From: Pete McAlpine (pemca@home.msen.com)
Date: Thu Jul 11 2002 - 04:39:17 MDT
>(there's a seamy underground of diabetic specialists who recommend just
such a diet), but I >>know that if I do then my doctor will blow a
gasket at my cholesterol levels (which have historically been higher
than average all my life). Maybe I should ask for a referral to an
>>endocrinologist.....
When I went on the Atkins high protein, high fat diet my cholesterol
went from 240 to 190 within a couple months! According to Atkins,
cholesterol is produced by the body in response to stimulus of high carb
diet...amount you eat is NOT key!
Pete
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-extropians@extropy.org [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]
On Behalf Of Terry W. Colvin
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 11:14 AM
To: extropians@extropy.org; Forteana [Alternate Orphan]; TLCB
[UNofficial]
Subject: FWD (SK) Re: What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?
On 9 Jul 2002 at 12:15, Stan Schwarz wrote:
> Questioning the dietary dogma. Since I was steeped in the prevailing
> four-legs-good-high-fat-bad thinking, this was an interesting article.
> I think it makes a good case.
I'm a type 2 diabetic, and my doctor and I have been fighting a recent
upward trend in my blood sugars after a couple years of pretty good
control. What I'm discovering in my own experience is that my blood
sugar spikes get worse as the proportion of carbs to fat/protein in a
meal increases. I've been tempted to switch to a high fat diet for
glycemic control (there's a seamy underground of diabetic specialists
who recommend just such a diet), but I know that if I do then my doctor
will blow a gasket at my cholesterol levels (which have historically
been higher than average all my life). Maybe I should ask for a referral
to an endocrinologist.....
Best,
Len "expecting to be put on insulin soon" Cleavelin
--------------------
I read through the NY Times article. There was a similar report in
Science
a few years ago. The standard high carb diet probably isn't the best
thing
to use, but all of this misses the point.
Undergirding all the complications of the specifics of the body's energy
metabolism is simple physics. If you eat more than your body uses to
function, you will gain weight. If the two are equal, your weight will
stay
the same. If you eat less than your body uses to function, you will lose
weight. That's all.
I think one hundred percent of the difficulties of dieting come from the
fact that people don't want to feel hungry. So all of these diets
discussed
in these articles and tried by people are all attempts to lose weight
without feeling hungry while doing it. However, the way our bodies are
built we will feel hunger if we use more energy than we consume. If
people
would just accept this and tolerate it, all the dieting problems would
go away.
I'm six foot, two inches tall. In my youth, I used to weight 260 lbs.
When
I moved to California from New York, I realized that nearly all the
people
around me were not fat. I thought that being fat identified me as a New
Yorker, so I determined to lose weight. My obesity was also stopping me
from doing fun things like hiking.
The method that I used was to eat just one meal a day - supper, and to
lose
weight it would just be a normal sized meal rather than an extra large
one.
Well, I was hungry for most of the day. I knew that was necessary and I
learned to ignore it. I would concentrate on other things and put the
hunger to the back of my mind. I found that the worse hunger pangs are
when
you start out, and as you continue on they feel less severe and are
easier
to ignore. I also always remembered that it was necessary to achieve my
goals, and that whenever I did feel hungry that meant that right then I
was
losing weight.
Nowadays I eat what I want and whenever I want, BUT if I eat an
extra-large
meal, it MUST be paid for later by eating less than normal for a while.
(I'm 185 now.)
Diabetes is a life threatening disease. I'd put a question to Len and
you
other list members with weight control problems. What is better to live
through, overweight and obesity with potential or actual diabetes, heart
disease, maybe cancer, and feeling low on energy all the time, or
putting
up with a little inconvenience and uncomfort to eliminate all of these?
Feeling hunger isn't the worse thing to happen to you.
Ron Ebert
---------------------
Yes, but there are some points that complicate this. For example, your
body breaks down and stores carbohydrates more readily than it does
proteins and fats. If you reduce your carb intake and eat more protein
and fat, your body has to work harder to store it away. In addition,
your body uses the carbs you have in your system as a sort of ready
supply of energy--it goes to them before it goes to the stored fat in
your body to keep things running. However, it's easier for your body to
convert your stored fat into energy than to break down proteins and fats
from food and use them, so you tend to lose bodyfat while on such diets.
At least, that's how I understand it. You miss a lot if you are just
saying "you burn 1800 calories a day, so if you eat 1700 you'll lose
weight."
> The method that I used was to eat just one meal a day - supper, and to
> lose weight it would just be a normal sized meal rather than an extra
> large one. Well, I was hungry for most of the day. I knew that was
> necessary and
I
> learned to ignore it. I would concentrate on other things and put the
> hunger to the back of my mind. I found that the worse hunger pangs are
> when you start out, and as you continue on they feel less severe and
> are easier to ignore. I also always remembered that it was necessary
> to achieve my goals, and that whenever I did feel hungry that meant
> that right then I was losing weight.
That's not a good way to lose weight. Aside from being uncomfortable
and possibly denying your body the nutrition it needs, it doesn't work
as well as other methods. When you're hungry all the time, your
metabolism slows, making you burn less calories during the day...it'll
mean you're uncomfortable AND slowing your weight loss.
> Nowadays I eat what I want and whenever I want, BUT if I eat an
> extra-large meal, it MUST be paid for later by eating less than normal
> for a while. (I'm 185 now.)
The best way to handle things, in my not-very-learned opinion, is to
just eat fairly sensibly and maintain a moderate amount of exercise.
Weight-lifting is good. You can spend 30-45 minutes in a gym, 2-3 days
a week, and get really good results. No, you won't end up looking like
those bodybuilders on ESPN--they follow very special diets and work out
several hours a day just about EVERY day.
Kevin P. France
------------------
There may be another small problem too. I need to look up my references,
but I read somewhere that they think there are metabolic differences in
those individuals with type 2 diabetes which impair their ability to
lose weight. IIRC, for example, type 2 diabetics in WW II POW camps who
were on near-starvation rations tended to maintain their weight and lose
less weight than normal individuals on the same rations. There was some
speculation that this may actually indicate some evolutionary origin of
the problem; you can see where such a metabolism might be useful in
populations which live in environments where there is not a lot of
potential foodstuffs, or which are
subject to periodic famines.
Len Cleavelin
--
Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, [Cochise County] Arizona (USA)
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