Whether you are keen to start putting butter in your coffee or not, you will likely have heard about the low carb regimes sweeping gyms and offices with equal fervour.
Atkins turned to Paleo turned to Keto.
However, when the low carb (and — by definition — low sugar) concept was proposed in the early 70s, it was not given a fair hearing by many medical professionals.
The reigning attitude towards it, even to this day, says Gary Taubes — a nutrition author and journalist — is, “It sucks. I haven’t read it.”
Opening up on the Making Sense podcast, hosted by neuroscientist Sam Harris, Taubes explains how it is taking far longer than it should for the fat myth (the idea that fat makes you fat, as opposed to sugar) — to get properly busted.
As Instagram pages like The Fitness Chef are a testament to, some of this pushback is due to the irritating fervency of some low-carb diet acolytes.
However, it also comes down to the power of the sugar-based food industry, which continues to succeed due to a) people’s confusion about what’s good for them, and b) the fact that a lot of their food is just too tasty to quit.
Of course, people like The Fitness Chef fanning the fire the other way doesn’t help. While he has a point that overall energy balance determines whether you get fat, in his quest to be controversial he consistently underestimates how what you eat effects this balance.
Counting calories is everything if you believe The Fitness Chef. But as nutrition coaches like Max Lugavere point out, if you eat healthy foods your body has a natural mechanism that will kick in to stop you eating too much; feeling full.
This is why sugar makes you fat — not because calories from a Mars bar ‘weigh more’ but because after eating a Mars Bar you are liable to polish off an orange juice, a Kit Kat and then search the house for something nice and salty to round it all off.
Or is that just me?
Anyway, as Gary Taubes points out, sugar triggers a different hormonal response in the body, promoting a vicious cycle, and in many cases, obesity.
And while the scientific jury is still out on going extremely low carb, the one thing we know for sure is that taking the ‘standard American or Australian diet’ and cutting out the ice-cream, chocolate, and some of the bread and pasta, is a sure fire way to kick-start your weight loss, or simply become a healthier individual.
