Last year this newsletter got off to a false start. I was dismayed by the lack of response to the work I had done. I needed feedback so I could be sure I was meeting your needs. That's still true, please help. The amount of new information reaching me, particularly from the Noakes Foundation, was exceeding my ability to understand it, and process it for your use. I got snowed under. The learning curve was very steep.

Recently, I've spent three months rebuilding the web site. It's much more complete than it was. There are two completely new sections. You can learn a lot by following the Dr Noakes' trial.

Slowly, I'm becoming aware of several people around me who are taking Banting seriously. Everyone who's done so reports some success. None of the people I'm talking about are yet committed to living in ketosis.

For myself, Banting gets easier and easier. I've found out that if I am strict about not eating carbohydrates it's really easy. If I'm not disciplined I have minor urination problems. As you come out of ketosis you don't pee, because the body is adding fluid. Then as you switch back into ketosis you pee once an hour as the body expels that fluid again. Your stool may also be affected. Keep carbohydrates under 80gm/d or over 130gm/d and everything should be stable.

My doctor told me to keep up my fibre intake on this diet. I now believe he's wrong, don't worry about it, you don't need the fibre at all. A little fibre may mean you can eat a few more carbs, but for me, fibre is something else I never bother to count.

My doctor is concerned that I don't lose too much weight. For the last six months my weight has been stable. There is some movement, over time, of the fat under the skin. This is where exercise can help you get the body shape you want. My blood pressure is good, my blood profile is excellent, and I'm taking no medications at all. I've just had a High-Sensitivity CRP Assay, done. "There is an absence of overt inflammation." That's exactly the result I expected.

My doctor tells me that getting an CRP Assay done, to test for inflammation, is becomming more common, BUT, he says, we don't know how to stop infammation. I think Banting is the answer, but it takes a few months, the inflammation slowly weakens and goes away.

Happy with my Ongoing Learning

This was the first post in restarting the blog. Tim Noakes has produced 38 videos about the evidence he gave during the court proceedings in South Africa. It's not good use of your time to watch them all, but you should try to view some of them. After a while it gets repetitive.

The Open Future Health website now has four distinct parts, that are labeled:
The Nutrition Standards On Trial
The Life Giving Lecture
Nutrition Science
and The Banting Diet.

Much of the new material in the site is about the dispute between the food establishment in South Africa, The South African Health Department, Stellenbosch University, the dietitians in South Africa, and to a lesser extent the South African medical profession, and The Real Meal Revolution, a business in South Africa that is promoting the very successful Banting Diet.

LCHF v LFHC Diets

A Randomized Trial

The trial enrolled 148 men and women, and formed two groups; one eating a low-fat diet, like the standard diet usually recommended, the other group eating a very-low-carbohydrate high-fat diet.

The fall out over a year was the same for both groups, which shows that it's not "impossible" to eat only 40gm of carbohydrate a day. Once you understand how, it becomes easy, and the health advantages are significant.

The result of this study exposes the misrepresentation of Stellenbosch University in their criticism of the Banting Diet. The weight loss was much greater on LCHF, and all the cardiovascular risk factors were also reduced.

To understand this confusing picture you need to know that Stellenbosch defines low-carbohydrate in a manner that suits their purpose, to discredit Banting. So here are the critical numbers. On a standard diet people will be eating more that 320gm/d of carbohydrate (55% of energy). Stellenbosch says "low-carbohydrate" is less that 45% of energy in carbs; 260gm/d. The 14 "low-carbohydrate" studies they compared in the study, averaged an intake of 191gm/d. So they claim to have run a fair test of "low-carbohydrate" diets.

But that's not anything like the amount of carbohydrate people eat when Banting. Benefits begin at about 100gm/d but they recommend 50gm/d and if you are diabetic you should aim for 25gm/d. Many studies demonstrate the value of doing that.

Why does that happen? Because your body switches from glucose burning to fatty acid burning, you begin to use your ketogenic metabolism.

Change Your Thinking

Change who you are Becoming

We all "know" a lot of things we need to unlearn if our health is to improve. Each of us trips over different things, and only experience will reveal where your own problems lie. For me it was the idea that fruit was always healthy. Too much fruit for me, caused inflammation, so severe I became sick.

Once I found the Banting Diet, I also struggled in the first few months to eat enough fat. Today butter is my saviour. I use great slabs of it every day. Tastes great.

Over the last year, I've recognised more clearly how long it's taken me to establish my new eating pattern. Over a year. So I'm sure in my mind that trying to go into Banting cold, is likely to lead to failure. So I'm keen to help people adopt the "Take Out Diet" first, and to do that for about six months.

By then your diet will be much improved, your weight will be stable or falling, your energy levels will be better, and your knowledge about nutrition will be considerably better. At that stage stepping into Banting will be a small step. Perhaps, if you've done very little damage to your body, over the years, you might decide it's a step you don't need to take.

The Old Ivory Tower v Nutritional Knowledge

In South Africa, the Banting Diet is political dynamite. The great majority of South Africans cannot afford to eat a Banting Diet. If Banting is a diet that's more healthy, most people have no financial ability to be in the best health. This same problem also exists in the United States of America. Much less so in New Zealand. High quality fats and protein are expensive when compared with carbohydrates. Even if you buy a lot of offal meats and muscles in the shell, like I do.

Stellenbosch University put a lot of effort into a study intended to show that by eating the recommended diet, one could be both slim and heart healthy. They tested a "little bit of everything in moderation" diet, but restricted in calories, so people would lose weight slowly; against a "low-carbohydrate" diet, about 191gm/d.

They said that low-carbohydrate diets were popular for weight loss, but they were not recommended because they were not heart healthy, were possibly dangerous, and were difficult to maintain in the long term. They claim a "draw" that on both diets people lost weight, and that there was no advantage in low-carbohydrate diets. So they argue, "why give up the carbohydrates you love, when there is no advantage."

Stellenbosch use an intellectual trick to muddy the water. One of their prime beliefs is that the best measure of energy input and output is calories in the diet, and energy expended in metabolism. Then they feed people two diets with equal calories in each. Then they say "see there is no difference." But according to their own theory , if calories were equal in both diets, and if energy use is the same, there can be no difference.

So what was the point of that test? They need to discredit the Banting Diet. They claim success, but they failed, all they did was shift the goalposts to suit themselves.

When you eat a very-low-carbohydrate diet, high in fat (because you need energy) your body conserves glucose, it makes and burns ketones, and mobilizes fat tissue when you need extra energy. Then you lose weight without effort.