LOW-FAT
DIETS ARE BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH
Not to put too fine a
point on it, but extreme low-fat dieting can increase your risk factors for
cardiovascular disease. Heart disease is the second leading cause of death
among women, and an ultra-low-fat diet can make your risk factors worse. For
instance, when you follow a low-fat diet, you naturally increase your
carbohydrate consumption, which in turn increases your levels of blood
triglycerides – unhealthy fats that raise your risk for heart disease. It’s
true that reducing your fat intake may result in less LDL cholesterol – the
so-called bad kind – but here’s the kicker: Going too low on your fat intake
can actually increase your number of “small” LDL cholesterol molecules, the
ones that actually create plague in your arteries.
Low-fat diets are high in
carbs also create swings in blood glucose and insulin that no woman really
wants to deal with. We will explain exactly how insulin and glucose prompt a
hunger response. Low-fat diets are responsible for creating these swings
because when you cut down fat and increase carbs, you increase the amount of
glucose that enters your bloodstream, as well as the amount of insulin that
your pancreas delivers to control glucose and bring it back into the normal
range. If this glucose/insulin tug-of-war becomes a constant battle, your body
can end up in a hypoglycemic (low blood glucose) state, and you’ll find
yourself on the road to constant hunger and, potentially, type 2 diabetes.
LOW-FAT
DIETS CAN MESS WITH YOUR MOOD
In your body, insulin
efficiently sweeps away excess glucose that is released into your bloodstream
after you eat. When glucose is swept away too quickly, as happens when insulin
has to work overtime in response to a low-fat, carbohydrate-rich meal, your
blood sugar levels plummet and you become hungry and irritable.
UK researchers have shown
that a low-fat diet (containing less than 55 grams of fat per day) increase
feelings of anger, hostility, tension, and anxiety in normal, healthy young men
and women, whereas a diet higher in fat (about 90 grams of fat) reduces these
feelings.
LOW-FAT
DIETS CAN ACTUALLY MAKE YOU FATTER
Another low-fat strike
against your body composition is that high insulin levels often make people eat
more than they should. Studies of people with diabetes have shown that
decreasing insulin secretion with drugs tends to spontaneously lower food
intake. So, both the rise in insulin after a low-fat, high-carb meal followed
by the drop in blood glucose will work together to foil your weight-loss plans
because you’ll want to eat more whether you really need to or not.
There’s also this problem:
when you eat large quantities of carbohydrates, your liver and muscles don’t
have the space to store the excess. This means the carbs are almost automatically
converted to fat. As a result, low-fat, high-carb diets will just increase your
body fat level unless you’re using these carbs effectively throughout the day,
as endurance athletes do.
Okay, so that’s one diet
fad down. What about the other, more recent diet phenomenon, low-carb eating
plans? A typical very low-carbohydrate diet contains less than about 50 grams
of carbohydrate per day, or about 10 percent of total calorie intake. It also
contains a high amount of dietary fat, at about 140 grams of fat per day, and
about 100 grams of protein per day. Such plans were originally designed to help
people who were very overweight, had problems with blood glucose control, and
had difficulties controlling hunger cravings (especially their carbohydrate
joneses). And in fact, for the past several years, study after study has
demonstrated that these characteristics are effectively managed with such
plans, and the risk of disease is reduced.
However (and this is very
important “however”), when the media and food manufacturers glommed onto this
diet, they touted it as one that every person could follow, no matter what his
or her blood glucose control or body fat percentage. Many women who weren’t
obese were following this diet because they wanted to lose a couple of pounds
fast. And it worked for some of them – but not for those who found the high
percentage of fat and protein to be unpalatable (not eggs again!) or who found
it difficult to severely limit their intake of healthy carbs such as fruit (an
apple has 22 grams of carbs – nearly half your daily allowance on a very
low-carb diet), low-fat yogurt (23 grams), and whole wheat bread (30 grams in
the two slices you need for your sandwich).
Thankfully, those of us
who are not extremely overweight or who don’t have problems controlling
carbohydrate cravings do not really need to restrict our carbs to very low
levels. We can lose weight as long as our diets are lower in carbs than 60 to
65 percent of total calories (270 to 300 grams of carbohydrate daily)
recommended by the government.
The takeaway here is
simple: Diets like the BODY PERFECT DIET that contain a balanced ratio of
calories from carbohydrates, protein, and in fat help you retain more muscle
mass and leave you less hungry. Donald Layman, PhD, and colleagues at the
University of Illinois have published most of the convincing evidence. In
several well-conducted studies, they clearly show that
diets with carbohydrates intake under 150 grams per day and protein intake
greater than 1.4 grams per kilogram of body weight result in increased weight
loss, increased loss of body fat, less loss of lean muscles mass, improved
blood glucose control, improved blood cholesterol profiles, and enhanced
fullness.
Another recent study,
published in 2007 by researchers at Purdue University in Indiana, compared
weight loss, fat loss, muscles retention, mood, and hunger ratings among overweight
and obese women on diets that were either 25 percent fat, 45 percent carbs, and
30 percent protein or 25 percent fat, 57 percent carbs, and 18 percent protein.
After 12 weeks, the women in both groups lost about 18 pounds of body weight
each, including 14.5 pounds of fat. However, the women in the first group,
whose diet was more evenly balanced among the three macro nutrients, loss less
muscle – only 3 pounds, compared with 6 pounds in the other group. This shows
that when calories are reduced, a more balanced intake of nutrients helps to
preserve lean body mass, which is important for health and longevity. Lean mass
(that is, muscle) is related to strength, and increased strength will protect
you from injury. What’s more, the women in the more balanced group felt fuller
after eating than did the other women. Feelings of pleasure and satisfaction
throughout the day were also higher for the more balanced group, and these same
good feelings were decreased in the other group.
That’s why the BODY PERFECT
DIET includes balanced amounts of both carbohydrates and healthy fats in its
diet prescription. The plan provides less than 50 percent of daily calories
from carbohydrates (fewer than 200 grams of carbs per day), so you get the
benefits of carbohydrate restriction without feeling deprived of healthy
carbohydrate foods. Likewise, your intake of healthy fat will fall between 25
and 40 percent of calories (55 to 70 grams daily), as opposed to the 10 to 15
percent common in low-fat diets.
TEACH ME,O LORD,THE WAY OF YOUR STATUS,AND I SHALL KEEP IT TO THE END.PSALM 119:33
