An interesting post on diet from another forum...

IanTrcp
IanTrcp Posts: 761
I read this and thought some here might find it interesting...

I promised someone I would write up some practical advice regarding losing weight and controlling weight with some relevance to diabetes. This is not intended to be a definitive guide, and I am going to try to make it as basic as possible so people can act on the advice. If anyone would like to add to what I post then please feel free. If you don't agree with what I say, then feel free to try to shoot me down. All reference to diabetes in this post is to type II (adult onset) diabetes, not type I (juvenile onset) diabetes. This is not medical advice, just my opinion

The first thing you need to understand is that weight gain does not cause diabetes. Diabetes causes weight gain. Or more specifically, insulin insensitivity (which is what diabetes is) causes weight gain. Diabetes is not a specific condition but the end point on a spectrum of gradual deterioration in the ability of your body to use carbohydrates effectively. You might start life with good insulin sensitivity, and as you age genetic and environmental factors causes this ability to decline, leading to weight gain. This weight gain then causes the body to do three things. It will make you eat more. It will reduce your metabolic rate. It will reduce your activity levels.

In other words, you don't gain weight because you eat too much, you eat more because the body has stored too much food as fat, rather than using it as fuel for metabolism.

This point is important because it the point at which the mainstream medical community slip up, by quoting the law of thermodynamics. People assume that you get fat because you eat too much or don't exercise enough, but equations move in both directions. So in fact you eat more because you store more. It's the exact opposite of what the mainstream medical community will tell you. People aren't fat because they are lazy and eat too much. The body makes them lazy and eat more because they aren't able to properly utilise their food as fuel. The food we are talking about is carbohydrate.

So why does the body start to accumulate fat rather than using carbohydrate as fuel? It does this because the sensitivity of your muscle tissue to insulin becomes less. More and more insulin is required to push the carbohydrate into the muscle as its sensitivity declines. So instead of going into the muscle, the carbohydrate is pushed into the fat tissue, where it is converted to triglycerides (fat). Fat tissue doesn't become as insensitive to insulin as muscle tissue so the carbs can always get in there. The absence of carbohydrate in the muscle signals the body to release greater and greater amounts of insulin, sensitivity declines further (due to more and more insulin release), and this stimulates apatite to ingest more fuel (as the body thinks its starving due to lack of muscle fuel). The situation occurs over many years but the end result is weight gain, muscle loss and eventually the development of diabetes. This whole spectrum of insulin sensitivity decline is called metabolic syndrome or syndrome X.

If you know what the problem is and you understand this, its pretty easy to see the cure. All you have to do is stop the steady decline of your muscle�€™s sensitivity to insulin. By doing this you will break the cycle allowing your body to start using carbohydrates correctly, then you will start to lose weight. Just to repeat, you don�€™t lose weight to cure diabetes, you cure diabetes to lose weight.

So how do we do this? One of two ways. First you need to prime the muscle to accept glucose again. You do this with anaerobic exercise. It has to be anaerobic. This is the type of exercise that is intense and of short duration. Sprinting, weight lifting, martial arts, many athletic jumping and throwing events. If you are unsure, then anaerobic exercise is usually anything you can do while holding your breath. Why anaerobic exercise? Because the body uses a high proportion of carbohydrate as fuel and this primes the muscle like a sponge to accept more to replenish the glycogen (storage form of glucose in muscle). Insulin sensitivity increases and any ingested carbs are soaked out of the blood and into the muscle, avoiding the fat cells. Aerobic exercise uses a high proportion of fat as fuel, so you don't get the same effect. Funnily enough aerobic exercise is what many of the mainstream medical associations recommend. It's plain wrong.

Secondly you need to cut carbohydrates. This breaks the cycle of high insulin levels and allows the muscle cells to increase their sensitivity by upregulating glucose receptors (which down regulate when you release too much insulin). When you cut carbs, the blood sugar levels will fall (as will insulin) and this will allow the body to up regulate the use of fat as a fuel source. So you begin to use fat during normal metabolism and this fat will come from your adipose tissue. With high blood sugar levels, the body cannot release fatty acids from storage, and can only use carbs as an energy source (but carbs cant get into the muscles anyway because they are insensitive so cant act as a fuel, hence your activity levels drop).

So when you increase the sensitivity of the muscle for insulin, you start to lose body fat. The body registers the improved flow of glucose to the muscle, and the reduction in blood sugar levels, by upregulating metabolism, increasing activity and adjusting apatite to the correct levels. Therefore it is the weight loss that causes you to become more active and eat less, not the other way round. You will find that as your muscles become more and more sensitive to insulin (and weight reduces), your level of activity will increase.

There is no real thing as a bad carbohydrate, just a badly timed one. I have recommended that you cut carbs, and many people have done this with great success. But if you like carbs there are two times you can eat them without the detrimental effect of fat storage. One is first thing in the morning. now your liver glycogen and blood sugar will be low, so you can get away with a high (ish) carb breakfast. The other time is after a workout involving anaerobic exercise. Now all the carbs will soak into the muscles like water into a sponge, with very little left over for fat production.

In terms of foods, I can tell that someone is going to tell me that high fat / high cholesterol diets are unhealthy. They are wrong, and the data in the scientific literature says they are wrong. I wont go into this but all the info is here:

http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm

Suffice to say that saturated fat is not a risk factor for heart disease. High cholesterol is correlated, but not the cause of heart disease. But it wont matter, because when you cut carbs I guarantee that if you are insulin insensitive, both your triglyceride and cholesterol levels will drop to the normal range.

What does cause heart disease is high insulin levels and high blood sugar. The literature has the evidence, but the doctors choose to ignore it. Sugars cross link with proteins and cause glycosylation of cells that damages the vascular system.

The type of fats to avoid are any fat in the trans configuration (listed as trans fats on the ingredients) and anything that is hydrogenated (such as supermarket cooking oils and margarine. Monounsaturated fats are fairly neutral. Eat butter and only cook with lard, butter or extra virgin olive oil mixed with water to lower the temp. If you think you are insulin insensitive eat more protein, more saturated fat and cut down on carbs. In particular avoid what some people call the simple sugars such as fructose, sucrose, glucose and things like high fructose corn syrup. Some people can drink milk, others cannot, you'll have to try and see if it helps by cutting it out.

I would personally say a healthy diet would include no processed food, lots of fresh meat, low carb vegetable (broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, sprouts, tomatoes), with occasional use of grains or fruit in the morning or after a work out. No sugar, sugary drinks or sugar laden fat free foods. Avoid beer and cider and stick to wine. Avoid breakfast cereals, white bread, rice, pasta, and all the other high carbohydrate food we are told are so good for us. Use olive oil sparingly (only extra virgin). Drink tea liberally, but without sugar. If you like green tea, even better as the caffeine and the catechins are thermogenic and it has been shown in many studies to increase fat loss in humans. Take some sort of food containing omega 3 fats such as mackerel or tuna. Avoid farmed fish like salmon at all costs.

The biggest no no is mixing high carb foods like bread with high fat foods such as cheese. The carbs spike your insulin levels, prevent the body from burning fat, the cheese adds loads of calories, and the bread goes straight to the fat cells. Fructose from fruit is also converted straight to fat in the liver so its another thing to avoid. If you feel you need more phytonutrients eat things such as broccoli or other vegetables with very few carbs in them. If someone wants to lose weight, personally I would avoid most fruits. Its what bears eat to fatten up for hibernation, and it's a great fattening food. Nuts and seeds are great foods on the whole, especially if the seed is kept intact until eating. Walnuts contain omega 3 fats.

Supplement wise, everyone should take a good multi vitamin / multi mineral. Our foods are depleted of nutrients. You cannot get the vitamins or minerals you require from your diet if you shop in supermarkets. Get a multivitamin similar to solgar vm2000 or vm75. Amino acid chelated minerals, at least 1 gram of vit c, 50 mgs of the b vits, and 400 iu of vitamin e.

Of particular interest to people who are insulin insensitive are the minerals chromium and the antioxidant alpha lipoic acid. Chromium is needed for insulin receptor function. You can induce diabetes in animals by depleting the diet of chromium. It has been shown to reverse diabetes in lab animals, and has shown to reduce weight in some studies in humans (probably by increasing insulin sensitivity). You will not be able to get the RDA from your diet. I have seen hospital dieticians try and fail. You must supplement. 200 mcg a day in the picolinate form. Alpha lipoic acid is a supplement that can improve insulin insensitivity. Do a Medline search, there are many studies that show it is effective at this. It is also one of the few substances know to hep with the repair of the glycosylation caused by high blood sugar levels. 100 mg a day as a base level up to 200 to 300 mg in highly insensitive persons. If you think you may have vascular damage from high insulin levels then take 50 to 100 mgs of mixes tocotrienols a day. These are 4 of the chemicals with vitamin e activity, they have unsaturated isoprenoid tails and have been shown to reverse atherosclerotic plaques in humans. One of the only chemicals known to do this.

Anyone else had any experience of low carb diets?

KS

This post has been edited by King Stromba: Sep 25 2009, 11:11 PM
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Comments

  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    Two words - Healthy balanced diet.
  • Splottboy
    Splottboy Posts: 3,695
    But that's thre ---- Hey you nearly got me there! You lickle monkey, you.
  • robrauy
    robrauy Posts: 252
    IanTrcp wrote:
    You cannot get the vitamins or minerals you require from your diet if you shop in supermarkets.
    :roll:
  • avoid fruit to lose weight.....

    hmmm i know some fruits are high in natural sugars but really
    Crafted in Italy apparantly
  • If I have too many oranges or prunes I lose a lot of weight really really quickly, making sure I am always within running distance of a toilet of course
  • Pokerface
    Pokerface Posts: 7,960
    I lost interest after the first sentence.
  • I read the whole turgid lot, but after this -

    This is not medical advice, just my opinion

    I knew I was wasting my time. We all know the saying 'opinions are like ar5eholes - everybody's got one', and in this case it seems the opinion has been cobbled together after reading a load of Gillian McKeith style quackery. I mean -

    You cannot get the vitamins or minerals you require from your diet if you shop in supermarkets.

    Christ almighty.
  • guinea
    guinea Posts: 1,177
    HPC?
  • I lost it when he tried to dispute the laws of thermodynamics.

    I bet the author is a huge fat person, it sounds like a fat person wrote it to excuse their lazy lifestyle.

    Energy out > energy in => mass loss, it is that simple over time.
  • DaSy
    DaSy Posts: 599
    So the bottom line appears to be, eat less carbohydrates, more protein and also to exercise; this seems remarkably similar to mainstream medical advise that he berates.
    The difference is that he blames this all on the body playing little tricks on the person, and making them do less and eat more, and certainly not because they are lazy over-eaters....oh no, definitely not that, bad body..bad body!
    Complicating matters since 1965
  • pastryboy
    pastryboy Posts: 1,385
    robrauy wrote:
    IanTrcp wrote:
    You cannot get the vitamins or minerals you require from your diet if you shop in supermarkets.
    :roll:

    It's not true obviously but it is based on fact. The food we eat today has less vitamins and minerals than people were eating 50+ years ago because the soil has been depleted from intensive monoculture farming.

    The sentiment of the article is ok (i.e. less processed grains) but how can you take dietary advice from someone who thinks a tomato is a vegetable.
  • robrauy wrote:
    IanTrcp wrote:
    You cannot get the vitamins or minerals you require from your diet if you shop in supermarkets.
    :roll:

    A bit extreme but sadly about 90% of the food sold in supermarkets is severely lacking in anything good for you.

    Nowadays most of the food is processed or ready to eat, which is garbage in terms of nutrition. The chicken, other than the most expensive, is full of water and severely lacking in protein and half of the veg on sale has been shown to be so over intensely farmed that it's well down on the nutrients that we think they contain.

    Very sad but I fear the guy is right on that one.
  • robrauy
    robrauy Posts: 252
    Escargot wrote:
    robrauy wrote:
    IanTrcp wrote:
    You cannot get the vitamins or minerals you require from your diet if you shop in supermarkets.
    :roll:

    A bit extreme but sadly about 90% of the food sold in supermarkets is severely lacking in anything good for you.

    Nowadays most of the food is processed or ready to eat, which is garbage in terms of nutrition. The chicken, other than the most expensive, is full of water and severely lacking in protein and half of the veg on sale has been shown to be so over intensely farmed that it's well down on the nutrients that we think they contain.

    Very sad but I fear the guy is right on that one.

    Fair point, but you can shop wisely - even at Tescos. I know it's OT but I wonder why the UK embraced prepacked instant food so willingly, while France has such a different attitude.. Even the fast food outlets in France seem to have a fresh healthy option..
  • Edwin
    Edwin Posts: 785
    There was a documentary about this on Radio 4 last night. It's true that fruit and vegetables now contain less nutrients and minerals than those tested in the 1950's, this is largely due to growing different varieties that have been bred for high yield, rather than degredation in the soil. I think they said the actual amount was 25 to 30% less, so to say it's impossible to get enough nutrients is still rubbish. Modern processed food is another matter, there's an easy answer there which is to not eat it.
  • But...even if supermarket veggies are lacking in nutrients, the bloke says to counteract this by taking vitamin tablets, which are readily available in, you guessed it, supermarkets.
    guinea wrote:
    HPC?

    Dunno about you, but that's where I go for my nutritional advice (along with economic conspiracy theories, thinly veiled snobbery and the occasional bit of mild racism).
  • robrauy wrote:
    Fair point, but you can shop wisely - even at Tescos. I know it's OT but I wonder why the UK embraced prepacked instant food so willingly, while France has such a different attitude.. Even the fast food outlets in France seem to have a fresh healthy option..

    I think it's because we're so fixated on convenience due to everyone wanting to spend every hour at the workplace. I work with the French, German and Italians and they are not nearly as much concerned with working their socks off as much as we are (although that's not to say they don't work hard).

    It's cultural and because most families don't make meals from scratch anymore many of us have lost any idea as to what is healthy and what is not. Thus the supermarkets sell us any old tosh and pass it off as food i.e. sausages :?

    It's very sad and I agree, you can shop wisely at Tesco but it's becoming increasingly difficult. Especially when that lovely looking broccoli florett is way less good for you than you think :cry: There's no wonder why people are growing their own nowadays (cue someone telling us that homegrown is not that great either :wink: )
  • guinea
    guinea Posts: 1,177
    nasahapley wrote:
    guinea wrote:
    HPC?
    Dunno about you, but that's where I go for my nutritional advice (along with economic conspiracy theories, thinly veiled snobbery and the occasional bit of mild racism).

    +1

    Just lurk tho'
  • Edwin
    Edwin Posts: 785
    Pardon my ignorance, but what's HPC ?
  • Edwin wrote:
    Pardon my ignorance, but what's HPC ?

    Housepricecrash.co.uk; like Guinea I also occasionally lurk there too, bit of a guilty pleasure of mine! In all fairness, there are a fair few people who obviously know their economic onions posting there, and you do get some good discussions/debates going (not that many of which are actually about house prices). Trouble is, it also attracts lots of tin-foil hatters and 'extreme political party members'; it's entertaining, but I wouldn't like to rely on any advice, about anything, which I saw there!
  • nasahapley wrote:
    But...even if supermarket veggies are lacking in nutrients, the bloke says to counteract this by taking vitamin tablets, which are readily available in, you guessed it, supermarkets.

    I'd doubt you find "good" food supplements in supermarket too.
    Try proper health shops, where you can get "proper" supplements.

    As for vegs and fruits in supermarkets, without even going in the nutritional side of things, just based on taste alone, I'd never come near them unless I had no choice.
    Buying organic vegs and fruits is not more expensive, but of course, you have to eat seasonal. Something peoples in this country can't understand...
    FCN 4(?) (Commuter - Genesis Croix de Fer)
    FCN 3 (Roadie - Viner Perfecta)

    -- Please sponsor me on my London to Paris ride --
    http://www.diabeteschallenge.org.uk/cha ... n_to_paris
  • dennisn
    dennisn Posts: 10,601
    acidstrato wrote:
    avoid fruit to lose weight.....

    hmmm i know some fruits are high in natural sugars but really

    Sounds weird but somewhat true. Orange juice is not on any diet. Way to much sugar.
    Now if I can just get the diet experts to approve Mexican food and strawberry margaritas..........
  • Edwin
    Edwin Posts: 785
    Right, eating fruit will not make you gain weight, I fail to see how this can possibly be true. Juice is different, is it's technically a processed food if you think about it - it's easy to drink an amount of orange juice that would be equivalent to many more oranges than you would sit there, peel, and eat. An average orange is less than 100 kcal and practically zero fat, compare that to some other foods - a kebab for example is on average 800 kcal and 76 grams of fat! Go figure, as the Americans say.

    While I'm in rant mode, how is a Tesco vitamin tablet less 'proper' than one from Holland and Barrett, or whichever 'proper' shops you refer to? Also, organic vegetables do not have a higher level of nutrients - that's not supported by the research. Sorry if this sounds confrontational, but people seem to have a lot of opinions on nutrition without bothering to check any facts, it's one of my pet hates!
  • Pokerface
    Pokerface Posts: 7,960
    Edwin wrote:
    Right, eating fruit will not make you gain weight


    That is not strictly true.

    Eating a PIECE of fruit won't make you gain weight. But too much fruit CAN make you gain weight. Yes - most fruit is fat-free and relatively low in calories. But even a few bananas a day can push you over the limit of calorie intake. Or a few apples, etc.

    Also - at one point I was on a carb-free diet (which I lost 6 stone on) and most fruits were a no-no as they are high in carbs.

    Just saying that while you are mostly correct in what you say - it IS actually possible to gain weight eating fruit! :)
  • Edwin
    Edwin Posts: 785
    Yep, you are right - my point is that you'd have to eat a lot of it, which isn't easy. Try eating more than two or three apples in one sitting, for example. If people want to change their diet, there's probably better things to start cutting out than fruit...
  • Pokerface
    Pokerface Posts: 7,960
    Edwin wrote:
    Yep, you are right - my point is that you'd have to eat a lot of it, which isn't easy. Try eating more than two or three apples in one sitting, for example. If people want to change their diet, there's probably better things to start cutting out than fruit...

    I could eat several apples in one sitting. :)


    I tried cutting the bananas out of my banana splits but I still gained weight. :shock:
  • Try fruit smoothies. Choc full of sugar due to the massively high concentration of fruit in one glass.

    Drink one a day (to get your supposed 5 a day) and you'll soon gain weight.

    But you're right, you'd have to eat a lot of fruit to put weight on (although you'll be losing it pretty quick out the other end if you ate that much!)
  • Gee, the things you're reading. Carb free diet?!
    The focus of a diet shouldn't be on losing weight. Losing weight, when overweight, should be the result of a proper, balanced diet, along with an active lifestyle...
    I'm always amazed at some peoples who really deprive themselves of things that their body need.
    FCN 4(?) (Commuter - Genesis Croix de Fer)
    FCN 3 (Roadie - Viner Perfecta)

    -- Please sponsor me on my London to Paris ride --
    http://www.diabeteschallenge.org.uk/cha ... n_to_paris
  • dennisn
    dennisn Posts: 10,601
    holybinch wrote:
    Gee, the things you're reading. Carb free diet?!
    The focus of a diet shouldn't be on losing weight. Losing weight, when overweight, should be the result of a proper, balanced diet, along with an active lifestyle...
    I'm always amazed at some peoples who really deprive themselves of things that their body need.

    Carb FREE diets are pretty hard to achieve. Plenty of bodybuilders use low carb diets to
    lose body fat and have excellent results. Watched my wife do the Atkins diet. Very few carbs in the first two weeks until your body goes into ketosis(fat burning state). She checked this with urine test strips to be sure she was burning fat for energy. Then she started adding berries and low carb veggies to her diet. She found that if she ate more than 50 grams of carbs a day the ketosis would shut down. So she kept it below 40 grams and lost weight at a pretty good rate. Of course, like most dieters, after a while it was back to the pizza, enchiladas, and alcohol. You know, the really good stuff. :wink:
  • simon_e
    simon_e Posts: 1,706
    I couldn't be bothered to read the quote article, and the comments seem more interesting. BTW putting large paragraphs in italics hurts my eyes :(

    Apparently excess protein causes acidosis and can lead to kidney damage. It also causes calcium leaching from bones, refuting the dairy industry's claims of high levels of calcium in cow's milk. From what I've read ketosis is not something I aspire to, it's quite unhealthy. You can stick your Atkins fad diet with all the others.
    holybinch wrote:
    I'd doubt you find "good" food supplements in supermarket too.
    Try proper health shops, where you can get "proper" supplements.
    Why are they any better because they are branded? Where is the evidence for that assertion? How do you know Tesco, Asda or the cheap online supp. sources (e.g. Healthy Direct, Zipvit) aren't as good?

    Supplements are mostly a con trick anyway. Most of the time they are synethetic replacements for real food. I'm not saying Glucosamine never works, just that it seems that it has been shown to help those with specific conditions, and not as a preventative for otherwise healthy people. Similarly, all that rubbish about overdosing on Vit C tablets when you have a cold is tripe. I'm not saying Vit C (preferably from fresh fruit & veg) doesn't help, just that 1000mg a day is not going to do you any good when you're already ill, you'll just piss most of it out with the large quantity of plain water you should be drinking.

    As well as pills, all this hype about berries, superfoods, ginko-this and herb-that, it's all so unbalanced, it focusses on one product with 'special' qualities. The latest sport-related one is beetroot juice :roll: All these foods are good, and less processed they are the better for you they will be. There's no magic bullet.

    I was reading a recent interview with the Garmin team's physiologist Allen Lim (here) and the conversation had an interesting direction. Much talk was of doping, but threaded through it was some fascinating logic. Comments like this caught my attention:
    why do drugs work? Drugs work because we can synthetically make compounds that fit in receptor sites that activate certain cellular functions. The reason why drugs work is because there is a lock for every one of these sites in our body. But why do those receptor sites exist?

    As big as the pharmaceutical industry is, it hasn't even come close to making all the substances in our own body that unlocks those doors. The only reason why those receptors exist is that our bodies are the biggest pharmacies on the planet.
    What I take from this is the idea that, sure some chemicals - whether from so-called 'superfoods', supplements (legal or otherwise) and so on can make a difference to performance, but there is so much more to it than that.

    Edit: I thought I'd mention Ben Goldacre's Guardian article, 'The Medicalisation of Everyday Life':
    for over five years now, newspapers and television stations have tried to persuade us, with “science”, that fish-oil pills have been proven to improve children’s school performance, IQ, behaviour, attention, and more. As I have documented with almost farcical repetitiveness in this paper, these so-called “fish-oil trials” were so badly designed that they amounted to little more than a sham.
    Aspire not to have more, but to be more.
  • nolf
    nolf Posts: 1,287
    To get back to the article.

    Bollocks indeed. "equations work both ways"

    Thanks for your insightful analysis.

    Fat people "need" to eat more because they store more food as fat...
    Hmm, maybe if they did some low intensity exercise to help make their body efficient at burning fat that would help? Or try eating less. Or not getting fat in the first place.

    It does indeed sound like a fat person trying to justify their existence.
    "I hold it true, what'er befall;
    I feel it, when I sorrow most;
    'Tis better to have loved and lost;
    Than never to have loved at all."

    Alfred Tennyson