Now Harvard study backs up Atkins diet

In alt.support.diet tcomeau wrote:
Wendy wrote in message ...
I find it interesting that they did the OPPOSITE interpretation of Atkins
than most people. I mean, the first thing Atkins people do is load up on
saturated fats most of the time. I'm not sure how the Atkins people can
then crow that the diet works. Do they think saturated fats and
polyunsaturated fats are the same thing?

Where do you get your information from? How the heck do you know that
"the first thing Atkins people do is load up on saturated fats most of
the time".

Personal and anecdotal experience. Why, are you under the impression that
the Atkins diet is low in saturated fat? My recollection is eating
full-fat dairy products and full-fat beef products and bacon and
liverwurst and... well, of MOST of my calories coming from saturated
fats. Furthermore, that's been the big appeal to people I know personally
doing the Atkins program. I don't mean to say that ALL Atkins
proponants eat high-saturated fat diets, but it's always been one of the
main criticisms all along. Hadn't you heard?

Good point. Geez, don't you suppose that Harvard researchers might
consider the amount of calories burned as being related to weight
loss?

Ok, so maybe all seven people on the low-fat diet were couch potatoes
and all 14 on the low-carb diets ran a marathon every day. Yeah,
right!

How about that the people with an extra 300 calories had enough energy to
fit in a workout where the ones on the same amount of high-carb calories
were languishing from hunger. We all know a high-carb diet is not as
satieting on the same amount of calories. I think a reasonable result of
that would be less likely to go for a walk or lift weights.

Also, the BMR is likely to fall on a low-protein diet by more than on a
moderate-protein diet with weight-lifting. Differences in calories burned
can be significant between these two factors. And with seven people in
each group, significant individual differences in exercise routines can
really can skew the results.

Why, do you think calories burned is a negligible issue in the field of
weight loss?

I'm trying to figure out if the study was poorly designed on purpose or if
it is just being poorly reported.

It is just being poorly interpreted by individuals like yourself who
wouldn't recognize the difference between good science and bad science
if your lives depended on it.

Sure, whatever. So far I see a weight loss study that doesn't measure
calories expended, that doesn't distinguish between water, muscle and fat
loss and that only includes 7 people per group. What do you see?

You seem to have an agenda and any small detail
seems to be enough for you to reject these findings.

I don't know what you think my agenda is, but go ahead and tell me what
the findings are. So far I hear worthless anecdote. I'm wondering if the
"Harvard Researchers" are freshmen bio students. (An alternate
possibility is that the reporting is so bad that they didn't feel the need
to distinguish between "weight" and "fat" or to mention tedious exercise
logs.)

I will await the report, but unless they account for more factors than
"weight" and "calories in" I won't see much value in it.

Wendy

On 10/16/2003 3:03 PM, Wendy wrote:
In alt.support.diet tcomeau wrote:

Wendy wrote in message ...

I find it interesting that they did the OPPOSITE interpretation of Atkins
than most people. I mean, the first thing Atkins people do is load up on
saturated fats most of the time. I'm not sure how the Atkins people can
then crow that the diet works. Do they think saturated fats and
polyunsaturated fats are the same thing?


Where do you get your information from? How the heck do you know that
"the first thing Atkins people do is load up on saturated fats most of
the time".


Personal and anecdotal experience. Why, are you under the impression that
the Atkins diet is low in saturated fat? My recollection is eating
full-fat dairy products and full-fat beef products and bacon and
liverwurst and... well, of MOST of my calories coming from saturated
fats. Furthermore, that's been the big appeal to people I know personally
doing the Atkins program. I don't mean to say that ALL Atkins
proponants eat high-saturated fat diets, but it's always been one of the
main criticisms all along. Hadn't you heard?

While this evidence is very indirect, sales of breakfast meats are going
up up up. There's a statistic buried in this article
http://newsobserver.com/business/sto...-2709794c.html

"Even Food Lion, the Salisbury-based grocer, has seen the Atkins effect.
Sales of breakfast meats, specifically bacon and sausage, have surged in
recent months..."

Wendy wrote in message ...

Personal and anecdotal experience. Why, are you under the impression that
the Atkins diet is low in saturated fat? My recollection is eating
full-fat dairy products and full-fat beef products and bacon and
liverwurst and... well, of MOST of my calories coming from saturated
fats.

Actually, on Atkins, when I was using fit-day, and eating pretty much
any sort of food I wanted, the ratio was about 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 between
poly, mono and saturated fats, calorie ratio even lower because you
tend to eat some protein as well, and a little bit of carbs.

According to fit-day, a steak (Beef steak, braised, lean and fat
eaten) provides less than 50% of it's fats as saturated fats, then
there is the mono-unsaturated fat, and the protein. So even if you
were eating nothing but steak all day long, about 25% of your calories
would be coming from saturated fat - nowhere near the "Most" you are
claiming.

In reality you are going to be eating some leaner meats, nuts, and
vegetables.

How about that the people with an extra 300 calories had enough energy to
fit in a workout where the ones on the same amount of high-carb calories
were languishing from hunger. We all know a high-carb diet is not as
satieting on the same amount of calories. I think a reasonable result of
that would be less likely to go for a walk or lift weights.

Also, the BMR is likely to fall on a low-protein diet by more than on a
moderate-protein diet with weight-lifting. Differences in calories burned
can be significant between these two factors. And with seven people in
each group, significant individual differences in exercise routines can
really can skew the results.


These are arguments for the "a calories is a calorie" camp, not a
arguments against Atkins or the study's results. If you can lose more
weight while eating 300 calories more - why not - who cares if it is
actually because you are a little bit more active, or have a higher
BMR.

-josh

On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:36:53 GMT, Dan posted:

Doesn't the research behind the zone diet prove that a calorie is not a
calorie and that insulin levels determine how much fat the body stores?


Nope. Can you show us evidence of this if you believe otherwise?

Calories available for storage (not burned as energy or heat)
determine how much fat the body stores.

On 14 Oct 2003 20:24:25 -0700, (ron lorden) posted:

The most controversial result of the study is its challenge to the
virtually univeral belief that a calorie is a calorie is a
calorie.....and so on. I recall having read a book about thirty years
ago entitled "Calories Don't Count" wherein the author claimed to have
conducted small-scale studies in which subjects on controlled-calorie
diets lost weight when their diets where primarily comprised of fat
and virtually carb free. The assumption that all calories are treated
the same by the human body seems to be contradicted by research on the
effects of insulin. It is known that fat does not cause a significant
increase in serum glucose, and without a corresponding increase in
insulin. Carbs increase serum glucose, resulting in increased insulin
to facilitate glucose's entry into muscle and fat cells which could
result in stored body fat. Obviously, this is a serious
oversimplification of a complex phenomenon, but isn't the notion that
a calorie is a calorie, etc. an equal oversimplification?


A calorie has always been shown to be a claorie. You must show
metabolic lab studies (where everything is measured) to show that
calories can appear or disappear from the universe.

Moosh! wrote in message . ..
On 14 Oct 2003 20:24:25 -0700, (ron lorden) posted:

The most controversial result of the study is its challenge to the
virtually univeral belief that a calorie is a calorie is a
calorie.....and so on. I recall having read a book about thirty years
ago entitled "Calories Don't Count" wherein the author claimed to have
conducted small-scale studies in which subjects on controlled-calorie
diets lost weight when their diets where primarily comprised of fat
and virtually carb free. The assumption that all calories are treated
the same by the human body seems to be contradicted by research on the
effects of insulin. It is known that fat does not cause a significant
increase in serum glucose, and without a corresponding increase in
insulin. Carbs increase serum glucose, resulting in increased insulin
to facilitate glucose's entry into muscle and fat cells which could
result in stored body fat. Obviously, this is a serious
oversimplification of a complex phenomenon, but isn't the notion that
a calorie is a calorie, etc. an equal oversimplification?


A calorie has always been shown to be a claorie. You must show
metabolic lab studies (where everything is measured) to show that
calories can appear or disappear from the universe.

Show us *one* (or a dozen, for that matter) metabolic lab study that
shows that a gram of fat is *always* metabolized to 9 kcals and a gram
of carb or protein is *always* metabolized to 4 kcals, no more, no
less, in all circumstances that the body finds itself in, regardless
of any hormonal influences or any other of the millions of
bio-chemical influences in the human body. No study has proven this to
be the case. Using calories to predict weight gain or loss in humans,
independent of other bio-chemical influences and processes, is not a
practical application of the law of conservation of energy aka. the
first law of thermodynamics.

TC

I found this research interesting. Some people are saying now that maybe all
calories are not equal in the traditional sense, when metabolized by the
body. Other people are saying that maybe the low-carbers in the study simply
cheated less because their appetites are under control better.

But to me, the real issue isn't whether there is a thermogenic advantage or
not to low-carbing. I wouldn't be shocked to find there was, although I
think there is not a consensus on this point yet.

To me, the issue is a matter of degree. I am finding that even with very low
carb eating that I am gaining weight. So even if I would be gaining *more*
weight eating the same number of calories and higher carbs, the problem
still remains.

In other words, low-carbing does not shut off normal metabolism. Eating too
many calories for your body still causes you to gain weight regardless.

doug

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 11:57:21 +0900, Doug Lerner
wrote:

I found this research interesting. Some people are saying now that maybe all
calories are not equal in the traditional sense, when metabolized by the
body. Other people are saying that maybe the low-carbers in the study simply
cheated less because their appetites are under control better.

But to me, the real issue isn't whether there is a thermogenic advantage or
not to low-carbing. I wouldn't be shocked to find there was, although I
think there is not a consensus on this point yet.

To me, the issue is a matter of degree. I am finding that even with very low
carb eating that I am gaining weight. So even if I would be gaining *more*
weight eating the same number of calories and higher carbs, the problem
still remains.

In other words, low-carbing does not shut off normal metabolism. Eating too
many calories for your body still causes you to gain weight regardless.

doug


I have found that a low carb diet lets me control my eating. It is
necessary to eat less even on a low carb diet to lose weight.
Appetite control is what low carb is all about. Something I never
successfully did on a low fat diet.

Ray Wesley Kinserlow Jr.
Lubbock, Texas
kinserlow at hotmail dot com

Ray Wesley Kinserlow Jr.
Lubbock, Texas
kinserlow at hotmail dot com


Ray, and anyone else from Lubbock Texas, do you know of any walking paths in
the parks here. I have heard that there were some, but I can't find them
Thanks, Beverly Ann

"BANBEVER" wrote

Ray Wesley Kinserlow Jr.
Lubbock, Texas
kinserlow at hotmail dot com


Ray, and anyone else from Lubbock Texas, do you know of any walking paths
in
the parks here. I have heard that there were some, but I can't find them
Thanks, Beverly Ann

Try the cinder track at 19th & Vicksburg.

--
Walking on . . .
Laurie in Maine
207/110 60 inches of attitude!
Start: 2/02 Maintained since 2/03