart disease and didn’t eat grain, if we do the same, we will be like them. When it comes to diets, however, unless they are nutritionally dangerous, they are all good. The problem is staying consistent with your eating.
I’m going to a gym and cutting down on what I eat, particularly after supper. I’m not a on particular diet, but cutting down on carbs and calories. Snacking and portions are what kill me.
I had good luck with a high-protein, medium-fat diet. That translates to low-carb. In my case, the trick was to limit my total caloric intake to about 200 C/day lower than my resting metabolic rate (about 3000 C/day for me, as I recall).
In practice, it meant 8 oz of meat at lunch & dinner, 1 cup of pasta/starch at lunch & dinner, and lots of veggies. I never felt hungry, and lost about 30 lbs over about 2 years, give or take. Exercise helps keep your metabolic rate up (and of course you feel better).
The most important part, for me, was to weigh myself every evening and morning and log everything I ate. Simply paying attention seemed to help a lot.
Good luck!
How did you find out what that was?
I was part of a study conducted by Harvard Med School, and they did the procedure. I’m under the impression your PCP can order it, though. I don’t know about insurance.
Skepticism is warranted. The first part of the book recounts how we got to the low-fat/low-calorie diet, and that was the part I found most compelling, because there is actually little evidence that those diets work to improve health, or that anybody is able to stay on the diets after the weight is lost.
The intriguing question for me was, why do obese people consume more calories, or if they don’t, why do they lead more sedentary lives. Taubes presents an hypothesis that the way our body processes refined carbohydrates like white flour, white sugar, white rice, in pasta, bread, soda, juice etc creates a chemical dysregulation in the expression of energy from the fat cells.
That is, obese people overeat because they are not getting enough energy from their fat cells for their activity, and that makes them feel hungry. Or obese people don’t expend as much energy, because when they do, they are not supported by enough energy coming out of the fat cells. They will be blown out by cardio exercise that a lean person can do.
The chemical explanation for this is untested and I have seen it attacked and debunked elsewhere, so it doesn’t look so strong. However in my own experience, I have been a fanatic exerciser for over 25 years, but after marriage/kids I gained weight and never lost it. Essentially my punishing physical regimen put all my energy into exercise but I wonder if it created a debt in other parts of my life. It certainly has done a number on my joints.
If I cut out everything white and I make it back to 185, I will let you know. Otherwise I recommend you do whatever works for you, and I hope you feel better.