YOU SICKENED YOURSELF BY FOLLOWING THE ‘LOW-FAT’ CRAZE, WILL YOU REALLY ALL NOW POISON YOURSELVES WITH THIS ‘LOW-CARB’ NONSENSE?

YOU SICKENED YOURSELF BY FOLLOWING THE ‘LOW-FAT’ CRAZE, WILL YOU REALLY ALL NOW POISON YOURSELVES WITH THIS ‘LOW-CARB’ NONSENSE

There Is Only One Diet That Works, And It Is Neither Of These

by Ben F. Terton

APRIL 14, 2004 – What do we at The Moderate Independent care about diet crazes for?

Because not only do these crazes affect the nation and everyone in it in massive ways, but they follow the same pattern of misinformation and lack of critical thinking that have thrown our nation so out of whack politically.

Think for a second about the "low-fat" confusion that dominated the last decade and a half.

"Low-fat" diets were recommended by doctors beginning a few decades ago not – I repeat not – because they helped with weight loss. In fact, the issue had nothing to do with weight at all.

The issue that led to the introduction of "low-fat" products was cardiovascular disease. Low-fat diets were recommended for people who had or were genetically prone to heart disease or stroke, as research indicated that low-fat diets might reduce the risk of piling up the cholesterol that formed the plaques that blocked arteries.

Never – never – were the low-fat products that appeared meant or intended to infer or imply anything about weight. They were labeled "low-fat" so people looking out for heart health could choose their foods properly.

Enter Madison Avenue and corporations looking to make a buck at the expense of public health, without any qualms about completely misleading the nation.

In the term "low-fat" is the word "fat." There is also the word "low." Fat, while meant as a chemical component of food, also, in the English language, means the excess weight one carries or is an adjective that describes a person that is overweight. "Low" is similar to the word less, and is used in such phrases as low weight, lowering your weight.

And so, first the industry started hinting, implying, that, "Hey, the product says low-fat, so that means it will help you be lower in fat – weightwise – as well.

There never was any science to this, and this was never the intention of "low-fat" products.

It was a misleading word game. People suddenly felt all they had to do to lose or maintain a healthy weight was eat "low-fat" foods. Popcorn, they could eat all they want, as long as there was no butter (or fake "low-fat" imitation butter.) Low-fat cookies? Holy cow, they came from god. Don’t pay attention to the fact you are eating nothing but masses of nutritionless flower - refined carbohydrates. There is no fat. Crackers? Perfect diet food.

As people little by little started making this error on their own, taking the words "low-fat" to somehow mean they will help you have less fat on your body, the marketing went from subtle to mainstream to dominating. By the time Snackwell cookies came around, the lie had become accepted public wisdom. These cookies were advertised as the perfect diet-food – sugar-free, fat-free cookies. And products like low-fat cheese were introduced.

Problem was, that yes, there was no sugar, and yes, no fat, but still, they were nothing but masses of empty calories – the carbohydrates we are all now crazed over. And, fat is what makes you feel full. So, if you have crackers without, say, full-fat cheese but instead with no cheese or low-fat cheese, you will consume and consume the carbohydrate calories but never feel satiated, while just a few slices of cheese would leave your not feeling hungry for hours.

Enter the Atkins mess. Atkins offered the public – long before this low-fat nonsense started, a sort of slight-of-hand diet. He said eat all the fat and protein you want and just avoid carbohydrates and you will lose weight.

Well, of course you will. It is impossible to consume enough fat to be obese without puking. As I just said, fat is what fills you up – fat and protein. Anyone who avoids all forms of carbohydrates – all fruits, all grains – will lose weight.

However, the Atkins diet – like all unbalanced gimmick diets - is absurd and unhealthy. When you starve your body of something, it will shrink in the short term, but the second you replace what you had been starving your body of, you will gain all your weight back and then some.

As one Atkins dieter told us, "I lost the weight, but the second I went off the diet and had a piece of bread, I gained all the weight back plus five pounds."

Yes, one piece of bread was an exaggeration, but the reality is this is how the body works. The body always strives for homeostasis – a neutral, healthy state of existence. Times of famine or regular lack of a certain necessary element make the body worry, and so when it comes upon that element in the future, the body will protect itself by being sure to store up and insurance bit. And, most importantly, it will keep that mentality for years – i.e. it will take a long time to get your body to trust that you let it be starved and deprived again.

In addition, the consumption of too much protein and too much fat have consequences. Break down of protein is the main source of the free-radicals that cause aging and have been linked to diseases such as cancer. Too much fat still is bad for people with predisposition to heart disease. And excess processing of protein also is tough on the kidneys.

In other words, a "low-carb" diet is not a healthy one, and while it may seem like something that can help you lose weight, if you go with the low-carb craze in the extreme manner it is now being laid upon us, you will, in rather short order, have actually gained weight rather than losing.

The reality is that yes, most Americans are eating diets too high in carbohydrates, full of nutrtionless foods that bring lots of carb calories. Most Americans would be better served by eating a more balanced diet, with protein as the main course, a reasonable, natural proportion of fat, and carbohydrates in a natural proportion – not as sugars or refined flowers, but as fruits.

However, the "low-carb" craze misses a few key points. One, you do have to watch fat intake. Yes, you will lose weight in the short term no matter how much fat you eat, but your goal is not to lose weight but to arrive at a healthy state – weightwise and otherwise – which you can then maintain.

Secondly, no out of whack diet can or will work in the long run. As far as food is concerned, the role of vegetables is as large as the role of fat in satiation. There needs to be a complete balance, some protein, some fat, some fruit, some vegetables – yes, the old food groups before they changed the chart. Eating just protein and fat will leave your body starved for the carb energy it is designed to use and for the important vitamins and other nutrients it needs from whole fruits and vegetables.

Above and beyond all of this is this one simple reality: there is only one diet that actually works to reduce weight, maintain that weight loss, and improve health at the same time, with no downside or negative side affects. It is called the Exercise Diet.

Because in reality, our nation’s weight problem has much more to do with inactivity than with anything we do or don’t eat. And there’s a more important reality to this. That inactivity = hunger. In other words, if you are sitting around watching TV, you are get hungry on top of hungry, while if you are busy playing a sport of lifting weights, your appetite disappears for that time. Now this may seem backwards – it should be the more fuel you are burning the hungrier you are.

But ah, here is we at The Moderate Independent can help straighten things out for you.

Bodies realize the basic law of physics that states, "A body a rest tends to stay at rest." And for a body, rest = death.

And so every single body looks for someway to get itself going, to make sure it feels alive, a certain rush of life. People who are active, their bodies are happy and feel very alive. The blood is circulating and the body is occupied with the challenge of keeping up with the exercise, and the mind is satisfied and occupied as well.

However, for the person sitting on the couch, the body gets very antsy and upset – it is fading, being left to deteriorate. As Hypocrates, the father of modern medicine, observed over two thousand years ago, similar to the above law of physics, that a body, used for the purposes and functions it is designed, tends to get stronger and healthier, while if not used for those purposes, tends to deteriorate.

It is the basic antithetical reality of exercise: wearing the body down actually makes it healthier and stronger, while treating the body gently, letting it rest pleasantly, causes it to waste away.

Who’d have thought?

In any case, your body knows this, and so it will not tolerate being left at rest. It wants to feel the rush of activity and use, lest it know it is wasting away and its days are numbers.

Now, while exercise is one thing that can give the body this feeling, consuming food will do this as well. Digestion is an active process, and the feeling of just having eaten kicks the body’s activity up a notch – albeit not a very big one.

Caffeine, sugar, these things create a rush that simulates, to an extent, the rush obtained from physical activity.

And so the inactivity of watching TV itself is not the whole issue. The deteriorate effects of inactivity are compounded by the body’s panicky, angry response to idleness, which leads it to demand something that gives it opportunity for life-sustaining activity, i.e. eating.

The long and the short of it is, you can avoid all carbs, you can avoid all fat and you will have improved nothing about your weight or health. On the other hand, you can eat all the carbs you want and fat you want while maintaining a healthy weight and improving your health.

The Exercise Diet allows you to eat whatever you choose. What you will realize that the Exercise Diet offers you once you undertake it that no other gimmick diet of the moment can is the most body-satisfying, calorie-free food on the planet: physical activity itself.

Madison Avenue keeps jumping from pushing one gimmick diet to another, because their goal is to keep you on your butt in front of your TV, watching their ads and consuming their products. It doesn’t matter to them we are so in debt that a record number of us are having to declare bankruptcy each year, nor do they care that we have so overconsumed their products that almost 1/3 of us are obese at this point, almost 2/3 – 2 out of 3 of us – very overweight.

They don’t care. They just want to make sure – at all costs to you – that whatever happens you don’t shut off your TV and cut down your consumption to a reasonable level. They want to offer you now a new avenue of overconsumption, the "low-carb" diet.

If what you want is to lose weight in the short-term but adversely affect your health in the long-term, please go ahead and follow it. They promised you all sorts of health benefits as long as you avoided fat, and all you got was obesity and diabetes in return. Now they promise you all sorts of benefits if you just avoid carbs, without regard to what health issues this will propose for you in the long-term.

If what you actually want is to get your weight to a healthy level while improving all aspects of your health while improving your appearance while improving your strength and ability to perform with a diet that is no gimmick and you can – and should – follow for a lifetime, follow The Moderate Independent’s recommendation and undertake the exercise diet. It actually saves you money as you consume so much less of other things you can easily pay for the equipment or gym membership. And, of course, it requires much less time than your destructive current lifestyle, as 40 minutes – 1 hour of it a few times a week is enough to bring about massive changes, while activities like TV watching require or movie rentals require hours upon hours upon hours.

Simple tip for the older among us who have never really exercised: strengthening your legs with exercise is the single best way to prevent those falls that lead to disaster for so many older people. And that tip comes from the top orthopaedic specialist in the nation.

So there you have it – and we aren’t even charging or selling anything. We, as usual, are just taking a stand for truth and what is best for America.

Of course note: you may want to check with your doctor or health or physical training specialist before undertaking any exercise regimen if you have health issues or are just getting started. While this sort of notice make give some people some pause or worry or something and lead them to put off beginning to exercise, please alsoe note: TV and ice cream don’t warn you to do such a thing, but bet the bank of the fact that if you call you doctor and or health specialist and say, "Look, I’m trying to determine if there is a risk to me starting a TV-watching and ice-cream-eating regimen," your doctor will, if they are at all competent, say, "Yes, that regimen will be a massive threat to your health and lead to all sorts of problems. Why don’t you try and exercise regimen instead."

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