In a classic film by Woody Allen, called Sleeper, a man named Miles Monroe, checked into Saint Vincent’s Hospital in 1977 for a routine procedure. He had a peptic ulcer. When he awakened two hundred years later, he discovered that he has died, but a caring Aunt has placed him in cryogenic suspension. In this film, two characters who are scientists, have gone mentally and criminally off course and they thaw him out illegally in the year 2173 in order to use him to over throw a fascist regime! I can’t help but to smile at this story line but today as I look back at it, I see it as “the writing on the wall” so to speak. In the scientists discussion there is something that is sort of unnerving to me…
“Has he asked for anything special?”
“For breakfast, he requested something called wheat germ, organic honey, and tiger’s milk.”
“Ahhh, yes, yes, back then people thought of such things as charmed substances that contained life-preserving properties.”
“You mean there was no deep fat, no steak, or hot fudge?”
“Oh no! Those were thought to be unhealthy, precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.”
“Incredible!”
Now that I think about it, this humorous snippet of a film is almost prophetic! Let’s take a look at what has come to pass since the movie hit the theaters in the ‘70’s. In this movie they have social security numbers classifying every citizen in a Big Brother-like computer bank. Hummm, does that sound familiar? And a fascist regime is controlling America. I’d say we are not too awfully far from that folks, but I rebuke that in the name of Jesus! And the New England Journal of Medicine released a study in 1998 concluding that fat may actually protect you from heart disease! Hard to believe but, could the whole 1970’s nutritional system be totally bogus? In the future will the ‘food pyramid” just become hieroglyphics of the 20th century?
Since then other studies on FAD diets like Dr. Atkins have been posted in the New England Journal of Medicine and have been shot down! Here is a copy of one of those articles:
‘A recent study, published in
the July 17, 2008 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, has generated headlines that may lead the casual reader to believe that a low-carbohydrate (animal-food based) diet is the healthiest and most effective way to lose weight and lower cholesterol. The Atkins Research Foundation funded the study. They also promoted the results to the media and slanted the interpretation to suggest the Atkins diet was vindicated. Most of the media bought this nonsense.The study compared people who were counseled to follow three mediocre diets with little difference between the three. All the study did show was that all three of these diets failed to generate significant weight loss or cholesterol lowering. After two years of carefully monitored effort, the average weight loss was less than 8 pounds. Two years on the modified Atkins diet, where they instructed the participants to eat more plant sources of protein (such as beans and nuts) and less trans-fat, still did not lower LDL (bad) cholesterol significantly. And, this was from an improved version of the Atkins’ diet which had less than 40 percent of calories from fat. Most Atkins’ menu’s have 60–80 percent of calories from fat. On the other hand, some of Atkins’ recommendations have value; it’s of course true that white flour and sugar and other high glycemic foods (bread, pasta and white rice) are not health foods; people need to avoid that empty-calorie junk. But even with the avoidance of all the junk food and high glycemic, low nutrient foods, the Atkins-styled diet offered only minimal weight loss. The average weight loss after two years was 11 pounds for men and 5 pounds for women, so they are claiming an average of 4 pounds a year as a success. This was after, supplying meals and intensive monitoring and counseling to assure excellent dietary compliance. In this study the women eating the Mediterranean diet lost an average of 14 pounds, almost three times the amount compared to this improved Atkins plan. Yet for some reason the media comes up with the conclusion that Atkins is vindicated. To me this says, even an improved version of the Atkins diet falls on its face, it is almost as bad as the American Heart Association’s (worthless) dietary advice, which came out even worse in this study. Women are always tougher to get to lose weight and a 5 pound loss in two years after extensive counseling and supplying meals to assure compliance; that says big failure to me.Compare these results, to the patients that were followed in
the USC study on my HND (high micronutrient density) or nutritarian diet where the average weight loss for patients that completed two years of the study was 53 pounds and the Journal of Metabolism study where the average LDL following the HND diet dropped 33 percent. My patients typically drop their cholesterol levels 100 mg/dl, on two years, not 2-3 points, and they come off their medications for diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol-lowering because they simply don’t need them anymore. It is a shame that the most popular diets as well as the American Heart Association recommended diet (which is the worst of the three) are such failures and that most people are so in the dark about nutrition and the ideal diet to follow. What a waste of more than 2 million dollars in research funding. Some vegan diet proponents will undoubtedly be criticizing this study too, complaining that all three diets were not really low in fat, so they merely compared three high fat diets. That still misleads the public in two ways. One it ignores the reality that that high glycemic sugars and high glycemic (low-nutrient) plant starches, such as white potatoes, white rice and bread are not great diet foods. So Atkins’ advice is not all bad. And two, it does not respect the value of beneficial fatty acids and healthy, high fat foods like sunflower seeds and walnuts and the health advantages to including these foods in one’s diet. The fat content of a diet is not the critical factor that determines its quality. Maybe someday soon, somebody will give me a measly half a million (tax deductible) to fund a larger scale, weight loss study that really shows the public what is possible with nutritional excellence, that addresses and removes food addictions with high nutrient eating. Hopefully, in the future, the public will understand these concepts in nutrition much better, but for now, most of these diet camps have significant room for improvement.’
Today, everything is labeled “low fat,” “fat free,” “99% fat free,” or “50% lower in fat than…,” in an attempt to qualify as “health” food. Even fruit juice and dried pasta are sold as “fat free” because we seem to all be living in fear of having that “spare tire” hanging around our middle! We have it in our heads that FAT is the villain and it means to take our lives! Yet the populace is steadily getting…..fatter and weaker and ultimately more unhealthy!
What if all of those low-fat promises of a long, cancer-free, diabetes-free life in a beautiful, thin body, run by a strong, clear, non-hypertensive heart, were bogus from the start? What if carbohydrates, not fat, were the cause of obesity, diabetes, and cancer?
We need the truth! Not just another inconclusive study! We are fatter and sicker than ever before in our nation’s history. Not only do we still look incredibly bad, but our plan to eradicate heart disease, cancer, and diabetes is shot to hell in a hand basket! The average American has actually gained eight and a half pounds since the “low-fat war” on obesity began. I can not afford to add on eight more pounds folks!
At this point Kirby and I have narrowed our choice down to about three different diets. This week we will be making our decision on which of the three we will try. I think that maybe we will chose two diet programs. He will follow one and I will follow the other and we will compare the two and see who will be the “biggest loser!”
Until we decide, we are going to take these steps in our journey - We will:
1.) keep a food diary for a week.2.) write down the time, the amount and the type of food we eat throughout the day, including any liquids that we ingest as well as solid food, such as beer, soft drinks, fruit juices, etc.
3.) write down the fat grams, carbohydrates and calories for each food item.
4.) add these up each day. If the amounts are too high, then we can be fairly sure that our diet is a factor in causing obesity and where we are always getting off track!
What is too high? This number may vary according to a person’s gender, age and body frame. However, there are some guidelines developed by pros that may help you determine how much to eat to maintain an ideal weight in general. An adult woman should eat about 1500 calories a day and an adult male about 2500 calories. Your diet should not have more than 35% grams of fat each day. If you would like more information on this subject here are a few sites you may look up:
www.diabetes.orgwww.obesity.org/www.orion.lib.mi.usThis is the site for the Orion Township Public Library. Access the Public Library and they click on "useful internet sites" and then click on the "medicine and health care" section for various health information on a variety of topics, including "Ask the Doctor", nutrition and fitness, and diabetes. In the nutrition and fitness section, you can find out the nutritional values of all foods, including fast foods.
Would you like to join us? You may email me at
mcatwork@yahoo.com with any ideas or you may just leave a comment here on Blogger. This web site and our diets are a work in progress!
Chat with you later! ‘Till then may the Lord bless and keep you in the palm of His mighty hand!
Your sis-in-Christ,
Colene Whitehead
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