It Really Has Been A BIG, FAT Lie – The Real Science Behind Dietary Fat, Cholesterol and Your Health

I originally did this interview to help my clients maintain their fat-loss. On the nutrition side of things I use low-carb diets to help people drop a lot of body fat without being hungry. However, there is one huge problem with low-carb diets – other people’s ill-informed opinions.

Here’s a typical conversation:

Coworker: “WOW! You look fantastic – like you’ve dropped 40 pounds. You never even had a neck before. How did you do it?”

My client: “I’ve been eating low-carb and lifting weights and doing intervals.”

Coworker: “WTF!? Are you trying to kill yourself!? Low-carb diets are the most dangerous things ever – all that fat and cholesterol is going to make your heart explode!”

My client usually says nothing, and inside a very negative conversation begins. “Hmmm… What if they’re right? What if I am trading my health for a great body? What if all this steak and eggs really is going to kill me?”

The problem is that their coworker is sincere, BUT the information is sincerely wrong.

They literally have NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT whatsoever. They’ve probably never read and comprehended primary research on nutrition in their entire lives. (By the way, almost none of the students in my 400 level nutrition classes had ever read a single study on their own. They were just parroting what the food pyramid said.)

Very few people understand statistics, research design, biochemistry, or anything else that makes reviewing research worthwhile. As a nerd, I keep two different biochemistry textbooks in my office to read for fun.

Most people get their opinions from other people who get their opinions from other people who got their opinions from the media, and the people who report on health and exercise are not usually scientifically literate. They will write up whatever the spokesperson for the study has to say and will almost never critically evaluate the study. (For an example read this on red meat and this on a sham diet study.)

So what I did for my clients was arrange an interview with Gary Taubes. He’s one of the few people on planet Earth who has reviewed the entire field of literature on public health, nutrition and obesity.

He spent multiple full-time years with multiple assistants in multiple libraries – whose salaries he paid – and hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money to do this. If there is a study out there that was ever published ANYWHERE on diet and health he has read it and is great at helping people understand it.

So Gary, will the saturated fat and cholesterol in a low carb diet kill you?

This was actually my fear when I first started a low-carb diet 10 years ago as an experiment. I’d sit there eating scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast waiting for my heart to blow up, then I did some research.

I wanted to see how we came to believe this idea that saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for you, and whether or not our beliefs were justified. Believe it or not, I have actually read all of the field going back to the 1800’s. One of the things that I was looking for was the point when the idea that saturated fat and cholesterol were killers was still controversial. That was in the 1970’s.

The first thing I saw was… the rest of this interview is published at Primer Magazine.

OH, and please don’t forget to vote for me right here.  It only takes 2 clicks to vote and I would really appreciate your help.

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC  Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, The DC Fitness Advisor and the Fitness Expert for the PCOS Challenge TV Show. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a FREE copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

Super Easy Low-Carb Appetizer for Your New Year’s Eve Party

In case you have been living under a rock, or taking nutrition classes at a University, then you know that when it comes to fat-loss and health low-carb wins hands down.  I’ve written about that here, here, here, here, here, here and a whole lot of other places.

Your New Year’s Eve party is right around the corner, so I wanted to give you something easy that you could make that would be both tasty and helpful with getting a head start on your New Year’s Resolutions.

When you go low-carb one of the things that you miss the mot is crunchy stuff like crackers.  Here is a great alternative that I love with Baba Ganoush (a great, lower carb alternative to hummus).

Low-Carb Cheese Crackers

Ingredients

4 slices (approx 1 oz each) cheddar cheese (pre-sliced from a grocery store – I’ve used several brands and they all seem to work fine.)

Parchment paper

Directions

1.  Take cheese and fold into quarters (you end up with 4 pieces of cheese that are about ¼ the size of the original slice) and place on baking sheet that has been covered with a sheet of parchment paper.

2.  Preheat oven to 400 F, and put cheese in oven when the oven heats to 400.
3.  Bake for 8min

For a crisper cracker – leave the cheese on the parchment paper for an hour or more to help it dry out.  The longer it sits out the dryer it gets and the crisper your cracker.

Nutrition

Makes 4 servings of 4 crackers

Regular cheese crackers – 18g net carb per 1oz serving
These cheese crackers – .5g net carb per 1 oz serving (4 crackers)

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC  Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, and author of “The Body You Want”. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a FREE copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

What If Marion Barry Was a Nutritionist? Do What I Say, Not What I Do – But In Reverse

When I lived in LA I hired a nutritionist who worked at The Sports Club LA.  Let’s call her “Pam.”  When I came to Pam I was trying to get just a little bit leaner.  I was in pretty good shape, and had gotten that way by – surprise – eating fewer carbs and more protein, etc.

When she found out that my diet was pretty much devoid of bread and pasta she pretty much flipped and told me that I would never get any leaner with such a low carb intake.  She made a very compelling argument for getting my starch intake in the 6-11 servings per day neighborhood (just like in the food pyramid).  I told her that I thought this would plump me up, but she insisted that I do it her way.

So, I added oatmeal in the morning, whole wheat pasta elsewhere, and brown rice somewhere.  I also cut back on my protein and fat intake because she said they were too high, and that I needed to take in fewer calories.  Results:

#1.  I got fatter
#2.  I got weaker
#3.  My energy went in the toilet
#4.  My eczema came back

My rational mind thought, “this just isn’t working, these carbs are making me fat.”  But my emotional mind thought, “she’s the RD, it your fault that you’re getting fat.”

At some point we were having a conversation and she said, “Oh, I don’t eat carbs” as an offhand remark.

She was in her 40’s and looked fantastic.  I was in my 20’s and looking worse!

Why was she giving me advice that was exactly the opposite of how she lived?

As a dietetics major (to get and RD) I have had similar conversations with many classmates.  On exams, in papers, in class and lab they all espouse high-carb, low-fat diets for everything from weight-loss to diabetes. BUT when it comes to taking care of their own bodies and extra body-fat they mostly blame carbs.

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s top personal trainer for busy people. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

How Do You Make A Gladiator Fat on Demand?

According to Archeology magazine (by the Archeological Institute of America), it turns out that Gladiators were actually fat. They were fat on purpose:

“A fat cushion protects you from cut wounds and shields nerves and blood vessels in a fight.” Not only would a lean gladiator have been dead meat, he would have made for a bad show. Surface wounds “look more spectacular,” says Grossschmidt. “If I get wounded but just in the fatty layer, I can fight on,” he adds. “It doesn’t hurt much, and it looks great for the spectators.”

How Did They Get Fat (In spite of being VERY physically active)?

“A vegetarian diet rich in carbohydrates… and very little animal protein… Packing in the carbs also packed on the pounds.”

You can read the whole article right here.

Sumo Wrestlers AND Gladiators Have a Lot In Common

This sounds an awful lot like what the Sumo did when they wanted to get fat on purpose – cut back on the animal protein and pack in the carbs.

It is ironic that this is the same advice that we get from the food pyramid. Is that designed to make people fat too?

Low fat, and therefore high carb nutrition became dogma in the late 70’s, early 80’s, exactly when the obesity epidemic started.  Coincidence?

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s top personal trainer for busy people. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.