Day 17

I saw a video clip today where a so-called "expert" called banting (what we call the LCHF diet) a fad diet. I had to smile.

In the last decade, there were countless studies done comparing low carb diets to low fat diets. In all of them, the LCHF diet came out tops. Not only did the people lose more weight quicker on the LCHF diets, but they experienced less hunger, less craving, and their over-all health improved quicker. Also, in most of these studies the low-fat groups were limited on calories, where the low-carb groups could eat as much as desired.

Not only did the people on the low-carb diets lose more weight (and cm's!), more of them actually finished the study, where a lot of low-fat people gave up after a time. Must be the constant hunger, I think, but it may also be because they noticed the nice juicy strips of bacon their low-carb neighbours had for breakfast, or the nice big steaks (with fat) they had for dinner!

One of the studies I read was of great importance, specially for me. The lead was Dr Jeff Volek, and he looked deeper into the effects of low-carb vs low-fat, not only at the weight loss. On the LCHF diet, the LDL particles in the blood (cholesterol particles) shifted from small, dense particles to bigger, fluffy particles. On the low-fat diet, the reverse happened. Some of the bigger particles shifted into smaller, denser particles.

What does this mean? LDL is bad cholesterol (HDL is the good one!), but when looking at LDL you should look at the particle size and density. Small, dense particles is bad for you, but bigger soft particles are not very dangerous at all, and may actually prove to be beneficial. So the low-fat diet, which is supposed to be heart friendly, is actually worse for your heart!

Here is a link to the study: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11745-008-3274-2
Here is a link to an excellent article on cholesterol: http://chriskresser.com/the-most-important-thing-you-probably-dont-know-about-cholesterol

So, to sum it up. Is a low carb high fat diet a fad? I think not. Instead, I believe it will show itself as the one true diet within the next decade. Not sure what all those companies making millions of bucks on fake diets are going to do to make money once this happens!