The Life You Choose:
Diets Exposed
Which diet is the best for you and your lifestyle?
Kristina Benson
Equity Press
The life you choose: Diets Exposed Which diet is best for you and your lifestyle?
ISBN: 978-1-60332-006-1
Smashwords Edition
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Introduction and Supplementary Information
What to Eat by Dr. Marion Nestle
Diets that Focus on Carb Counting
Diets That Focus on Man in his "Natural State"
Diets of "Superior" Communities and Societies
Introduction and Supplementary Information
In this book, I have attempted to summarize the gist of a large number of the diets that are popular in America right now. I also included a summary of the pros and cons of the diets’ structure, expense, and methodology.
It seems as of late that Americans are constantly barraged with conflicting information about what they should or should not eat. In wandering through the Diet and Health sections of the local bookstore, one finds a confounding array of literature, all promising variations of eternal slenderness and exemplary good health.
This book attempts to compile just about every popular diet into one source so that you, the reader, can wade through the literature and figure out what’s best for you.
The diets have been presented in an abbreviated form so that the basic elements of their strategies can be easily understood and absorbed. Accompanying each diet is a summary of what “experts” and/or former diet participants have had to say about it. Hopefully, it will be helpful in trying to make sense of all the information that is out there. Happy reading!
Words of Caution About Eating Disorders
An eating disorder is a complex compulsion to eat in a way which disturbs physical, mental, and psychological health. There are many ways in which this disorder may manifest itself. For instance, the sufferer may eat excessively, or eat normally and then purge occasionally, or may eat non-foods. The three most common eating disorders in the United States are anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder. All three have severe consequences to a person's immediate and long-term health and can cause death.
Some of the regimens included in this book are non-standard, and non-traditional, and should only be undertaken with great care. It is recommended that people see their physician before attempting to participate in any weight loss program.
The Recommendations of the American Dietetic Association
As of late, the ADA has revised the traditional Food Pyramid and has replaced it with what is termed “MyPyramid”. The basics of their recommendations, however, are still familiar.
The first recommendation is that Americans choose foods that provide an adequate amount of nutrients and are not merely filler foods that contain empty calories devoid of nutritive value. The ADA recommends that particular vigilance be undertaken to insure adequate consumption of calcium, potassium, fiber, magnesium, and vitamins A (as carotenoids), C, and E.
The organization also cautions against over consumption of transfats, and encourages Americans to consume a variety of nutrient-dense foods and beverages within and among the basic food groups while choosing foods that limit the intake of saturated and trans fats, cholesterol, added sugars, salt, and alcohol.
Fats are of specific concern. The organization acknowleges that fats and oils are part of a healthful diet, but the type of fat makes a difference to heart health, and the total amount of fat consumed is also important. High intake of saturated fats, trans fats, and cholesterol increases the risk of unhealthy blood lipid levels, which, in turn, may increase the risk of coronary heart disease. A high intake of fat (greater than 35 percent of calories) generally increases saturated fat intake and makes it more difficult to avoid consuming excess calories. A low intake of fats and oils (less than 20 percent of calories) increases the risk of inadequate intakes of vitamin E and of essential fatty acids and may contribute to unfavorable changes in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) blood cholesterol and triglycerides.
In order to fall within these guidelines, it is suggested that Americans consume less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fatty acids and less than 300 mg/day of cholesterol, and keep trans fatty acid consumption as low as possible. They are also admonished to keep total fat intake between 20 to 35 percent of calories, with most fats coming from sources of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids, such as fish, nuts, and vegetable oils, and to limit intake of fats and oils high in saturated and/or trans fatty acids, and choose products low in such fats and oils.
Carbs, which as of late, have been vilified, are considered by the ADA to be part of a healthful diet. The daily recommended allowance for carbohydrates is 45 to 65 percent of total calories. Still, the ADA warns that although the body's response to sugars does not depend on whether they are naturally present in a food or added to the food; added sugars supply calories but few or no nutrients. As a result, consumers are encouraged to select sources of sugar that are natural or high-fiber.
How does this information translate into practical terms?
The ADA provides a chart on its website so that Americans can figure out how many servings of each food group he or she should be attempting to incorporate into his or her daily diet.
Someone on a 2,000 calorie a day diet, for example, is given an RDA of 6-8 servings of grains, 4-5 servings of veggies, 4-5 servings of fruit, 2-3 servings of fat free or low-fat milk products, 6 or less servings of lean meats, 2-3 servings of fats and oils, and less than a serving a day of sweets.
Criticisms of these recommendations
As of late, there have been studies that have contradicted the basic foundations of these recommendations. For example, in February of 2006, the New York Times published an article about an enormous, independently reviewed study that established that fat consumption has little or nothing to do with one's likelihood of developing heart disease.
Also, some very vocal critics, amongst them Dr. Marion Nestle of NYU, has pointed out that the food industry, as a very powerful lobbying force, often times gets more influence over government recommendations than does actual hard science.
What to Eat by Dr. Marion Nestle
Who is Dr. Marion Nestle?
Marion Nestle, PhD, is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University. She is the author of many books, including Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health; and her latest book, “What to Eat: An Aisle-by-Aisle Guide to Savvy Food Choices and Good Eating”. She also appeared in the movie "Supersize Me".
What is her book about?
This book has been included in this collection even though it is not, by technical definition, a diet. However, it is an extremely useful companion to participating in just about any diet, or even for those to wish to be more educated about the food they consume and purchase, and this is why it has been included immediately after the introduction. Many, many Americans become victim to creative labeling that leads them to believe they are purchasing foods that are low calorie, low fat, or at the very least, nutritious, and the book attempts to decode the advertising campaigns of food producers so consumers can understand what they are really purchasing.
What to Eat, then, is a manual about how to make sensible food choices regardless of what diet you find yourself on. Dr. Nestle asserts that today’s supermarket is ground zero for the food industry, a place where the giants of agribusiness compete for your purchases with profits—not health or nutrition—in mind. Furthermore, as companies must post profits in cycles as short as 90 days, their motivation is to make profits as quickly as possible. The food industry, she reminds us, produces over 3,800 calories per American per day, far more than a vast majority of Americans need. As the food industry is just that-an industry-it thrives on finding ways to cajole consumers into buying as many calories as they put on the market, and then some.
Dr. Nestle's book takes you on a guided tour of the supermarket, beginning in the produce section and continuing around the perimeter of the store to the dairy, meat, and fish counters, and then to the center aisles where you find the packaged foods, soft drinks, bottled waters, baby foods, and more. Along the way, it tells you what the real difference are between fish and meats that are wild versus farm-raised, organic versus “natural,” how to spot omega-3 and trans fats, and what to do about all this information when you get it.
The book decodes food labels, nutrition and health claims, and portion sizes, and shows you how to balance decisions about food on the basis of freshness, taste, nutrition, and health, but also social concerns, environmental issues, and price.
Pros and cons
A vast, vast majority of Dr. Nestle's criticism comes from the food lobby, for obvious reasons.
Diets that Focus on Carb Counting
These diets were grouped together because they are nutritional programs that advocate restricted carbohydrate consumption, based on research that ties consumption of certain carbohydrates with increased blood insulin levels, and overexposure to insulin with obesity.
Under these dietary programs, foods high in digestible carbohydrates (sugars and starches) are limited or replaced with foods containing a higher percentage of proteins, fats, and/or fiber.
How did it come about?
The Atkins Nutritional Approach is better known as the Atkins Diet, Atkins, or as the verb “Atkinsing”. The products that sprang from the loins of this diet have helped driven its popularity, and it still remains the most marketed and well-known of the low-carbohydrate diets. The approach was adopted by its founder and creator, the late Dr. Robert Atkins, in the 1960s. He gleaned the nuts and bolts of the plan from a diet he read about in the Journal of the American Medical Association and decided to use it in order to lose the pounds he packed on while in medical school and residency. After losing a great amount of weight himself, and successfully treating over ten thousand patients, he popularized the Atkins diet in a series of books, starting with Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution in 1972. His revised book, Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution, is the one that most people read today. It’s pretty much the same, with a few minor updates in scientific information and sources.
The Atkins franchise (i.e., the business formed to provide products serving people "doing Atkins") had been highly successful due to the popularity of the diet, and helped to crystallize Atkins as the iconic and driving entity of the "low-carb craze". However, various factors have led to its dwindling in success, and the company Atkins Nutritionals of Ronkonkoma, New York, founded by Dr. Atkins in 1989, filed for bankruptcy in July of 2005. The Atkins logo, however, remains in grocery stores through licensed-proprietary branding for food products and related merchandise.
What is the diet all about?
The Atkins Diet made waves in the weight-loss community by proposing ideas that radically differed from the canonized “low-fat” approach to weight loss. As one can read in the New Diet Revolution, Dr. Atkins claimed that the main cause of obesity in the west stemmed not from an over-consumption of fats, but from refined sugars such as white flour and high-fructose corn syrup. He felt that saturated fat should barely even be on the radar as a health hazard and that it was only trans fats that should be avoided. This may not sound terribly revolutionary, but remember that this approach completely ignored the Food Pyramid and years of warnings from various official and medical sources about eating fatty foods. The crux of Atkins involves the restriction of carbohydrates in order to lower the intake of unnecessary carbohydrates, albeit not to cut them out comprehensively, in order to switch the body's metabolism from burning glucose to burning stored fat. This process begins when the body enters the state of ketosis as a consequence of running out of excess carbohydrates to burn.
Atkins works by restricting "net carbs", or, in other words, carbohydrates that have a measurable effect on blood sugar. Net carbohydrates can be calculated from a food source by subtracting sugar alcohols and fiber from total carbohydrates. All sugar in this diet, by the way, is bad, regardless of where it came from. Net carbs from traditionally healthy sources such as fruit or milk are considered as nefarious as net carbs from, say, a Hershey bar or a scoop of ice cream.
Because Atkins repeatedly refers to sugar consumption as an “addiction”, he advocates beginning the diet by cutting carbs out nearly completely, and allows participants to add them in subsequent intervals. There are four phases, or intervals in the Atkins diet.
The Induction phase is the first, and most restrictive, phase of the Atkins Nutritional Approach. It is intended to cause the body to quickly enter a state of ketosis wherein the body is relying on fat stores for energy. Carbohydrate intake is limited to 20 net grams per day. There is a strict list of allowed foods, and participants are warned to under no circumstances deviate from the list. The allowed foods include most meats, up to 4 ounces of aged, hard or soft cheeses, three tablespoons of heavy cream, two cups of salad vegetables, one cup of other low glycemic low carb vegetables. Caffeine and alcoholic beverages are not allowed because they cause a spike in blood sugar.
The Ongoing Weight Loss (OWL) phase of Atkins consists of an increase in carbohydrate intake, but one still consumes few enough net carbs that weight loss can occur. The target daily carbohydrate intake increases each week by 5 net grams. A goal in OWL is to find the "Critical Carbohydrate Level for Losing" and to learn in a controlled manner how food groups in increasing glycemic levels and foods within that group effect your craving control. The OWL phase lasts until weight is within 10 pounds (4.5 kg) of the target weight. Another list of acceptable foods is contained in this phase, and includes asparagus, increased allowance of salad greens, and avocados. In the second week of induction, one is supposed follow the carbohydrate ladder Dr Atkins created for this phase and add fresh dairy. The ladder has 9 rungs, each rung containing groups of foods such as, say, nuts, berries, legumes, etc, and these foods are supposed to be added in order given. One can skip a rung if one does not intend to include that food group in one's permanent way of eating, such as the alcohol rung.
In the pre-maintenance phase, carbohydrate intake is increased again this time by 10 net carbs a week from the ladder groupings, and the key goal in this phase is to find the "Critical Carbohydrate Level for Maintenance", this is the maximum number of carbohydrates you can eat each day without gaining weight.
And finally, Lifetime Maintenance is the phase where one is supposed to apply what one learned, continue the habits acquired in the previous phases, and avoid the common end-of-diet mindset that can return people to their previous habits and previous weight.
Who is doing Atkins?
In the early part of 03 and 04, it seemed that everyone was doing Atkins. Led by promises of being able to eat steak with Béarnaise sauce, eggs, bacon, cheddar cheese omelets, blue cheese dressing, and soups made with real cream, as well as a guarantee of never feeling hunger pangs, devotees came out of the woodwork. Celebrities too began to practice low carb lifestyles, including Brad and Jennifer, whose professed adherence received press in a 2003 BBC article, and Renee Zellweger, and Calista Flockhart are named in iVillage as Atkins practioners. According to a story run by NPR in August of 2005, the height of its popularity was to blame for large declines in sales of foods such as pasta and rice. One can still walk through the aisles of any supermarket and observe all the products that have been launched in order to capitalize on the low-carb craze headed by Atkins.
Robert Atkins died from a fatal head injury sustained in a fall on ice in 2003. The nutritional plan suffered from rumors and allegations that he was obese at the time and had died from a heart condition as a result. On July 31, 2005, the Atkins Nutritional Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after the percentage of adults on the diet declined to two percent, and sales of Atkins brand product fell steeply in the second half of 2004. Today, low carb products are still highly visible, and Atkins still has its devotees, but it is not as popular as it once was.
Pros & Cons
Plenty of health professionals have had plenty of negative comments to make about Atkins. Washington D.C. based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, in an October 3 2003 interview with EcureMe.com, charged that "high protein diets may cause permanent loss of kidney function," adding that "meat-heavy diets significantly increase one’s risk of colon cancer and osteoporosis."
Other organizations, including the Department of Agriculture, the National Institutes of Health, and the American Heart Association recommend a daily dose of approximately 300 carbohydrates per day. The American Heart Association also warns against diets that are high in saturated fat, like Atkins can potentially be.
The Chair of Harvard's nutrition department went on record on April 12 1973, before a U.S. Senate Select Committee investigating fad diets, and cautioned "The Atkins Diet is nonsense... Any book that recommends unlimited amounts of meat, butter, and eggs, as this one does, in my opinion is dangerous. The author who makes the suggestion is guilty of malpractice."
Nutritionists and epidemiologists also point out that Japanese and Italians, both of whom traditionally enjoy diets high in carbohydrates, do not have the sweeping problems with obesity that we have here in the United States. The epidemiological evidence conflicts with Dr. Atkins' theory about the dangers of sugars.
Other criticisms of the diet included that the diet did not emphasize exercise as part of the overall plan, and that it did not allow for enough fruits and vegetables.
To date no long-term study on Atkins has taken place, so it is difficult to assess whether or not Atkins can indeed cause long-term damage to the liver and heart as the above organizations would suggest.