Nonsense slimming diets

Part 7: Conclusion

The science of nutrition is highly complex and the emergence of products like Olestra and Xenical illustrate how little is known about the vital part that fat plays in our health and wellbeing. Nutrients interact: a deficiency of one can have a profound effect on the metabolism of others. Today, a lack of dietary fat probably causes a wider range of abnormalities than deficiencies of any other single nutrient.

Fat has a high calorific value, which is why all modern low-calorie diets restrict fats, but this can be dangerous and self-defeating. Not only does restriction of dietary fat cause the problems already mentioned, it can also cause dry skin and eczema; damage to ovaries in females and infertility in males; kidney damage and weight-gain through water-retention in the body. When there is little or no fat in the gut, there is nothing to stimulate the production of bile, the gall bladder is not emptied and the bile is held in reserve. This leads to the formation of gallstones. If a fat-free diet is continued for a long time, the gall bladder may atrophy. And, although most patients come through a gall bladder operation successfully, it is a life-threatening operation. It also removes the gall bladder a necessary part of your digestive system.

Malabsorption of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K has consequences for yet more nutrients. Without vitamin D and fat present in the intestine, for example, calcium is not absorbed. For a woman, whose chance of suffering from osteoporosis is high, this is an important consideration. Slimmers are usually told to drink skimmed milk. This has the advantage, they are told, that it contains more calcium than full-cream milk. This is true but skimmed milk does not contain fat. As a consequence, only about five percent of the calcium in skimmed milk is absorbed compared to around fifty percent from full-cream milk. This small absorption of calcium is reduced still further if the skimmed milk is eaten with a bran-laden breakfast cereal (see Chapter 7). Calcium-enriched milk sold in supermarkets may seem worth the extra expense but it is invariably calcium-enriched skimmed milk and, without the cream, all that extra calcium ends up down the toilet.

All body cells require a continuous supply of various fatty acids. If insufficient are supplied from food, the body tries to make them from sugar. This causes blood-sugar levels to fall, you feel very hungry and eat more, generally of the wrong things and gain weight.

Fat also has a satiety value: it takes longer to digest and stops you feeling hungry. Eat a hundred calories less fat at a meal and you will probably feel hungry so quickly that you will eat three times as many calories in the form of sugary or starchy foods because they are convenient.

Lastly, it seems that the gut's nutrient-measuring system works so well with fat that it is difficult, if not impossible, to eat too much of it. Try and you develop an aversion to it. But, for the same reason, eating fat stops you eating too much in total. If your body needs ten grams of fat, your appetite will not be satisfied until you have consumed that ten grams of fat. If you eat those ten grams as an ounce of Cheddar cheese, you will take in about 125 calories. If you eat them as wholemeal bread thinly spread with a very-low-fat spread, you will need to eat eight slices a total of about 500 calories!

A third of the American population is now overweight. The situation in Britain is almost as bad. It is no coincidence that this huge increase in obesity has happened at a time when people generally are being exhorted to eat less and less fat. It is merely further evidence for what has been known for a very long time: the less fat you eat, the fatter you will become.

Fat for prolonged exercise

Athletes, like the rest of us, are usually told to eat a diet high in carbohydrates and low in fats. This, they are told, will increase their performance. However, this was not confirmed in a dietary study published in 1994. Using three diets: normal, high-fat and high-carbohydrate, the study showed that the high-carbohydrate diet increased performance by an average ten percent over a normal mixed diet. Not bad, you might think, but the high-fat diet increased performance by a massive thirty-three percent. That's much better. The authors conclude that restriction of dietary fat may be detrimental to endurance performance. So, once again, fat is best.

Conclusion

The reason that modern slimming diets all fail is because of what they all have in common - they are all low-fat, low-calorie diets that restrict the intake of food to such an extent that the slimmer is starving. Second World War concentration camps proved that it was possible to lose weight by starving - but that was hardly a secret. It is neither the ideal way nor is it the natural way. Natural Health & Weight Loss does not restrict calorie intake at all: it relies on your body's natural energy-regulating mechanisms to regulate your calorie intake for you. You really can eat as much as your body tells you it wants provided only that carbohydrate intake is controlled. There are five other important differences, however, and they are:

a. You can live on the Natural Health & Weight Loss diet for the rest of your life without ever again being hungry. There is no stressful 'yo-yo' effect. Instead of starving the weight off, it gets the body to burn fat more efficiently.

b. It is very easy to live with and maintain socially. As all you have to do is reduce your intake of carbohydrates, you can eat what your hostess puts before you without having to disclose that you are 'on a diet'. It is only necessary to take a little more meat and a little less pudding.

c. With this diet, your weight cannot go below your natural weight. This is important. Being overweight may be undesirable but being underweight is potentially far more dangerous as there are serious risks of sudden death associated with extreme leanness.

d. It is a much more healthy diet.

e. It is a much more natural diet.