Going Low Fat

[Cado]

Originally Posted by tomw

I can't speak for everyone, but I get around 30% of my calories from fat. I've done so for over 30 yrs, and have never experienced either of those symptoms.

I've had a very similar experience. Since I've made it a point to get more fat through my diet my energy levels have drastically increased, I can think and concentrate better, it takes longer for me to be fatigued, etc. I love the stuff so much that even when it's a "go nuts" day I make sure that most of what I eat has high fat content.

[kat]

Originally Posted by shawnmihalik

If you check out this lecture, the lecturer does a far better job breaking down the studies and explaining it than I could. The lecture is almost an hour long, but the first couple parts are just about bad science in general, so skipping to part 3 or so will get you into the meat of the information about fat (no pun intended).

I watched a fair chunk of part 3 and part 4. Sorry, but I'm not seeing much 'meat' there, and I'm finding it tedious to watch a comedian belabour points at length.

I agree with a fair chunk of what he says. Refined grains aren't good for you, and there is a lot of bad nutritional science, and even worse reporting and advertising. Unfortunately, this casts no light; it doesn't say that the opposite of what was done or said incorrectly is true.

On the other hand, Mr. Naughton doesn't seem to have any idea about what he's doing with statistics, and he's inconsistent about whether indirect ways to get to results are good or bad science (for instance, the Ornish diet has remarkable results in reversing heart disease and lowering mortality rates in patients with severe heart disease, unlike the Atkin diet, but the film praises the Atkin diet for helping indicators such as HDL more than the Ornish diet does - which is exactly the kind of reasoning he slammed in his example about water consumption causing diabetes).

If you'd be so kind as to point me to serious books, or well-done studies which say that low-fat diets are unhealthy, or that high fat diets are optimal, I'd still like to hear it. (And please, don't point me towards the Nurses' health study, which has no actual data about low-fat diets, or towards "Good Calories, Bad Calories", which strikes me as even more poorly done than "The China Study", sadly).

In a field this full of noise, I'm always thrilled to hear of good work. If it overturns conceptions I currently hold, that's a bonus.

By the way, what do you personally mean by a 'high fat' and 'low fat' diet? Different sources define these terms rather differently.

[scorpio1980]

Originally Posted by kat

What do you see the actual drawbacks of a continuous low fat diet being?



Getting the majority of calories from fruit doesn't match how most of the world eats - we agree on that.

Your 97 year old grandfather doesn't prove anything, sadly. There are 97 year old smokers, and smoking rates in the USA have been decreasing, but that doesn't make smoking healthy for you... correlation is not causation.

The low fat craze of the 80s and 90s had some negative effects. However, fat consumption in the USA actually increased during that time. You can't judge the effects of a craze on health when the actual data shows the opposite of that craze happening in practice!

I'm not convinced about the benefits of low-fat diets for the general population (although I think Dr. Ornish, among others, is worth reading). But I think the idea should be debated on its actual merits and actual data, not common misconceptions. Be well, and be careful of your sources.

A couple of the drawbacks of a low fat diet among many are an increase in depression rates. Then the fact you have to replace the fat with something which will usually be sugar.

I never said I was using my grandfather as proof of anything other than the fact that yes it is possible to live a long healthy life eating animal fats. He is an example of how most people ate before we had the high incidence of disease we have today, example not proof.

Actually only polyunsaturated and trans fats increased during the 80's and 90's. Healthy saturated, and unsaturated fats that had been eaten in generous amounts for most of human history were the ones to decrease. Too much vegetable fats, margarine, and the like were the reason fat gets blamed for disease.

I agree we should look into the data for our evidence, but first and foremost we should look into our own families, and ancestors to see how the healthy long lived members ate. Success always leaves clues.

[kat]

Originally Posted by scorpio1980

A couple of the drawbacks of a low fat diet among many are an increase in depression rates. Then the fact you have to replace the fat with something which will usually be sugar.

Do you have a reliable source for the correlation with depression?

Replacing fat with sugar is a step in the wrong direction - we fully agree on that. But it's perfectly possible to largely replace it with other things (and many people do so). Between fat and refined sugar, I'd pick fat - but that says a lot more about sugar than fat.

Originally Posted by scorpio1980

I never said I was using my grandfather as proof of anything other than the fact that yes it is possible to live a long healthy life eating animal fats. He is an example of how most people ate before we had the high incidence of disease we have today, example not proof.

Actually only polyunsaturated and trans fats increased during the 80's and 90's. Healthy saturated, and unsaturated fats that had been eaten in generous amounts for most of human history were the ones to decrease. Too much vegetable fats, margarine, and the like were the reason fat gets blamed for disease.

I agree we should look into the data for our evidence, but first and foremost we should look into our own families, and ancestors to see how the healthy long lived members ate. Success always leaves clues.

I think looking at ancestral diets makes sense in areas where they've been fairly constant over more than a few centuries. I can't say I'm convinced that it makes much sense in immigrant (ie, non-aboriginal) populations in the USA/the Americas. The historical record fairly clearly shows that people switched diet rather significantly as they immigrated, and the USA hasn't historically had the highest of lifespans, both of which give me pause.

It's possible to live a long healthy life doing plenty of things incorrectly. If there's a strong trend among particularly elderly people, it's interesting; looking at individual ones is only enough to say that something isn't uniformly fatal. It's clear that most elderly people eat animal fats - but so do most people of any age, so it doesn't mean much. In the USA, vegetarians live longer than non-vegetarians on average. I suspect factors like the differences in amount and kind of physical exertion that your ancestors did, and other differences in their diet (such as not eating a lot of refined foods, from white flour to high sucrose corn syrup and other refined sugars) were more important, and that looking specifically at animal fats is ignoring most of the data.

Your grandfather's diet is rather different from the typical diets in the regions of the world with the highest life expectancies, and also likely to be rather different from the diet of the longest-lived people in the area(s) of his ancestors, if you go back more than a few generations.

I fully agree with you that avoiding trans-fats, and products such as poor-quality margarine that contain them, is a good idea.

[Andrew Gubb]

So far I've noticed a couple of things.

Firstly going low fat requires me to get used to eating more in a similar way to going raw does (if to a lesser extent). I used to be able to down a bag of chips or cashews and get full very easily on that. It kinda reduced the necessity for making a real dinner if I didn't want to. I'm a pretty lazy person sometimes, so I find I have to make an effort. It's not a bad thing, though.

As for effects in how I feel etc, I can report feeling kind of lighter in my body. The digestion of a very fatty meal is a lot heavier, longer, slower, and gives me a slightly "bleh" feeling. Low fat meals feel more comfortable in the digestion hours that follow.

This is nothing that I wouldn't have expected as I've known what I feel after eating a lot of fat for a long time now. Let's see what long term effects I notice, if any...

[Andrew Gubb]

I've lost weight!

Unfortunately for those who like this sort of stuff I don't usually weigh myself. Actually I don't have scales But it's starting to become apparent from the way I look. My girlfriend has commented on it.

I'm really happy about that, and because of that I predict I'll want to keep it up after the 30 days and see if I hit my perfect weight... apart from that, I don't have much to report. I've noticed I started to eat a little more refined sugar to displace fatty foods e.g. low sugar fruit conserve on bread rather than avocado, which is bad, but it's not a major issue. I'm thinking I could start thinking to limit refined sugar as well. It's never been my problem until now seeing as I just don't feel attracted to refined sugar, but I needed some things to put on bread and so on, so yeah.

[russianrocket]

I'm sure your perception of yourself has nothing to do with your perfect diet making you "lose weight", with out actually seeing it on the scale.

PS, muscle loss will also make you lose weight.

[shawnmihalik]

Originally Posted by Andrew Gubb

I've noticed I started to eat a little more refined sugar to displace fatty foods e.g. low sugar fruit conserve on bread rather than avocado, which is bad, but it's not a major issue. I'm thinking I could start thinking to limit refined sugar as well. It's never been my problem until now seeing as I just don't feel attracted to refined sugar, but I needed some things to put on bread and so on, so yeah.

This -- replacing healthy fat with refined sugar -- sounds like a major issue to me. The kind of issue that, if not addressed, could lead to diabetes or heart disease.

[beast]

Yeah, replacing avocado with jam? Bad move.

[robx]

Originally Posted by Andrew Gubb

Today is my first day of a low fat trial.

As you may or may not know, I'm currently following a vegan, gluten-free diet. I aim to follow a 100% raw diet (and later try breatharianism), but for the moment I average roughly 50% raw.

I heard about the whole low fat thing from the raw food gurus I follow, especially Douglas Graham. According to them excess fat contributes to candida, low energy levels, fatigue and various other issues. Certainly I don't feel at all drawn to a high fat raw food diet, though I haven't been limiting fat in my normal (cooked) diet at all until now.

I'm going to do maximum 15% fat. In practical terms, as I won't be too anal about the calculations, I'll assume I consume 2500 calories a day and 50% raw food calories. I can have 375 cal of fat a day, but I will only consume 175 cal (7%) of *overt* fat like oils and avocado, as the rest comes from the small amount in normal food like fruit and grains.

I'm doing a month to see what happens. I'll report back with whatever I notice, if anything.

Are you trying to treat an existing condition?

When you mentioned the small amount of fat that comes in normal foods like fruit and grains, I don't think you realize how SMALL the amount of fat actually is in fruits.

A cup of strawberries has less than a gram of fat.
An apple has less than a gram of fat.
A banana has less than a gram of fat.

If you're a vegetarian, and not taking in any protein from meat sources such as beef, pork, chicken, fish, etc. then your diet is probably already very low in fat. I would be surprised if your diet is even at 15% fat on a daily basis, I don't know how much "oils" and avocados you're consuming but it would have to be up there to get to 15% fat intake.

You could actually find out by logging everything you eat and monitoring calories and breaking down the protein, carbs, fat and other items so you know exactly where you are in terms of protein, carbs, fat intake everyday.

Low fat diets actually stimulates lipogenic (fat producing) hormones, you want proof, ever since we started putting that low fat sticker on foods for the last 20 some odd years, the obesity rate has risen at a dramatic rate. Trying to lose fat on the low fat diet is like trying to walk up a downward-moving escalator.

If you're on a low fat diet, lipogenic hormones are dominant in your body, your body is forced to burn sugar (glucose) for energy and since you're on a relatively high carb diet, the sugar that isn't burned for energy is stored as fat - adipose tissue.

Low fat diets affect the production of many other hormones in your body, you will be less energetic because of it, you will likely become soft and puffy, I haven't seen very many lean & muscular vegetarians out there. Fat is required for the normal production of your body's hormones, which includes testosterone if you're a man.

There must be other ways to battle this candida condition you have, low fat can't be the only method.

A 100g serving of raw California avocado (skinned/peeled and pitted) provides @170 calories and 15g fat

Even on a diet of 2000 calories (2000 used for calculation purposes), if your diet was 30% fat, that would be @ 65g of fat - you would have to eat 4 avocados a day to get that amount of fat.

[Andrew Gubb]

I don't have Candida, and I'm not trying to treat any condition.

It's true that it's quite easy to stay low fat on a vegan diet. It becomes a problem when we think about fried food and stuff like nuts. A bag of cashews has 400 cal of fat. Eating a bag of chips it's easy to reach 500 or more.

Bro, I feel good on this diet. I bet "low fat" products have increased the amount of fat people around, they're wonderful distractions from what people really need to do to follow a healthy diet. A low-fat yoghurt is still a yoghurt, is still a health travesty.

On a similar note, I have met several lean and muscular vegetarians (vegans).

Seems people have a skewed perspective of this diet thanks to stereotypes and having their beliefs already set in something else. If you want to hear a perspective about why the vegan diet is healthier, read "The China Study". (There are rebuttals of this book - try reading the rebuttals of the rebuttals, they're pretty convincing). If you want to see lean and muscular veg(etari)ans, see Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

[agsags]

Andrew,

I would love to see you eat a good piece of well-marbled grass-fed rib-eye steak. I guarantee you that your girl-friend would thank you for doing that.

[Andrew Gubb]

She definitely would not.

[agsags]

How would you (or she) know that? Have you tried?

[Andrew Gubb]

Of course I would know that.

She's vegan too. To start with the taste of dead cow in my mouth would make her (and me) vomit.

Then, of course, whatever physical changes would be negative, too.

Try going vegan for a month. Your girlfriend will thank you for it.

[agsags]

I am not sure you got the jest of my original comment. You constantly write about your diet - one day it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of bananas, today it's low-fat. Your diet seems to be free of saturated fat that is essential for testosterone production. You are like a neurotic girl who can't get enough of diet talk. I had hopes that some meat would change the course and would rub off well on your girlfriend as well.

I have tried eating raw. I can't function well on that diet as I don't stay grounded. I need some meat at least once every 2 weeks and I need fermented dairy at least couple of times a week. Women I have been were turned out by the killer instinct and eating meat helps awaken that on some deep level.

[Andrew Gubb]

Well I don't want to be a "killer", so that's out. My sex drive is as strong as ever - and it's very strong, so somehow I'm making that testosterone which I can't make because I'm vegan

Calling me a neurotic girl was clearly out of line, but I'm not even going to go there. If you can't understand how I can experiment with different diets and yes, go from eating lots of bananas to eating low fat cooked food, then, whatever really.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by agsags

I am not sure you got the jest of my original comment. You constantly write about your diet

So? If somebody has a strong interest in experimenting with and discovering the healthiest diet, why does that bug you?

[agsags]

Originally Posted by Andrew Gubb

Calling me a neurotic girl was clearly out of line, but I'm not even going to go there. If you can't understand how I can experiment with different diets and yes, go from eating lots of bananas to eating low fat cooked food, then, whatever really.

Hey, I call it as I see it - and there is nothing wrong with being neurotic. I was a neurotic boy in my lower twenties too with my diet being quite strict and unvaried. You are beyond "experimentation" though.

Originally Posted by moonrambler

So? If somebody has a strong interest in experimenting with and discovering the healthiest diet, why does that bug you?

It doesn't *bug* me, but I surely have a desire to feed Andrew some meat just as I have strong desire to feed some food to latest Miss USA. The thing is: there is interest and there is neurotic interest that keeps on looping. Andrew - with his multiple posts on diet - definitely falls into the second category. It's like other parts of his life are a bit of order, he doesn't have much control over them so much of his attention gets displaces into diet.

[Andrew Gubb]

Enough psychoanalysing me. I find diet interesting, so I write about it a lot. That's all there is to it. If you don't like my style get interested in some other poster instead. I'm not receptive to your criticism - which I don't think was intended constructively, whatever you might say - so let the conversation end here.

[shawnmihalik]

Originally Posted by Andrew Gubb

Enough psychoanalysing me. I find diet interesting, so I write about it a lot. That's all there is to it. If you don't like my style get interested in some other poster instead. I'm not receptive to your criticism - which I don't think was intended constructively, whatever you might say - so let the conversation end here.

Andrew, don't worry, I get whe you're coming from. I'm incredibly curious about diet too, and there was a time when I was trying something new every four or five months for the sake of experimentation. I tried vegetarian, vegan, Paleo, slow-carb, and even though I've found something that works for me now (Paleo) and have stop experimenting so much, I still make tweeks to my diet all the time. And who knows, maybe someday I'll try experimenting with another major diet change again.

Keep experimenting. It's the only way we can learn what works for us.

[Andrew Gubb]

I had an improptu break from the low fat trial because my American roomie brought a load of high-fat treats back from America, including this but also cashew butter, and Daiya brand vegan cheese which I have been tripping out with via cheese toasties. I didn't want the stuff to go off or get eaten before I could have my share So the trial was cut a little short.

I consider it successful though in that I have a good idea of what a low fat diet feels like for me. I can't say much more than I already have: I've lost some weight, and feel better in general. Particularly I feel better and lighter in the digestion hours after eating fatty foods, and I just generally feel like I'm acting more in tune with my body this way, and less like I'm ignoring it. When I eat a large amount of fat now, the "ick" feeling in my stomach is hard to ignore. I have to admit I'm eating too much fat right now, and I really want to do something to shift this unpleasant feeling. Probably eat some starch food now to compensate a bit.

By avoiding fried food, particularly packaged chips and so on, it's been pretty easy to uphold the diet. I think in the future I'll try to plan ahead for high fat pig-athons such as my current situation by eating under my fat limit most days. It's not too hard if I make a point to stay conscious about what I feel in my body. It's harder when I want to eat out or to eat the same as my girlfriend, but I think this can be worked with.

[firenexx]

I have experienced the same thing; when I eat lower amounts of fat for a week or two, then when I eat heavy, fatty, or cooked foods, I feel sluggish afterwards. I am slowly learning to limit my portions a lot better. I used to pig out - not chronically, but acutely. For instance, I would rarely have chips, but when I did, I would eat half the bag. Now if I do that I notice a severe decline in mood and well-being for an hour or two afterwards. It's a lot easier to kick the binge habit when I can actually feel a difference between certain foods.

[joelr]

Originally Posted by beast

A serving of ice cream is 1/4 of a pint, or...14 grams of fat! I don't know anyone who eats a whole pint of ice cream in one sitting.

I always eat the whole pint. I always wish I had more when I'm finished.
After a divorce I came down 50 lbs and it was having trouble eating but after about 6 months I started having a Ben&Jerry pint every night.

Wow they have some good flavors. Man is it addicting too. When I would try to skip a night I'd feel this sense of loss?
I went from really ripped to slightly fatter than I want to be in like 4 weeks!?
My diet besides the ice cream was like a turkey sandwich, protein shake and maybe a can of tuna.
Wow is that stuff fattening.



I went low fat my first pre-contest diet. I didn't know how to diet right and the advice at that time was low fat = weight loss.
Just ate tuna, rice, egg whites, chicken breast, and shakes.
Very minimal fat in those foods. It was before I knew about essential oils and such.
I got ripped no problem, no side effects. But I was my lightest ever around 190.

By adding fat in later diets the difference I noticed was I was able to gain more muscle. Fat is essential for testosterone production.

[Serrao]

Hi Andrew,
I'm very curious.
Why do you wanna become a breatharian?

Serrao

[davidegals]

Most of people worried about their Fatness problem. To keep our body low fat we should do daily exercise. We should control our eating food. It is the best way of going to low fat.

[Andrew Gubb]

Originally Posted by Serrao

Hi Andrew,
I'm very curious.
Why do you wanna become a breatharian?

Serrao

I think that question would be better posed in its thread: I want to become breatharian!

The short version is that I want to experience it, and not NECESSARILY remain in it, because a) I want to be able to say I did it and it's possible, and b) because there are supposedly a load of benefits. Incredible health and vitality, massive energy, psychic awakening, half your normal need for sleep, and so on.

I kind of think it'd be fun to win an olympic gold medal in swimming and tell everyone that it was the breatharianism that did it.

[Serrao]

I too want to be a breatharian.
But only to upgrade my being, sort of having breatharianism along
with other qualities in my being.
I like cooking and eating, so I'm still gonna eat .