The low carb fad and how it can impact us - Page 3

"Anyway, the Atkins diet is idiotic. It may cause weight loss but it is a cardiovascular nightmare. A diet based on super saturated animal fats and protein? .................. Insane, Suicidal Vanity."

Here we have yet another Atkins critic who has apparently not studied Atkins book and demonstrates no actual knowledge of his diet regime. It is not based on "super saturated animal fats." To the extent that HDL, LDL, total cholesterol, triglycerides
and blood chemistry profiles indicate c-v health, it often improves it. Where low-fat diet, high exercise levels, and drugs did not work for me over a ten-year period, Atkins did within three months.

Where Atkins is far out in front in regards to research and the understanding of fats is his distinction of which fats are beneficial and which are to be avoided, unlike the low fat diet which simply groups all fats together and blindly labels them all bad.>>

This may be true of those lowfat dieters who are dieting for weight loss, but I'm not doing it for weight loss, I'm doing it for my health. And I DO distinguish between bad fats and good ones. The thing is, for me with IBS, even the good fats are not good if taken in larger quantities.

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Actually that is not quite accurate. It is great that you have found a diet that stopped your problems with IBS but others don't have such luck. For some, high fibre diets can make it worse. For others, certain fruits or nuts seem to increase symptoms. IBS can take on many different patterns which is why it is such a hard condition to treat.

The bread industry has taken note since its sales are suffering and it's looking into marketing strategies. So... it's a reasonably big deal.

However, I think there are too many pasta lovers out there for that little market to die. It's going to make it more challenging for folks who don't want hidden fattiness, but there are significant numbers of us who aren't going Atkins.

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I've heard that frozen bread rolls have taken about a 25% hit in lost sales in the US. This is mostly white bread trash anyway though. My favorite 'Natures Own' brand of wheat bread now has a low carb version that's higher in fiber with less net carbs (less sugar).

A favorite family resteraunt that I like recently added some low carb options to their menu. I would usually order a burger or chicken sandwich and ask them to serve it without a bun and then have to pay extra to sub in a side salad instead of french fries or onion rings. Now they offer the burger or chicken fillet served bunless with a side salad included.

Frankly so far all I have seen are positive more healthy choices in response to those choosing low carbs. As for pasta I hope we see some movement towards more choices for whole wheat pastas.

>>>>

The major problem for ppl like me (with IBS) is that we need to eat low fat and HIGH carb. So if a place removes their lowfat/high carb menu (as some places near me have done), and replaces with highfat/low carb, we're screwed. There is often so little on many menus that I can eat now, I usually stuck with the lowfat menus sections. But in some places I can't even do that.

Thank God there is still SUBWAY. Although Pizza Hut now has come out with a "Fit and Healthy" pizza....reduced cheese, healthier toppings (veggies and chicken), and a thinner crust.

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"He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior"--Confucius

Well, I've lost 7 pounds over the las tweek and a half... Thats amazing. Is it too much, too fast? I'm trying to eat oatmeal and rice and cut out sugar altogether except what's in my power bars... And I'm working my *** off on climbing. I am determined to be the best climber in my group by this time next year. Is therea certain % body fat that you are not supposed to go below? And how much protien should I be eating every day to not lose muscle mass with my decreased caloric intake? I am eating no more calories per day than my heart rate monitor shows that I burned. And on days that I don't ride, I only eat 1000 calories, and hopefully enough protien.

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Great riders attack in the mountains.

Your HR monitor cannot possibly know how many calories you've expended during exercise. more information is required, none of which comes from a HR monitor. In other words it's just a very very rough estimate.

to know how much energy you expended you either need to have some form of calorimetery done, such as collecting expired respiratory gases (done in a lab) or to have a power meter to get a good ball park figure.

If your body fat % goes too low, your fitness will decrease, and eventually you'll die. Very elite Tour de France males, are ~ 6% body fat, which can only be sustained for short periods of time (e.g. < ~ 8 weeks).

Protein recommendations are ~ 1.2 to 1.8 g per kg body mass per day for heavy exercise (e.g. up to several hours training a day). For intense, very heavy workloads (e.g. Tour de France) the recommendation is an upper limit of 2.0 g per kg body mass per day

Ric

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That seven lbs is not fat! your gly stores are empty and
your probly dehydrated! you have to eat more fuel if
your burning more fuel, you will be a stronger rider if you
eat more! riding on not enough fuel you will start using
your musle mass and become weak. follow this link
has all the good foods to eat for athletes.


http://www.health.arizona.edu/Health...rtsnutmenu.htm

For most of his/her history modern man/woman has gotten by on what is by modern standards a high protein diet. Many cyclists make the mistake of deciding that they need heaps of carbs to fuel for training/racing. This often leads to a neglect of protein as a valuable and necessary fuel source.
In a few studies cyclists have been shown to require more protein per kg of body weight than American Footballers (most of it is padding anyway - wusses!).
This is not to say that you should neglect carbs either, but it should not form the main constituent of your meals.

The problem with these fad diets is that they do not lead to safe weight maintenance because they cut out many things which we enjoy eating, making a binge on cake etc more likely.
The Atkins diet also has a habit of playing havoc with your digestive tract (based on experiences of friends).

To get sustained safe weight loss, you need to get back to what people were eating in the 1950s and simply tweak the diet carefully (start by reducing sugar intake except in fruit) and the volume of exercise (the most neglected part of any diet).
But ensure that you still take on carbs during and after training so that you don't feel run down.

Look at the Tour de France riders' diets ... most were 30/30/40 fat/protein/carb, and 6,000+ calaries a day. So how does the balance shift for a recreational rider on 2,000 cal. a day?

Its not as simple as that stevek. High fat diets have always been linked with certain cardiovascular illnesses. We are starting to map out the complex relationship between fat and carbohydrate, things are proving more complex than once thought. Generaly, diets moderately high in fat and carbohydrate (not high in either) seem to be the way to go.

The interaction between diet and exercise is also very interesting, and reduces the risk associated with diets high in fats or carbs. As fat is a poor substrate for exercise the advice for exercising people is to increase carbohydrate intake.

To make it more complex not all fats or carbs are good or bad, most people are aware what is good or bad. It was interesting to see the high fat diets fall out of favour as fast as they came into favour.

Furthermore, on a high fat diet it is likely that blood lipids will get worse in the long term. It is difficult to seperate the effects of exercise, weightloss, diet, fitness, smoking, drinking, etc. on changes in blood lipids and identify the cause of the improvement. You can also have huge day to day varaitions on your lipid levels, caused by a number of factors (previous exercise, blood volume changes, previous meals, fasting regime used, etc.). Look for a long term positive trend rather than a single or couple of 'good results'.

To find out the effect of a single fatty meal of circulating blood lipids, check out the research on postprandial fat metabolism/lipeamia/lipid metabolism. You could try google or pubmed.

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To make it more complex not all fats or carbs are good or bad, most people are aware what is good or bad. It was interesting to see the high fat diets fall out of favour as fast as they came into favour.

The low carb, high fat Atkins diet is still very popular (again) in the US. Burger King (home of the 800 calorie Whopper) now actually has an ad that says they are "Atkins Friendly" because you can get the Whopper without a bun.

So, now the same people who said "I can eat all of this I want, it's low-fat" in the 90's are now saying "I can eat of this I want, it's zero carbs".

Of course, neither is true.....but a lot easier to sell than telling people they must eat less...nobody wants to hear that!

Thats interesting, in the UK, the books are starting to move towards the back of book shops and its rarely talked about on TV apart from horror stories!

Perhaps the reason its fallen out of fashion is a series of documetories describing the side effects and news of 2 Atkins related deaths occuring in the US. I don't think it proved the easy, healthy or effective method of weight loss that it promised to be.

Interestingly since the new year there have been a number of documentories saying its OK to be yourself, even if you are overweight. Of course that is very true, until you start risking your health. Predictions are that the UK will have America's obesity problems in ten years time. I dread the day they increase the size of the london underground's seats to fit the larger population, as I believe they did in new york a few years ago.

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Often recomended by sports scientists and dietitions is...

<30 / ~15 / >50 of fat/protein/carbs

For people that train more than 1 hour a day, the carbohydrate intake may need to be increased to upto 70% to compensate for the exercise while fat needs to be reduced to 20 to 25% to allow enough calories carbohydrates.

For those that don't know the values refer to % of calories from each macro nutrient eaten (carbs and protein ~4kcals/g; fat ~9kcal/g).

Here is a good review.

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