I received this e-mail from an old Weight Watcher's "buddy"...I guess they were trying to tell me something

FITNESS CORNER
This week, let's look at some common questions and the experts'
answers to them:

HOW MUCH EXERCISE DO YOU HAVE TO DO TO LOSE WEIGHT AND KEEP IT OFF?
We all want to know the answer to this one! Dr. James O. Hill,
cofounder of the National Weight Control Registry and Dr. Miriam Nelson,
director of the Center for Physical Activity and Nutrition at Tufts
University say this, "To lose weight and keep it off, you need one hour
of activity a day that equals jogging 4-5 miles."

Whoa! Jogging 4-5 miles a day to lose weight and keep it off? That
sounds like a lot of hard work. Well, yes and no! Jogging 4-5 miles a
day expends 400-500 calories. A one-hour Jazzercise class burns about
350 calories, a one-hour step class burns about 400 calories. You can
increase this calorie burn by INCREASING INTENSITY OF MOVEMENTS AND
RANGE OF MOTION! Just add arms, make your movements bigger, and you'll
burn enough calories to equal a 4-5 mile jog! Add a body sculpt 30-45
minute class, and you burn 200 calories more! Remember, the experts
advise doing this EVERY DAY to lose weight and then maintain the weight
loss. Add variety and, you'll stay motivated, your body won't have a
chance to adapt to any one class so you'll have results faster, you'll
have fun, and you'll see different instructors and different students.
However, remember that a day off is sometimes the best course of action,
too! If you're extremely stressed and fatigued from your job, or you're
fighting an infection, stay home and pamper yourself! Then, come to
class the next day, and you'll feel revived and refreshed. Here's a
great rule of thumb--for every 5 workout days, take one day off. NEVER
taking a break is as bad as too little exercise--if you exercise at a
hard intensity every single day with no rest days, you may be in danger
of overtraining, a syndrome of physical and psychological ailments that
can lead to injury.

ARE ALL CALORIES CREATED EQUAL? DO 50 CALORIES OF CHOCOLATE CAUSE THE
SAME WEIGHT GAIN AS 50 CALORIES OF GRAPEFRUIT?
Dr. David Katz, head of the Yale University School of Medicine
Prevention Research Center, says, "Yes. It's a simple matter of
mathematics. If you take in 50 calories that are not used in metabolic
processes or in exercise, those 50 calories will be stored as fat. It
doesn't matter where the 50 calories came from!"

DOES A LOW CARB/HIGH FAT (i.e., Atkins Diet) WORK?
Experts say that the most recent review of more than 100 studies on low
carb/high fat diets found that these diets are not better and may be
worse in the long run for the heart than a high carb/low fat diet. In
the end, it boils down to the calories consumed and used: fewer calories
in and more calories burned equals more weight loss, regardless of the
diet.

WHY DOES IT MATTER HOW INTENSE OR BIG I MAKE MY MOVEMENTS DURING A
JAZZERCISE CLASS?
Experts say, "It's all in the math. Whichever workout burns more
calories is the one that burns more fat." When you increase your arm
movements, take up more space during an exercise and move more
vigorously, whether jumping or not, you expend many more calories than a
moderate movement of the body. Check out your movements in the mirror!
Can you make them bigger--and burn more calories and fat while doing so?

Um, they're wrong.

You should challenge them to a diet of 1000 calories of pure sugar and wheat products vs. 1600 calories of meat and oil.

But seriously, that is just untrue. A calories is NOT just a calorie. There have been NUMEROUS studies to prove this, where people on a low fat, low calorie diet lost less weight than people on a low carb, adequate calorie diet.

Just math, my a$$.

This is misleading (or more accurately an outright lie). They focus too much on Total Cholesterol. The simple fact is Total Cholesterol goes down more on a LF/HC Diet than on a LC/HF Diet. Why is this ?

Simple...Grains tend to lower HDL (Good) Cholesterol...which actually worsens your ratio of Total:HDL. Polyunsaturated Fats which are the predominant fat on a LF/HC diet also lower both LDL and HDL. This reduces Total Cholesterol without actually improving the ratio of Total:HDL and in some cases, may actually worsen the ratio.

Saturated Fats tend to raise both LDL and HDL. Stearic Acid (The Saturated Fat in Beef) tends to produce no negative impact on the ratio of Total:HDL and in fact may slightly improve it by raising HDL. Monounsaturated Fats (46% Beef Fat and 50-90% of Peanut Fat, Olive/Canola Oils, etc...) tends to reduce LDL (Bad) Cholesterol and may actually increase HDL (Good) Cholesterol.

Now, which diet would you chose ?

1) One that reduces your LDL (Bad) Cholesterol slightly, dramatically decreases your HDL (Good) Cholesterol, and dramatically raises your Triglycerides; or

2) One that dramatically raises your HDL (Good) Cholesterol, dramatically lowers your LDL (Bad) Cholesterol, and dramatically lowers your Triglycerides.

I know which I'd chose and have already chosen.

http://www.wilstar.net/lowcarb/research.htm

ORNISH (LF)

Total Cholesterol -24%
HDL Cholesterol - 3%
Triglycerides +75%
Weight -12%

ATKINS (LC)

Total Cholesterol -13%
HDL Cholesterol +60%
Triglycerides -82%
Weight -19%

It appears a LF/HC diet produces an extra 11% decrease in Total Cholesterol over the Atkins Diet. But, if you notice...the LF Diet decreased HDL (Good/Protective) Cholesterol by 3%, while Atkins increased it by 60%. A dramatic incrase in HDL will make a diet appear [when only looking at Total Cholesterol] to be bad for the heart. That is why you must ALWAYS look at the ratio of Total:HDL. In addition, Triglycerides are normally ignored even though they are an important [as important as Cholesterol] or heart health. You will notice that while Atkins produced a dramatic decrease in Harmfull Triglycerides, a LF/HC diet produced a dramatic increase in them, potentially increasing the risk of heart disease. Nutritionists/Dieticians love to use Total Cholesterol because it makes their diet look good for the heart, when in fact their diet may actually be harmfull to heart health [because of the reduction in Protective HDL Cholesterol and the Dramatic rise in Harmfull Triglycerides].

I'm so sick of reading these oversimplified "a calorie is a calorie" fallacies as if they're simply burning up foodstuffs in a bunsen burner in a lab, neglecting that we're instead dealing with biochemical reactions from ingesting various foods in an organic, living human body. If parts-is-just-parts, then why does 6 ounces of water react differently inside our body than, say, 6 ounces of strictnine/poison? Because the body reacts differently to different substances (duh!).
If they honestly think that my eating 2000 calories of chocolate sundaes on a given day produces the same results to my dietary progress as 2000 calories of nutritious low-carb meals, these low-fat diet authors really must have permanent high-carb brain-fog compromising their thinking patterns.