12 Jan Low Carb, Low Fat – Weight Loss Myths

People either ask me if they need to eat a low carb diet or if they need to avoid fats in order to lose weight and be healthy.

Low Carb or Low Fat? What works?

A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association states that there is no significant difference in weight loss after 6 to 12 months. Both methods worked well to lose weight. It did not take into account body composition. One year is not really a long time though. It would be interesting to know how it looks like after 5 years.

Low Fat Diets

They have been around for a couple of decades in order to fight heart disease. Despite those efforts the numbers have gotten worse. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the USA and we have more people struggling with overweight and obesity.

You can lose weight with this kind of diet. What we don’t know is the quality of food. What  are we eating “food-like” products or real foods? It all depends on choices made.

Low Carb Diets

Even though there are representative diets in this category like the paleo diet that focus on whole foods, that does not mean that most people do that. This diet is often criticized for not being sustainable for everyone. We face the same problem that we have with the low carb diet. I can stuff my face with foods that are not real foods anymore. There are thousands of products in every store.

The Alternative

We need to get away from Low fat this, this low carb that. Different people have different needs but there are some things we can agree on that work for most everyone.

• Eat as unprocessed or minimally processed as possible. Be reasonable, you don’t have to eat your steak raw. It conserves nutrients that you won’t have otherwise or will have to be added artificially. Research seems to indicate that artificially added nutrients are not as efficient as naturally occurring ones.
• You are fine to eat meat, poultry, fish. Focus on wild caught fish, pork or beef from grass-fed animals, etc.
• Veggies are rich in vitamins, phytonutrients, fiber and have small amounts of complex carbohydrates. Go all out.
• Fruits: Stay away from juices, they are high in sugar. I don’t care if it comes from fruits, it still can be hard on your system. Instead of that eat a banana, apple, mango, etc. Eat the fruit. Again they are rich in phytonutrients, vitamins and fiber (depending on the fruit)
• Organic: This is a big topic. I prefer to have most of my foods from organic sources. Research is controversial but I am not sure I want to put GMO’s into my body.
• Grains: They have become increasingly controversial. I have my greek yogurt in the morning and add 1/2 cup of oats. That is it. I usually don’t have more of it (unless I have fallen off the deep end, which does happen once in a while)

Have a great start into the week,

Michael