[podcast flashvars=”titles: ‘the calorie restriction society'”]http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/wp-content/uploads/llvlcep88.mp3[/podcast]
Hello and welcome to the Internet’s best-loved and most frequently cited low-carb podcast, “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show With Jimmy Moore!”
Today, in Episode 88, our host Jimmy once again tackles the concept of low-calorie, low-fat, low-enthusiasm, low-energy, low-pleasure diets so often foisted upon us by the mainstream media and those few remaining doctors who have yet to hop on the clue-train. The latest suspects are the “Calorie Restriction Society” and their insistence that you should keep lowering and lowering your caloric intake for the sake of health. UGH!
See that logo at the top of this post, dear friends? That’s really all you need to know about these dietary sado-masochists! Listen, enjoy, and engage in the comments section below.
LINKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE 88
– ABC News story on runway models and low-calorie diets
– The Calorie Restriction Society web site
– Dr. Luigi Fontana’s study in the Journal Of The American College Of Cardiology
– Related blog post: “Why Low-Fat, Low-Calorie Diets Fail And Low-Carb Succeeds
Did you miss anything Jimmy said? Hey, it happens to the best of us! That’s why we have a complete transcript of this episode at the other side of the following link!
TRANSCRIPT of Episode 88:
This is Episode 88 of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore.” We’re finally winding down with summer and the cool winds of the Fall season are already blowing a refreshing breath of fresh air into our lives as we get back into a routine again. Why wait until New Year’s to make a resolution to lose weight and get healthy? How about starting that low-carb journey right here, right now? By the time January 1st rolls around, you’ll be three months ahead over everyone else! Let me have the pleasure of helping you by visiting my LivinLaVidaLowCarb.com blog and my new LowCarbDiscussion.com forum.
Today I wanted to talk about a subject that has taken on an even greater importance in light of the health complications suffered by runway models over the past year suddenly dying in their quest to be smaller and smaller. This is but a microcosm of what is happening with so many people, especially highly-impressionable teenagers and young adults, that it is worthy of discussing in an entire podcast show today. In the seemingly neverending debate over which method of eating and lifestyle change is best for improving your health, there’s a study on low-calorie/portion-controlled diets that I want to bring to your attention to illustrate a point. As a nearly 200-pound weight loss success story on the Atkins diet, not only was I able to lose weight and keep it off, but my heart health is the best it has ever been and my energy levels are literally through the roof. If I had known that I would feel this good just by losing weight and keeping it off, then I would have done it a long time ago. Unfortunately, most of my previous attempts to lose weight involved restrictions on my fat, calories, and portion sizes — none of which worked particularly well for me.
Those low-calorie/portion control diets were not realistic when it came to the basic needs of someone like me who needed to lose a lot of weight. These include satisfying my hunger, maintaining proper energy levels, providing adequate nutrition, and enabling the body to exercise as needed to burn energy. Low-carb living, on the other hand, has given me all of those benefits of an optimum weight loss diet and much, much more! While I do not believe livin’ la vida low-carb is necessarily the right path for everyone, it certainly should be an option for people who have struggled in the past with reducing their caloric intake on their journey to lose weight. Unfortunately, the study I am going to share with you today conducted by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis seems to provide evidence that a very low-calorie diet can be good for your heart. Published in the January 17, 2006 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the study released by an organization called the Caloric Restriction Society shows that the hearts of 25 study participants age 41-65 who ate less calories appeared to be more elastic than those in the study who were of the same age and gender eating controlled, balanced diets. Additionally, the calorie-restricted subjects were able to relax between beats in similar ways that younger people do and had hearts comparable to people 15 years younger than them. Take a look at the slogan that this Caloric Restriction Society uses: “Fewer Calories, More Life.” Yikes! Somebody please feed these people something before their brains become as small as the amount of food they are eating in a day! With a picture of two vastly different sized tomatoes, is that supposed to entice me to cut back on my calories? I don’t think so. That’s EXACTLY why the low-calorie diets failed me. My appetite was big and it’s still big today leading me to eat upwards of 3,000 calories a day while STILL maintaining my weight. Simply cutting back on your calories and portion sizes isn’t going to be a successful way for me to keep my weight off permanently.
Can you lose weight doing this? Uh, yeah. If you are only eating 1,400 calories as the study participants did, then you WILL lose weight. But who can keep that way of eating up for very long. These 25 poor people who volunteered had to put themselves through this torture for an average of SIX LONG YEARS! Can you imagine doing that?! EEEK! I ate a low-fat/low-calorie/portion control diet for one year in 1999 and just about went crazy despite losing 170 pounds! Within four months of getting off my low-fat/low-calorie/portion control diet, I gained it all back. It wasn’t sustainable for me. But principal study investigator Dr. Luigi Fontana concluded from his research that long-term calorie-restriction with a nutritionally balanced diet can improve the heart. He believes the low-calorie approach will help curb the rate of heart attacks, stroke, and cancer deaths in the United States. Advocating a healthy diet of less calories along with a regular exercise routine, Fontana says that calorie-restricted diets help people live longer and get stronger even as they become older. In fact, Dr. Fontana contends eating a low-calorie/portion control diet can make the heart stronger, reduce cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, reduce risks of developing diabetes, and shrink body fat. He contends this diet is the only way to reduce and control inflammation.
What do you make of this study? Does it convince YOU that simply cutting back on your calories is the way to go to lose weight and improve your heart health? It is certainly a compelling argument based on this study alone. But I have to come back to what I believe should comprise a good and healthy diet. Here’s my criteria:
1. Will I lose weight and keep it off eating this way forever?
2. Will eating this way prevent me from being constantly hungry?
3. Am I getting an adequate amount of nutrients in my diet?
If you cannot answer YES to all three of those questions, then whatever “diet” plan you are on will not work to help you lose weight, get healthy, and stay healthy. For me, low-calorie diets are just not reasonable over the long haul and often left me so hungry and irritable that I couldn’t even think straight. While I might have been eating 4 ounces of so-called “healthy” foods, I was always left begging for more and more and literally couldn’t wait until the next meal. I felt so deprived that I was not satisfied with my lifestyle, despite the enormous weight loss I had accomplished. Ever since I started the low-carb lifestyle in 2004, though, I have never run into this problem. I eat the amount of high-fat, low-carb foods that I want to eat without regard for fat grams, calories, and DEFINITELY NOT restricting my portion sizes. That’s just not necessary when it comes to livin’ la vida low-carb. Just keep up with your net carbs and let the miracle of low-carb do what it does in you. As for your heart health on a low-carb plan, a study from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health released in November 2005 found that eating more fat and less carbs resulted in better heart health than the government-indoctrinated message of low-fat/low-calorie/portion control diets. Additionally, another study from the Duke University Medical Center released in October 2005 concluded that getting 30 minutes of a moderate cardio workout daily will keep your heart strong and healthy. While Dr. Fontana is an advocate of eating less calories and portions, I do want to recognize something he recommended in his study conclusions that brings a smile to my face and gives me hope that there are people who understand the importance of reducing carbs in their diet. Here’s what he said: “Caloric restriction does not mean eating half a hamburger and half a pack of French fries and drinking half of a sugary beverage. These people [eating less calories] have very good nutrition. They eliminate calories by eating nutrient-dense foods.” As do low-carbers, Dr. Fontana. While we do not necessarily count the number of calories we are eating, several studies have shown that some of the healthy foods we eat such as eggs can help us eat less calories than those who consume high-carb foods. I’m sure you will agree with me that making better food choices is an important factor in ANY diet plan that hopes to produce lasting weight loss and improved health. There are many reasons why low-fat and low-calorie diets fail, but most of it has to do with the inadequate nutritional content in the foods that many people on those plans do eat. Just because a product packaging blares the words FAT FREE on them doesn’t mean you could or should eat them without any regard for the sugar and carbohydrate content in them. Oftentimes, there is even MORE sugar and salt in these foods just to make them taste familiar. That’s just not natural! Dr. Fontana says people who want to lose weight and get healthy need to avoid refined and processed foods, soft drinks, desserts, white bread and other “empty”-calorie foods. AMEN, AMEN, and AMEN! That’s good advice for people to follow regardless of your diet choice. There was one more comment Dr. Fontana made that I was VERY pleased to hear him say: “If you change the quality of your diet by increasing the servings of nutrient-dense food and reducing — actually, it would be better to slowly eliminate — all of the servings of ‘empty’ calorie foods, you improve your chances of living a healthier and longer life.” I couldn’t have said it better myself, Dr. Fontana! That’s why I’m livin’ la vida low-carb for life!
That’s it for Episode 88 of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore.” There’s a lot of debate over calories and what’s considered too low on a low-carb diet. Do you even need to count calories or do you agree with me that it’s simply not necessary when you are following a low-carb nutritional approach? Talk about it and share your experiences in the show notes section at TheLivinLowCarbShow.com. Come back again on Monday as we once again share with you an important subject about the amazingly healthy low-carb lifestyle. So, until next time, keep on livin’ la vida low-carb!