Scientific Battlegrounds in Diets

There's an interesting article currently carried by the NYTimes (free reg. yada yada) that talks about the world of dieting, National Institutes of Health, Atkins as well as low-carb vs low-fat. The interesting thing, from a scientific perspective, is the sheer lack of study - and the reticence from the scientific community to question the party line.

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Direct link to article

[Hatter]

Here is the direct link to the article via the NYTimes.com Registration Generator.

Factor Analysis

[Somnus]

How does one get ripped? Look at all the shredded people, and see what they do and what they have going for them in the environment and genetically. My subjective observations, based on the research I've done to formulate my own diet/training program:

• Eat a diet low in saturated fats (generally, animal fats) and simple/refined carbs, high in protein, vegetables and fiber, with just the right amount of complex carbs and essential fatty acids (generally, canola and fish).
• Hit the weights. The extra lean muscle mass increases your base metabolism.
• Cardio is good, but overrated. It compels your body to raid sugar stores instead of burn fat because the rate in energy expenditure is too high to burn fat efficiently. Having a higher base metabolism is the best strategy since it burns all day.
• Eat all day, in small amounts -- increases utilization since your body expects food to be coming in short order. The flip side is if you miss a meal (e.g., if you're traveling), you feel like you want to go into "standby."
• It helps to be a good athlete who can pack on muscle easily.
• Sleep and relax like you don't have a care in the world -- stress (read: cortisol) is the enemy of looking and feeling healthy.

My own results have been mixed. I got pretty lean late last year when I had time to do things right, and my strength and endurance were quite good, but I didn't gain as much muscle mass as I wanted. I was probably overtraining, lifting four days a week an hour at a time, all out.

This dude is hardcore -- he's probably the top male fitness model out there right now. The only modification I've made is that I lift more and play basketball and do less cardio, and try to eat big after a workout to replenish my muscles.

What's worked for Slashdotters?

I've read The Zone, and Body For Life

[puppetman]

Both are healthier (I think) varients on Atkin's diet.

Higher fat, healty protien, and carbs from non-refined sources makes sense. It more closely follows the diet that we've evolved to do well on.

I don't believe in saturated fat. And I don't believe in most animal protien.

I've never seen a study that says vegetables cause cancer, and meat prevents it. It's always been the reverse. Most meat is stuffed with antibiotics (which most experts believe is helping create antibiotic-resistent super bugs) and pesticides (the higher up the food chain you go, the more pesticides you will see, as it is stored in body fat; dead whales in the St Laurence are have toxicity levels high enough to get them classified as toxic waste). The meat industry also creates alot of pollution (mostly due to the size of sed industry); manure poisons ground water, etc. In Canada, we had a case in Walkerton were a bunch of people died after cow shit got into the drinking water during a flood.

And, especially for Slashdotters, don't use vitamin suppliments. Two studies just came out that said vitamin E (and, to a lesser extent, vitamin C) reduce the chances of getting Alzheimers; lesions relating to free radicals are found on most Alzheimer patients, and thus anti-oxidants are being viewed as a potential salvation. But only if you get it from natural sources. Pills had no effect.

And then there was the study on smokers who took beta carotene in pill form. They had a higher incidence of lung cancer than those who didn't take the vitamin pills.

Soy has been shown to have many benefits - lowering cancer risks in both men and women. There are alot of great soy analogues out there for hot dogs, hamburgers, ground beef, etc. Try a few - some are pretty good.

Corn: The Culprit?

[tlambert]

"With these caveats, one of the few reasonably reliable facts about the obesity epidemic is that it started around the early 1980's."

Gee.

That's the same time we went from granulated sugar as a sweetener to High Fructose Corn Syrup, because it was easier for the food industry to deal with liquid rather than powdered supplies; welcome to "Old Coke"/"New Coke"/"Old Coke But Not Really".

At the same time, we went from peanut and palm kernel oil to... corn oil ("and/or corn oil" on a label means "whatever's cheapest, and it's always corn").

Try and find a food product in the grocery store today without corn oil/corn meal/corn starch/corn syrup/corn syrup solids/corn/corn/corn.

And just what is it that we feed to cows and pigs to fatten them up? ...corn?

Try an experiment: weigh yourself. Then, for one month, read the labels on everything you buy; and if it has corn products in it... don't buy it. Then weigh yourself again after the one month is up. If you lose weight, please send me the money you would have sent to Dr. Atkins... 8-).

-- Terry

Re:The studies have been done.. by interested part

[gfxguy]

I have to agree with the other person who replied - this is really short sighted and plain wrong in some parts.

First of all, you obviously didn't have the staying power to read the article. The government has given us guidelines to being healthy - the food pyramid, for example.

20 years later obesity is at an all time high BECAUSE people have been more aware of health issues and thought that by eating low-fat foods they could lose weight or stay slim. The government guidelines simply do not work.

You can blame McDonalds all you want - the fact is that the majority of the population does not eat there. The studies showed most of peoples calories were coming from carbs, NOT fat - which makes sense, since the food pyramid, which is a sham, has high carb foods as it's base.

Atkins, and most low-carb diets DON'T advocate eating fats willy-nilly. There is a clear distinction between good and bad fats, and the good fats can actually help you metabolize store fat - that's why the basic "low-fat" diet doesn't work. People trying low-fat often see an increase in bad cholesterol and triglycerides, while amazingly people on low-carb diets (beyond 3 or 4 months) see a decrease in triglycerides and an increase in HDL - the good cholesterol.

But I do not have to just quote studies and hand waving dieticians - I have lived it. I did not lose weight - even when exersizing, by following the government guidelines. I have lost 50 pounds in less than five months following low-carb (but not Atkins - but they are all similar). My blood pressure went down to normal. My acid-reflux virtually disappeared. I know a diabetic that no longer has to take medication.

Until you understand that low-carb is not just for losing weight, and the implications of what a high carb diet can do (like CAUSING diabetes - the rate of type 2 diabetes has gone up along with obesity - ever since the government said that low fat was the key to health).

The scientific principles behind low carb just make a lot of sense - the blood sugar levels, the insulin production... I didn't believe it until I learned all the principles. Not only do I believe now, but it's worked wonders for me.

And before you get on my case, I get an analysis every other week - my fat free mass (lean body tissue - i.e. muscle) is UP, my total body water is UP, my FAT is the only thing that is down - 50 pounds worth.

The Hackers' Diet

[splorf]

John Walker, founder of Autodesk, wrote a book (now online in entirety in HTML and PDF form) called "The Hackers' Diet. It says the only thing that matters is calorie count, but it says this in interesting ways. According to its blurb, it's Walker's attempt to treat the problem of weight loss as an engineering problem. It comes with Windows and Palm PDA software to keep track of your calorie intake, and has useful advice about what to do about hunger attacks. But basically, it says any successful diet is a program of deliberate malnutrition to make your body consume its fat reserve, so don't expect a fun time. Also, don't exect to lose weight too fast. It's set up to take off about 1 pound per week, so you may have to stay at it for a year or longer.

A friend of mine had some success with it. I don't have much dieting experience so I wonder what others here think of this book.