Difficult? Sure! Not appropriate for the general public? Probably not. But "associated with low plasma levels of total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, less coronary heart disease, less diabetes, and less obesity"? Yup. IT'S IN THE LITERATURE. Peer-reviewed, methodology and bias exposed. Studies have been done to control for fat content of the diet. They're not as effective as the whole Ornish approach in managing disease, but restricting fat does have an effect.

Here's a quote from Ornish in May of 2004. "The debate should not focus only on low carbohydrate versus low fat. Patients have a spectrum of dietary choices. To the degree that they reduce their intake of refined carbohydrates and excessive fats and increase their intake of unrefined carbohydrates (fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes) and sufficient omega-3 fatty acids, they may feel better, lose weight, and gain health."

Doesn't sound too extremist to me, but maybe that's just cuz I've been brainwashed by the PC hoardes. :)

See, this is what i been saying all long. The web is full of both sides of the argument. You keep pointing to "big fat lie". Have you searched lately? There is literaly 100 websites devoted to how he quoted out of context many of the people he uses to make his point. The folks he used to make his point totally furious with him in his way to rework their statements to do 180 degrees from what they beleive in order to support his personal views.

Histrionic distortions?

ya thats someone who I want to use as a reference and believe.

Im open to most everything. But i also dont beleive everything i read just because its in print on the internet. You seem to be very selective in the evidence you use. Even your diet, of 8% carbs, is contrary to many of the sites that promote the very things you do.
http://www.jigsawhealth.com/articles...rated_fat.html
They also promote saturated fats, but even they recognize that balance, somewhere around 40/30/30 carb/fat/prot is healthiest compared to either a low fat or low carb.

Re research your own sources. I had never heard of Gary Taubes untill you mentioned to 'google' him. I went looking with no pre conceived ideas. And my conclusion is he's a fraud. well maybe not a fraud, but someone with an agenda and will twist the truth and stats enough to prove his agenda. And thats the opnion of the very people he interviewed and quoted in his articles to make his own points.

I'll keep to my own conclusion, and that of say the Harvard site I linked, and even the above jigsawhealth link and keep to a balanced diet. Exact numbers, be they 40/30/30, or 50/30/20 are not critical, but they give a good range to shoot for.

The only thing still 'in the air' and unproven to me about a balanced diet, and all the fact/fiction regarding fats and cholesteral is saturated fat. To me this is the only area that needs definate studies. Ive read a crap load of sites that point to studies saying it should be reduced (not eliminated) and a couple sites saying its fine. Most sites that say its fine seem to ones pushing an agenda.

heck even your touted Mr Taubes has some interesting things about it you may have missed .
"" While some manipulations in his writing seem very carefully calculated - e.g., waiting until the next-to-last paragraph to include three major bombshells (that he is on the diet himself, that overconsumption of saturated fat can indeed shorten lifespan, and that "Atkins had suffered with heart troubles of his own")""

So i'll keep to a balanced diet, and a reduced sat fat intake. And maybe sometime before im dead they will have a definitive idea about sat fats.

Here's another Harvard article of interest. It deals with how various ideas on health and nutrition are adopted and how knowledge is constantly changing:

Harvard School of Public Health - Research and the Mass Media--An Introduction

Basically there's no one "right" way for anything. Simply probabilities, tendencies and their correlation with results. The link Jarery posted to the Harvard site is pretty comprehensive and is a good starting point to giving long term and permanent results for the largest numbers of people. Sure, in a small niche group, you can get out-of-the-ordinary results, but these tend to be the folks on fad-diets who have constant yo-yo and roller-coaster effects with their weight & health. You want to focus on long-term and permanent results, and it often requires changing your lifestyle and mindset.

well, I can see you and Jarey aren't giving up your biases anytime soon. there is a load of rubbish that gets thru the peer-reivew process, so there goes that... Ornish makes a lot of claims but fails to back any of it up. Did you read A. Colpo's take on him? once you get past Anthony's tone, he has a lot of valid criticisms. One of which is that Ornish cannot claim that reducing fats has any benefits.

you never heard of taubes? his article in the NY Times is what kicked off the whole low carb "craze." and fumento and co. can nitpick about irrelevant details, but the gist of taube's articles hold up (whether his interviewee's like it or not) - that the entire theory that fats are bad and should be restricted is based on extremely flimsy, even non-existant science. this has been borne out again and again,test after test, including tests created and designed to prove the opposite. Unfortunately, there are a LOT of people who have been duped by the low fat mantra, and a lot of people who have based their careers on it, so how can they turn around on a dime and admit they were wrong? they cant.

anyway, eat what you want, but you really need to knock off the attacks on people who do try low carb, you are on very thin ice, science wise, when you do.

*sigh* I've been having fun with this, but I'm really not in the mood to run around defending a super-lowfat diet that has no application to a person of my health status. Sure. Exercise, weight loss, and antioxidants could very well take the claim for Ornish's results. Point is, he's got the only results that are as good as surgical treatment of coronary heart disease -- and he's got some good results on quality of life with prostate cancer, too.

Here, check this out though, pretty cool survey of diet, cholestrol, and heart disease: http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/article...medid=16389340

not really, he only claims to have results. btw, he IS a rabid animal rights PCRM/PETA nutcase. so I take his claims with a grain of salt over some savory filet mignon...

A balanced diet is on thin ice science wise ?
I also dont think I attacked anyone on low carb. Didnt this thread get started by low carb people saying everyone else was wrong ?
You crack me up, dont forget to put your nike's on before the comet gets close :D

sorry, jarey, wasnt referring to you, but a lot of knuckleheads have felt free to drop in and take potshots..

about the so called "balanced" diet? why is that a magical formula? where did that come from? remember, you dont need carbs at all to survive, but you absolutely need fats and protein. also remember, humans evolved over the eons on a very different balance, due to far fewer carbs being available to us for the first 99% of our existance on the planet. and during that time, grains, soy, etc. were unavailable, because they are poisonous in their unprocessed forms.

some people like to argue that lifespans were shorter, but if you really thing our longer lifespans are due to increased carb consumption, I know some nice folks who'd like to talk to you about real estate opportunities over the East river here in NYC...

Balanced comes from many places. Like the other thread where kids left to their own devices automatically eat a 'balanced' diet over time.

Sites that dont have an agenda to push, like the Harvard site I linked. Did you read it? To me thats a site that has no other agenda than to get people healthy. They go with current science at the time, they change when they prove they need to, like in abondoning the low fat theory when further evidence shows it wrong. THey dont stick with wrong statements just because they refuse to show they were wrong.

Harvard site is probably my mainstay for guidance. Even the jigsaw site which is highly favorible to the Weston Price way of thinking promotes a balanced diet.

Saying a body doesnt need carbs is baloney. A body doesnt need to get out of bed, and can live a long life in a coma being fed intravenously. Doesnt make it the 'right' way. Carbs, fat and protein, are all needed, in my opinion.

Using the 'how we were in caveman times' argument is very hollow to me also. Why? Because I dont live in an unheated cave on a hill and eat raw dinasour, or whatever they ate. The whole world and humans have evolved. If you think that there hasnt bene time for humans to evolve, then how come were taller now ?

As i said, to me pretty much all science and studies points to a balanced diet as being the healthiest choice. Jury is still out on saturated fat though.

Read the harvard site, it may open your eyes as much as some of your links have opened mine. Although I've never been one to go for 'new'. I skipped the low fat craze, and i skipped the low carb faze.

The only 'new' fad dietary wisdom I've not discounted is glycemic load. Thats one I beleive has merit. And in the next 5 years I'm sure lots of 'for' and 'against' will come out.

sorry, you gotta understand we low carb folks hear this "balanced" mantra all the time. all it means to me is more carbs/sugar than I want to put into my body. guess it all boils down to how you feel about running your body on fat versus glucose.

it may take some institutions a while to realize the errors of their ways. if they say sat. fats are bad for you and that you need for some reason to eat 30% carbs, I say show the evidence!

as long as you realize that is just your opinion. but the facts still stand, and have been proven again and again. you dont need carbs. we can derive a lot of benefits from carbs, but you do not need them to survive. try not eating proteins and fats for a while, see how long you last.

again, scientists tell us we have only gone thru some very very minor evolutionary changes in the pas 10,000 years. there hasnt been enough time. your metabollic processes are the same as your pre-agriculture cave man ancestor, a product of millions of years of evolution.

there's that balanced word again, ha haa

ok. I've read some of it, I'll take another look.

in my opinion, glycemic load is just a pc watered down version of low carbing.. once the pc crowd realized they couldnt fight low carb on the merits, they decided to stick to the fear of sat. fats and come up with a semi-low-carb-eat-just-lean-meats-but-sat.-fats-are-still-the-devil type of plan. it admits that sugar and insulin are indeed a problem, but wont face the fact that sat. fats are not a problem. just my opinion tho...

Wow, you got comprehension isssues dude.

You want evidence that balanced is better than a fad diet?
Im not overweight, you are.

I started to respond to this rubbish, but no, I think not....

How about...

I was overweight, I'm now not overweight, I did it (and continue to do it) with a balanced diet and feel better than I ever did in over 30 years.

Of course, being a mutant has its advantages :o

The only person who sounds like they're being overly emotional is you. You sound like a petulant little girl who's whining because folks don't agree with you. Poor thing. Maybe you should take that focus and work on increasing your speed. That oughta keep you occupied.

Koffee

Koffee,

I must admit you are one of a kind... here you go resorting to name calling... feel better? Did they teach you this in your certified Nutritionist class?? LMAO!!! :D

Now really, who here is the whiny little girl????

Rubbish is asking for proof, then when its placed in front of you, discounting it as pc mantra.
Rubbish is beleiving a geek with a blog over the harvard medical department
Rubbish is spending 4 years 'low carbing it' and still having a weight problem then telling everyone else who successfully defeated their weight problem, that they are doing it wrong.
Rubbish is only beleiving 'studies' when all you need for proof is a mirror.

Face it, you been low carbing for 4 years, and you stated your still overweight, either you or your diet choice is a failure. I'll let you pick which it is.

Edit : To everyone else who chooses low carb diet to lose weight, go for it. Whatever works for you is good. I just disagree with all the "everyone else is wrong crap"

Colpo says that weight loss is about calorie deficit, no matter what type of diet is followed.
http://www.theomnivore.com/calories_do_count_baby.html

You are.

Koffee

LOL

I know you are but what am I? :D

Koffee,

I know that you really are a good person. I think it is safe to say that we will not agree much on the whole low carb thing... All I ask is that you keep your eyes open to new possabilities. Don't approach people with the "I am a certified nutritionalist so I know my **** and you don't... and you are doing everything wrong, and you are going to fail." There is no doubt that you know more than me when it comes to general nutrition. Don't let that fact make you ignorant to new studies and research that may show that some of the basic principles you believe in could be less than 100% accurate.

Low carb diets work for some people. There are plenty of cases where people have lost a huge amount of weight... all of their medical numbers are fantastic, and the weight has stayed off for a long time. Right now it is working for me. Maybe in time I will get to the point where I am tired of low carbing... or perhaps I will hit a wall and will stop loosing weight.... You could very well get a private message from me asking for specific information in regards to some other kind of diet... who knows.

Don't be so quick to shoot something down. There is a lot of evidence out there that suggests strongly that there is something to low carb dieting. And that pile of evidence keeps growing.

Have a good evening,

Mike

Mike, good job on the 80 mile ride. What did you eat/drink during the ride and in the 2 hours afterwards? How long did you ride the next day, and the day after that? How long until you can do 50 miles at a pace above 18mph on flat roads?

your questions....

The ride was 77 miles.... I ate nothing during the ride.... there was no need to. i had a good breakfast (egg omlet) and an early lunch of tunafish with real mayo and a bowl of salad. I drank pleny of water that morning. I did not start the ride until 12:30pm. During the ride I had a total of 4 big bottles of water. I could have used a 5th like I said, I ran out of water for the last 10 miles or so. After the ride, I continued to drink water (no idea how much, but it was quite a bit) About an hour or so after the ride I ate dinner... A fantastic, tender, rare cut of steak with mushrooms, garlic, peppers, lots of real butter.... A big surving of brockley / cauliflower mix, and a side salad. The next day I did a 35 mile easy does it ride. Yesturday I did not ride because of the crappy weather. Today I will ride. I can do 50 miles at a pace at or above 18mph on flat roads now.

colpo is right about that, and I am living proof!

I have an online acquaintance, a woman in her 30s with four children who was recently diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. It's very aggressive, and her chances of survival are kind of fuzzy. She's an example of why I'd like to be as proactive as possible with my life and my health.

http://jncicancerspectrum.oxfordjour...nci;91/20/1751