Zoë Harcombe - PhD in public health nutrition.

Calorie Nonsense

It is an almost universally held belief that people who are overweight just need to eat less and/or do more. The idea that eating less will make you weigh less assumes that the body cannot and does not adjust. It can and it does.

To think that if you eat 500 fewer calories the body will give up 500 calories of fat, to make up the difference, is the ultimate naivety in the world of dieting. The body is not a machine that converts calories into fat.

The idea that a reduction of 500 calories leads to the body giving up 500 calories of fat assumes that neither the BMR requirement (1,500 calories) nor the additional requirement (500 calories) change. In reality both change.

Think about it – you eat less food and they basial metabolic rate adjusts to maintain homeostasis.

The exact same applies for doing more. If you think that you can eat the 2,000 calories needed for the day and then try to do 500 more calories worth of exercise, with the body making no adjustment elsewhere, you are wrong.

Furthermore, exercise and BMR require quite different calories. Exercise is arguably best fuelled by carbohydrate (it provides glucose quickly for the body to use). BMR activities need fat, protein, vitamins and minerals. Carbohydrates can be useful for the vitamins and minerals they provide, but the macro nutrient, the carbohydrate itself, can only be used for energy, or fat making – not cell repair and fighting infection. Hence – if you eat 1,500 calories of carbohydrate (as the average citizen of the developed world currently does) – it can’t be used for body maintenance – you need to burn if off down the gym or you will gain weight.

Zoë has recently completed a PhD in public health nutrition. The full title of her thesis is: “An examination of the randomised controlled trial and epidemiological evidence for the introduction of dietary fat recommendations in 1977 and 1983: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis“. Zoë researches in the fields of nutrition, diet, dietary advice, diet-related health and obesity and reads, writes and talks about these subjects. Her goal and drive is to reverse the obesity epidemic. She has clear views on how it started and what we need to do to stop it and these were published in 2010 in the 134,000 word book: The Obesity Epidemic: What caused it? How can we stop it?

Dr. Zoë Harcombe PhD Clearly Explains The Problems With current Healthy Eating Guidelines

Host: Well Zoe Harcombe you are one of the most important advocates in great Britain for LCHF diets. You are encouraging prople to think low carb high fat, and giving people advice to eat less sugar and less starch.
How is the message working right now?

Harcombe: It's interesting I’m not the only one, but we are nowhere near in the position that Scandinavia is so we do have a number of people supporting what I call real food so we have some good food writers some good chefs, and some doctors trying to just get people off the processed food but then the next step is to get people to question even what they see as good carbohydrates.

We should know there is no such thing as a good carbohydrate. We need to be eating fat and protein so we're taking people step by step.

Host: So you got a book from us from “Little Moon Publishing House”., “The Scandianvian Diet: Getting Healthy With Low Carb ” by Dr Sofie Hexeberg. We wanted to present LCHF to an English public, we have been working with people in Sweden and Norway from 2005 and just gaining more and more and more support . You say that this author Dr. Sofie Hexeberg should be the Norwegian Health Minister. Why is that?

Harcombe: She should be. Her advice is just so sensible and the UK needs this advice as badly as any other country but we're not getting it and how can you argue against somebody who's saying just eat natural foods, stop taking the drugs don't have the carbohydrates go for the fats and proteins don't fear food nuts and seeds are fantastic foods you know this is just such common sense.

At the moment across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, America and Canada we're getting the wrong message. We are told to base our meals on starches, and we know that starches make you fat and excess starches are going to develop diabetes . The more I think about low carb high fat the more I like the message. Protein is in every type of real food. You've either got fat and proteins or you've got carbs and proteins. You are going to be eating fat or carbohydrate. If you reject fat you are going to eat more carbohydrate and then if you reject carbohydrate, which is what we all need to do for health, you are going to eat more fat.

By calling it low carb - high fat we're telling people, “Make sure your diet is rich in fat and don't fear the fat.” I think that is most important thing we need to get over particularly in the UK because we are so far behind Scandinavia. Fat is your friend it does not make you fat. Fat it makes you healthy.

Start from the basis of having real food. Then you look at where the nutrition is. The best nutrition is found in the foods rich in fat and protein so it's found in meat and fish and eggs and dairy foods. Then you just naturally make the choice to eat more animal foods and not as much plant foods.

You end up low carb - high fat if you eat to get the nutrients that you need to be optimally healthy You will eat a low carb high fat diet it is just the outcome of choosing optimum nutrition.

Host: Please visit the Little Moon Publishing Company if you want to check out our books.

In a study of formerly obese people, researchers at the University of Florida found that virtually all said that they would rather be blind, deaf or have a leg amputated than be obese again. That is the extent of our desire to be slim and yet two thirds of people in the UK, USA and Australia are overweight and one quarter obese. Why?

To be slim, to achieve the thing we want more than our sight, hearing, or mobility, we are told that we just need to “eat less and/or do more.” Quite specifically, the advice is “One pound of fat contains 3,500 calories, so to lose 1lb a week you need a deficit of 500 calories a day.” (ref 2)

So, why don’t we just follow the advice? Why on earth do we have an obesity problem, let alone an epidemic, when we so desperately want to be slim?

Busting Myths about Nutrition

Don't be a Vegan, and Preferably Avoid Being a Vegetarian.

I've previously written about vegetarian diets in Open Future Health. Here is a good place to start. Zoe Harcombe brings expertise to the topic that I can't offer.

On 27th January 2018, the Daily Mail (In the UK.) started a series of articles to promote a book by Dr Michael Greger. Dr Michael Greger is a strident vegan, and he is being strongly promoted on the Internet. The book is called “The How Not to Die Cookbook.”

Sadly, in modern society far too many young people with idealistic visions are choosing to eat a vegetarian and sometime a vegan diet. They are resolute about their choices, and one day bad personal health will force them to have a change of heart. For those who are willing to listen, Zoe Harcombe explains why a vegan diet is a very bad idea, and why a vegetarian diet is a difficult option to follow.

Harcombe on the Radio

Publications here: http://www.zoeharcombe.com/publications/