Living Low Carb (26 page)
Authors: Jonny Bowden
New research is beginning to support this. When a recent study in the
British Medical Journal
factored in fiber intake, the usual association between saturated fat and coronary-disease risk practically vanished. The study concluded that the adverse effects of saturated fat and cholesterol are “at least in part explained by their low-fiber content and their associations with other risk factors.” The researchers further stated that “benefits of reducing intakes of saturated fat and cholesterol are likely to be modest
unless accompanied by an increased consumption of foods rich in fiber
.” The study also commented on how the inclusion of omega-3 fats in the diet had a protective effect on the heart.
43
However…
I realize that this is a radical position and a hard sell to a population that has been raised on the premise that saturated fat and cholesterol are basically the children of Satan. So let me put you at ease: to do a low-carb diet, you do not have to accept the position that cholesterol and saturated fat are relatively harmless. In fact, many of the low-carb authors don’t accept that position either, so you will be in good company (notable exceptions—with whom I agree—are the Eadeses, Schwarzbein, and Atkins). You can do the GO-Diet, in which almost all of the fat comes from monounsaturated sources. You can do the Zone, which limits saturated fat and stresses omega-3’s. You can do the Paleo Diet, which is about as anti–saturated fat as you can get. Or you can do Protein Power or Atkins and just make sure you’re getting a ton of omega-3’s. (You can even do a vegan low-carb diet, for goodness sake. Just as this book was going to press, new research was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine testing a vegan version of Atkins. This diet—dubbed the “Eco-Atkins” program—produced both weight loss
and
a reduction in “bad” cholesterol.)
On virtually all low-carb diets, blood-lipid chemistries improve. That’s what is important, and that is the take-home point here. Even those studies that showed identical weight loss with low-carb versus high-carb diets demonstrated this: low-carb diets beat the pants off high-carb diets every time, when it comes to lowering triglycerides and raising HDL, even in those few cases where weight loss was identical.
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And here’s the pièce de résistance. If you and/or your doctor are still concerned about the amount of fat in low-carb diets, consider the following (see table above): if you are a male who is 40 to 50 pounds overweight, you have probably been consuming a diet of
at least
3,500 calories a day (probably more: one fast-food order of fries alone is 700). Let’s say you’ve been adhering to the dietary guidelines of no more than 30% of your calories from fat, with no more than 10% of the total diet from saturated fat. That means you have been consuming about 1,050 calories a day from fat, of which 350 are from saturated fat.
Now look at what happens if you go on a typical low-carb weightreduction diet. You would consume in the ballpark of 1,700 satisfying, filling calories. Let’s give the worst-case scenario, from your doctor’s point of view, and say that a full 50% of those 1,700 calories come from fat—that’s 850 fat calories, definitely a high-fat diet in anyone’s book. Say that 20% (twice the dietary guidelines) of your total calories comes from saturated fat (340). Even with these numbers, you would actually consume 20 percent
less
overall fat on a low-carb diet than you were before, when you were following the dietary guidelines. This should put both you and your doctor at ease.
BOTTOM LINE
Low-carbohydrate diets do not increase the risk for heart disease. If anything, they improve blood-lipid profiles
.
Thirty-Eight (Mostly)
Low-Carb Diets
and What They Can
Do for You
E
ach of the original seventeen programs I reviewed in the first edition of
Living Low Carb
was selected for one of three reasons: it was extremely popular, it was extremely good, or it had gotten a lot of attention by the media.
In this edition, I’ve greatly expanded the number of programs reviewed. Some of them are not even technically low-carb programs, but have incorporated enough of the “wisdom” that has been learned from the low-carb, low-sugar research of the past decade to make them worth including and commenting on. (And I’ve even included a few books that are just horribly wrong about low-carb, completely misrepresenting the truth.) My purpose here is to give you a good sampling of the diet books on the market and to evaluate them in terms of what we’ve learned about weight loss in the past decade.
Since so many diet books these days are actually fitness books, I have also included a short section on books that are more fitness-oriented but that have a dietary program as an adjunct. Nearly all of these books have excellent workout programs, but some are far more accurate than others when it comes to dispensing information about nutrition and diet (
The Ultimate New York Diet
, for example), while some are simply pathetically out of date and completely misrepresent controlled-carbohydrate eating (
The 3-Hour Diet
and
The 5-Factor Diet
). (I hope after reading the rest of this book, and checking the research references, you’ll understand the basis on which I make that statement.)
One thing will become abundantly clear from reading these reviews: all low-carb diets are not the same! When I give a program a rave review, I’ve spelled out exactly why that is; when I have reservations, I’ve told you what they are; it’s always up to you to decide if you agree with me or not. With very few exceptions, the programs have
something
to recommend them; and even in those cases where I’ve given a less-than-glowing overall review, I’ve tried to represent fairly the strengths of the program as well as detailed reasons for my reservations.
As you will see, the outlines and discussions of these diets are detailed enough that you should be able to get a very good idea of what the program entails and decide whether it is a good match for you, or at least determine whether or not you’d like to explore it further by reading the book on which it’s based.
So that you can get a sense of the program at a glance, I’ve given you the “In A Nutshell” description; after that, there’s a much more detailed explanation of the diet itself, followed by “Jonny’s Lowdown.” The programs are “rated” between one and five stars, but be sure to read the explanation in the Lowdown to see how I chose the rating. Understand that the ratings are my own opinions, based on the information I’ve shared with you in the discussion, and of course they reflect my personal biases. (I’m pretty sure that my biases are the correct ones, although I suppose that everyone else thinks theirs are correct as well!) That, as the saying goes, is what makes a horse race. Or a political election. Or even a diet plan.
Happy reading!
1.
The Atkins Diet
—Robert Atkins, MD
2.
The All-New Atkins Advantage
—Stuart Trager, MD and Colette Heimowitz, M.Sc
3.
The Biggest Loser
—Maggie Greenwood-Robinson, PhD, et al.
4.
The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet
—Rachael Heller, MA, M.Ph, PhD, and Richard Heller, MS, PhD
5.
The 7-Day Low-Carb Rescue and Recovery Plan
—Rachael Heller, MA, M.Ph, PhD, and Richard Heller, MS, PhD
6.
Curves
—Gary Heavin and Carol Colman
7.
Dr. Tea Diet
—Mark Ukra, AKA “Dr. Tea”
8.
The Diabetes Diet
—Richard K. Bernstein, MD
9.
Dr. Gott’s No Flour, No Sugar Diet
—Peter H. Gott, MD
10.
Eat, Drink, and Weigh Less
—Walter Willett, MD and Mollie Katzen
11.
The Fat Flush Plan
—Ann Louise Gittleman, MS, CNS
12.
The Fat Resistance Diet
—Leo Galland, MD
13.
GO-Diet: The Goldberg–O’Mara Diet Plan
—Jack Goldberg, PhD and Karen O’Mara, DO
14.
The Hamptons Diet
—Fred Pescatore, MD
15.
The Low GI Diet Revolution
—Jennie Brand-Miller, MD, et al.
16.
The Lindora Program: Lean for Life
—Cynthia Stamper Graff
17.
The Maker’s Diet and Perfect Weight
—Jordan S. Rubin
18.
Neanderthin
—Ray Audette
19.
The Paleo Diet
—Loren Cordain, PhD
20.
Protein Power
—Michael R. Eades, MD and Mary Dan Eades, MD
21.
The Rosedale Diet
—Ron Rosedale, MD and Carol Colman
22.
The 6-Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle
—Michael R. Eades, MD and Mary Dan Eades, MD
23.
The Scarsdale Diet
—Herman Tarnower, MD
24.
The Schwarzbein Principle
—Diana Schwarzbein, MD and Nancy Deville
25.
Somersizing
—Suzanne Somers
26.
The South Beach Diet
—Arthur Agatston, MD
27.
South Beach Recharged
—Arthur Agatston, MD with Joseph Signorile, PhD
28.
Sugar Busters!
—H. Leighton Steward, et al.
29.
The TNT Diet
—Jeff Volek, PhD, RD, and Adam Campbell, MS
30.
The UltraSimple Diet
—Mark Hyman, MD
31.
Women’sHealth Perfect Body Diet
—Cassandra Forsythe, MS
32.
YOU: On a Diet
—Mehmet C. Oz, MD and Michael F. Roizen, MD
33.
The Zone
—Barry Sears, PhD
Fitness Books—Short Takes
34.
Making the Cut
by Jillian Michaels
35.
The 5-Factor Diet
by Harley Pasternak
36.
The 3-Hour Diet
by Jorge Cruise
37.
Deadline Fitness
by Gina Lombardi
38. The Ultimate New York Diet by David Kirsch
WHAT IT IS IN A NUTSHELL
An easy-to-follow, specific dietary plan in four distinct stages. Stage one is “induction”: a very low-carb (20 grams or less) approach to jump-starting weight loss. You move through the four stages, adding more carbs in specific increments until you find the level of carbohydrate consumption at which you can continue to lose weight gradually and consistently. You stay at that level of carb consumption until you are within a few pounds of your goal, and then you transition into a lifetime maintenance plan
.
About the Atkins Diet
The Atkins diet was introduced in 1972 with the first edition of
Dr. Atkins
’
Diet Revolution
and immediately became an object of scorn and disdain by the conventional medical establishment. Why? Because it went completely against the accepted dietary truths of the time. In many ways it still does, though cracks in the cement are beginning to show, and the dietary establishment is finally becoming less certain that its nutritional commandments are actually true. As you may remember from
chapter 1
, the conventional wisdom that Atkins opposed included the following:
• To lose weight, you must eat a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet.
• High-fat diets cause heart disease.
• Low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets prevent heart disease.
• All calories are the same.
Dr. Robert Atkins, a cardiologist and something of a visionary, was the first to bring to popular attention the influence of the hormone insulin on weight loss and to introduce the notion that
controlling insulin effectively is the key to losing weight
. By now, if you’ve read
chapters 1
and
2
of
Living Low Carb
, you are familiar with the central role that insulin control plays in virtually every carbohydrate-restricted diet and the reasons it occupies center stage. But in 1972, virtually no one in America who wasn’t either a diabetic or a doctor had heard of insulin, let alone understood its role in weight gain and obesity. And it was not until much later that the public began to get a glimmer of insulin’s role in heart disease, hypertension, and aging.