Monthly Archives: February 2015

weight loss

Carbohydrates make you fat!

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There are some very entrenched beliefs that are widely held about food and health.  Carbohydrates make you fat is one of them.  Well educated, intelligent people believe this.  I don’t know where this belief comes from, maybe the animal agriculture industry, I don’t know.  This belief about carbohydrates and another belief of recent origin, that we need fat/ fat is good for you/ there are good fats, often go together.

When these two more recent beliefs are put together with the old tried and true beliefs that we grew up with of:

  • we’ve got to have a lot of protein, which means eat animals or animal products, ‘cos ‘real’ protein comes from animals
  • we need a lot of iron and this means from animal blood, although we were never told about the blood bit
  • we need a lot of calcium and this means drinking breast secretions from cows although we called it milk

it’s not hard to see why we are sick.   The opposite of all of these beliefs is true.  The more carbohydrates we eat, the less animal protein and the less fat we eat, the healthier we will  be and the longer we will live. (see the China Study by Colin T Campbell)

There is a big difference between refined carbohydrates(from a factory or processed food) and complex carbohydrates (natural, whole plant foods eg beans, grains, potatoes).  Refined carbohydrates are junk.  When most people are eating carbohydrates, that is what they are eating.  For example,  most bread that can be bought from the supermarket, falls into the category of junk, rubbish or food that will do harm to our body.  Refined carbohydrates are plant foods stripped of their nutrients and stripped of their fibre, that is, all of the good bits.

This problem about entrenched beliefs and the hugely negative effect they are having on people’s health, came up for me yesterday in the lunchroom at work.   A friend of mine at work, who used to be a very good marathon runner, has developed what is commonly referred to as a ‘beer belly’ for middle aged men.    He has started running again and is trying to lose weight,  mainly by exercise.    My advice to him, was to lose weight first, as he weighed too much to start running.   The only way  to lose weight successfully long term is by changing the quality of what we put in our mouth, not the quantity.    He has been running for a couple of months and as far as I can see,  he has lost no weight.  Currently,  he is injured and is taking a break from running.  (Oh, that’s another incorrect belief, that running is bad for you.  People love to tell me that-it’s bad for your knees/hips.  The most bizarre one I was told, was that I would wear out the balls of my feet! Unfortunatley, people running when they are too overweight to run is one of the reasons injury happens)

My friend has taken to eating Bhuji snack for lunch, although like most people who diet by restricting their intake (he is a big man, Bhuji snack is never going to fill him up) he busts out occassionally and has a bacon and cheese burger! (the fat you eat is the fat you wear).

This is the context for the lunchroom discussion.  Somebody commented on what he was eating for lunch, Bhuji snack.   He replied, that he was following me and eating healthy.   I had to respond to this, as even though Bhuji  snacks are made from plants,  they most certainly are not healthy: they are factory or processed food.   I looked at the ingredients and sugar in various forms appeared 4 times and oil appeared twice.  I pointed out, that due to the oil and sugar, I wouldn’t consider this food healthy.   The comments from the other three people in the room, were that the food was unhealthy, as it had too many carbohydrates and we need fat, fat is good.

lentil burgers)Lentil Burgers as opposed to

beef/cheese burger

As a vegan, I eat only plants and in my case, whole food plants,  no oil.  Oil is fat, nine calories/gm and carbohydrates have 4 calories/gm.  If you eat whole plant foods, it is impossible to not eat protein and fat.  Protein is in everything and fat is in beans, grains and nuts for example.   I don’t know what the breakdown of my food intake would be, but at a guess it would be around 80% carbohydrates, 10% protein and 10% fat.   Because of my whole food plant intake, my intake of fibre would be high, well above the recommended level of 40 gms of fibre/day.  Most Australians are eating 10 – 15 gms of fibre/day.    Most Australians are eating too much animal protein, too much fat/cholesterol/too much sugar(processed and factory food) and not enough complex carbohydrates, not enough fibre and not enough fruits and vegetables with the thousands of helpful chemicals found only in plants.

The single most  healthy thing anyone could do to decrease their weight and increase their health?  Eat more plants!   Eating more plants essentially means eating more carbohydrates (complex).

Why are people healthier and lose more weight by eating complex carbohydrates?

  • carbohydrates are very filling as they come packaged with a lot of water and a lot of fibre, neither of which have any calories
  • the fibre deserves a mention again (see my blog on fibre)
  • more calories are used up and lost to heat in digesting complex carbohydrates than they are in relation to sugar or fat for example

and lots more reasons.

Good health.

 

food

I’d rather than die than give up ———?

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There is a wierd disconnect for people between what they put in their mouth and their quality of life.   I have frequent experiences where people demonstrate that they know that what they are putting in their mouth is bad for them,  but they have no intention to stop it.   In fact they may well be taking the view that these foods that are bad for them, are somehow contributing to the quality of their life:  that these foods represent the pleasures of life and that they deserve these pleasures, given what they  have to go through every day.

Irrespective of the health effects of these high fat, high sugar, high animal protein foods which are enormous, the view of life as something to be endured, or drudgery that has to be gotten through, so you can get to the good bits, is bad for our mental and spiritual health.  The good bits for most people are alcohol, food that is killing you slowly, holidays and sex.(nothing wrong with sex or holidays!)

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I think people continue to eat foods that they know are slowly killing them, because they think they deserve it, given the suffering that they are enduring (the suffering I am referring to is everyday suffering, like people’s jobs or their marriage or loneliness, all common complaints of western culture).  I think people also do it, as we have been trained to experience these foods as highly pleasureable and to some degree we are hardwired to seek out fat and sugar, as over most of the  human lifespan, they were in extremely short supply.  Both sugar and fat represent concentrated forms of energy.   I think the other reason people continue to eat these foods, which is  linked to the “I deserve it” reason is, “a little bit  won’t hurt”.  A little bit does hurt, one reason being that a little bit is rarely just a little bit and it is always a repeated little bit which adds up to a lot over time!

People have said to me of recent times, “I would rather die than give up—-“.  The gap can be filled in  by anything, like chocolate,  meat, cheese, Tim Tams and  so on.  The disjunct I started this blog with, knowledge that the food is bad for them, but having no intention of stopping,  I think is partly because even though they say, “I’d rather die” they don’t actually think they are giong to: at least not from the food.  The truth is, it will cause their death,  much earlier than necessary and it will exact a high burden on their ability to enjoy their life, in terms of mobility, health and mental health.   This reduction in mobility, health and mental health or sense of well being, they will most likely put down to old age, rather than poor health, brought on by poor diet.   Old age doesn’t  have to be an ever increasing round of Dr and hospital visits(these are pretty dangerous in themselves, just at the level of infections and complications of treatment!)

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What people experience, becomes the norm and as people are getting sicker, they are expecting and accepting getting sicker: “it’s all a part of growing old”.

I think one of the problems for people in making a change away  from the foods that they would die for, is that they have never been well!  This will be even truer in the future, than it is now, with the move away from fresh food to takeaway and  processed food, that has taken and is, taking place.

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This is why PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine) and other promoters of healthy eating, encourage people, to go to whole foods plant based diet completely for 21 days.  The thinking is that 21 days is long enough, to experience some of the benefits of eating well and for our tastebuds to adjust to  new flavours (in fact we have physically new tastebuds in this time).   Our bodies are incredibly responsive to what we put in them.  Within hours of eating fruit and vegetables our ability to remove sugar from our bloodstream (insulin sensitivity) increases.  Conversely, if we have a high fat meal such as hamburger, egg and chips our ability to remove sugar from our bloodstream  drops (decreased insulin sensitivity).    This is in the context of being given the same glucose drink.

How do you get past thinking I deserve this chocolate, alcohol, meat or cheese? (or whatever your particular poison is)  Change your view from this ‘food’ is desirable, to this is poison.  Change your view of food that you know is good for you, from this food is boring, to this is life, this is energy, this is health.  People often say to me, “oh, that’s right, you can’t have x” .   I say, “it’s not  that I can’t,  I choose not to”.   I don’t talk to them about why I don’t eat it and why I choose to eat  what I do, as they are not really interested.   I do think it is important to make it clear, that it is a choice I am making and that it is not restrictive.   When I eat an apple, I enjoy the crispness, the sweetness and the juice running.  I am also aware, without thinking about it, that an apple is really good for me!  So, on that basis alone it feels good to eat it.   There is a lot of pleasure in putting something in my body, that I know is good for it.   I know an apple is good for my body as is it  high in fibre, (removes toxins, lowers cholesterol, promotes strong immune system and mental health by promoting growth of good bacteria in my gut) and it is  high in anti-oxidants and other plant chemicals(known as phyto-nutrients) which are good for me.

fruit

I know that cheese, for example is bad for me, as it is high in saturated fat, high in cholesterol and high in animal protein.  In other words, it is promoting cancer, heart attack, blood thickening and clotting and inflammation.  With that knowledge, it would be hard to enjoy eating cheese.   Not to mention, if you didn’t eat it for a while, it wouldn’t taste any good!  Your tastebuds would adjust and all you could taste would be fat  and it would leave an unpleasant coating on your tongue! (quite the  opposite of an apple, or the delicious mango and grapes above)

Good health!