Fat vs Sugar

I watched an extremely interesting show on SBS the other night where two doctors performed a study on whether fat or sugar was worse for you. As identical twins with identical genes they are ideally placed to test the impact of high fat and sugar diets. The findings were quite interesting. They were not allowed to either increase or decrease exercise , they had to continue exactly what they had been doing except one went on a high-fat diet with just 5 per cent carbs while the other had a super low-fat, high-carb regime.

Their gruelling month-long quest, detailed the rival metabolic impacts on both their minds and bodies and saw them both lose weight  The doctor who ate just carbs for the months lost 1 kg of body fat and blood sugar levels were normal and lost no muscle density. The doctor who ate just fat lost 3 kg, 2 kg of muscle density and 1kg of fat. His blood sugar levels were also higher. This was due to not having carbs/suagr so his body had stopped producing insulin because it has no sugar to deal with.

They also did the study feeding laboratory rats with either high-fat and high-sugar diets and this did little to change their daily habits or health, but supply them with chocolate, biscuits and cheesecake (a near 50-50 fat and sugar split) and behaviour changed radically.They ignored other foods for the cheesecake, going back to it regularly rather than gorging, and put on weight. Their self-regulation system, that naturally stopped them eating too much fat or sugar, effectively switched off.

This became their main source of calories. They gained massive amounts of weight, became sedentary, slept a lot and did not move around any more.It was found that the increased processed food was overriding the body’s natural hormones that regulate the bodies calorie intake by alerting the brain that the body has enough calories.

We are surrounded by pretty delicious, relatively affordable and palatable foods, and it has been found that people have to exert quite a level of dietary restraint if they are not going to sleepwalk into obesity.
 

They also found no one food is saint or sinner while modest lifestyle changes and balanced diet is really the way to a healthy lifestyle. Research over the last 10 years has given scientist great confidence to say that no single macro-nutrient diet reduction is the answer. Cutting out a single thing will not solve your weight loss problem. Faddish diets simply do not work very well.It is about building an environment in your life where you can eat healthy diet and get enough exercise.

 

If you find yourself following a fad diet you may find you need to change it within a few months as you rise and fall through weight loss.Processed foods are delicious and we tend to eat a lot of them so it may be a painful conclusion that we have to remove a bit of deliciousness from our lives but you can find healthy foods that are also as delicious.