Living Low Carb (46 page)
Authors: Jonny Bowden
So by focusing on lowering fat buildup in the liver, the Eadeses have taken on an often-neglected piece of the metabolic puzzle. Their low-carb diet attacks high blood sugar and insulin from both the “manufacturing” side and from the “metabolizing” side. “Everyone in the low-carb field focuses on the oversecretion brought on by carb intake, but the other side of the equation is just as important,” Mike Eades told me. And since elevated insulin not only increases fat buildup in the liver but also makes us store visceral fat in the first place, lowering insulin helps interrupt the vicious circle. Less insulin, less visceral fat and reduced fatty liver. It’s a double whammy.
The book has some really interesting stuff on the evolutionary psychological basis for our attraction to a slim waistline. If you know the Eadeses as I do (or if you read Michael’s always-fascinating blog at
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike
) you know that their interests are wideranging (as in opera, cooking, travel, and philosophy). So it’s no surprise that the book contains some really interesting stuff on the evolutionary basis for our attraction to a slim waistline and draws on material from anthropology to a kind of Literary Darwinism. That part of the book won’t help (or hurt) you in your weight-loss efforts, but readers like me find that stuff utterly fascinating. Maybe you will too.
Besides the diet itself, the book is filled with helpful hints for supporting your liver (always a good idea) and helping it rid itself of unwanted (and metabolism-slowing) fat buildup.
The 6-Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle as a Lifestyle: Who It Works for, Who Should Look Elsewhere
The Eadeses have treated probably several thousand people in their long career, and they’ve had pretty spectacular results. They’re two of the smartest and sharpest people I know, and it’s rare that I find anything significant that we disagree on (okay, sometimes politics and music, but that’s another story). That said, I would simply caution that in my opinion not everyone is metabolically suited to a very-high-protein diet. I don’t think there’s anything “bad” or “dangerous” about it; I just think people respond differently to dietary strategies, and some people just may not like such a high protein intake, especially when meat is involved. If you’re one of them, this might not be for you. But if you’re willing to give this a try, it might produce some very dramatic results. Remember, Vilhjalmur Stefansson went on just such a diet for a year while being supervised and monitored at Bellevue (see page 9), and by every single measure his health was robust and he had no problems.
JONNY’S LOWDOWN
At the time of this writing, The 6-Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle was still in the final editing stages, and the Eadeses weren’t quite done putting the finishing touches on it. They were able to share with me the basics of the program so that I could write about it, but I don’t know the final details of the actual diet plan (e.g., the composition of the protein shakes, or the exact nature of the 4-week diet that follows the initial 2-week all-meat phase). Given the Eadeses’ superb track record for putting together excellent, smart programs that work, I don’t feel like I’m going out on a limb to say that this is going to be an excellent program. And remember, the 2 weeks of “all-meat” is only the first third of the program. After that, it reverts to a more conventional low-carb approach that I’m sure is loaded with vegetables and provides a lot more variety, while still holding blood sugar and insulin levels down.
Visceral fat and fatty liver are both big problems to people wanting to stay healthy and lean. This program is a revolutionary approach to both. All in all—if you’re not opposed to the idea of eating meat—this looks like a terrific program that should find a lot of advocates.
WHAT IT IS IN A NUTSHELL
A low-calorie, low-fat, low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet that specifies exactly what you can and cannot eat, with very little room for flexibility. You go on the basic diet for 2 weeks; then you go on the slightly relaxed “lifetime keep-slim program” for 2 weeks. If you still have weight to lose, you repeat the cycle. Forbidden are sugar, full-fat dairy products, cakes, pies, cookies, candy, chocolate, potatoes, rice, sweet potatoes, yams, beans, avocados, spaghetti, macaroni, flour-based products, fatty meats, peanut butter, butter, margarine, oils, and any kind of fat used in cooking.
About the Scarsdale Diet
Even by diet-book standards, the Scarsdale diet made laughable claims, promising a pound a day of weight loss, totaling as much as 20 pounds or more in two weeks. Tarnower also claimed that the diet worked for everyone, from teenagers to octogenarians, and that 90% of them maintained their desired weight.
The diet consisted of two 2-week segments: the basic diet and the maintenance diet, or the “keep-slim program.” The idea is that you would do the basic diet for 2 weeks and then switch to the maintenance version. If, after 4 weeks, you still had weight to lose, you went back to the original program and repeated the 2-week/2-week cycle. The first 2 weeks were rigidly specific, with every one of the 21 meals per week dictated by the book. Tarnower was a cantankerous control freak who insisted that the diet be followed strictly, with absolutely no variation permitted. During the maintenance phase, the rules were slightly—though
only
slightly—relaxed; you could make certain substitutions, could add one alcoholic drink a day, and could eat nuts “sparingly.”
Tarnower devoted a section in the book to “The Mystery of Diet Chemistry,” but he was either remarkably uninformed on the subject or just downright stupid. He explained that “a carefully designed combination of foods can increase the fat-burning process in the human system” and that the Scarsdale diet provided just such a combination of foods, making it possible to lose an average of a pound or more each day. He attributed this to the metabolic state called ketosis (see
chapter 6
), which figures prominently in the Atkins diet; however, Tarnower showed little understanding of how it worked. Here’s what he said: “If you are producing [ketones], it is a sign that your body is burning off fat at an accelerated rate; you are enjoying Fast Fat Metabolism.” Of course, this statement ignores the fact that the body is producing ketones at all times and that the production of ketones is a normal state of metabolism. Perhaps Tarnower was confusing the mere
production of ketones
with the
dietary ketosis
that Atkins addressed, but the problem was that it would have been completely impossible to get into dietary ketosis on the Scarsdale diet, as you will see in a minute. The “Mystery of Diet Chemistry” section—which ran all of about 2 pages—mentioned nothing about insulin.
The diet itself was about 1,000 calories
or less
per day and averaged 43% protein, 23% fat, and 35% carbs. With those numbers, a dieter would be taking in 88 grams of carbohydrate a day, which by the standards of the American diet certainly qualifies as relatively low-carb, but would prevent virtually anyone from reaching the state of ketosis that Tarnower seemed to think necessary. Tarnower subscribed to the lowcalorie theory wholeheartedly, made no mention of the possibility of metabolic variances among people, and believed completely in the dietheart hypotheses, which holds that both fat and cholesterol in the diet cause heart disease, so he kept both as low as possible. He also believed that fat made you fat, another reason he advocated cutting fat consumption way down and forbade any oils, butter, dairy, animal fat, or avocados. The diet then can be seen as a hodgepodge of low-fat, low-carbohydrate, and low-calorie thinking.
Breakfast was the same each day: half a grapefruit, black coffee or tea, and one slice of protein bread with no topping. (Tarnower gave the recipe for the “protein” bread, though there is absolutely nothing in it that would distinguish it as a “high-protein” bread. It’s made of flour, water, yeast, and seasoning.) Twice a week for lunch, you ate all the fruit you wanted, period (plus the requisite black coffee, which seemed to be a part of every meal). The rest of the meals were some combination of protein and vegetables. There was absolutely no sugar, potatoes, pasta, flour-based foods (other than his “protein bread”), full-fat dairy, or desserts. You were permitted to eat carrots and celery in any amount you wished, as often as you liked.
In its heyday, the Scarsdale diet got a lot of media attention, including an article in
The New York Times
by Georgia Dullea headlined “If It’s Friday, It Must Be Spinach and Cheese.” In that article, she enthused: “The Scarsdale Diet: This is where the losers live, the real losers. This is the home of the famous 14-day Scarsdale diet….Weight losses of up to 20 pounds in two weeks are reported here. Rarely do dieters feel hungry or cranky…. The Scarsdale Diet is spreading…. Requests are coming from as far away as California and Mexico. Now London is ringing up about the Scarsdale Diet…. Everywhere you go people are talking about [it].”
Tarnower was something of a paternalistic jerk, given to statements like “Let’s face it—most overweight people
love to eat.
The very obese are often gluttonous.” One of his readers wrote to him with the following question: “When I diet, I get cranky and my husband says, ‘I like you better fat than cranky.’ Have you any suggestions?” Tarnower wrote back, “You should be able to diet without getting cranky. Your husband, I am sure, would like to have you attractive, lean, and pleasant!” Tarnower was ultimately shot to death in 1980 by his former lover, school headmistress Jean Harris, who, it was rumored, had run out of the amphetamines he prescribed for her.
JONNY ’ S LOWDOWN
(Zero Stars)
This diet is a complete waste of time, and is only mentioned here because it is still in print and still has a following. This is the kind of book that gives low-carbing a bad name. It is based on no real knowledge of the hormonal response to food, tries to be all things to all people (low-fat, low-calorie, and low-carb), limits calories to an almost dangerous level, and on top of all that is unrealistically rigid. The only thing it brings to the table—done so much better by others—is a limitation on sugar, starch, and flour.
D
IANA
S
CHWARZBEIN
, MD
AND
NANCY DEVILLE
WHAT IT IS IN A NUTSHELL
A program designed not specifically for weight loss but for metabolic healing, which, when successful, results in weight loss. Schwarzbein says, “You need to get healthy to lose weight, not lose weight to get healthy.” In her second book in the series, The Schwarzbein Principle II, you compute your protein requirement and your maximum carbohydrate allowance for each meal and snack, then construct your menu accordingly.
About the Schwarzbein Principle
Let me start by saying this: if you are a dedicated low-carber, the original
Schwarzbein Principle
should be in your library, regardless of whether you choose to follow the program or not. It’s as good a basic reference book on hormonal health, the need for good fats, the arguments against a low-fat diet, and the relationship of hormones to health and aging as we’re likely to see. If you’re not yet familiar with the case against the low-fat diet and the concept of eating plenty of good fats (which include saturates!) and protein, this is a great place to start. If these concepts are old-hat to you and you want to actually try the program, the second book,
The Schwarzbein Principle II
, is the place to begin. The original is the overview and will give you the basics;
Schwarzbein II
is a more fully realized eating plan.
The Schwarzbein Principle can be summed up as follows:
• All systems of the human body are connected.
• One imbalance creates another imbalance.
• Eating too many man-made carbohydrates is the number one reason for hormonal imbalances.
• Poor eating and lifestyle habits—not genetics—cause diseases of aging.
The actual eating plan depends on where you fit in a matrix of four metabolic types. What type you are depends on the operating health of two of the major hormonal systems in your body: your
insulin metabolism
and your
adrenal metabolism
. Most people reading
Living Low Carb
understand by now the concept of insulin resistance and the role elevated insulin levels play in weight gain. We saw in
chapter 2
just how this mechanism operates, and it is the underlying concept in almost every one of the diet plans discussed in this book. What has
not
been emphasized in any of the plans so far is adrenal health.