NEXTStandard Nutrition Theory
Only nutrition specialists should offer dietary advice.
The key to dietary control is in total calories. Nutritionally sound weight loss, is best achieved by simple restriction of total calories.
A balanced diet has mostly carbohydrates, a moderate amount of protein and a smaller amount of fats.
Fats are energy dense, supplying 9cal for every gram eaten. They are best minimised in the diet. Eating fat will make you fat.
Saturated fats should be replaced with mono-unsaturated or poly-unsaturated fats whenever possible.
Eating more poly-unsaturated vegetable oils reduces LDL-Cholesterol and it will reduce your cardiovascular disease risk.
Increased physical activity should be and important part of any weight loss programme.
Severe restriction of any macro-nutrient like carbohydrate is to be discouraged. It's plausible that LCHF diets could be harmful, especially in the long run.
Very low carbohydrate diets are not balanced, they have too much protein and far too much fat.
Health Stars and Heart Ticks
The healthy food rating systems that have been developed in many counties are simply marketing tools to sell more product and to mislead the public.
Cereal products are converted into glucose soon after consumption. They are slightly slower sugars, so they are "high energy" foods, commonly sold as breakfast cereals. If they are "low fat" they are often given a "healthy food" label, a misleading status.
Sugar products are commonly sold as energy foods. If they are "low fat" they said to be essential food for building "healthy bodies," as illustrated below.
YOU'VE GOTTA BE MADE OF MILO®
Too often the debate about food is confined to how many calories can poor people buy. Faulty nutrition theory, encourages us to think this way. Sugar has lot of calories but it has no food value.
Standard Nutrition Problems
The standard theory owes more to tradition than it does to science.
The calorie theory doesn't allow for the response of the body diet. Homeostasis changes how each persons body responds to the diet offered.
Vegetable oils, especially poly-unsaturated omega-6 oils are unstable, and likely to be carcinogenic. Adding more of those to the diet hasn't been a good idea.
A balance of carbohydrates, protein and fats, is only one way to consider balance. A diet can be balanced in terms of nutriment with very different macro-nutrients.
Both fats and protein are dense. So they make people feel satisfied, and they don't feel hungry again for a long time, often 5-6 hours later.
In contrast, when people eat carbohydrates they get a glucose high, and as that is resolved they "feel hungry" again, often in less than 2 hours. People end up snacking all day.
The idea that dietary cholesterol reduces your cholesterol and reduces your risk of heart disease has been discredited.
Several studies discount exercise as a sensible means of weight control. Exercise has many other virtues, but it has little value as a weight control measure.
