New information on low carb diets....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 1-18-2011

In the Reader’s Digest magazine now out on the newsstands, the cover has two fried eggs and some bacon set up to look like a smile.

Inside on page 110 is the related article, “Is this any way to lose weight?”

It’s basically a mostly favorable review and abstract for the new book,

Why We Get Fat—and What to Do About It, by Gary Taubes.

This is an important development because Reader’s Digest has such a huge readership. Since much of the information is totally correct, that’s a good thing.

This post is my review and comments on that article.

For those who don’t know, low fat diets tend to make people fat because most popular versions of them are loaded with grains and sugars. (Cutting ALL fats tends to make people hungrier, need more sugar to make foods taste good, and less healthy. So, it also tends to make people fatter or able to lose less fat than people who eat moderate amounts of fats and oils.)

In addition, people who eat lots of protein and even the “bad” kinds of animal fat and restrict carbs tend to lose fat AND get actual improvements in their HDL, LDL, and triglyceride readings.

His information has two parts in my view.

One part is extremely accurate and will work well for people who use it.

The second part is dangerous and can badly harm your health. It seems he doesn’t know the state of the art info on health OK fats and oils and animal proteins – or on exercise and how it helps with losing fat and keeping it off.

First, here are some of the things in the article.

The article goes on to quote Gary Taubes as saying exercise doesn’t help lose fat (you tend to get hungrier when you exercise) and that “You need to eat foods that keep your insulin low.”

And, at the end of the article, he points out that our ancestors for well over 100% of our existence until modern times ate lots of meat and high fiber vegetables and not a lot else.

They also list menu low carb menu ideas that include fried eggs, bacon, butter, mayonnaise, sour cream, cream cheese, cream, ham, cheddar cheese, salmon, and rib-eye steak.

The 5 Ways to get started section by Eric Westman, MD after saying no limits on fat, has these 4 points.

2. Say goodbye to pasta, bread, and rice.

4. Be picky about vegetables (Choose almost 100 % nonstarchy ones.)

4 Say NO to hidden sugars.

5. Eat as much as you are hungry for without any efforts at portion control.

Here’s a summary of my review.

1. “You need to eat foods that keep your insulin low.” is completely correct.

Protein, fats and oils, and nonstarchy vegetables all fit that prescription. Those foods and combinations of them are what people evolved to eat. Our bodies tend to be leanest and work best when close to all of what we eat are those foods only.

“Foods’ that do not -- such as regular soft drinks and rice and bread and snacks and desserts that contain mostly refined grains all are very high glycemic and eating them makes you fat. When you eat them – drink them, your blood sugar spikes, then when your insulin does to combat that, it tends to add to your fat deposits. To not be fat, approach ZERO on your consumption of these foods.

So far, so good.

2. Fried eggs, bacon, butter, mayonnaise, sour cream, cream cheese, cream, ham, cheddar cheese, salmon, and rib-eye steak actually can have a real shot at killing you from increased CRP inflammation and exposure to pollutants.

Fried eggs can even make your cholesterol problems dramatically worse if they are fried in oils that have been hydrogenated or are high in omega 6.

Saturated fat in and of itself is not that bad for you. But you should keep the amount moderately low. And, eating LOTS of it along with massive amounts of omega 6 oils and bioconcentrated pesticides, herbicides, and other pollutants tends to cause heart disease and cancer.

Salmon that is farm raised has a low amount of omega 3 oils, too much omega 6 oils, and dramatically too much of many pollutants to be safe to eat. (Wild caught salmon is usually the reverse. But recommending salmon without that caveat can harm your health.)

Oddly, stores today, do NOT sell mayonnaise. Virtually without exception what is in the stores is labeled as mayonnaise; but instead of olive oil and egg yolks, they sell mayonnaise like products made with soy oil, canola oil, etc that are all high in omega 6 oils instead. Eating unlimited amounts of those will harm your health.

(Real mayonnaise made with olive oil only and egg yolks and olive oil don’t have that problem; and moderate amounts are OK for good health. You can buy olive oil; but for real mayonnaise, you have to go to a restaurant where the chef makes it or make it yourself.)


Eggs, bacon, butter, sour cream, cream cheese, cream, ham, cheddar cheese, salmon, and rib-eye steak from animals penned up and fed grain are quite high in omega 6 oils and can harm you. The inflammation eating too much omega 6 oils causes is a direct cause of heart disease and has been strongly implicated in causing many cancers.

But if you eat those foods only very occasionally and eat wild caught fish; and meats and poultry fed from animals fed only grass or their natural foods in unpolluted places; beans and lentils, nuts, avocados, and extra virgin olive oil, you can eat oils, fat, and protein that works for fat loss but from foods that protect your health instead of harming it.

Meat from animals fed only grass costs more which helps you eat less of it. But occasionally eating it and eating things like beans and lentils and other things on that list works.

Similarly, it costs more. But you can get cheese and butter from animals fed only grass. It’s safe to eat moderate amounts of those. But eat LOTS of cheese and butter and cream and sour cream from cattle fed grain is NOT.

So, the bottom line is that you can lose fat with less hunger with the information from this article. But to do that and keep your health too you need some information NOT included.

Lastly, he is simply flat out wrong about exercise.

A study was done that found that people who are totally sedentary are reliably hungry for more calories than they actually use. From just a bit of exercise to hours a day of exercise, your body is spot on, you ARE hungrier for more food the more you eat BUT you are only hungry for the calories you used in the exercise you got NOT more hungry than that.

This also ignores the fact that sedentary people have internal fat even if the are no too heavy or look that fat.

People who exercise are leaner and less fat. And the people who get abundant exercise every week have been proven to be dramatically more likely to keep off any fat they lose.

Note that this also fits the model of simulating the conditions our ancestors experienced for well over 100% of our existence until modern times.

They not only ate protein foods and produce, they got at least a moderate amount or more of exercise every day of their lives.

So, take Gary Taubes & Dr Westman’s advice on slashing high glycemic foods from what you eat and drink and DO get plenty of protein and fats and nonstarchy vegetables.

But only eat health OK proteins and fats and oils if you can manage it. And, get abundant exercise every week.

In this article they left those two points out. Include them in for what YOU do, and you’ll be less fat and MUCH healthier.

PS: Upgrading the already good for you DASH II and Mediterranean diets with this information is a great way to find good tasting recipes and foods from two ways of eating proven to support good health and to lose fat too.