Matt Metzgar

Unbalanced Meals

Normally, you read about prescriptions for "balanced meals" - proper amounts of carbohydrate, protein, and fat in a meal.  However, I've noticed that with my toddler, this seems to be the exception more than the rule.  I see more of an intuitive approach to eating, rather than an attempt to get all the macronutrients in one sitting.

For example, some meals end up being only fruit consumed, or only vegetables consumed, or only meat consumed.  Sometimes a little of each, or sometimes only two of the three.  It is much less common for equal amounts of fruit, vegetables, and meat to be consumed.

I feel this intuitive way of eating is probably gone for most adults.  There are too many artificial foods or foods with chemical additives that have probably dulled the sense.  Probably if you grew up eating natural food I would think this intuition is still there.  Growing up eating the Standard American Diet, I'm not sure this sense can be fully restored.

Worst Weight Loss Strategy of the Year Nominee

I read this absurd letter to the editor in USA Today the other day:

"USA TODAY's article "Toughest bounce of all" covered an important issue in weight loss: the struggle with yo-yo dieting. The overriding theme? Don't stop. As a person who has twice lost more than 150 pounds, I can testify to the importance of that mantra (Cover story, Life, May 27).

Weight loss is a three-step process:

• The declaration of war. You begin the journey, set goals, and compose your diet and exercise routine.
• The battle. You fight, win the battle and reach your goals.
• The peace treaty. After reaching your goal, the real test begins, and you find it's never over. Now you have to stretch your goal, making it a lifetime commitment to health and fitness. Another lesson is to keep it simple. Forget the TV ads and the fads. Find out what works for you."

A declaration of war to lose weight???  Notice what this person said - he has "twice lost more than 150 pounds".  It will hopefully occur to him that if it didn't work the first time as a long-term solution, then it probably won't work the second time.

I don't see how battling your body is a good method to lose weight.  It's entirely the wrong approach in my opinion.  This person should try a simpler approach:

• Eat natural foods
• Perform natural movements
• Relax and be nice to yourself

I'll put my money on this strategy any day.

Fat and Skin Cancer

Speaking of fat, here's a study that looks at dietary fat and incidence of skin cancer.  After adjusting for sun exposure and other things, researchers found that a higher fat intake actually reduced the risk of skin cancer.

Another study looks at the role of omega-3 fats in preventing skin cancer, mostly through lowering inflammation.  One other obvious connection is that dietary fat leads to more Vitamin D consumption, which could protect against skin cancer. 

Post-Workout Carbs

Post-workout nutrition is a big field of study.  I have tried post-workout meals both with or without carbs, and I never felt much of a difference.  A new masters thesis on this has some interesting results.

The thesis found that post-workout carbs actually increased inflammation, continuing up to 24 hours later.  Carbs also increased muscle soreness.  Specifically, the study "shows further evidence that carbohydrate intake has the ability to augment inflammation even when the initial inflammatory response is small."

So it turns out that post-workout carbs are good - for increasing inflammation!

Put Down The Chips

Here's a new study that looks at the problems with acrylamide, an ingredient found in potato chips.  It is also found in other foods such as french fries and cereals.  It is thought that acrylamide may increase inflammation.

Volunteers ate potato chips daily for 4 weeks.  A significant increase in inflammation was found.  Interestingly, four weeks after the study ended, markers of inflammation were still high.

All this translates to: throw away the potato chips!

Refined Food Addiction

After thinking about the world's biggest addiction, I have found this paper with a similar viewpoint.  The authors propose that refined food consumption is a type of substance abuse problem.  In the paper, their survey results show that many people who are overweight exhibit the same type of behavior as those addicted to other substances like alcohol or tobacco.

The paper is chocked full of good information, such as this graph below(click to enlarge):

It shows that since 1970 consumption of potentially addictive foods has skyrocketed, while consumption of an unrefined food like animal protein has remained relatively constant.

The authors of this paper are from the Refined Food Addiction Research Foundation, whose website is here.

Food Combining

I've seen articles and books over the years about "food combining" (not eating certain foods together), but I've always dismissed it as a fad.  Imagine my surprise when I opened up the new Paleo Diet update and found it to be the leading topic!

The first line provides a good overview: "Because it was relatively rare for our hunter-gatherer ancestors to consume carbohydrates and fats together for millions of years, our species may have became genetically dependent upon certain nutritional combinations."

The article goes on to say that animal products (protein and fat) were usually eaten separately from plant foods (carbohydrate).  Plant food was generally eaten as it was cultivated, and animal food was eaten directly after a successful hunt.

I honestly have never experimented much with this.  I read somewhere (not sure where) that hunter-gatherers consumed mixed meals of meat and vegetables.  I've always done this, but this evolutionary argument against mixed meals is interesting.

Taubes Clarified

I think some people have exaggerated the message of Gary Taubes in regards to carbohydrates.  This is partly his fault, because early in his book he talks about the problems with "refined carbohydrates", but by the end of the book, he often lumps all carbohydrates together.  He even refers to his hypothesis as "the fattening carbohydrate", which obviously puts the focus on carbohydrates, and not refined carbohydrates in particular.

Recently, Taubes answered a few reader questions over at Michael Eades' blog.  One the first questions dealt with this topic - is it carbohydrates or refined carbohydrates that are the problem?  Here is the end of his response:

"The point is that when researchers look at traditional populations eating their traditional diets — whether in rural China, Japan, the Kitava study in the South Pacific, Africa, etc — and find relatively low levels of heart disease, obesity and diabetes compared to urban/westernized societies, they’re inevitably looking at populations that eat relatively little or no refined carbs and sugar compared to populations that eat a lot. Some of these traditional populations ate high-fat diets (the Inuit, plains Indians, pastoralists like the Masai, the Tokelauans); some ate relatively low-fat diets (agriculturalists like the Hunza, the Japanese, etc.), but the common denominator was the relative absence of sugar and/or refined carbs. So the simplest possible hypothesis to explain the health of these populations is that they don’t eat these particularly poor quality carbohydrates, not that they did or did not eat high fat diets. Now the fact that some of these populations do have relatively high carb diets suggests that it’s the sugar that is the fundamental problem. Ultimately we can only guess at causes using this kind of observational evidence."

From his answer, he clearly states that carbohydrates per se are not the problem, but instead it is the presence of refined carbohydrates.  Unfortunately, many people in favor of low-carb diets do not point this out.

A related issue is what's the appropriate diet if a person has damaged their metabolism from refined carbohydrate consumption?  Some people argue for low-carb, but this is just one possible route.  Also, this deals with the treatment end of the metabolic syndrome, not the cause.  If someone is asking, "what is causing the obesity epidemic", then based on the evidence Taubes (and I) would say it is refined carbohydrates.  Obviously then, removing refined carbohydrates but not carbohydrates in general would stop future generations from becoming obese.  The secondary issue is how to treat those already affected by the metabolic syndrome - is removing refined carbohydrate enough, or do all carbohydrates need to be limited because of damage to the metabolism.  This second question is interesting, but much more research needs to be done.

Omega-3 Fats

Here is a newer study that looks at fish oil consumption and insulin resistance.  The study found that fish oil intake was "was a significant predictor of fasting insulin and insulin resistance", even after adjusting for other variables.

I think this finding is pretty impressive, and it concurs with other recent studies showing how important omega-3 fats are in treating the metabolic syndrome.

The Same Old Song

I've seen a few reports on this new study(pdf) that came out comparing different diets.  The study tested low-fat, low-carb, and Mediterranean diets over a two-year period.  Some reported this as a victory for the low-carb diet, which resulted in the most total weight loss, while others noted the Mediterranean diet performed better for women.

In comparison, I see this study as evidence that traditional diets are completely ineffective for weight loss.  If you look deeper into the study, you'll find a few things.  First, subjects started out as "moderately obese" with an average weight around 200 lbs (this is a combined average for both men and women).  Second, you'll find the subjects on the low-carb diet lost only 10 pounds over a two-year period!  Third, all of the weight loss was achieved in the first year; from months 12 through 24, there was no change in weight or a slight regain.  Here's the graph that shows this:

You can see that maximum weight loss occurred around month 5, and weight was regained until somewhat leveling off.  Further, it's obvious that the diets quit working; no one lost weight in the second year meaning that there was no more weight loss to be had from the diets.

What bothers me about this study is that researchers have known about this rebound phenomenon for decades.  If you continually restrict calories (no matter what the type of diet), the metabolism slows.  After around six months, this lowered metabolic rate leads to weight regain.  This has been shown in studies dating back at least 30 years, and probably longer.

So the question is, why do researchers keep wasting their time comparing one diet versus another when they know (or should know) that diets are bound to fail in the long-run?  Does this study provide any new, useful information to the general public? No.  Does this study provide anyone with a blueprint for healthy eating and weight control?  No.  Does this study just add to the confusion within the general public about how to lose weight?  Yes. 

If decades of research show that continually restricting calories fails, then the obvious next step is to try something different.  A logical choice would be some type of intermittent calorie restriction, where calories are restricted some days and not others.  This can allow for gradual weight loss, and more importantly, it will not lead to a slowing of the metabolic rate.

Another logical choice is to eat a similar amount of food each day, and exercise more and create a calorie deficit through the exercise.  This is another approach that can lead to weight loss that will not slow the metabolic rate.  Of course, a combination of exercise and healthy eating is optimal.

It's frustrating that studies like this are even performed.  Subjects followed the various diets, counting carbs or what not, for two years to lose only 10 pounds.  If I was a subject in this study, I would want my money back so to speak.  For comparison's sake, the subjects could have done a good bit of exercise and lost 16 pounds in only 12 weeks, like in this study. 

And people wonder why we have an obesity epidemic.  We have top researchers wasting their time comparing ineffective diets, and the government promoting their bogus food pyramid.  Beyond all this nonsense is a simple solution: a return to our roots of Paleolithic eating and exercising.