LCHF and the “Clarens Beer Festival” conundrum: an opinion piece
I have just come back from a gathering at the Clarens Beer Festival with a bunch of twenty-something’s. One would think that the hot topic with this group of guys and girls would be sport, work, gossip with perhaps a little relevant news or common sense thrown in too. But surprisingly, the “Tim Noakes Diet” was tip of the tongue, the whole weekend long. Imagine my surprise when, sitting around the fire, beer in hand, I was accosted at length from a number of my friends to shed light on the Tim Noakes diet and what I thought of it. In the end, I counted 6 of the 18 of us, “on the diet”, constituting pretty much one third of the group!
The predominant concerns, questions or issues raised from these somewhat staunch defendants, was that “I am eating what I like and losing so much weight. You can’t fault that!” Um. Actually, you can. I was #sorrynotsorry to burst their LCHF bubble.
Calorie deficit
This article http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2763382/ with 811 participants concluded that “reduced-calorie diets result in clinically meaningful weight loss regardless of which macronutrients they emphasize.” One could essentially lose weight eating 3 chocolate bars a day if the daily calorie intake was less than the calories expended. But we all agree that this is not healthy. This study http://press.endocrine.org/doi/pdf/10.1210/jc.2003-031606 compared a low fat vs. a low carb diet over a 10 week period and found significantly lower iron, potassium, magnesium, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin B1, vitamin B6, folate and fibre levels in the low carb group compared to the low fat group. Eish.
Sustainability
Another concern was the waning self-control that ensued as the weekend rolled on. Friday evening, few touched the chips but tucked into the cream cheese dip they came served with. Friday midnight, a few handfuls of chips were sneaked in amidst dancing and festivities. Saturday morning a piece or two of toast with our fry-up, Saturday lunch a prego roll at the beer festival, Saturday evening 2 drunken “boerie rolls”. And, Sunday…well, Sunday was a day of guilt and self-retribution concerning the gluttony of the weekend past. In one weekend the “Tim Noakes diet” went from hero to zero for most. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am sure the majority of the dieters were back on track on Monday, and leeway granted – we all have a bad weekend here and there. But my argument is that those of us not on the diet were able to enjoy the odd food “splurge” over the weekend with no guilt and no need for drastic reversal come Monday. Why? Because, a committed moderate healthy diet is actually sustainable. How are the LCHF proponents going to commit for the rest of their lives to this diet, when one weekend alone constitutes a challenge?
No carb vs lower carb
The last point I’d like to make was that the overall impression was that those “on” the diet claimed they weren’t actually “doing” the diet they were just reducing carbohydrates and cutting out sugar. For years Dietitians have been giving 40-45% CHO for weight loss diets. What is that in grams? For both male and female weight-loss plans this is approximately between 90-145g carbs which falls comfortably within the Tim Noakes guideline of 50-200g daily. So this begs the question, are those faithful LCHF fans actually on a radical diet? Or, are they adhering to healthy weight loss guidelines that have been, and are currently being, advocated by Dietitians. This article shows the purchasing choices of Americans as compared with dietary guidelines advocated: http://ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2013-february/americans-food-choices-at-home-and-away.aspx#.Uw2IKvmSxqW It gives an indication that people do not follow dietary guidelines. In my opinion, extreme LCHF is therefore not the answer, wholistic, sustainable nutrition education for the long-term, is.
