You know Miss Alkon, I'm not going to call your health references wrong, in all probability they're a helluva lot more accurate than the average pap that gets pumped into the public discourse to the point of becoming "common knowledge" AND "Commonly WRONG".

But I can't help but be that guy, the one who says, "It really doesn't matter what you eat, it matters how you live."

I just can't picture a sedentary person being the picture of health based off of even the best diet.

But I just can't picture a person who is very physically active being out of shape even on all but the worst of the worst diets.

Our species was meant to search for food, to move around, hunt, fight, gather, etc. Not simply sit around. I'd venture to say that if we behave in a more active fashion our diets would be almost irrelevant. But that is just a hypothesis, the only test I can cite is myself, though I should add that if that alone were proof, then I'd be undisputably right.

Pleasant days Miss Alkon!

Statin drugs are a cash cow for the pharmaceutical companies despite the lack of evidence in their favor. People like to see their cholesterol numbers low, and doctors have been subjected to a very intense marketing campaign, But even Business Week had a long article on how dubious the benefits are.

Since I started low-carbing I've lost a lot of weight and feel more energetic.

But increasingly it seems that there is more than carbs and insulin in the health/weight equation.

I plateau-ed on low-carbing alone and managed to lose some more weight after I started resistance training (based on the Eades/Hahn book). High-intensity exercise (not jogging) also has an impact on metabolism (see the studies and links mentioned by Stefan Guyanet at http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/01/exercise-and-bodyfat.html ).

Fat has been in the diet for a long time if we believe Neanderthals ate meat like they said.
Fruits and vegetables around forever.

Evolutionary wise, the last thing introduced in the human diet is carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are typically the most processed foods of the ones above as well.

I'm a nurse, so I can speak with a tiny bit of knowledge here. Cholesterol is genetic. You can cut out all the fat and run on a treadmill until you drop, and it won't make a dent. I've seen more than one patient who was an ideal weight, exercised, and had a massive heart attack at 54. Again, a lot of it is genetics.

The most important thing people can do? Get an annual physical! Just because you can run 12 miles without breaking a sweat doesn't mean you're OK! Have your cholesterol and blood sugar checked. And if the tests come back with less than ideal results, stick to a modified diet and for the love of heaven TAKE YOUR MEDS. You wouldn't believe how many idiots don't take their pills. If you have questions about your meds, go get a second opinion. But take what you're prescribed.

If people would just use a little common sense, and go have a few simple blood tests run annually, a lot of hospital stays could be avoided. Not to mention a lot of funerals!

Amy: Just to point out that using only one source is a scientific faux pau. Not that this source is wrong but you need more than one to justify a scientific view point.

I tried the BP meds. Made me pee constantly but didn't to shit with regards to blood pressure. The doc was about to put me on alpha or beta blockers. I refused till grad school ended. Then holy shit low and behold I was at 120/80. So I'd say try life style changes first then go with pills. Some of us really do need pills (that bitch genetics) most of us need life style changes. Mine was more sleep and less hopelessness, cured me like a shot.

The trick if finding a diet that works for you and use it. If you live a more sedentary life style then maybe a carb free diet will work great. I don't think that's actually been tests much. However if you have an active life style, regular martial arts training, athlete (Michael Phelps), soldier etc. a carb free diet won't work. You need those reserves to function between meals. MRE are filled with carbs and there are few fat Seals, Green Berets, Rangers, Marine Recon etc. So clearly these albeit extreme case sort of kill Taube's argument about excersise and weight gain.

The statistic about Russians is a red herring. If you rot your liver and vascular sysytem with litters of alcohol per week (no I'm not exaggerating) you won't live long enough for cholesterol to kill you. That's like saying that life in a war zone is good for you because few die of cancer.

My mom is a carboholic and her cholesterol is pushing 300. I'm fast approaching a zero-carb diet and mine is...185. :D

Too many carbs = metabolic syndrome = a shitload of health problems.

This is the one of the best summaries I've seen on the subject of statins and cholesterol written by Dr. Kurt Harris.

http://tinyurl.com/2wv3uv9

"Are you thinking of Gary Taubes as "one source"?" Yes it is unless he has MPD, sorry couldn't help myself. It may be his life's work but it's still one persons life work. Why not read the original works that he reads. If he were as qualified as you say then I'm pretty sure he would tell you to read the source material. If not then his qualifications are questionable.

This doesn't mean he's wrong in his view but it just that his view. I agree that it is backed up by scientific evidence.

BTW getting his book. His arguments are not against carbs, his objection are against "refined carbohydrates, like white flour, easily digested starches, and sugars,". Yeah ok that's been the general consensus among health professionals for a while now. The high fat vs low fat is interesting and at this point I have to agree with that (for me) wholeheartedly. I find that most food that tends to be low fat is filled with sugar, most often corn syrup of HFCS.

@Robert: If you can't picture a sedentary person being the picture of health then think of cats. All cats, including the big ones, sleep on avg. 20 hours a day. Yet, if they eat the diet they evolved on (pure meat and fat) they are lean and muscular. By contrast, big cats in zoo's who are fed high carb diets are flabby and have heart disease. You can see the same difference between wild wolves/coyotes and pet dogs.

You should also read the research of Loren Cordain about hunter gatherer's. He's found that the average modern hunter gatherer spends 17 hours per week obtaining food. The rest of the time is spent on leisure!

Or you could use my example. I've eaten a low carb, high fat diet for years. I'm an office worker and I shun all aerobics. I do a high intensity weight lifting program for 5 minutes once per week, otherwise I'm extremely sedentary. I'm a 50 year old male 5'11" and 165 pounds. I'm lean and muscular with 10% body fat, and have blood pressure and blood work numbers to die for (no pun intended.) Lest you think I'm some genetic anomaly, I was >200 lbs and flabby when I was 35 and eating the SAD.

@vlad: There is never a reason that anybody should ever use statins or worry about cholesterol. Read this interesting blog post for more information.

Oops, sorry Amy, I posted a link to Dr. Harris before I saw yours. Oh well, its so good it deserves a double link.

@vlad: Taubes made no such distinction between refined carbs and unrefined carbs. His book was about limiting total carbs regardless of their source. He actually spends a lot of ink talking about how unrefined carbs are quickly metabolized into glucose just like refined carbs. Have you actually read GCBC? Don't make me pull out some references.

here are a couple of things... One] Seems like at one time 300 was considered the upper limit on cholesterol...

Two] it's not so much that our miss brody is wrong... it's that so many, incl. the govt. Amer. Dietetic Association, nutritionists, and probably her own doctors agree with her.

Essentially all here advisors agree. Because of the genetics and other nonlinearity in the human reaction to enviroment and food, Why would she question anything?

We all prolly question stuff just due to a rebelious nature. And probably some little hints we have heard over the years. My docs are always up in arms about how much I need to do to lose weight and so forth, even though the weight itself is the only thing objectively out of spec. My Cholest was 172 BEFORE I started in with the Eades. All components under the levels, even LDL. Resting heartrate of 55. IF I go off my allergy meds, my BP is 118/77. Unfortunately I can't go off allergy med, or I risk another near death ananphylaxis experience. I'd like to avoid that.

In order to prove it was my allergy meds driving my BP, I had to go on Benedryl for 4 weeks, to clear my system, and my docs were still skeptical. To them, weighing 250 is all they need to know. For a while there I changed docs a lot, trying to find one that would actually work with me, but I couldn't. Basically I am outside their understanding.

heh, one ranted about my BMI... so we did a tank test... and my LEAN body is 185#. That meant I would barely be the correct BMI if I had NO bodyfat.

For all those reasons I am pretty skeptical when doctors make pronouncements about stuff. Though one doc actually told me once, in an amused way that I was "just one of those healthy fat guys..." I'd still be going to her if she hadn't moved to another state...

How long will it be until miss brody's advisors tell her the right thing? Don't hold your breath. Our ENTIRE health and food industries are predicated on all of us eating lots of carb, and convenience foods, and then taking the drugs necessary to counteract the problems.

You can't look good managing emergencies unless you have them. Avoiding problems through foresight isn't rewarded as much as overcoming them after they happen. In government or business.

That leaves it at the individual to notice that something is worn, and figure it out... even if their advisors say the other. The truth is that most people simply are not like that.

"What the science suggests is what we should go by."

I'm with Robert here. I don't really care what Taubes or anyone else says about exercise-I know that it makes ME thinner, and I don't need a study to prove that, I just need to pay attention to my own body. Maybe I'm the anamoly, but I don't think so-the majority of people I know have the same experience.

Also, c'mon, how many fat people do you really know that exercise like crazy? Maybe they feel like they're exercising because they've paid for a gym membership or they have the treadmill sitting in their basement, but I don't know anyone overweight who actually exercises frequently, consistently, and strenuously. It's the same as overweight people who say "I don't really eat that much!" but if you actually take a look at what they're eating, it's much more than they think-you don't get overweight by not eating very much.

If I'm interpreting the article correctly, Taubes is saying that exercise increases your appetite, causing you to eat more and thus not lose weight. He uses the examples of rats who exercise versus ones who didn't-the ones who exercised ate more and thus stayed the same size, but actually gained weight later in life when they stopped exercising. Here are the problems I have with this:

1) Humans aren't rats. We don't just sit there and eat until we're full every time we feel hungry. If you want to lose weight, then you probably have to accept that you're going to be hungry sometimes, and that you can't eat everything you want.

2) If exercise allows you to eat more but stay the same size, isn't this a good trade-off for someone who may not care about losing weight, but wants to eat more? (Or a college student like me, whose alcohol consumption has absolutely nothing to do with hunger)

3) If calories don't matter, as Taubes suggests, then as long as you're eating more of the RIGHT kinds of food, then why does it matter if you eat more at all?

"Also, c'mon, how many fat people do you really know that exercise like crazy? Maybe they f"eel like they're exercising because they've paid for a gym"

I've seen plenty of overweight girls who exercise like crazy, trying to loose the weight and even when they do loose it temporarily due to their diet/ exercise they dont look "naturally thin" to me. Sometimes they can look kinda bulky.

Also pro-athletes are not exactly the thinnest people on the planet (I'm not saying they are not healthy just saying they dont look particularly thin to me either).

Amy, do you eat sautéed parsley as a side dish? How much of it do you sautée (I would assume this is in butter)?

So you would eat it like any sautéed green then (e.g. spinach or chard)?

I grow Italian parsley and I love it raw or whatever, never heard of having it cooked like this (by itself). Can't wait to try it! Thank you.

If people would just use a little common sense, and go have a few simple blood tests run annually, a lot of hospital stays could be avoided. Not to mention a lot of funerals!

Oh, there'll still be a lot of funerals. They'll just be for 95-year-olds, rather than 59-year-olds. :-)

I have a consistent range of about 10-15 lbs difference, meaning I shift between about 215 & 230 lbs over the course of a year depending upon the season. (I hate hate hate hate HATE cold, so I don't go running or cycling in it, thus changing my routine) the rest of the time, I'm voracious about exercising, especially lifting weights. According to the Army standard, I am about 35-45 lbs over what I "should" weigh for my height of 5'11. However a single glance at me reveals that I am ridiculously fit.

My diet is, conventionally speaking, not the healthiest, and I'm a regular cigar smoker (about 5 per week) but I'll lay odds that I'll outlive any professional health advisor that is presently in my age group.
--------------

I remember a few years ago there was a little flap of criticism over Lance Armstrong's constant snacking on snickers bars during races like the Tour De France...but I defy anyone to tell me that man was out of shape.
--------------

I'm not going to say that certain foods aren't better for the body than others, obviously that would be a silly assertion, the better the fuel, the better our bodies process and make use of it. And obviously people were shaped to support certain types of nutrients better than others later artificially adapted to our needs.

But active people are indeed going to be healthier. Maybe they do eat more, certainly I do, but what does my body do with that? Protein becomes muscle, sugars are used for energy, we might "desire" more input, but we also use more and our bodies have a consistent use for it.

The active person might not lose weight, but they'll gain muscle and burn some fat. I don't care if I gain 10 lbs, as long as it is 10 lbs of solid muscle mass.

...everything tastes better in butter...my dear Miss Alkon, you should submit THAT as a new slogan for a butter company of some kind.

The next overweight girl I see that "exercises like crazy" will be the first.

Another n=1 experiment, but after 20 years of following low fat, moderate calorie diets of wholegrains, 'exercising like crazy' and still being fat, I cut my carbs, cut my cardio to half what it was by doing HIIT and 'suddenly' lost 30lbs without once going hungry. I'm still astonished myself!!

I now wear normal clothes, enjoy my food and I don't continuously ache anymore from over exercise.

I highly recommend Tom's site.

"If this were a horror movie, we'd all be screaming at the screen, "Don't go through that door, you freakin' idiot! Everyone who went through that door ended up hanging on a meat hook!"

LOL

"I remember a few years ago there was a little flap of criticism over Lance Armstrong's constant snacking on snickers bars during races like the Tour De France...but I defy anyone to tell me that man was out of shape."

Thing is most people dont exercise for a living. Yes, it's ok to eat alot of carbs if you're a pro-athelte or someone that works out alot. But most of us dont for various reasons. I love running but it really kills my knees just like Amy's experience.

And I do see plenty of bulky girls exercising and not being naturally "thin". Say like Asians in Asia. If you've ever been they're not exactly crowded with gyms like we are. It aint exercise that makes you thin like that. It's diet and from my tasting all the various foods/ drinks they consume very little sugar.

As far as "active" people being more healthy than non-active or whatever. You're reasoning is faulty, most active people are healthier not because they are extremely active but because they are obsessed with taking care of their bodies in a way that most people are not. Yes, Michael Phelps is healthier in THEORY but his life-span will probabbly be average. And like Lance you never know when you are going to get a little nasty thing known as cancer despite how "active" you are.

As far as your smoking, my grandfather lived to his 70's and was a regular smoker since 14. He didnt die from cancer, some people have a genetic predisposition for unhealthy habits and can live quite long. But that doesnt mean unhealthy diets and habits are correct for most people.

One more thing, being active in the manner you describe can really tear bodies apart. I mean I see people at the gym sometimes, really hurting their bodies.

Oh and one more thing, I really admire someone like Bruce Lee. He took this body to an unparalled level. At the time of his death his doctor told him he had the body of an 18 year old. And there are times when i just love exercising, but this is not the solution to the obesity epidemic in this country.