Day 59

I am currently reading a book by Gary Taubes. I would advise it for anybody who have weight problems. It is called Why We Get Fat. He also have a chapter dedicated to exercise and its effect on a diet. Here is a thought provoking paragraph:

Imagine you are invited to a celebratory dinner. The chef's talent is legendary, and the invitation says that this particular dinner is going to be a feast of monumental proportions. Bring your appetite, you're told - come hungry. How would you do it?
You might try to eat less over the course of the day - maybe even skip lunch, or breakfast and lunch. You might go to the gym for a particularly vigorous workout, or go for a longer run or swim than usual, to work up an appetite. You might even decide to walk to dinner, rather than drive, for the same reason.
Now let's think about this for a moment. The instructions that we are constantly being given to lose weight - eat less (decrease the calories we take in) and exercise more (increase the calories we expend) - are the very same things we'll do if our purpose is to make ourselves hungry, to build up an appetite, to eat more. Now the existence of an obesity epidemic coincident with half a century of advice to eat less and exercise more begin to look less paradoxical.

He then continued to tell about a study the Danes did that was published in 1989. They trained sedentary subjects to run marathons (42.2 km / 26.2 miles). After eighteen months of training, and after running an actual marathon, the eighteen men in the study had lost an average of five pounds of body fat. As for the nine women subjects, the Danes reported "no change in body composition was observed". This, once again, just reinforce my believe that exercise, while excellent in promoting a good overall body health, have minimal, if any, impact on weight loss.

On a side note, we took the girls to the GP yesterday, as both had a bit of flu. At the end of the visit, the doctor took out lollipops for the girls, and I said, Rather not. Obviously he was curious, as he always gave the girls a sucker each in the past, and I never objected. I told him we cut sugar out of our diet. His next question was: Are you on the Tim Noakes diet?

The Wife, not sure whether he would approve or not as a lot of medical professionals are against it, responded with What do you think of the diet? Which lead the doctor tell us he is very pro-banting! Imagine our surprise and delight! Our GP for the past decade, and the one man who knows my health problems inside out, supports our new diet! He wanted to know how we were feeling, and our results so far. The consultation took slightly longer than normal, and we didn't even get around to talking a bit of football (he is a Man City fan, just like me!).