Low carb diets gain respect

[eytonxav]

Regarding exercise specifically, a paper by a different Dr. Kraus (William E Kraus, not Donald M Krauss), showed that at 3 hours of aerobic exercise (usually 3 one hour sessions) did increase average HDL significantly over and above the controls. The participants jogged or rode exercycles at 65-80% of maximum heart rate.

Ha

I have seen some evidence of this in myself, cause when I was doing more cardio vs lifting I got my HDL up to 43, but now I've mostly eliminated cardio (except for warm up) and now I seem to be stuck at about 39. I had heard that lifting heavier weights would raise it, but so far nothing to show for it.

 

[Chasen]

It should not be a diet but a way of life.
Many years back I was a physical mess.
Starting reading everything I could. People being healed of major diseases.
Started eating mainly, fruits, vegetable, beans, nuts and seeds and
a few grains. If it's in a box or can, a try and avoid it. Do not count calories ever.
At 70 I have no physical problems, and do not take any medications.
The medical profession has no clue, they only want to fill you with drugs.
They do no care about healing diseases like cancer and heart disease. It's big business and big bucks for them.
You have to want to help yourself. The standard American diet will kill you.
I would be more than happy to share my knowledge with anyone interested.

 

[harley]

Regarding exercise specifically, a paper by a different Dr. Kraus (William E Kraus, not Donald M Krauss), showed that 3 hours of aerobic exercise (usually 3 one hour sessions) did increase average HDL significantly over and above the controls. The participants jogged or rode exercycles at 65-80% of maximum heart rate.

This may be a dumb question, but is that 3 hours/day? Or 3 hours/week? I haven't done 3 hours of workout/day since I was playing college sports. I doubt the old ticker would take it thses days.

 

[RAE]

My HDL went up 19 mg in the five weeks I have been on LCHF. If anything I have been slacking on exercise during much of that period. I did a lot of riding while in CA for two weeks but I have not done my normal mileage since I got back. So clearly for me at least, exercise is not responsible.

My experience is similar to yours, Donheff. My HDL went from 58 to 69 in a year's time, after I switched to a primal/lower-carb diet. Exercise level during that period remained roughly the same. So, there is no doubt in my mind that the change in diet is responsible for the improvement in HDL. Also, my triglycerides during that time period decreased from 92 to 67......which I also attribute to diet.

 

[ERD50]

The argument that the current advice just isn't working is a strong one. No matter what you think, we've been told to eat a low-fat diet for over 15 years, and the obesity epidemic gets dramatically worse.

T-Al, there may be good evidence that low-fat is not the way to go, but I don't think that this is an argument that you should use - it's really weak, and IMO undermines the point you are trying to make.

I could also say 'we've been told to put down the remote, get off the couch and get moving' for over 15 years, and the obesity epidemic gets dramatically worse. So therefore exercise/activity is the wrong approach?

Did the general public really reduce fat intake? And if so, did they just replace it with high calories? I think that is likely - we see big gulp sodas that are larger than what an entire family would drink years ago.

I'm not defending low-fat, I don't believe in it myself. I'm just saying that's not a good way to make the point.


-ERD50

 

[Mulligan]

T-Al, there may be good evidence that low-fat is not the way to go, but I don't think that this is an argument that you should use - it's really weak, and IMO undermines the point you are trying to make.

I could also say 'we've been told to put down the remote, get off the couch and get moving' for over 15 years, and the obesity epidemic gets dramatically worse. So therefore exercise/activity is the wrong approach?

Did the general public really reduce fat intake? And if so, did they just replace it with high calories? I think that is likely - we see big gulp sodas that are larger than what an entire family would drink years ago.

I'm not defending low-fat, I don't believe in it myself. I'm just saying that's not a good way to make the point.

-ERD50

I certainly don't believe knowledge necessarily equates to behavioral change. I would find it hard to believe that any of the 70 million smokers in US aren't aware of the hazards of smoking. I definitely enjoy reading the discourse and information on diet, but I don't know if there is a panacea the will cure the problem. Its seems like a lot of medical health issues have conflicting information. I was on a news website recently that on the same web
page that had separate links to one article advocating the benefits of fish oil, while a few headlines below had a separate link espousing that fish oil has no health benefit. Makes my head spin!

 

[haha]

This may be a dumb question, but is that 3 hours/day? Or 3 hours/week? I haven't done 3 hours of workout/day since I was playing college sports. I doubt the old ticker would take it thses days.

3 hours/week!

 

[TromboneAl]

T-Al, there may be good evidence that low-fat is not the way to go, but I don't think that this is an argument that you should use - it's really weak, and IMO undermines the point you are trying to make.

I could also say 'we've been told to put down the remote, get off the couch and get moving' for over 15 years, and the obesity epidemic gets dramatically worse. So therefore exercise/activity is the wrong approach?

Did the general public really reduce fat intake? And if so, did they just replace it with high calories? I think that is likely - we see big gulp sodas that are larger than what an entire family would drink years ago.

I'm not defending low-fat, I don't believe in it myself. I'm just saying that's not a good way to make the point.

-ERD50

When I said "No matter what you think, we've been told to eat a low-fat diet for over 15 years, and the obesity epidemic gets dramatically worse," my point was in part that the advice is not working. Whether it's because lowfat is wrong or because people aren't following the advice doesn't matter. If we give exactly the same advice, the problem is going to continue to worsen. The advice needs to change.

 

[Nords]

If we give exactly the same advice, the problem is going to continue to worsen. The advice needs to change.

Yeah, because heaven forbid that people should change their behavior.

Remember the anti-smoking campaigns of the 1980s and how effective they were on teens? That's right, they weren't. The teen smoking rates started to drop when cigarettes were taxed like crazy (too expensive a habit) and when tobacco companies were portrayed as evil manipulators trying to dupe teens into smoking.

I don't think "Just say no" worked very well with drugs, but the recent local "Meth Project" ads have been pretty effective. Again they show people being tricked by their own lack of knowledge and the evil drug dealers taking advantage of their ignorance.

Maybe someday there'll be a good ad campaign against sugar and refined carbs, but right now there doesn't seem to be any funding for it.

In any case, I see the situation as largely self-correcting...

 

[donheff]

T-Al, there may be good evidence that low-fat is not the way to go, but I don't think that this is an argument that you should use - it's really weak, and IMO undermines the point you are trying to make.

I could also say 'we've been told to put down the remote, get off the couch and get moving' for over 15 years, and the obesity epidemic gets dramatically worse. So therefore exercise/activity is the wrong approach?

Did the general public really reduce fat intake? And if so, did they just replace it with high calories? I think that is likely - we see big gulp sodas that are larger than what an entire family would drink years ago.

I'm not defending low-fat, I don't believe in it myself. I'm just saying that's not a good way to make the point.


-ERD50

I understand what you are saying ERD - I agree that most people who try to cut fat, continue and more likely increase carbs so the carbs are likely the problem, not the reduction in fat. BUT, the standard advice has emphasized that carbs in general are not bad. And the processed food industry has responded to the "heart safe" advice with tons of low fat alternatives. I know because DW and I used lots of them -- low fat yogurt, low fat dressing, skim milk, on and on. Unfortunately, now that I am paying attention to the labels I see that these low fat commercial products are loaded with carbs - that is how they make them taste good. So the very effort to buy products that incorporate the guidance leads to an increase in carbs without any awareness. Why isn't the medical community making a major stink about how the food industry has implemented the guidance? I believe it is because the medical community doesn't have a problem with it -- all those low fat products are in compliance. People try to do what they are told and the food industry delivers what they demand.

 

[TromboneAl]

I do think that people have complied: especially those whose weight is rising.

The whole reason for the explosive growth is that the brake and the accelerator pedals have been switched: a textbook positive feedback situation. As soon as someone starts to notice that he weighs more, he cuts back on fats.

This is exactly what I did ten years ago. I would pile my plate with white rice, saying out loud "No one ever got fat eating rice." I'd eat whole-grain crackers before dinner, figuring that it would help me eat less of the bad stuff (meat). I drank a half-gallon of milk every day, and switched to nonfat milk thinking, "Boy, my weight's going to go down now." But it didn't.

 

[Chasen]

White rice has no nutrition value. Most cultures eating it have a lot of diabetes. You should be eating whole grains, unprocessed.
Milk is the same, no nutrition value. What animal in nature do you know that drinks milk after it's weaned? The dairy industry has convinced us that we have a need for it. There is 5 times more calcium in green leafy vegetables than milk.

 

[harley]

White rice has no nutrition value. Most cultures eating it have a lot of diabetes. You should be eating whole grains, unprocessed.
Milk is the same, no nutrition value. What animal in nature do you know that drinks milk after it's weaned? The dairy industry has convinced us that we have a need for it. There is 5 times more calcium in green leafy vegetables than milk.

I think there's a ton of misinformation in this comment. White rice has nutritional value. It IS a carb, which we're calling a bad thing, but it's still nutritional. Plus it's high in folate and manganese. Probably other ways to get these, but it's there. And I'd like to see some attribution on the diabetes claim in places like Japan, Korea, and India.

Milk has 29% of the RDA of calcium, plus it's got vitamin D added which helps with absorption. Yogurt has 45%. Collard greens, spinach, and turnip greens, OTOH, have between 19 and 27%. Plus milk has 8 grams of protein and 8 grams of fat. Nutrition on the hoof. I'm not a fan of milk, but it's definitely got food value. Plus, ever since I read Mice That Eat Yogurt Have Larger Testicles: Scientific American I've been stocking up on yogurt.

Edit: Plus even if dairy was COMPLETELY nutritionless, I would still eat cheese and ice cream, just because they taste great.

Edit 2: As far as whole grains go, I'm not eating grass seed. But if a little processing is done, just enough to make it into bread or oatmeal, it still kicks my blood sugar into orbit, pretty much as bad as eating white bread. I prefer whole grains if I'm going to eat bread, but it's not significantly healthier for me as a diabetic than white bread.

 

[Koogie]

And I'd like to see some attribution on the diabetes claim in places like Japan, Korea, and India.

I don't know about Japan and Korea but Indians are riddled with Diabetes (especially type 2). In fact, amongst the Desi diaspora, it is one of the major health issues of the population.

 

[rgarling]

Some words of encouragement for Mulligan, which may help others...

"I was on a news website recently that on the same web page that had separate links to one article advocating the benefits of fish oil, while a few headlines below had a separate link espousing that fish oil has no health benefit. Makes my head spin!"

good nutrition studies are very expensive and are rarely done. The conflicting advice published every few weeks is an indication that poor studies predominate.

As far as fish oil it is a good supplement if it helps get you to an omega 6 / omega 3 ratio of 4. If you are below 4, you should cut back on it. Many individuals can reach an hs-crp value (indicative of the level of inflammation in your body) close to zero with a ratio around 4.


"... 12 years ago when I ate like potato chips, pizza, burgers and french fries were the 4 food groups, my cholesterol numbers and HDL was outstanding, but I would train long and hard. ..."

your metabolism was 12 years younger too. Stressing your metabolism by poor eating habits over an extended time will damage it.

... maybe I should just start swallowing a baby aspirin each day since apparently my puffy particle days are behind me. I just dont get how the HDL numbers get worse even the diet is significantly better.

before doing baby aspirin try an experiment on yourself. Get a baseline value of your hs-crp value, vitamin D3 level, omega 6/omega 3 values, and a VAP test. Then for several months, eliminate "healthy whole grains", vegetable oils and ALL fructose (found in sugar and fruits). Supplement with fish oil, vitamin B complex, D3, magnesium). Then take another set of tests and see what happened. You will find that your puffy particle days are not behind you after all.

A diet significantly better than chips, pizza, burgers and french fries can still be devastatingly bad. As mentioned in other posts a LCHF diet WILL increase your HDL (as will exercise). Good luck!

 

[Chasen]

It can be confusing, I totally agree.
This website is the best I've found:
Dr. Joel Fuhrman Improves Health - Lose Weight Naturally | Reverse Diabetes | Prevent Heart Disease and Cancer | Lower Cholesterol

 

[Mulligan]

Some words of encouragement for Mulligan, which may help others...

"I was on a news website recently that on the same web page that had separate links to one article advocating the benefits of fish oil, while a few headlines below had a separate link espousing that fish oil has no health benefit. Makes my head spin!"

good nutrition studies are very expensive and are rarely done. The conflicting advice published every few weeks is an indication that poor studies predominate.

As far as fish oil it is a good supplement if it helps get you to an omega 6 / omega 3 ratio of 4. If you are below 4, you should cut back on it. Many individuals can reach an hs-crp value (indicative of the level of inflammation in your body) close to zero with a ratio around 4.

"... 12 years ago when I ate like potato chips, pizza, burgers and french fries were the 4 food groups, my cholesterol numbers and HDL was outstanding, but I would train long and hard. ..."

your metabolism was 12 years younger too. Stressing your metabolism by poor eating habits over an extended time will damage it.

... maybe I should just start swallowing a baby aspirin each day since apparently my puffy particle days are behind me. I just dont get how the HDL numbers get worse even the diet is significantly better.

before doing baby aspirin try an experiment on yourself. Get a baseline value of your hs-crp value, vitamin D3 level, omega 6/omega 3 values, and a VAP test. Then for several months, eliminate "healthy whole grains", vegetable oils and ALL fructose (found in sugar and fruits). Supplement with fish oil, vitamin B complex, D3, magnesium). Then take another set of tests and see what happened. You will find that your puffy particle days are not behind you after all.

A diet significantly better than chips, pizza, burgers and french fries can still be devastatingly bad. As mentioned in other posts a LCHF diet WILL increase your HDL (as will exercise). Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback, rgarling. I am going get a book this week concerning meals of LCHF as I will need a plan in place, as my default food for the past 5 years have featured a lot around whole grains and fruits. The whole grains have always been the center point in getting the satisfied " full" feeling after eating. I definitely would like HDL up as the below paragraph concerns me as it addresses my problem of lower HDL but with a desirable total cholesterol range.

An HDL below 35 milligrams per deciliter is a risk factor for heart attack, even if total cholesterol is in the "desirable" range. One recent study by researchers in Israel and at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland showed that the risk of dying from heart disease was 38% higher in men with HDL under 35, even if their total cholesterol was below 200. Stroke risk in such men was higher, too. If your total cholesterol is elevated, a high HDL can help protect you. The higher your HDL, the better.

 

[harley]

It can be confusing, I totally agree.
This website is the best I've found:
Dr. Joel Fuhrman Improves Health - Lose Weight Naturally | Reverse Diabetes | Prevent Heart Disease and Cancer | Lower Cholesterol

I'm not impressed. Just with a quick look around I see a lot of generalizations and "buy my book" comments. There are many sites on the internet that have good (if conflicting) information on health and nutrition. His one is more of a sales pitch for his books. He seems to be mostly a stealth vegetarian, and definitely doesn't like the low carb concept. Oh well, everybody can make their own choice. I just have a tendency to run away from someone selling thier own product so hard.

An excerpt from a typical page (on diabetes, my personal interest).

The dietary style described in my books entitled, Eat To Live and Eat For Health, is a vegetable-based diet designed to maximize nutrient per calorie density. It is the most effective dietary approach for those with diabetes and is much more effective than drugs. For a Type 2 diabetic, this approach has resulted in complete reversal of the diabetic condition in the vast majority of my patients, and for a Type 1 diabetic it solves the problems with excessive highs and lows and prevents the typical dangerous complications that too frequently befall those with diabetes.

Of course, no dietary approach to diabetes will succeed without attention to other risk factors, especially sedentary lifestyle, smoking and lack of sleep. The road to wellness involves making the commitment to regular exercise as well. My clear message is that diabetics can’t just “eat better.” They have to go all the way and commit to nutritional excellence.

If you have diabetes, begin by reading my book, Eat To Live or Eat For Health. You can receive the e-book version of Eat To Live right away, by joining the membership center here at DrFuhrman.com.

 

[Chuckanut]

I am curious about the experience of people who have done a what they believe is a descent Low-Carb diet and maintained it for a longer period of time, say 4-12 months. About how many pounds a week did you lose, assuming, or course, you lost weight on it.

I have my own experience on a lower-carb diet (the purists would get upset with me!) and want to see if it is similar. Of course, things will vary from person to person as we are all a bit different.

 

[mpeirce]

I've been on low carb for about two years.

The first year I was strict and lost about 35 lbs (250->215, I'm 6'6") which I felt I needed to do.

Over the last year I've been less strict, especially when traveling, and have pretty much maintained (today my Withings WiFi scale reports I'm at 218 - their charts are a helpful motivator). Up a little, down a little.

I still eat eggs for breakfast and meat & a full salad for dinner most days. I'm happy with it and intend to keep it up.

 

[haha]

I am curious about the experience of people who have done a what they believe is a descent Low-Carb diet and maintained it for a longer period of time, say 4-12 months. About how many pounds a week did you lose, assuming, or course, you lost weight on it.

I descended onto a low carb diet in 1997, and have never varied from it.

I was not obviously overweight, and weight was not my motivation for the diet, though I did lose 10 pounds very quickly, and have lost another 3-5 over the years. I have a modest 6 pack and my ribs show.

I rate my satisfaction with the diet very high, I give up sweets and various breadstuffs and various gooey foods, but get to eat as much as I want of everything else. I find that my overall appetite is smaller than before, even though I am roughly as active as earlier.

The only negative I perceive is social. Many times at an event of some sort, there is nothing to eat. And sometimes someone gnoshing on a doughnut is not exactly happen to see your demonstration of control. I just tell the truth, I am allergic to wheat, and sugar is bad for me. This seems to take it more into the "poor dear" category than "you annoying prig category".

Ha

 

[CoolChange]

Somewhat off topic but a possible cautionary tale if the entire household is not doing the low carb thing.

Many, many years ago, I was living with a girl who decided to try the low carb thing. She lost a bit of weight when she was able to stick to it; but, I gained a significant amount.

She started cooking a lot of ham, bacon, beef, chicken, etc. while on the diet which I paired with toast, baked potatoes, etc. for myself. Luckily for me, she did not stick with the low carb approach long enough for me to do too much damage to myself.

This was long before I decided that diet really was important to my health; I was still in my 20's and thought I could just add more exercise to make up for any bad decisions at the dinner table.

 

[braumeister]

The last two years have been a fairly strict low carb diet. Dropped 15% of my starting weight within the first two months, and have maintained at that level ever since, with little or no effort. I'm a firm believer in the science behind it (Thank you, Gary Taubes!).

 

[haloFIRE]

I'm sold on the paleo diet in the Zone format. Quick summary that may entice you to dig deeper:

- I eat five times a day....when I'm on my game
- Zone proportion of fat, carbs and protein
- I eat lots of carbs..veggies and fruits
- Give up wheat...it is literally killing you. Whole wheat is even worse. That said I "cheat" and have birthday cake, etc.. Just on special occasions. Check out the book "Wheat Belly"
- I have never felt better
- Stronger now then when I was in my 20s
- No guy belly....it melted after 3 months of Paleo and working out

Hope this helps. Trust me, be disciplined and this will work.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend...remember those that fought so we could retire early...

Regardless of your diet, make sure you work in routine exercise....push it as hard as your Dr. will let you....you will see results

 

[JOHNNIE36]

I am so hapy with my latest blood test that I had to post the numbers. I just now returned from the doctor's office where I picked up a copy of the results.
Total cholesterol 196
HDL 55
Triglycerides 133
LDL 114 (the preferred level for people with CHC is <100)
Glucose 90
All other tests are within the recommended ranges.

I am on 40 mg of simvastatin to control my cholesterol. Good thing because I eat whatever I want, whenever I want. And, with my latest diagnosis of spinal stenosis, my doctor wants me to stop all exercises because they may injure my spine more than it already is. He suggested cortisone shots. Checking into this next week.