Dieting and food myths busted ..

[determinator]

Hi everyone , I have just been poking around the forum and found this link - Everything you thought you knew about food is WRONG | Mail Online

I was planning on maintaining on a low carb diet when I get to goal ( going to do SW all red days ) and this article really supports this , it all makes total sense so why are we still being encouraged to eat 5 a day and plenty of carbs .....

 

[rumbly-tums]

gee!
Im doing the atkins when I finish this. its a diet i enjoy most as carbs are a killer for me

 

[jillcambridge]

It seems WW are following this thinking now too after changing to propoints plan last week - this plan works out points on protein/carbs I think rather than calories/fat as the old points plan did.

 

[Goreygirl]

As far as I understand it the 5 a day is because there are "good" carbs in fruit and veg and other nutrients essential for basic physical function.

 

[AOGG]

what a load of rubbish sorry

you'll certainly lose 20 pounds..... from your pocket if you buy this book!

 

[Goreygirl]

what a load of rubbish sorry

you'll certainly lose 20 pounds..... from your pocket if you buy this book!

I agree with AOGG (hadn't read the link before my comment about fruit and veg). I can see real flaws in the arguments used. Dropping 500cals a day will not put you in "starvation mode" unless you were seriously under eating your calories in the first place.

It's not the fact that we eat the pasta that is the problem.. its the portion sizes we ate that are!! Most people I know have 2-3 portions as one portion. Also if you look at behaviour trends about the time the dietary advice came out there was a switch from industrial enconomy to technical economy (jobs became less active as did our lives ..more people had cars, more public transport etc).

The diet industry is big bucks so there is always someone trying to make money from it by coming up with new "media friendly" theory as that is what will make them the bucks!

Government policy advisors are constantly doing research to ensure the advice given is the most up to date. As science advances we are learning more and more about the body e.g. how our bodies utilise and break down food and that has resulted in discovery of the GI and now the GL index.

If anyone has ever done any college courses on "research methods" they will remember the first thing you are taught is to always read the research with a critical eye... who is funding it? How much subject material was reviewed? what was the rationale for leaving out certain information etc etc.

Once I start eating i'll be sticking to the healthy guidelines advice of people like the British heart foundation and diabetes.org.uk as at least I know I can trust the sources of their advice and know that when they said they did "meticulous" research that research would have been approrpriate.

 

[Lily]

But...

the reason we eat huge portions of pasta is because it's very easy to overeat carbs. It's actually pretty difficult to overeat protein and low carby vegetables/fruits.

The low fat diet came about because someone somewhere calculated that if you reduced your calorie intake beneath your daily calorific needs, you'd lose weight. One of the easiest ways of reducing calorie intake is to cut out fat - and thus everyone all climbed aboard the low fat train but continued chugging back carbs.

But nothing in that Daily Mail article is new. Robert Atkins (yes, that Atkins) published a book about all that about 40 years ago. And the idea wasn't new then, either - as anyone who's read Atkins will know.

And I hate to say this, but I wouldn't necessarily trust research done by the British Heart Foundation or diabetes.org.uk, etc - because a lot of the time, the funding for their research comes from pharmaceutical companies who have a vested interest in creating a market for their pills and potions. Cynical, moi? Sadly, yes.

But did you know that there actually hasn't ever been any research into whether we should be eating five portions of fruit and veg a day? http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/why-eat-5-portions-1.html

 

[determinator]

well put lily , we are encouraged to eat more carbs than protein , as protein contains fat , but really we should be eating more protein , and veg and far less carbs . back in the good old days when there wasnt an obesity problem , people ate plenty of fat but less carbs .. and wree far healthier . I do not agree with everything in the article , excersise is important to keep fit and healthy , but what was being said was when trying to LOOSE weight , excersise can be detrimental as it makes our body crave carbs to replace energy .
The comment about reducing your calories by 500 a day , was badly worded , but it is also true that the less calories we eat the slower our bodies burn them off .. so its not the amount of calories but the type that matter .

On my first week on CD I lose 14 lb .. I am pretty sure that at least 8lb of that must have been water , stored with y glycogen , so for me a low carb diet may be best when I get to goal . I am not a massive fan of Atkins , because they advocate eating as much fat as you want , which I dont think is very healthy , but I do agree with the principles

 

[AOGG]

balanced diet..... too much of anything is bonkers

 

[GalwayMum]

gee!
Im doing the atkins when I finish this. its a diet i enjoy most as carbs are a killer for me

Same here. It's a sustainable lifelong eating programme for me as I can cook/eat with the kids (minus the carbs) and you can at least socialise. It's stuff I like too. I could leave spuds and pasta and even bread, but it's the rice I miss. I will have small qtys of brown rice occasionally w/ a stirfry or something.

Yum! I'm carnivorous! I think my body sends me signals now that I'm not eating food. It's craving meat and veg so I think that's what I'll have (I mean non-carby veg)...

Nom nom