Stephen T-B

A “varied” diet is much promoted by nutriionists and health professionals in the UK, which doesn’t explain why the Inuit and Masai aren’t all dead by 25.
My theory: humans, generally speaking, have eaten anything they can which doesn’t make them ill - fruits when there are fruits, nuts when there are nuts, meat when there’s meat, roots when they find them, and in some cultures, they’ve been eating grains for quite a few thousand years. Since my ancestry comes from these cereal-eating peoples, I should think my bodily systems are pretty well adapted to grain consumption. The fact that very fatty foods make me feel sick suggests to me that I’ve inherited a low-fat requirement. I in fact eat very little.
I’m 60, 5ft 11ins, my waist is 33, my chest is 40, I weigh 157lbs, do about ten mins of exercises five days a week (50 full knee-bend squats, a total of 80 press-ups, 50 sit-ups and 50 of another abdominal-type exercise.) I cycle 3.5 miles to work and on average eight miles home.
I eat and drink what I like. What I like is: porridge (no milk or sugar) my home-made bread (no butter/margarine); peanuts (roasted, unsalted) with sunflower seeds, sultanas and a dry shredded-wheat biscuit (yeah!); raw carrots, bananas, apples, grapefruits, mushrooms; chicken; curries (twice a week); potatoes, rice, vegetables, noodles, sardines, green tea, some fresh-ground coffee, malt whisky, rum, red wine and my home-made cider (while it lasts.) I eat a little dark chocolate 70 per cent cocoa (too much brings me out in lumps on the back of the neck) and sometimes a high-fat, high-sugar, high-chemical additive confectionery bar - and I nearly always regret it because of the greasy feeling it leaves in my mouth.
I would not recommend my diet or my life-style to anyone. They are tailored to me - they’re what I’m happy with.
Instinctively, we all do what we’re happy with - and if that’s following Atkins (or is it Adkins?) then, hey, be happy!

JGL53

The Inuit, who eat mainly blubber, seal meat, and fish, and the Masai, who eat mainly beef, whole milk, and cow's blood, are healthy and happy because they eat natural food - as opposed to a diet high in artificially produced trans fat, beet sugar, chemicals created in a lab, etc.

Couldn't have said it better myself. As you said, you eat a wide variety of real food and very little 'fake' food, and you do fine. I eat a good bit more protein and fat than you do, because I like certain foods you apparently don't, and I do equally as well. To each his own, obviously.

As to the Atkin's diet, I am still of the opinion that it is useful for people who have accumulated a significant amount of excess body fat over the years to burn it off rather efficiently. The main thing it does is to get people to 1. stop depending on sugary foods as a major part of their diet and 2. get some control over their appetites and stop eating like pigs.

A transition can then be made to eating reasonable portions of a larger variety of foods - usually from three to five times a day, I would think.

I am of the opinion that just trying to 'cut back' at the getgo is never going to work for many obese people, e.g., it doesn't work cutting back from five donuts to two donuts for breakfast. I think one needs to get all the sugar and fake(ish) foods out first, burn off some or most of the excess body fat through ketosis, begin to appreciate the great variety of available non-starchy vegetables, THEN begin to add in sensible portions of low glycemic complex carbohydrates.

Sure, it's just an (unproven scientific) theory. But it is an option that some may wish to try, and it does seem to work for many (e.g., me). The government approved nutritionists don't seemed to have helped much to date, so what's to lose. (except excess body fat )

JGL53

Hmmmm - I didn't state the obvious in the previous post, but realizing that such is necessary to appease certain argumentative types:

IF one is of normal weight and body fat per centage, and never has had an issue with weight or food intake, then whatever one is eating is right for one, calorie wise, obviously. Various diet 'schemes' are of no practical use - the diet debate is, for YOU, purely academic.

EXCEPT, of course, that never-ending issue of defining a 'healthy' dietary lifestyle. If you eat a lot of junk food, or an extremely restricted diet that's devoid of most non-starchy fiberous vegetables, nuts, and fresh fruit, but is high in fried and/or starchy and sugary foods, you MAY be setting yourself up for heart disease and/or various cancers that will ensure you die relatively young and leave an attractively slim corpse.

It's sort of like smoking, driving without a seatbelt, etc. - you roll the dice and hope snake eyes don't come up.

Nuno Figueira

All you have to do is your home work, anyone that knows anything about nutrition knows that ketoacidosis can't happen in non diabetics, with possible exception of chronic alcoholics and people under prolonged periods of startation. This discussion proved not to be worth my time, which is not much, when Mr-knows-a-case-of-a-diabetic-that-got-into-ketoacidosis-and-thus-low-carb-diets-kill entered the conversation.

Nuno Figueira

Oh yes, and meteorites are unlikely to land on your head but maybe it would be better to advise everyone not to leave their houses as there's a infime possibility that it might happen.

Nuno Figueira

This is ketoacidosis:

http://www.emedicine.com/EMERG/topic135.htm

http://www.emedicine.com/EMERG/topic21.htm

JGL53

Let's see if I can wrap this ketosis/ketoacidosis crap up, so we can go on to something else somewhat less boring. Here's an excerpt from a post by Dr. Rick - page 3, thread title 'Atkins Diet: state your case', in Miscellaneous Discussions:

"The Atkin's diet depletes and then deprives the body of glycogen and other sugars, forcing the body to break-down other caloric sources (such as fats and proteins, both from exogenous and endogenous sources) in an inefficient manner. The purported result is that the substrates for metabolic energy are partially wasted in that they can only be broken down to the ketone level. These ketones circulate through-out the body and easily pass through the kidneys, which effectively allows one to "piss-away" calories instead of having those ketones metabolized further. Almost any calorie-restricting regimen will induce ketosis at some point; the Atkin's diet just seems to do so with more consistency.

This ketotic state is well-tolerated by most healthy people; on average, most of us experience ketosis a couple of times per month. Just skip breakfast the morning after you've had an early, light dinner and by lunchtime you will likely be ketotic. In nature, mammals may often go for days without a meal, so selective pressures have favored those of us who can tolerate this condition over those that can't.

Ketones do exert an osmotic gradient as they are eliminated in urine, so careful attention to adequate hydration is important.

Ketoacidosis, on the other hand, is a pathologic and life-threatening state in which the excess hydrogen ions produced by the metabolism of caloric substrates overwhelm the body's homeostatic compensetory mechanisms for control of pH, resulting in a dangerously acidic internal environment. This almost never occurs in most people until advanced stages of starvation, but is much more easily triggered in individuals with abnormal sugar metabolism such as diabetics. Other chronic medical conditions also can predispose one to ketoacidosis, so it's prudent to obtain medical clearance and supervision before undertaking a weight-loss program - Rick"

So, I think his last point is the pivotal one. Anyone going on any type of diet - restricted carb, restricted calories, whatever - is well advised to get checked out by a physician, to make sure one has no unknown health poblems that could conceivably cause ketosis to turn into ketoacidosis - as all such restricted diets will cause ketosis.

If one is cleared, then go ahead - the chances of problems are reduced to an acceptable level of risk - as there is no known case in the history of the human race wherein an otherwise healthy but fat individual went from ketosis to ketoacidosis on a carb-reduced diet.

Does that make everybody happy, or do we need to whip this dead horse some more?

Anson

Wow, it seems no matter what forum I visit, people are talking about the Atkins diet.

What I find surprising is how worked up people get over it. It's just a diet!

Nuno Figueira

:banghead:


That's more or less what I've been saying.

And, in my opinion, checking out with a physician is mainly important for the medical community back accounts. I believe in people educating themselves so they'reable to see through all the crap.

JGL53

Religion and philosophy are optional. Everybody has to eat.