Friday 27 July 2007

Low carb diets are viable for long term weight control, after all

Recent studies are confirming what those of us who are already committed low carb dieters have known for a long time - that low carbing spares us from the meagre quantities, poor palatability and constant hunger of low fat/low calorie diets. Not to mention better weight loss and other advantages such as 'healthier' blood cholesterol. (High cholesterol levels are not the villains we have been led to believe, but if lowered cholesterol makes mainstream medicine feel more comfortable about the safety of low carb diets, then hey, who cares!)

It's a great pity that the myth that low carb diets are boring, restrictive and unpalatable and that dieters won't stick to them long term has been allowed to prevail for so long. The only foods that are restricted are fake foods, processed foods full of chemicals, and foods full of unhealthy refined carbohydrates. That leaves heaps of healthy, natural, tasty 'real' foods to choose from, and from which to make alternative, healthier versions of the foods and recipes we love to eat! All that is needed is a little ingenuity (or a good low carb cookbook.)

If low carb is 'undoable', it's not because it leaves you hungry, bored or nutritionally deficient. It's because today's standard diet is full of high carb, high GI refined wheat, corn and sugar, and it is in the food and catering industries' interests to keep it that way.

Those who claim that low carb diets are 'undoable' are rejecting the best chance we have of reversing not only the obesity epidemic but the diabetes epidemic too. Enlightened practitioners such as Dr John Briffa are to be applauded for helping to counter the ignorance and deliberate misinformation that exists about low carb diets. Our future health depends upon us seeing the standard high carb, high GI diet for what it is - junk that is slowly but surely making us sick.

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