diet from 'healthy' vegetarian to fatty and meaty
and low carb, I would have ended up back where I
started just like almost every other dieter. But I did
change and this change is what I wrote The Meat
Fix about.
I only tell you this because when I switched from a
low fat, high carb vegetarian diet to a higher fat,
low carb, meat and fish based diet, a weird thing
happened; the very
thing that every big
trouser diet, every
doctor and NHS
advisor wants to
happen but can't
deliver
–
permanent weight
loss.
My
weight
stabilised but
better still, my
body changed. I
put on a lot of
muscle (I had been
as weak as a
kitten) and I lost a
lot of body fat
(even when I was
skinny I still had a high body fat %) I
went from being an apple shape to being
triangular. That was getting on for four years ago
now. Today, my weight doesn't go up or down, its
been within a pound of 11st 12lbs ever since. This
is because a diet based on animal fat and protein
feeds my body and makes it work properly. You
can read up on the biological reasons why this
happens - Zoe's web site is full of info - but
reducing your carbs and increasing your good fat
intake stops all those food cravings and you get
off the weight gain and weight loss roundabout
forever.
So why isn't it common knowledge? The dirty
secret is that there isn't much money in it. Once
you change you get well and you get on with your
life without spending any more money on diets or
on drugs.
What we have here is a big conflict of advice. The
official healthy eating info tells you that 'fad' diets
don't work and they don't, but I would include the
NHS ‘Eatwell’ plate in that fad definition, not my
old school, Paleo-style way of life.
Diet & Health Today
They will tell you that the only way to permanently
lose weight is to 'eat less and move more' which
is just utter rubbish and is helping make people
miserable, overweight and ill. Just eating a bit less
of the same old crud is pointless. But because the
official advice is obsessed with basing your diet
on carbs and not on fat - god forbid you eat any
fat let alone the dreaded evil saturated fat - their
advice is fundamentally flawed and helping noone.
Consequently, they're driving people in to the
arms of the big pants diet people. It still doesn't
work but all sides continue to pretend it does and
that if it’s not worked for you it’s your own fault
and not theirs. This leads inexorably to being
rolled up in ball in the corner of the room weeping
and feeling like your body and your life is out of
control. That's why I say it is a form of torture.
So why can't the truth be told? Why can't we stop
this yearly headlong rush into food failure?
I'm not prone to conspiracy theories but try this
one on for size. It doesn't happen because
thousands of people's jobs, incomes and careers
are set up to deal with the illnesses eating badly
causes. All those diet companies, NHS
employees, all those dieticians and doctors, all
the pharmaceutical companies producing drugs to
lower high blood pressure, cholesterol, indigestion
and everything else that being overweight causes.
They all become redundant if we all just stop
eating carbs and sugar in huge quantities and eat
real food instead. Add to that the destruction to
the grain production and food
processing industries and you have a massive
lobby group that likes the status quo and don't
want change. They want us sick. They can't say
this but it makes sense.
The last thing anyone involved in making a living
from this status quo is for a few low carb weirdos
to being taken seriously. So yeah, call us fad diet
people. Call us irresponsible. Raise the spectre of
Atkins and create all manner of scare stories to
undermine people's confidence in what we say.
Yeah, of course that's what happens because its
better that everyone stays hooked on yo-yo
dieting and despair. Better that the overweight
individual takes the burden of the guilt and all the
attendant psychological damage because, after
all, that'll just create more work and more profits
for everyone. The sicker you are, the better they
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