Sat, Feb-28-09, 11:14
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Attitude is a Choice
Posts: 30,111
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Plan: No sugar, flour, wheat
Stats: 228.4/209.0/170
BF:stl/too/mch
Progress: 33%
Location: NYC
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I thought that this Daily Dish from South Beach, is interesting:
From today's SBD Daily Dish in response to the reporting of the new study re: calories more important that fat or carbs:
Quote:
We Don't Count Calories, But Calories Do Count
A new two-year study funded by the National Institutes of Health and recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that it's not what you eat that matters on a diet, but rather how many calories you consume each day. The media is now reporting on this study in a way that is misleading, implying that all you have to do is cut calories to lose weight and that it doesn't matter how you do it.
The South Beach Diet lifestyle doesn't require you to count calories, but that doesn't mean that calories don't count. Dr. Arthur Agatston, leading preventive cardiologist and bestselling author of The South Beach Diet Supercharged, knows from his years of success with his patients that counting calories, grams of fat or carbs, or anything else is certainly not in harmony with making a diet a lifestyle. Counting is simply too difficult to sustain.
It is the quality of the calories that you take in that naturally leads to appropriate hunger satisfaction. Generally, if you are enjoying meals consisting of lean protein, good fats, and nutrient-dense, fiber-rich fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, you will naturally feel satisfied and have no desire to overeat. Invariably this means you'll take in fewer calories overall—no counting necessary.
As it turns out, all the diet groups in the reported study were urged to eat similar foods that had very little saturated fat (8% or less), were low in cholesterol (150 mg or less for every 1000 calories), and were relatively high in fiber (20 grams of fiber per day). Carbohydrate-rich foods with a low glycemic index were also recommended. (Low glycemic index foods are those that release their sugars more slowly, and thus don't cause blood sugar to rise and fall quickly, thereby helping to control cravings.) Missing from this study was a control group eating foods reflective of the typical American diet high in refined sugar, saturated fat, and processed foods.
Thus, all the participants were essentially eating a nutrient-dense, fiber-rich, heart-healthy diet, which is exactly what we recommend on the South Beach Diet. (It was also recommended that the dieters in all groups exercise moderately for 90 minutes weekly, also in line with the principles of the South Beach Diet.)
But while the researchers had targets for differences in the macronutrients (in other words, the amount of fat, protein, and carbs recommended varied among the diet groups), in reality these dietary goals were only partially achieved. In the final analysis, the differences in macronutrient intake were too small for the study authors to make a definitive conclusion that composition of a diet doesn't really matter. And yet, they did just that. And that's how some news outlets have been reporting this information.
Learning to make the right food choices most of the time is what transforms a diet into a lifestyle, and that ultimately leads to permanent weight loss and better health for life. Dr. Agatston encourages you to stick with the proven principles of the South Beach Diet, get at least 20 minutes of aerobic or core exercise daily (he actually recommends a bit more exercise than the study did), and celebrate your individual successes each and every day.
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