thought experiment for the Akins doubters

We constantly still encounter supposedly knowledgable
people who doubt the healthfulness of low carb eating.

While the science is still not very complete as to the full
consequences of this WOE, the clear advantages in
immediate quality of life improvements (due to weight
loss and blood sugar control) as well as the lack of
solid scientific (or even anecdotal) evidence of
detrimental effects, many influential people and
publications still falsely claim the diet is dangerous.

Here is a thought experiment that will catch many of
them off guard and show the inherent conflict in the
prevailing wisdom:

Suppose you currently eat a diet composed of
approximately 50% carbohydrate calories, 20% of
protein, and 30% of fat. This is fairly conventional
and accepted. Now propose to the supposed expert
that you switch to 17% carbs, 33% protein, and
50% fat. The old-school authority will of course
say that this is clearly going to be detrimental and
likely lead to heart diease and other problems.

Now suggest that instead you just cut out 40% of
your currently excessive calories. The expert will
likely heartily agree to this improvement and
predict it will certainly lead to weight loss and
generally improved health.

But wait! The first diet can be converted to the
second merely by removing 4/5 of the carbohydrate
calories, with no change in the protein and fat
content. How can it be dangerous in one breath
and obviously healthful in another?

This is, in effect, quite similar to what the various
low carb diets achieve. We consume fewer calories
overall by removing carbohydrates from the diet,
but do not necessarily increase our fat and protein
intake significantly. The above numbers actually
correspond quite well to how my diet changed
between last summer and fall - a period during
which I lost 24 lbs. This marks the third time I've
lost back down to my ideal weight (not quite there
this time yet), during 3 separate decades using the
ketogenic diet. However, this time I will never go
off the diet. The improvement in quality of life
from being lean and fit and having no blood sugar
problems is greater than any known risk that I incur.
The current availability of so many new low carb
foods just makes it very easy to stay on track.
So that's just what I'm going to do!

I would encourage others to seriously weigh the
immediate and obvious benefits of weight loss and
blood sugar control against the theoretical and
unquantifiable possibility of later consequences.
In addition, consider the myriad long term aging
effects that all have excess glucose involved.
Remember that they still cannot explain the apparent
healthfulness of various quite divergent cultural diets
(mediterranean, eskimo, japanese, etc) and only
the traditional western high carb diet is pretty
much universally detrimental to people of most
any culture that adopts it. Nor has it been shown
in general that diets can overcome the genetic
predisposing factors that lead to vast numbers
of cases of cardiovascular disease. The most
that is known is that the one common denominator
among most diets contributing to heart disease is
excess calories and resultant obesity.

Eat less and live better! Low carb rules!

Alan

On Thu, 1 Jan 2004 15:28:05 -0700, "Alan Wright" alanatyahoodotcom
wrote:

We constantly still encounter supposedly knowledgable
people who doubt the healthfulness of low carb eating.

You are also constantly encountering scientists, cardiologists and
folks who know one whole hell of a lot more about the physiology of
the human body and the research that bears on it than you ever will.

While the science is still not very complete as to the full
consequences of this WOE, the clear advantages in
immediate quality of life improvements (due to weight
loss and blood sugar control) as well as the lack of
solid scientific (or even anecdotal) evidence of
detrimental effects, many influential people and
publications still falsely claim the diet is dangerous.

Reread what you wrote.

Here is a thought experiment that will catch many of
them off guard and show the inherent conflict in the
prevailing wisdom:

Suppose you currently eat a diet composed of
approximately 50% carbohydrate calories, 20% of
protein, and 30% of fat. This is fairly conventional
and accepted.

Conventional and accepted by whom?

Now propose to the supposed expert
that you switch to 17% carbs, 33% protein, and
50% fat. The old-school authority will of course
say that this is clearly going to be detrimental and
likely lead to heart diease and other problems.

There is bunches of "new" school authority that would point out that
you have not delineated the types of fat hence your statement is
inaccurate.

Now suggest that instead you just cut out 40% of
your currently excessive calories. The expert will
likely heartily agree to this improvement and
predict it will certainly lead to weight loss and
generally improved health.

No they won't/ It will entirely depend on what the existing caloric
intake is. Way too many sweeping and self-assumed correct statements
in this post.

But wait! The first diet can be converted to the
second merely by removing 4/5 of the carbohydrate
calories, with no change in the protein and fat
content. How can it be dangerous in one breath
and obviously healthful in another?

See above.

This is, in effect, quite similar to what the various
low carb diets achieve. We consume fewer calories
overall by removing carbohydrates from the diet,
but do not necessarily increase our fat and protein
intake significantly.

Again, you play this game that lumps all fats together. This is
incorrect.

The above numbers actually
correspond quite well to how my diet changed
between last summer and fall - a period during
which I lost 24 lbs. This marks the third time I've
lost back down to my ideal weight (not quite there
this time yet),

Yo-yo, yo-yo, yo-yo.

during 3 separate decades using the
ketogenic diet.

Now your off on ketogenic diets which is an entirely different
discussion.

However, this time I will never go
off the diet.

I guess the last two times you said "I will quit this".

The improvement in quality of life
from being lean and fit..

You haven't established that you are fit and lean, if not at ideal
weight, perhaps not.

and having no blood sugar
problems is greater than any known risk that I incur.
The current availability of so many new low carb
foods just makes it very easy to stay on track.
So that's just what I'm going to do!

I hope you are the one in a hundred that makes it past two years.

I would encourage others to seriously weigh the
immediate and obvious benefits of weight loss and
blood sugar control against the theoretical and
unquantifiable possibility of later consequences.
In addition, consider the myriad long term aging
effects that all have excess glucose involved.
Remember that they still cannot explain the apparent
healthfulness of various quite divergent cultural diets
(mediterranean, eskimo, japanese, etc) and only
the traditional western high carb diet is pretty
much universally detrimental to people of most
any culture that adopts it.

I have no idea what the "traditional hi carb western diet is" and no
one else has ever defined one either.

Nor has it been shown
in general that diets can overcome the genetic
predisposing factors that lead to vast numbers
of cases of cardiovascular disease.

Including lo-carb.

The most
that is known is that the one common denominator
among most diets contributing to heart disease is
excess calories and resultant obesity.

Which diets are those?


http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950921.html
Lift well, Eat less, Walk fast, Live long.

alanatyahoodotcom (Alan Wright) wrote:

But wait! The first diet can be converted to the
second merely by removing 4/5 of the carbohydrate
calories, with no change in the protein and fat
content. How can it be dangerous in one breath
and obviously healthful in another?

Exactly, I suspect I eat a similar amount of fat while low carbing as I
did while not dieting. Sure, I eat a little more cheese and mayo but
with virtually no bread my butter (or other spread) intake has disappeared
completely. I've also cut 90% of the potatoes, rice and pasta and with
them another bunch of fat eating opportunities. Similarly with cakes,
cookies and sweets. In fact i'd be very surprised if I ate as much fat as
before.

Low fat advocates will of course be telling me I should compare my diet
with theirs but I suspect I'm even eating less that I was when I tried to
eat low fat and failed regularly.

I'm not one for counting carbs and calories but I'm fairly certain that my
diet is pretty much the same as it was with most of the carbs removed.
Less carbs and less food in total. Of course the food pyramid people work
in percentages rather than absolute figures for fat and protein...

Playing devil's advocate here...

"Alan Wright" alanatyahoodotcom writes:
Suppose you currently eat a diet composed of approximately 50%
carbohydrate calories, 20% of protein, and 30% of fat. This is
fairly conventional and accepted. Now propose to the supposed expert
that you switch to 17% carbs, 33% protein, and 50% fat. The
old-school authority will of course say that this is clearly going
to be detrimental and likely lead to heart diease and other
problems.

Assuming, of course, that the expert either (1) asks if there are any
other changes, or (2) assumes no other changes. In either case, the
question is only neutral if there are no other changes, and thus the
resulting calories are the same, and thus the reply would be different
than...

Now suggest that instead you just cut out 40% of your currently
excessive calories.

.... that case, where the assumption is that the types of foods you eat
remain constant.

But wait! The first diet can be converted to the second merely by
removing 4/5 of the carbohydrate calories, with no change in the
protein and fat content.

No, here's where you go wrong. The 50/20/30 diet can be converted
into *A* 17/33/50 diet, but it won't be converted into *THE* 17/33/50
diet implied by the first set of questions. Nor does the 40% reduced
calorie diet implied by the second set of questions match the 17/33/50
diet implied by the first.

How can it be dangerous in one breath and obviously healthful in
another?

Because they're not the same. Consider this: Let's say I cut my
calories by 40%. Good, yes? Now let's say I mention that, oh yeah,
I'm also replacing all my other foods with chocolate bars. Still
good? No? But I reduced my calories...

This is, in effect, quite similar to what the various low carb diets
achieve. We consume fewer calories overall by removing carbohydrates
from the diet, but do not necessarily increase our fat and protein
intake significantly.

For most LCers, though, this is wrong. My total fat and protein went
way up on LC - up to healthy levels, up from a clear deficiency, but
still way up. And I've seen lots of people who were undereating
before LC and had to increase their calories (meaning a LOT more fats
and oils) to get up to healthy levels.

So, LC replaces carbs with fats or proteins, which must then go up.
If you also happen to reduce calories, then everything goes down, but
not all LCers reduce calories. So it's not fair to say "LC diets have
the same fat and protein levels as non-LC diets" because that's not
true in general, and certainly not true assuming all else stays the
same.

So, LC replaces carbs with fats or proteins, which must then go up.

I wonder if you have accounted for all these junk-food hidden transfats
you were eating before... They are omnipresent in "standard western
diet" - and most of them come with simple carbohydrates (cakes, bread,
chips, candies etc...)

If you also happen to reduce calories, then everything goes down, but
not all LCers reduce calories.

Anyway, most of LCers do. I think that my saturated fat income is
slighly increased, transfats plummeted, but one real difference is that
instead of eating potatoes or rice I eat broccoli and cauliflower.
Without any impact on my appetite.

Just as "anecdotal evidence", my wife is not into LC, and still eating
basically same as I was before. And our menus do not significantly
differ in fat consumtion - just in carbs.

Mirek

"Mirek Fidler" writes:
I wonder if you have accounted for all these junk-food hidden
transfats you were eating before...

What makes you think transfats are hidden? Why wouldn't they show up
under "fat" in the nutritional label?

Anyway, most of LCers do.

I didn't say none of them did. I said not all of them did.

In article , DJ Delorie
wrote:

"Mirek Fidler" writes:
I wonder if you have accounted for all these junk-food hidden
transfats you were eating before...

What makes you think transfats are hidden? Why wouldn't they show up
under "fat" in the nutritional label?

I think they're going to start listing them soon, but right now in the US
products don't have trans fats listed seperately from the other fats. You
have to look at the ingredients for "partially hydrogenated soybean oil"



Anyway, most of LCers do.

I didn't say none of them did. I said not all of them did.

--
-Michelle Levin (Luna)
http://www.mindspring.com/~lunachick
http://www.mindspring.com/~designbyluna

Luna writes:
I think they're going to start listing them soon, but right now in the US
products don't have trans fats listed seperately from the other fats. You
have to look at the ingredients for "partially hydrogenated soybean oil"

But are they listed in the *total* fat?

One Small M_un Step wrote:

On Thu, 1 Jan 2004 15:28:05 -0700, "Alan Wright" alanatyahoodotcom
wrote:

We constantly still encounter supposedly knowledgable
people who doubt the healthfulness of low carb eating.

You are also constantly encountering scientists, cardiologists and
folks who know one whole hell of a lot more about the physiology of
the human body and the research that bears on it than you ever will.

And quack doctors and "trainers" who won't show their credentials,
with wacko diet plans with *no* science behind them.

Pastorio