Don't fear the fat

For decades we have been told that a low fat high carb diet is the best for the human body.  That saturated fat kills... it causes heart disease...  Senator McGovern said so back in the 1970s - so it must be true, right?

WRONG!

Fat is necessary for the body, there are many vitamins and minerales that can only be assimilated by the body in the presence to dietary fat.  What's more if you go back to the fact that our digestive systems haven't changed in 10,000 years and way back then, our ancestors were hunter-gatherers and ate predominantly meat if they could catch it and what they could gather; fruits and vegetables.  Refined flour and sugar just didn't exist.

Since the seventies, governments would have us all following their wonderful food pyramids or plates that advocate eating predominantly carbohydrates and very little fat.  As I mentioned last week, the McGovern Report said that saturated fat was responsible for heart disease and we should all eat vegetable fats such as corn oil, sunflower oil and vegetable margarines packed full with Trans Fats.  In 1970 Ancel Keys, an American Nutritionist published his "Seven Countries" study which concluded that dietary fat was responsible for high serum cholesterol  and therefore heart attacks - this is a flawed study which was originally (if I remember correctly) done on 22 countries but Keys only used the data from 7 to prove his point.  If you factor in the data from the other 15 countries it tells you a completely different story.

In 1972 John Yudkin published his book Pure, White and Deadly in which he blames sugar, especially fructose, for cavities, obesity, liver disease, heart disease and some forms of cancer.  Yudkin also said that dietary fat and saturated fat were harmless to health.  Keys counter attacked and ultimately won, however, the human race lost.  Numbers of deaths due to heart disease have increased since we tried to eliminate saturated fat from our diets.  Obesity has risen.  Dental problems have increased.  Cancer has increased.  Shall I go on?

I could go on, but I try to keep my articles to a reasonable length.  So I'll try and get to the point.  Yesterday I watched two amazing documentaries; Cereal Killers and Running on Fat (Cereal Killers 2).  I have had many life changing moments from reading clinical evidence or watching amazing documentaries such as Forks over Knives, these two were another one of those life changing moments.

Cereal Killers is the story of Donal O'Neill and Irish athlete and son of a famous Irish football player who went to South Africa to talk to Tim Noakes MD (marathon runner), and to go on a LOW CARB and HIGH FAT diet for a month to see what would happen.

Running on Fat is the second part of Cereal Killers where they have tested the high fat diet on endurance athletes to see what would happen.

In both documentaries and supported by scientific evidence... blood tests, metabolic testing, endurance testing, etc... they found that:

1.  Donal's weight decreased slightly and he had LESS fat in his body after 28 days on a high fat low carb diet.  His kidneys were functioning perfectly and his body was in healthier than previously.  The only "red flag" on his analysis was that his LDL (bad) cholesterol had increased.  So, they did another test to discern the size of the LDL particles.  Size is very important when it comes to cholesterol as the large particles are not a problem, the small size LDL particles are the dangerous ones that get stuck in arteries and cause inflammation.  His particle size was large - all of them.  Donal's inflammation markers had also decreased.  His metabolic rate increased.

2.  Endurance athletes; think Iron Man, Triathlons, etc... perform better on a high fat diet than on a high carb diet.  Marathon runners have been told to "carb load" before a race for decades.  How many times have you seen athletes collapsing at the finish line of a marathon?  Fat burning athletes... don't.

Otto Thaning is the oldest man to have swam the English Channel at the age of 73.  He did it on fat and he did it in 12 hours.  The amazing thing was that after swimming in cold water for 12 hours he looked as if he'd done nothing - there was no exhaustion, he was able to talk to his family on the phone as if it was just any other normal day.

The Australian national Cricket Team runs on fat, and they all say they are better for it.

Lots of marathon runners, athletes and other people who do sports for health and not competitively have found that with age they gain weight.  The reaction to this of any one of these people is to train MORE.  However, they soon discover that training more doesn't mean they lose weight.  However, many have found that changing to a high fat diet means they lose weight and can train LESS and still notice improvements in their performance.

In fact lots of sports personalities have been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes; Sir Steve Redgrave was diagnosed 2 years after winning his 5th Olympic rowing medal, Donal's own father had a heart attack although he hadn't put on any weight after retiring from professional football.

Many have been trying to get this message out to the public, Tim Noakes and Stephen Phinney are the ones who really got this going.

Now, the body takes a while to adapt to the change.  Changing to a low carb high fat diet can leave you feeling pretty weak for the first few days even a week or two.  But once your body makes the switch then you can reap the benefits.

Now I don't think anyone should make drastic changes without medical support, but you will probably find that most general practitioners will not understand what you are trying to accomplish.  However, if you can get them to do a blood test to check that you have no underlying problems, then you shouldn't have a problem with switching to a low carb high fat diet.

Low Carb foods you can eat as much of as you like:

• Meat - including pork, bacon (as unprocessed as possible), beef, as well as chicken, turkey, etc..
• Fish and shellfish
• Eggs
• Natural fat/High fat: butter, cream, coconut oil, olive oil, greek yogurt, high fat cheeses, sour cream, full fat milk (if you must).
• Vegetables that grow above ground such as: cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, asparagus, courgettes, egg plant, olives, spinach, mushrooms, cucumber, lettuce, avocado, peppers, tomatoes. etc
• Nuts: Pecan, Brazil, Macadamia, hazelnut, walnut, peanut, pinenuts, almonds, pistachios, cashew.
• Berries: In moderation, Raspberry, Blackberry, Strawberry and Blueberry

The only rule:  NO CEREAL/NO SUGAR and that means no high carb foods: pasta, bread, pizza, rice, potatoes, carrots, high sugar fruits.

DON'T FEAR THE FAT (Donal O'Neill)

I can help you improve your health.  If you would like to make an appointment with me either in person or via Skype, just send me an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com