Is Low-Fat or Low-Carb the Way to Go?
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I’ve finished the last leg of my journey back to Long Island, and arrived safe and sound late last Friday. Last night, while checking the emails, I found a lot of letters about no fat and low fat and and low carb diets.
First of all, no fat diets are dangerous, and you really shouldn’t even attempt anything like that except under strict medical supervision. Even then, I’m hard pressed to think of why it would be necessary.
Fat is very important for the body to function optimally, but the question remains: how much fat is enough? For almost the last forty years, the medical community has been recommending a low amount.
The same thing is true about carbohydrates. For decades, the prevailing wisdom was high carbs and low fat. You can see where that theory has gotten us.
Truly, the most essential factor in a successful diet is BALANCE.
When we speak of balance, we are speaking of the balance of fat, protein, and carbohydrates.
A very important point that I have repeated time and time again is this: foods that are closest to their natural state are the most healthy for you. Baked apples are close to the natural state of fresh apples, while Apple Jacks cereal is not. Fresh grilled fish is close to its natural state, but frozen fish sticks covered in fatty breading are not.
An excellent way to judge healthy food versus unhealthy food is whether or not it comes in a package. Simply put, packaged food is generally unhealthy. Look at the ingredients: packaged food typically contains trans fats and high fructose corn syrup — both of which are highly detrimental to your health.
Most low fat items have high sugar contents. They’re always sweet, which makes them palatable, and the same rule applies to no fat. Sugar, or a sugar substitute, is always in the mix.
Low carb almost always involves a sugar substitute too, and personally, I think it always tastes terrible. You have to convince yourself that it tastes good in order to eat it. No, thanks.
You can eat almost any food as long as it doesn’t come in a package mixed with other ingredients. Frozen vegetables, as long as they’re just vegetables, is A-okay. Frozen vegetables mixed in a sauce, is not. The sauce, if you can call it that, is mixed with all kinds of things that make the sauce stable, and you fat. More often than not, there are more calories in the sauce, than in the vegetables.
Although many people swear by vegetarianism, it is not a healthy way to live. Vegetarians are often quite undernourished and typically have many other health problems as well — and this is all due to the fact that they do not eat a balanced diet.
The best way to gain control of your diet is to start slowly, one meal at a time. My friend Nate has some words of wisdom on the subject: “Practice push ups instead of doing sit downs.” His message is that when you are full you should push up from the table, not sit down in order to eat more.
You should also start taking an ultra pure, enteric coated pharmaceutical grade fish oil. This will insure that you get your daily dose of of omega 3 essential fatty acids, which keep your system running at an optimum level.
The other day someone referred me to a bodybuilding web site, where the genius bodybuilder who took fish oil was cutting back his dose, because he didn’t want to get too much fat in his diet. I guess that’s why he’s a bodybuilder, because he doesn’t even know why he’s taking it in the first place. All brawn, no brain.
He needs MORE fish oil, not less. Athletes who train hours every day have every reason to be upping their intake of fish oil, not worrying about a few fat grams. What he doesn’t seem to realize is that with the proper amount of fat in his diet, he would look better, and he might even win a competition. But I’m laying 100 to 1 odds he won’t listen.
