Diet Facts

(c) by Mark Dempsey

Here are a few facts about dieting that are not widely known. I seldom write about diet since it is so personal, and often more controversial than politics or other soap operas. But here you go...

A pound of fat has 3500 calories. This means if you eat 50 extra calories daily for a year--and don't change your activity level--you will gain more than five pounds (50 x 365 / 3500 = 5.2 lbs). Do this year after year, and pretty soon we're talking some serious weight gain, not easily erased overnight.

If you adopt a low-calorie, low-carbohydrate diet, without doing exercise, you can lose weight--just as you can lose weight if you get chemotherapy--but there's a downside. If you lose seven pounds this way, only two pounds lost will be fat, the other five are lean body weight. The lean body weight is what burns calories, so this type of dieting eventually predisposes people to get fatter, despite the weight loss. What such dieters lose is muscle.

Incidentally, if you do have chemotherapy, you will get ketosis. Dr. McDougall calls Keto diets the "Make yourself sick" diets.

Normal, healthy males typically measure roughly 15% body mass as fat; females are 22% fat. Because of the phenomenon in the previous paragraph, anorexics are actually very fat--as much as 40% of their body weight is fat. They may look skinny, but the fat is marbled through their muscles, so they're skinny but weak.

Not eating extra calories is important--so portion control and not over-stuffing or binge-eating is helpful if you want to lose weight. However, diet expert Covert Bailey says diets that are just low-calorie, without exercise, program your body for famine, so more of what you eat goes to fat--unless you ramp up your metabolism with exercise. He says that in his experience, most of the famous low-calorie diets are helpful, but only if you want to gain weight. Meanwhile, Oprah confesses she started using diet pills.

The bottom line: exercise is essential for any permanent weight loss. Exercise doesn't burn many calories, but it does start to re-program your metabolism so that more of what you eat goes to feed muscle mass rather than being stored as fat. Exercise also helps you avoid depression and think more clearly.*

Glycemic Index

Glycemic index measures how fast food consumed appears in blood as glucose--the fuel for most muscle and brain processes. Faster is not better, though. Refined sugar--a candy bar, for one example--would have a high glycemic index. When your blood sugar (glucose) spikes, it also makes for an increased level of insulin, a chemical which often lingers after the spike in blood sugar. When insulin has consumed all of the candy bar, and is still in your blood, you typically feel hungry, and often hungry enough eat another candy bar...which spikes the blood sugar. When your muscles don't burn that glucose, your body stores it as fat.

Eran Segal makes an important qualifier for generalized glycemic indexes. In his study, he found that how fast people metabolize different foods varies, as you might expect. After all, it's an evolutionary advantage to  have a variety of different kinds of digestion, so humans can adapt to different environments.

So differences in genetics, and that microbiome--the bacteria in your gut--can have enormous impacts. Segal reports that some people can eat ice cream, and their glucose spikes upward, while others experience no such spike because their digestion doesn't assimilate it rapidly.

Fibrous foods, for example apples, can have a low glycemic index not because they lack sugar, but because digestion has to get past all that fiber to get to the sugar.

While it may be true that there is no one, ideal diet for humans, as Segal suggests, my money is on the fibrous foods, and avoiding the highly processed foods (white bread, refined sugar, etc.) to keep that glycemic index low. 

Either way, vegetables and fruit have a tremendous caloric advantage over meat and dairy. 

A hundred calories of meat can fit in the palm of your hand. A hundred calories of spinach, watermelon or strawberries fills a fair sized container. 

I've heard many people complain that cereal (refined grain) leaves them hungry after a short time. This is typical for refined, low-fiber food. A serving of unsweetened oatmeal typically has an lower glycemic index than bacon, eggs and toast, so it will "stick to your ribs." It has plenty of fiber, so it digests slowly, releasing glucose into your bloodstream gradually, unlike the refined food. I've seldom met anyone who complains that the bulky, low-glycemic index food doesn't satisfy their hunger especially if it's heavy on beans and rice. Vegetarian Indian food, or Mexican food is extremely filling, and keeps that hunger away for a while.

However, hunger pangs are not always to be avoided. If you want to lose weight, hunger pangs may appear as your body consumes fat. No need to give in to that impulse to snack at midnight...if losing weight is on your agenda.

And speaking of calories, tea has none, but look at the following:

12 oz Coke: 140 calories
12 oz (regular) beer: 153 calories
12 oz (higher alcohol, craft beer: 170 - 350 calories

Iced tea, even with two teaspoons of sugar only has 32 calories.

I hope this is useful when you make dietary decisions, especially during the holiday.

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Disclaimer: I'm not a dietician or MD. The advice above is not strictly anecdotal, but a lot of it comes from a variety of sources, including my own experience. I've been (mostly) vegan for more than 30 years now. Eating that diet is not particularly hard to do, even when dining in restaurants, as long as one can adapt. I'm not a perfectionist about this. For example, I won't ask the Chinese restaurant to eliminate egg from their fried rice (it's such a small amount, anyway) and I'll eat pastries without being concerned if they aren't entirely vegan. I'll even eat an egg or sausage from time to time, and a slice of turkey at Thanksgiving. But I'd estimate 95% of the calories I consume are neither meat, nor egg, nor dairy, nor refined food (sugar, oil). 

When I had hernia surgery, the Kaiser surgical team took a look at my mostly naked body and told me I was an inspiration [blushes]. They may have just been trying to encourage me before they anaesthetized me, but I'm pretty sure they were sincere. The bottom line: This diet has served me well.

*The facts about dieting and weight loss above rely largely on a lecture by a nurse/dietician who measured my body fat content the old fashioned way--weighing in air, then in water. Many modern scales do this the digital way, with sensors, but this lecture predated the availability of such scales.

As the Eran Segal video shows, your mileage may vary. Still...when it comes to ice cream vs. fruit or veg...I'd stick with the latter.