Weight Loss Myth No 2

Weight loss myth number 2
If you eat a diet low in fat, you’ll lose fat and won’t be overweight.  It’s an assumption we all make, and with the supermarket shelves piled high with ‘Low fat’, ‘light’ and ‘0%’, it’s easy to get drawn into the hype.
So what fuelled this paradigm?  It seems to make perfect sense until you realise that obesity and heart disease are on the increase, and this low fat diet we’ve been following for decades appears to be having the opposite effect.

It was in the seventies when the research was carried out claiming a high fat diet leads to coronary heart disease, hence the birth of the low-fat craze in the early eighties that has been with us ever since.  But this research was flawed, not analysed properly, and has led us all astray. 

The research was based on LDL (low density lipoproteins, aka ‘bad cholesterol’) levels in the body.   Here’s what it concludes:
In the mid seventies they discovered that dietary fat (A) raises LDL (B):
   A → B
In the late seventies it was found that LDL (B) levels correlated with cardiovascular disease (C):
   B → C
So therefore, dietary fat leads to heart disease:
   A → C
Right?  

Wrong.  Here’s why:
There are two types of LDL that can currently only be tested as one:

1. Pattern A, large, buoyant LDL that floats through the bloodstream and doesn’t stick to your arteries (neutral)
2. Pattern B, small, dense LDL, which starts the plaque formation that causes heart disease (bad).

You have to look at the ratio of HDL (high density lipoproteins) to triglycerides (other fatty substances) to determine if the LDL you have is bad or neutral – low triglycerides to high HDL is considered good, high triglycerides to low HDL is considered bad. 

So what causes these different types of LDL to rise?   Pattern A is affected dietary fat, pattern B is affected by carbohydrates. 

And then what happened?   The American government started a campaign to reduce the amount of fat in the diet from 40% to 30%, and in true British style, we followed.  And achieved it.   But by reducing the fat in food, you also reduce the flavour, and it becomes unpalatable.  So to make it taste nice (and therefore sellable), food manufacturers added sugar, and sweeteners.   And what’s sugar?  A carbohydrate. And what do carbohydrates do?  Increase the bad form of LDL.   So we were doubly duped!
Click here for my previous article on sugar.  Sweeteners are just as, if not more evil than sugar – don’t get me started on them!   

Now I’m not proposing you give up all carbohydrates and eat bacon for the rest of your days, it’s all about finding out what’s right for your body.  Listen to it, it will tell you.  Feel bloated after bread?   Don’t eat it.  Get heartburn after fatty food?  Stay off it.   These are just a couple of examples of your body telling you it doesn’t like what you’re giving it.  And then of course there are my general guidelines such as avoiding sugar, exercising, eating whole, unprocessed foods, lots of fruit and veg and being happy.   Simples.