Today 'n' Atkiens
Jan. 24th, 2004 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angelophileWell been a pretty pointless day. Was up about 9.30 after a fitless night of sleep. Was absolutely exhausted most of the morning, which i wasted watching ER episodes and pottering around online, reading and then catching up with the comics I hadn't read. By then it was lunchtime.
Over lunch watched a documentary about the Atkiens diet that I had recorded. For those that don't know I tried it a few months ago and did lose weight on it, just found it near impossible to stick to because of the restrictiveness of what you could eat. Basically I got hideously bored just eating meat and dairy products.
Anyway, the programme was an in depth study on the history of Atkiens and the problems and benefits, trying to find out quite how it works. The results were pretty surprising.
After explaining the principles of Atkiens - the theory being that the body uses more energy buring off fatty foods than it does carbohydrates. This is why cutting out carbohydrates from your diet and eating fatty foods enables you to lose weight on the Atkiens diet.
This was disproved.
It also went on to cover the health risk of Atkiens and as to whether the consumption of fatty foods was having a detremental effect on people's cholesterol.
It wasn't. In fact people on the Atkiens diet had lower cholesterol than people who ate a low fat, low calorie diet.
The Atkiens diet states that after a couple of weeks the body will have burned off all the carbohydrates in the body and start buring the body's fat reserves. This is call carthosis and the calories will actually be tracable in the urine of those on the Atkiens as opposed to those on low cal diets.
In clinical tests this was also disproved.
So therein lies the mystery of the Atkiens diet. In pretty much every respect what Dr Atkiens wrote was wrong. The body doesn't burn more energy digesting fatty foods, the fat reserves aren't burnt. The only thing that's RIGHT is that if you do the diet, you lose weight. On average around 150 percent more than someone on a standard low calorie diet. However, the mystery is that on Atkiens peple are encouraged to eat more - eat more fatty foods, as much as they want. The mystery is how can the first law of thermodynamics be broken? this states that no energy can be created fom nothing or disappear to nothing. So how is it when people were eating masses of fatty fods, packed wth energy, that energy was apparently evaporating into thin air?
In the UK last year, the world's biggest study into dieting took place. The BBC ran a series of medical trials that basically compared the weightloss of people on 4 different diets. One was the Atkiens, the other 3 standard low calorie diets. Over the 6 month trial the average weight loss across all 4 diets was pretty much the same, but the Atkiens had the slight edge. With this trial the research team had access to the food diaries of around 650 people. Analysing this they found the answer to the mystery of Atkiens. Really, it's a very simple answer.
People on Atkiens eat less.
That's it. The basic ideas behind Atkiens are false, but the diet works because people on the Atkiens diet simply eat less than people on standard diets. So the fat content of the foods doesn't make a difference.
From there they carried out trials to determine -why- this was the case. Obviously there was something in the Atkiens that effected appetite. People eating fatty foods simply didn't feel as hungry so often. They did a trial where they blind tested 4 people. 2 were given low fat versions of a meal, 2 were given high fat versions. The question was whether the people eating high fat meals would be less hungry than those eating low fat.
They weren't. The test failed. People eating high fat foods were hungrier than those that ate low fat and consumed more.
So where was the answer? Well, the final tests proved it. The answer was not in the fats in the foods but in the protiens. Put simply, high protien foods lessen your appetite. The body responds to high protien intake and control appetite much better than it does with people eating lts of carbohydrates.
In other words, the appetite is at the level it SHOULD be if you eat lots of meats and dairy products. A vegetarian diet makes you hungrier than the body needs to be and therefore you put on weight.
It's a persuasive argument and although more tests are needed it seemed pretty clear from the evidence that the results were correct. Since public advice has been to eat low calorie diets obesity has still risen. People are getting fatter and suffering more heart disease despite eating less calories. The reason why peoplewere healthier 70-100 years ago than they are now in terms of diet was because most people ate meals high in protiens as opposed to today's diets which tend to be a mix of carbohydrates and protiens.
Therefore all vegetarians are wrong and we should all eat meat.
Okay, maybe I added the last bit myself but it does seem that the body is healthier with an omnivore diet.
Anyway, after the programme was over I did a litte work then lay down for a brief nap so I'd have some energy to work more.
Slept for 4 hours. Eesh.
Won't sleep til late tonight.
Over lunch watched a documentary about the Atkiens diet that I had recorded. For those that don't know I tried it a few months ago and did lose weight on it, just found it near impossible to stick to because of the restrictiveness of what you could eat. Basically I got hideously bored just eating meat and dairy products.
Anyway, the programme was an in depth study on the history of Atkiens and the problems and benefits, trying to find out quite how it works. The results were pretty surprising.
After explaining the principles of Atkiens - the theory being that the body uses more energy buring off fatty foods than it does carbohydrates. This is why cutting out carbohydrates from your diet and eating fatty foods enables you to lose weight on the Atkiens diet.
This was disproved.
It also went on to cover the health risk of Atkiens and as to whether the consumption of fatty foods was having a detremental effect on people's cholesterol.
It wasn't. In fact people on the Atkiens diet had lower cholesterol than people who ate a low fat, low calorie diet.
The Atkiens diet states that after a couple of weeks the body will have burned off all the carbohydrates in the body and start buring the body's fat reserves. This is call carthosis and the calories will actually be tracable in the urine of those on the Atkiens as opposed to those on low cal diets.
In clinical tests this was also disproved.
So therein lies the mystery of the Atkiens diet. In pretty much every respect what Dr Atkiens wrote was wrong. The body doesn't burn more energy digesting fatty foods, the fat reserves aren't burnt. The only thing that's RIGHT is that if you do the diet, you lose weight. On average around 150 percent more than someone on a standard low calorie diet. However, the mystery is that on Atkiens peple are encouraged to eat more - eat more fatty foods, as much as they want. The mystery is how can the first law of thermodynamics be broken? this states that no energy can be created fom nothing or disappear to nothing. So how is it when people were eating masses of fatty fods, packed wth energy, that energy was apparently evaporating into thin air?
In the UK last year, the world's biggest study into dieting took place. The BBC ran a series of medical trials that basically compared the weightloss of people on 4 different diets. One was the Atkiens, the other 3 standard low calorie diets. Over the 6 month trial the average weight loss across all 4 diets was pretty much the same, but the Atkiens had the slight edge. With this trial the research team had access to the food diaries of around 650 people. Analysing this they found the answer to the mystery of Atkiens. Really, it's a very simple answer.
People on Atkiens eat less.
That's it. The basic ideas behind Atkiens are false, but the diet works because people on the Atkiens diet simply eat less than people on standard diets. So the fat content of the foods doesn't make a difference.
From there they carried out trials to determine -why- this was the case. Obviously there was something in the Atkiens that effected appetite. People eating fatty foods simply didn't feel as hungry so often. They did a trial where they blind tested 4 people. 2 were given low fat versions of a meal, 2 were given high fat versions. The question was whether the people eating high fat meals would be less hungry than those eating low fat.
They weren't. The test failed. People eating high fat foods were hungrier than those that ate low fat and consumed more.
So where was the answer? Well, the final tests proved it. The answer was not in the fats in the foods but in the protiens. Put simply, high protien foods lessen your appetite. The body responds to high protien intake and control appetite much better than it does with people eating lts of carbohydrates.
In other words, the appetite is at the level it SHOULD be if you eat lots of meats and dairy products. A vegetarian diet makes you hungrier than the body needs to be and therefore you put on weight.
It's a persuasive argument and although more tests are needed it seemed pretty clear from the evidence that the results were correct. Since public advice has been to eat low calorie diets obesity has still risen. People are getting fatter and suffering more heart disease despite eating less calories. The reason why peoplewere healthier 70-100 years ago than they are now in terms of diet was because most people ate meals high in protiens as opposed to today's diets which tend to be a mix of carbohydrates and protiens.
Therefore all vegetarians are wrong and we should all eat meat.
Okay, maybe I added the last bit myself but it does seem that the body is healthier with an omnivore diet.
Anyway, after the programme was over I did a litte work then lay down for a brief nap so I'd have some energy to work more.
Slept for 4 hours. Eesh.
Won't sleep til late tonight.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-25 08:15 am (UTC)As food availability has improved in first-world nations, people first get taller, then get fatter. A notable exception to this is Japan, but that's just because they subsist on a diet of pure evil and sushi and that seems to work to keep folks thin.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 02:54 am (UTC)Just as an observation, the war years were amongst the healthiest in Britain's history in terms of the general populace. If you could escape being bombed the diet of fresh grown vegetables and fruit and limited amounts of fat because of rationing and inability to get any foods besides what people were able to grow themselves meant that most Britons had a healthy diet consisting mainly of fresh veg and meat. This continued for the next 10-15 years or so until mass produced foods became popular in the 60s. Rationing continued in this country well into the 50s and had a positive effect on Britain's health.