Do low fat diets make you fatter?

Personal trainer Sam decided to test the effects of eating 5,000 calories either from a high fatThere are many different types of fats; polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, hydrogenated, saturated and trans fat. The body requires good fats (polyunsaturated and monounsaturated) in order to…, low carb diet, or from a low-fat, high carb diet. On the high fat diet he lost one inch off his middle, and on the low fat, high carb diet he put on 16lbs and gained 4lbs around his middle, according to an article in the Daily Mail.

On the high carb diet days he ate garlic bread, low-fat lasagna, crumpets, low-fat yoghurts and rice pudding, chocolate muffins and whole meal bread. Not only that but, within three weeks of the high carb diet, not untypical of what many people eat, he had already developed the signs of metabolic syndrome, with increased cholesterol and triglycerides (blood fats), which went up fourfold, and , decreased HDL.

Experts agree that fat is not the problem – it’s carbs and sugar

More and more diet experts are coming round to realising the villain is not fat, but high GL carbs and sugar.

• Recently the Swedish the Council on Health Technology Assessment, which advises the Swedish government, said the best sorts of food for losing weight were the likes of olive oil, double cream and bacon, according to a review of 16,000 studies.
• An article in the BMC Medicine journal by Professor David Lawrence, said that the idea is based ‘on an outdated understanding of the science’.
• A major study in the New England Journal of Medicine compared the benefits of a conventional low-fat diet with two types of Mediterranean diet, which are naturally considerably higher in fat. The study had to be stopped early because the heart attack and stroke rate in the Mediterranean options was so much lower it was deemed irresponsible to keep patients on the conventional diet.

The key to losing weight is to keep your insulinInsulin is a hormone made by the pancreas. It is responsible for making the body’s cells absorb glucose (sugar) from the blood…. level down because insulin is the fat storing hormone. Sugar and carbs cause a big release of insulin, making it easier to store calories as fat. Having more fat and proteinProteins are large molecules consisting of chains of amino acids. Proteins are essential nutrients for the human body – they are a building block of…, and less carbs means less insulin and less fat storage. My low GL diet and especially the 3 day v.low GL ‘fast’ days in the Burn Fat Fast regime, is designed to keep insulin to a minimum.