Eating full fat foods 'can lower chance of obesity'

[Jemmons]

Charity says a diet low in refined carbohydrates but high in healthy fats is the best way to prevent weight gain and aid weight loss

The authors of the report also argue that the science of food has also been "corrupted by commercial influences".

Just as big tobacco companies bought the "loyalty of scientists" when a link was made between smoking and lung cancer, the influence of the food industry represents a "significant threat to public health", they argued.

In a damning report that accuses major public health bodies of colluding with the food industry, the National Obesity Forum and the Public Health Collaboration call for a “major overhaul” of current dietary guidelines. They say the focus on low-fat diets is failing to address Britain’s obesity crisis, while snacking between meals is making people fat.

Eating fat does not make you fat
Evidence from multiple trials reveals that a higher-fat, lower carbohydrate diet is superior to a low-fat diet for weight loss and cardiovascular risk reduction

Stop counting calories
Calories from different foods have different metabolic effects on the body, so the cumulative calorie count is meaningless

You cannot outrun a bad diet
Obesity is a hormonal disorder leading to abnormal energy partitioning, which cannot be solely fixed by increasing exercise

Saturated fat does not cause heart disease and full-fat dairy is likely to be protective
New meta-analysis of the evidence available forty years ago does not support dietary fat restrictions

Avoid at all costs: “processed foods labelled “low fat”, “lite”, “low cholesterol” or “proven to lower cholesterol”
No single piece of evidence exists that demonstrates reducing dietary saturated fat reduces cardiovascular events and death

Snacking will make you fat
The increase in meal frequency plays an equal if not larger role in obesity and has largely been ignored

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/22/official-advice-to-eat-low-fat-diet-is-wrong-says-health-charity

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/22/eat-fat-to-get-thin-30-years-of-flawed-dietary-advice-is-disastr/

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/eating-full-fat-foods-can-lower-chance-of-obesity-a7042821.html

[Logical]

1. After 30 years of being over weight I went low carb and stopped worrying....

About fat.

Now at my perfect weight. And no more HBP or cholesterol meds.

[Person 2713]

3. And it all tastes so good too- high satiety value . But but but people have to understand that is

with low carb and some fiber plus get some protein
Adding higher fat to an already terrible diet does no good probably
Everyone I know that eats more fat low carb has no pills and you can do it even non meat with coconut,nuts , eggs ,cocoa ,chia etc

[The Far Left]

22. This whole thread is scientific fraud

The meat and dairy industries have been putting out misinformation for decades.

If you read the rest of the Guardian article they quote one official who says, "the report from the National Obesity Forum is not peer reviewed. Furthermore, it does not it indicate who wrote it or how is was funded."

There is no valid research to report here. This whole thread is scientific fraud.

[Logical]

28. Nope! Many studies showing fat in diet is not the issue! Nt

[The Far Left]

32. Always seek peer reviewed, phd level, non corporate funded studies. nt

[hopemountain]

23. and avocados. nt

[taught_me_patience]

2. Eating less calories than you burn is 100 percent effective at preventing obesity n/t

[Skittles]

4. true, but

the rate at which people burn calories varies greatly

[sense]

5. Bullshit.

Disproven. Old think. We are not putting calories into an empty box. We're putting them into complicated and individual bodies, most of which have been corrupted by all the processed food the ptb have pushed on us so that corporations can profit.

The simplistic and ridiculous calories in, calories out is wrong. It doesn't take into account hormones or anything else which have a profound affect on metabolism and how we process fuel or don't process it and how we store fat.

Read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes for all the science you could want from the last 100 years.

Question everything.

[Fuddnik]

7. For me, it used to be "cut out the fat, reduce the calories and hit the gym".

Didn't work anymore. I went on an Atkins diet. Ate lots of eggs, bacon, steak, whole milk, and some good vegies to get the carbs (few) I needed.

I never made it to the gym once, but took off 40 lbs in 4 months I had high tri-glycerides, high blood pressure, and borderline high cholesterol. It was all normal after the diet.

No grains of any kind. No sugar, pasta, bread or potatos.

It tastes better and you feel better. And you learn to start reading the labels about just what exactly you're eating.

[moriah]

15. The only danger with Atkins is to avoid long-term ketone production.

Pregnant women, even if they legitimately need to lose weight, don't need to go full Atkins because ketones are extremely damaging to the fetus (part of why hyperemesis gravidium contributes to poor postnatal outcomes, they often spent time in ketosis.

[Jim Lane]

36. Bodies are different -- my experience was pretty much the opposite of yours.

I took up that "cut out the fat, reduce the calories and hit the gym" regimen, except that I find the gym totally boring so I became a distance cyclist. I dropped about 40 pounds. My resting pulse went from low 80s to 56, too.

Then I had a cycling accident and couldn't ride for a long time. Exercise, for many of us, is dependent on habit. When I was riding regularly I tended to ride. Being off the bike for so long meant that my habits went the other way. I've now put the weight back on.

So, the advice that didn't work for you worked precisely as advertised for me.

I'm glad you got where you wanted to be, but, damn, I'd sure miss the pasta and the whole-grain bread.

[melman]

8. Nonsense

Eat less. Move more.

That's it.

[moriah]

16. Not eat less, eat right.

A person who eats too few calories will, even if they exercise and lose weight in the short term, fark up their metabolism and likely gain it back when the "diet" is over even if they're eating less calories.

Exercise and burning calories is absolutely essential, but eating enough to burn is required to actually get a habitual bad dieter's metabolism actively running.

[CountAllVotes]

27. yep

That's how I did it, I simply quit eating as much. I did not lose the weight overnight, it took a long time.

However, the good news is that is seems to be permanent and no longer the struggle it once was. I was told to not eat as much and that is what I did and it actually works! if you think about it for one second.

Eat less = weigh less!

[Person 2713]

9. Yes! hormones stimulated by fat and proteins are different from carbs and beneficial

Last edited Mon May 23, 2016, 10:14 AM - Edit history (1)

Not only old BS but a high fail rate sustaining less cal in cal out and it can be very unhealthy
I also agree with the OP line you can't outrun a bad diet . People that try this over and over for weight reasons actually seem to me to be even more unhealthy than someone a little chubby whose diet is not so full of processed high GI foods but just my opinion and for those I have seen
that bad diet seems to always win against the run (HBP chol etc). just people I have observed nothing scientific about posting but I can't help notice so

[Ed Suspicious]

13. Thank you.

[moriah]

12. It depends on how many calories your body burns.with the same exercise.

A history of yo-yo dieting, disordered eating and especially eating too few calories, insulin resistance from early PCOS or type 2 diabetes lowers the body's metabolism.

I say this as a person who has lost over 100 lbs by severely limiting sugared beverages (as my Mom has type 2), eating full fat foods because often they have close to the same calories because of added sugar, ate low-calorie green veggies before eating "regular meals" to get full on them first then choosing protein before the starchy offerings eating a good amount of proteins like Greek yogurt, boiled eggs, etc and trying to walk as much as I could (would walk fast on a little circuit that was about a quarter mile each break at work serval times daily), and weight melted off.

Also, when I hit a plateau, I *added* an extra protein rather than reduce calories. Bodies are very good at recognizing potential famine and working under a less active metabolic rate as a survival mechanism.

[The Far Left]

18. My latest views on diet...

Almost all primates live optimally off of calories from fruit.

When you binge on hundreds of grams of fat your adrenalin and insulin don't work properly for a few days.

So when you try to carb up again your body has a lethargic diabetic response until you clear that excess fat out of your blood again, which can take up to 4 days.

Also, you need to eat some (50%?) whole foods to stay healthy and avoid inflammation which also can cause weight gain.

Many so called low-fat diet studies allow up to 20% to 30% of daily calories to come from fat. This is an abnormal modern western diet and those high levels of fat consumption are not normally obtained by primates in nature. For this reason, much of the low-carb research is flawed, in my opinion.

[moriah]

24. Humans evolved primarily from a common ancestor of chimps and bonobos.

Most fruit is far less high on the glycemic index than high fructose corn syrup and the processed sugar that has become such a staple of the modern American diet and in most "low fat" foods. I don't see chimps or bonobos with type 2 diabetes even if they are heavy fruit eaters (if also omnivorous, including hunting and scavenging). But they aren't drinking tons of Coca-Cola, though.

The reason Atkins works is because a body will starve on pure protein, but sugar will stop ketosis. Fat, instead, will at least keep people alive without interfering with the ketosis that causes the temporary, often dramatic, weight loss, but it's not really healthy for a lifestyle choice unless a doctor is recommending a modified form as a treatment for severe diabetes.

There are many reasons a person might have a metabolic problem that makes keeping a normal weight difficult. For those with histories of extreme dieting without combining exercise, they may need to eat more but will HAVE to exercise more to lose. For those like me who have a family history of type 2, reducing (if not eliminating) high-GI carbs and eating more protein instead helps.

[hopemountain]

25. no. fruit sugars are metabolized so quickly (less than an hour)

one has to be constantly replenishing and you also risk the malnutrition of lack of nutrients and protein.

people who abstain from proteins and fats for long periods of time loose the essential production of enzymes to break down the protein and fats - which is why the digestion will slow down. for efficient digestion and metabolizing proteins and fats, eat smaller portions at least once each day.

the same thing happens to enzyme production when one completely abstains from carb intake - fruits, grains, veggies.

have your fats, proteins and veggies fresh and in moderate amounts.

[Logical]

29. Types of calories matter. Do more reading. Insulin, etc. nt

[Blasphemer]

30. That's what worked for me but perhaps it's not that simple for everyone

After trying many diets over the years (low fat, low carb, Mediterranean-style, zone, high cardio "boot camp" exercise programs etc.) what finally worked was moderate but healthy eating and light exercise. I'm vegan now but I lost weight on a calories in vs. calories out diet. Other than skim milk and limiting my egg yolks (mainly out of habit), I didn't really watch carbs OR fat. The lack of any real restriction is what was key for me finding a dietary lifestyle I could live with forever. I think that is critical. This will be different for everyone.

[FLPanhandle]

34. Yep

Americans don't like that answer though.

[Person 2713]

6. I agree with all their points . The worse snacking is at night because you are lessening the

amount of time of your biggest fast (sleep)
of course if you work off hours that's adjusted....

Without any snacking your body is able to get the benefits of small fasts throughout the day
Thank you for the post

[Jemmons]

10. I have a feeling that bad health conditions are a major part of general inequality

Full health and ability makes for a level playing field. And as there are few opportunities to improve on the human design you would need to look for downward potential in order to get more inequality. As in artificially lowering of the general health in a number of ways. Doing so will enhance the otherwise less significant inequalities and make change the significance of a sufficiently high level of income from luxury to necessity.

This is served effectively by making life conditions more hazardous, by lowering food standards, by making health care un-affordable, etc. I am not claiming that a desire for less general health is motivating anyone. Just the the drive towards inequality and the narrow views on health in the for profit food industry are naturally aligned and parts of the same general individualistic outlook and life philosophy.

This view also explains why the affordable care act is so "offensive" to people who like to have their money served with a big dose of inequality.

[moriah]

14. It's certainly easier and cheaper to buy foods with added sugar when you're poor.

White bread is cheaper than wheat, boxed or bagged sweet cereals are more convenient for the mom in a hurried morning rather than making Quaker Oats or scrambled eggs (though boiled eggs can be made in advance for snacking).

Additionally, fresh fruits and vegetables are expensive, canned lose flavor and vitamins, and frozen low-cal veggies require steaming to really taste good. It's much more convenient to get the less than a buck Michaelina's meals.

[Jemmons]

17. Yes - being poor makes it harder to stay healthy

Just like it is harder to make a decent living if you health is poor.

But there is also the perspective:
Inequality of means will make it more meaning full and important to be rich.
Inequality of health will make it more meaning full and important to be rich iff health care is done for profit.

And if you are "inside" the life experience of either part, it matters little if the inequalities are highly artificial, could be avoided at negligible cost and are sustained by lies and junk science.

[moriah]

11. Sugar and insulin resistance are more correlated with metabolic obesity than fat. Nt

[uriel1972]

19. Except this advice...

is deficient in evidence, If you read to the end of the Guardian article there are some questions raised as to the lack of peer review, comprehensive studies and declaration of sponsors of this group.

They may be right, but they have to provide reliable evidence for their claims.

[Blasphemer]

31. Thanks for pointing this out... nt

[Jemmons]

33. Three was also a lot of people who got fooled by the early warnings that tobacco was not healthy

Even as the warnings about tobacco had little or no evidence backing them up, people tried to stop smoking. Same is true about global warning. Apparently not a lot of people have the patience needed to wait for the evidence to tick in...

[moriah]

20. Just to clarify my points, as this matters a lot to me:

There are many stereotypes about obesity in the general population. That people are lazy, or gluttonous, or refusing to accept responsibility enough to change what they can. There's no doubt that some obese people meet those stereotypes. But it's definitely not true for everyone.

Decades of bad advice and newer "online calculatiors" of basic metabolic rates contribute to the idea that weight loss is simply "calories in, calories out". There ARE ways to measure your base metabolic rate if you are having extreme difficulty losing, but if it's lower than normal it means that a different strategy for weight loss is needed.

The biggest reason why "low fat" products aren't necessarily healthier for obesity is two-fold. On the calorie intake side, most of those products have similar calories than their "unhealthy" counterparts for added sugar to make them taste good. On the metabolic side, the body far easier converts sugar, and also starch, to readily available sugar in the blood, promoting insulin release. Eventually the body doesn't react the same way to insulin re: its effect in lowering blood sugar, but it still affects appetite and conversion to stored fat.

The ideal way to lose weight is to take approximately half the calories from your actual BMR adjusted for activity (eliminating more sources of sugar and starch as the easiest and healthiest way to reduce calories), and attempt to become active enough to burn another half the calories. WhilevBMR calculations aren't accurate for everyone, a 5'1 sedentary woman needs about 1600 calories to maintain their weight. So an idea is to start at 1200 calories (the real minimum for women) and attempt to exercise to burn 400 calories a day -- a 5600 weekly calories deficit, and about 7 pounds a month. If despite sticking to the diet and exercise a person gains or plateaus rather than losing, adding an extra protein before workouts isx more likely to stop the body from going into starvation mode. (It's far easier for men, people with more muscle mass, etc, to lose 2 or more lbs per week heathily.

The body's metabolism isn't just an engine, where fuel in equals possible energy out. It's like a self-adjusting engine that uses less fuel when constantly on empty.

[thesquanderer]

42. Also, some of the health problems attributed to obesity may be attributed to sugar.

from http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Restricting-sugar-not-calories-found-to-improve-6591911.php

The researchers put 43 children and teenagers on a nine-day diet that severely restricted sugar without reducing calories, and virtually every measure of metabolic health — blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels — improved even though the participants didn’t lose weight.

“What this is saying is that sugar is toxic because it’s sugar; not because it’s calories,” said Dr. Robert Lustig, pediatric endocrinologist at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco and lead author of the study. “This proves conclusively, beyond a shadow of doubt, that a calorie is not a calorie.”
...
For the study, which was conducted from 2010 to 2014, researchers tailored the food plans to each child’s personal tastes. Participants were given meals and snacks they liked — far from health foods — but starches were substituted for sugars. For example, instead of teriyaki chicken, they got turkey hot dogs. Sweetened yogurt was replaced with baked potato chips and pastries with bagels. Sugary drinks, including fruit juice, were not allowed.

The purpose of the substitutions was to keep calories up and the participants’ weights stable so the researchers could isolate the effect of sugar on metabolic function. If the children had lost weight, the improvements in their blood sugar and other measures could be attributed to the weight loss, not the sugar restriction, Lustig and Schwarz said.

This is not a definitive study, but it is an interesting indication.

One issue is that "sugary drinks" were not isolated from sugar in general... and we already believe from other research that sugary drinks are worse than getting sugar in other forms, at least when it comes to Type 2 diabetes.

[PBass]

21. A balanced diet is still best. Maybe boring to hear, but true.

Diets don't work, lifestyle changes work. The problem with Paleo, ketogenic diets, or eliminating entire classes of foods ("no rice, bread, pasta, wheat, starches, grains of any kind" etc) is that they're unsustainable. Compliance and long-term changes are what work best. Most people will not comply with a diet that forbids entire classes of food, over the long run.

Also, anybody who tells you that total calories don't matter is wrong. Calories in vs. calories out is still the most important factor, more important than food choices (although food choices do matter). This topic is not simple black & white ("don't eat any butter/eat all the butter you want!&quot .

Also, anybody who says that you can eat all the bacon, cheese, butter, steaks you want, with no ill effects on your health is wrong. It's trendy to say otherwise. But most heart doctors would disagree. Please don't point to the minority viewpoint and claim that's the current consensus. It's not true, any more than it would be true for global warming (for example). Most heart doctors want you to limit butter, bacon, lard etc. It's not even close. That doesn't mean "never" eat butter though. Eat butter in moderation, and limit total calories. If you do that, only a small amount of butter is allowable because it's so calorie dense.

[moriah]

26. The issue comes with individual metabolic rates.

As I said, you can pay money to have your basal metabolic rate tested. It varies based on age, gender, muscle mass, prior attempts to lose weight unhealthily that makes the fact our bodies can adjust metabolism based on available food less helpful to our evolutionary success than it was when food was scarce, etc.

When accounting for individual variances, yes, weight loss occurs by burning more calories than are consumed. But not everyone will burn the same amount just laying in bed, let alone from the same intensity and length of a cardio workout. (I preferred a seated elliptical, could set resistance for some light muscle building, yet still get my heartrate up for a significant length of time without hurting the joints suffering from carrying too much weight).

I suggest choosing unnecessary high GI foods as a first suggestion to cut when you are trying to cut calories, because it's generally easier and Americans drink/eat copious amounts of processed sugar. Water, flavored waters with caffeine if you desperately need the caffeine from sodas, etc, is a very easy dietary change to make that encourages a balanced diet.

But even just walking around the block and finding a substitute for sodas can make a difference.

[thesquanderer]

45. Another variable: Calorie counts on many foods are wrong.

from http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/on-food-labels-calorie-miscounts/?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=1

The method most commonly used to assess the number of calories in foods is flawed, overestimating the energy provided to the body by proteins, nuts and foods high in fiber by as much as 25 percent, some nutrition experts say.

“The amount of calories a person gets from protein and fiber are overstated,” said Geoffrey Livesey, the head of Independent Nutrition Logic, a nutrition consulting company in Britain, and a nutrition consultant to the United Nations. “This is especially misleading for those on a high-protein, high-fiber diet, or for diabetics” who must limit their intake of carbohydrates.

An adult aiming to take in 2,000 calories a day on a low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet may actually be consuming several hundred calories less, he and other experts said. Calorie estimates for junk foods, particularly processed carbohydrates, are more accurate.

The current calorie-counting system was created in the late 1800s...The system is most accurate when the foods are easily digested and all of their energy is made available to the body — as they are when consuming highly processed carbohydrates. But in the past few decades, scientists have begun to understand that a substantial number of calories are lost in the effort to digest food. For example, meat and nuts are harder to break down, and so the body expends energy trying to digest them.

In the end, some foods are also not fully digested: significant portions are excreted, and so those calories should not be counted, either. Nuts are among the hardest to digest, and estimates of the calories they contain by the old method are the furthest off — the counts are about 25 percent too high, according to recent research by David Baer, a nutrition scientist at the Department of Agriculture.

Of particular note relevant to part of this thread is the line, "An adult aiming to take in 2,000 calories a day on a low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet may actually be consuming several hundred calories less" -- which implies that, to some extent, people who say this diet works best for reasons unrelated to calories may be being slightly deceived, in that part of the reason it works well could be that it actually provides you with fewer calories than you think it does.

[NobodyHere]

41. I think the key phrase in your post is

"Diets don't work, lifestyle changes work"

Diets (as most people use the word) are temporary. You may lose weight on a diet but once you go off it the weight is going to be put right back on.

[Orrex]

35. I'll check back in three weeks when this has all shifted 180° again

[closeupready]

39. Yup. Remember eggs as "heart attack on a plate"?

[yellowcanine]

37. "the cumulative calorie count is meaningless"

That statement has to be incorrect. Even if you are able to boost your metabolism rate you are still going to gain weight if you take in more calories than you burn. This is the first law of thermodynamics - matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

I agree that counting calories is probably not helpful for most people over the long term and can contribute to unhealthy eating disorders. But in terms of retraining yourself with the goal of achieving a balance of healthy diet and healthy exercise, counting calories can be useful.

[GreatGazoo]

40. Much more complicated than that

The impact of calories varies by source -- lipid, carb, protein -- and some sources (excess lipids) are barely absorbed by the GI tract

Calories from fat are far less likely to be absorbed by the GI tract than calories from fructose. And then there are the processes by which different calorie sources are converted.

Different calorie sources can have vastly different effects on hunger, hormones, energy expenditure and the brain regions that control food intake.

Even though calories are important, counting them or even being consciously aware of them is not at all necessary to lose weight.

In many cases, simple changes in food selection can lead to the same (or better) results than calorie restriction.

https://authoritynutrition.com/6-reasons-why-a-calorie-is-not-a-calorie/

[ananda]

38. This sounds like the Zone diet ...

... which I also follow to some degree.

[Chan790]

43. I knew this.

A dietician I knew told me something about a decade ago that amused me at the time and now it seems to be emerging as good dietary science...a future occurrence of obesity is less common in a person of average weight with no history of obesity who drinks whole-fat milk than an identical person who drinks non-fat. It seems the milkfat is sating and tells your body to stop eating/drinking.

Low fat, low carb diets are killing us. It's not what we put in our bodies that is at issue...it's that we're a species that has become increasingly sedentary as technology has advanced, making it hard to burn as much as we eat.

[gollygee]

44. This is what my doctor told me a couple of weeks ago

I'm in my mid-40s now and I was complaining to him my weight is not easy to control at this point in my life.

He suggested having more fat - healthy fats, but fat. He said it dosn't make you gain weight more than the same number of calories from any other food, and that it will make me feel more full and stay with me longer so I will have an easier time eating fewer calories overall, and it'll help keep my blood sugar more stable.

I had been avoiding fat because I was raised with this idea that eating fat is what makes you fat. But then I get really hungry at the end of the day. It's frustrating.

It's asparagus season and I made hollandaise sauce for my asparagus yesterday. I would usually NEVER make hollandaise sauce. I must say that it was delicious and I did not get hungry again for a long time.

I have not been eating like this long enough to say how effective it is.