Healthy Eating

An 8-year study on 600 Americans by MPH researchers showed that the more diet sodas a person drinks the more weight they were likely to gain.

The study started with normal weight Americans and eight years later about a third were overweight or obese.

Suprisingly, those who gained the most weight drank at least two cans of diet soda a day.

The researchers didn’t know why this relationship occurred.

Also, given the study only showed a correlation and not a cause-and-effect relationship, the researchers couldn’t say if:
* Drinking diet soda caused obesity
* Obesity caused people to drink diet soda
* Some other factor — not identified in the study — caused people to both drink diet soda and gain weight.

However, this same correlation has shown up in other studies so there probably is something real going on here.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

France is experiencing an increased incidence of overweight and obesity just like almost every other country in the world.

Although no one knows the true cause of this increase, the working assumption is that everyone in the world is eating less healthy food and getting less physical activity.

This assumption is almost universally accepted even though there is almost no evidence to suggest it is true.

Sure, it makes some logical sense, but there is no data to support this contention.

However, that doesn’t prevent governments, communities and schools from implementing programs (often at great expense) to try to get people to eat healthier and be more physically active — with the single goal of weight loss.

I’m very supportive of eating healthier food due to all the health benefits of improved nutrition — and being more physically active due to all the physical and mental benefits of doing so. However, these behaviors should not be encouraged as a way to lose weight.

Why? Because these behaviors rarely lead to weight loss and, as a result, people often return to their unhealthy eating and sedentary lifestyle when they don’t lose any weight.

But, in desperation and due to the enormous pressures to do something about this “epidemic,” governments, communities and schools are adopting unproven strategies to get people to eat healthier and be more physically active.

France has done this recently by requiring these messages to be included in food advertising:
* “For your health, eat at least five fruits and vegetables per day”
* “For your health, undertake regular physical activity”
* “For your health, avoid eating too much fat, to much sugar, and too much salt”
* “For your health, avoid snacking between meals”

This might be OK advice (yet, not necessarily the BEST advice) but the real problem is that these messages are tied to weight management — a goal for which they will likely have little impact.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

As I’ve discussed in the past, glycemic index (GI) is a measure of how fast food is absorbed into the blood stream. Foods that are absorbed slowly have a low GI and foods that are absorbed fast have a high GI.

But, here’s the kicker — GI measurement is based on foods being eaten by themselves, which almost never happens. Once you mix foods and end up eating a combination of protein, carbohydrate and fat, the individual GIs of each food no longer applies to how fast the entire meal is absorbed.

But, that doesn’t stop researchers from doing studies on GI.

Here is the conclusion from a GI study published in the October issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition:

*** A high glycemic index diet correlates with greater waist circumference, body weight, and percentage of body fat in women — but these correlations are not seen in men. ***

So what the heck are we supposed to learn from this???

Isn’t it obvious? If you’re a man, you can live primarily on donuts and juice (foods classified as having a high GI) and never have any problems with your weight. But, if you’re a woman, you better not get near these foods.

I’m clearly being sarcastic. You can’t come to this conclusion from this study. In fact, you can’t come to any conclusion.

Why? Here are just some of the reasons:

1. The study implies that the GI of the women’s diet CAUSED the higher weight and fat levels. That’s just not true. Correlations (which is what they found in this study) don’t say anything about cause and effect.

2. Glycemic index of individual foods is an interesting concept but is almost impossible to apply in daily life. GI has only been measured on a few foods; GI is not listed on a product’s food label so memorization or carrying a reference text with you is the only way to know the GI of each food; the measured GI of a food changes with how it is cooked, prepared and chewed; the GI of individual foods does not apply when foods are combined.

3. Even thought the different results between men and women has no explanation, the study implies that women need to be concerned about GI and men don’t.

Bottom line — this study is just another example of the information presented by the media about weight-loss and nutrition that creates more confusion than help — and that actually contributes to the world’s “obesity crisis.”

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

It seems like once a week I read that the cause of our obesity epidemic is the presence of too much food in our environment.

The assumption is that human beings have been programmed to eat whatever is readily available. Therefore, if more food is available, the more we all are going to eat.

Now a book titled “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think” reports on a variety of experiments which demonstrates that this does happen (at least for some people).

I haven’t read the book yet (I’m on a waiting list at our local library) but I have read a few reviews. Here are the some of the food-eating behaviors reviewers have reported on:

* People eat more if the evidence of how much you have eaten is removed (e.g., candy wrappers).
* People eat more if the food is served in a larger bowl.
* People will eat more of a “low-fat” food than if the same food is not labeled as such.
* People eat more if the portion size is greater.

OK, I believe all these things happen (with some people). But, I don’t agree that we are genetically programmed to eat this way.

Instead, it’s my contention that many people are overly influenced by external cues (e.g., size of bowls, food portion sizes) because they’ve never learned how to pay attention to their internal cues.

Once I read this book, I’ll report on it further in this blog.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition and Fitness

Yep, it turns out that most restaurants serve portions which are two to four times bigger than government’s recommended serving sizes.

How was this discovered? Researchers at Pennsylvania State University and Clemson University surveyed over 300 chefs.

Since portion sizes have steadily increased in tandem with the rise in obesity rates, many people think this is one of the major causes of our obesity epidemic.

The assumption is that whatever food is on a plate will get eaten. If a person is served a 12 ounce steak but is fully satisfied after just six ounces, they’ll just keep eating.

I don’t buy it.

I know for a fact that’s not true with my 16 year-old son. He hates getting too full. He eats until he is satisfied and then stops.

Now there’s an interesting idea.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition and Fitness

If you’ve reached this page and are not familiar with me, I encourage you to review the About Allen page to gain some understanding of where I’m coming from. If you do, you’ll learn that I’m on a personal mission to discredit the mainstream and fad beliefs about weight loss that have so-obviously failed us (and which are totally unsupported by the evidence) – and to convince the world there is a completely different approach to losing weight that actually works due to its precise alignment with the true nature of human physiology. To learn more about this mission, please visit Truths Publishing.

This blog is one component of my efforts where I review recent media reports related to weight loss and try to clarify the confusing, contradictory and inaccurate information that’s so prevalent on this topic. My goal if for you to understand the fundamental and unchanging truths about weight management so you can stop feeling guilty and start losing weight.
———————————————————

For years we’ve been told by one faction of the weight loss industry (the low-carb promoters) to stay away from white starches. The assumption is that these foods get absorbed too quickly into the blood stream which causes all kinds of nasty things to happen with the body’s biochemistry (never mind that the Chinese and Japanese eat tons of white rice and have a far less obesity problem than we have in the U.S.).

Well, now there’s an alternative for all those people who love rice but who are convinced the anti-carb “experts” are right.

It’s called Sorna Pearl Nutri Rice (who came up with that name?) and is manufactured by Health Plus FoodStuff. The company’s chairman, Abdol Qadir Memari, is quoted as saying, “We have worked hard to develop a rice chock-full of nutrition without chemical or genetic modification.”

What makes this rice so special? — it has a Glycemic Index (GI) of only 44. Now I’m not sure what the GI is of regular rice but I’d assume it is higher than 44.

Here’s the problem. Attempting to eat foods with a lower Glycemic Index doesn’t have any practical application.

See, the GI for a food assumes the food is eaten all by itself — which almost never happens. So the GI of Sorna Pearl Nutri Rice might be 44 if that’s all you eat (yuk!), but that measurement goes out the window when the rice is mixed with, say, stir-fry meat and vegetables or a piece of fish.

Oh well — another food invention that’s probably not the cure for obesity.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of The “Never Struggle With Your Weight Ever Again” Weight Loss Course