FAT CONTROVERSY: HOW BIASED SCIENCE LED TO THE DEMONIZATION OF FAT AND FATTENING OF AMERICA

In this article I am going to present the history and (pseudo)science behind the demonization of fat. What I am going to show is how a researcher’s bias can play into the results of a study (or experiment). What followed from the conclusions of that study is the fattening of America (and the rest of the world) and the current state of obesity and heart disease around the world.

Early Work

It all began in 1912 by a Russian military doctor by the name of Nikolai N. Anichkov, who was the pioneer in establishing the role of cholesterol in the formation of plaque in the arteries. His theory stated that cholesterol alone was responsible for the physical changes in the arterial walls that led to the subsequent development of plaque.

His early work on Arteriosclerosis involved putting rabbits on a diet of bacon and eggs and studying the changes in their arterial walls from a period of 2 hrs to 1 yr.  This work titled “Inflammatory changes in myocardium: apropos of myocarditis,” formed the crux of his doctoral thesis which he successfully defended on 21^st April, 1912. This preliminary work in the experimental model of atherosclerosis was considered a pioneering “classic” and was used by a great number of subsequent researchers in the field.

The early work of Anichkov was published in the Russian literature but his first English medical literature publication was a chapter in Cowdry’s Arteriosclerosis in 1933[1]. Worldwide recognition of Anichkov’s work came only after a science [2] publication by Dr. John Gofman and his associates in 1950. Using Anichkov’s experimental techniques they confirmed the fact that introducing cholesterol in a rabbits diet rapidly led to atherosclerosis. They went a step further and were able to use an ultracentrifuge (which was unavailable to Anichkov during his time), and separate out the hypercholesteremic serum samples of their cholesterol-fed rabbits into 2 distinct groups. The fraction that floated to the surface of the serum sample was designated as low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and the fraction settled at the bottom was designated high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. They further went on to show that low-density lipoprotein cholesterol is responsible for the rapid progression of atherosclerosis. This created a great interest in the worldwide medical community and a spate of research in cholesterol-induced atherosclerosis followed.

Follow up work of Ancel Keys and the Lipid Hypothesis:

Following Anichkov’s work, in 1952 a biochemist by the name of Ancel Keys came up with the lipid hypothesis, which, simply stated that the amount of fat in ones diet was directly correlated to the the incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD). Seems pretty common sense, right? So in order to back-up his “hypothesis”, he looked at epidemiological data from several populations across the globe to correlate dietary fat intake to the incidence of CHD. This led to what was called the ‘7 countries study’ which was a landmark study that changed the course of health for million to follow. The study involved looking at dietary habits of populations from 7 countries (Japan, Italy, Canada, Australia, USA, England and Wales) and the incidence of heart disease over period of a decade. The study didn’t account for any other lifestyle variables like, smoking, exercise habits, pollution levels, stress levels etc. Figure 1 shows the results of this study:

Figure 1. Correlation between CHD Vs. total fat intake (%) in Ancel Keys 7 countries study. Red line is a linear (least-squares) fit to the data.

From these results it’s pretty obvious that the more fat one consumed the more the likelihood for developing CHD. There is no disputing this data. But it didn’t end there. Ancel keys further went on to ‘show’ with his data that the amount of cholesterol in ones diet was directly correlated to the amount of dietary fat and again to the incidence of CHD. This earned him the title of ‘monsieur cholesterol’ and put him on the cover of Time magazine in 1961. He showed us the light and from there on began a crusade to put an end to all fats especially animal (saturated) fats as they were a rich source of cholesterol.

This landmark finding was hailed as the most important discoveries in the quest to end CHD. In fact it was so important that 211 prominent experts in the medical community’s were gathered in a conference in 1978[3] and asked if they thought cholesterol was the biomarker of CHD and 90% of them answered with a resounding ‘YES’! The National Institute of Health (NIH) held a conference in 1984 where they asked a panel of 14 experts if they thought blood cholesterol was the cause of CHD and weather reducing it would prevent heart disease, during which they voted with a unanimous “yes”. The panel further concluded [4]:

It has been established beyond a reasonable doubt that lowering definitely elevated blood cholesterol levels (specifically, blood levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol) will reduce the risk of heart attacks caused by coronary heart disease...

 But little did they know that this was just the beginning of CHD! This was just the tip of the iceberg!

The Trans-Fat Revolution

So from the time Ancel Keys started his land mark study till now, deaths from CHD grew 600-fold, from 1 in a million to 600 in million! In the mean time the banishment of all fat and cholesterol from diet led to the trans-fat revolution and the low-fat fad. The gold rush had just begun!

The vegetable oil companies that were looking to expand in the human consumption market (before this most of the applications for vegetable oils was in the paints industry) found a gold mine in this study. They then started promoting hydrogenated fats which were vegetable oils with an extra hydrogen atom to make the oil solid at room temperature. This gave the consumer the ‘taste’ of butter (which was the fat of choice prior to this study) without having any of the ‘bad’ cholesterol. The other beneficiary of the results of this study was the pharmaceutical industry that found another gold nugget, selling drugs to lower lipid cholesterol levels. A $27 billion gold nugget to be exact (and it continues to grow!). This started a whole new low-fat food revolution that created factory foods where the calories from fat were replaced by calories from simple carbs and sugars. This brings forth the third beneficiary of the gold rush which was the American Heart Association (AHA) which started selling the AHA label endorsements to the low-fat industry, certifying low-fat products.

So while the pharmaceutical and vegetable oil industry and the AHA were reaping the benefits of this gold rush, the consumer was losing all along. The consumer didn’t reap any of the purported health benefits of the low-fat, cholesterol free products and drugs these entities were peddling. Furthermore, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) was mandated with coming up with the recommended dietary guidelines for the general population and they came up with the food pyramid in the 1980’s which relied heavily on simple carbs from grains (at the bottom of the pyramid) and put fat in the prohibited category (on top of the pyramid). This was the turning point in the obesity epidemic, in that from there on the general population started getting fatter and sicker. Americans today are 30 lbs heavier than they were before the USDA guidelines.  The graph in figure 2 shows the trends in obesity and the adoption of carbs (over fat) over the years following the 7 countries study.

Figure 2: Trends in obesity and carb consumption from 1960 (courtesy Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD)

Analysis and Discussion

So what went wrong? Shouldn’t Ancel Keys’ study have unraveled the mystery of CHD? Or did he completely misinterpret the data and some other variable confounded the results of his study? Actually it was none of these. The whole thing started with a wrong experiment and later on was reinforced by incomplete data and poor science and then consensus was built around the faulty notion by the so called medical “experts” and from there on this so called “fact” propagated time and again until it reached epic proportions as we now see it. A quote from Joseph Goebbels aptly sums it up:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it...”

There were three main reasons why this whole thing was wrong to begin with. And it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out these inconsistencies in experimentation that led to this sorry state of affairs (at at least for the consumer’s health). Let’s delve into the simplistic early models and the methodology of the 7 countries study. But before we go any further let me bring forth a few common sense principles that all of us engineers and scientists have been taught to follow during the course of any experimentation. It will all fall in place once you hear me out.

1)    The results of an experiment are only as good as the model it is based upon.

For this let’s step back to the original Nikolai Anichkov’s experiment of putting rabbits on a diet of bacon and eggs. His model assumed that a rabbit’s body could be used to simulate the effect of cholesterol on a human body. So while his interpretation of the results of his tests was absolutely right, his model wasn’t a good predictor of the effect of cholesterol on human body. He plugged the right variables in the wrong equation! You see, rabbits are genetically adapted to a zero cholesterol diet. Their diet is devoid of any cholesterol so their body doesn’t adapt well to cholesterol in diet and will naturally lead to inflammation and plaque formation in the arteries. Humans on the other hand are omnivores that are genetically adapted (for over 140,000 years) to dietary cholesterol, via meat and dairy, and so the effect of cholesterol on a human body would be different from that of a Rabbit’s. Let me give you an example. I propose a test where I put a lion on a diet of carrots and broccoli and see the effect on its health. I am pretty certain that the lion will soon fall sick and perhaps not last 1 year on that diet. So, am I to conclude that carrots and broccoli are fatal to health? I am sure you get the point!

2)    Experimenter bias always has the potential to skew the results

Ancel keys proposed the lipid hypothesis, but a hypothesis needs to be proved through careful experimentation. But when an experimenter is so attached to his hypothesis that he/she starts ‘expecting’ the results in alignment with his hypothesis he only sees data that fits his hypothesis. This is exactly what happened with Ancel Keys. He was so attached to his hypothesis that he only cherry picked data from the 7 countries that fit his model. In fact during his time there was epidemiological data available from 25 countries but he only chose the data points that fit his hypothesis. Again to illustrate my point, let me propose my own lipid hypothesis (call it the Yogi Lipid HypothesisJ) which states that the more dietary fat one consumes the lower ones risk for CHD. I’ll go even better than Ancel Keys and pick data from 8 countries (bigger sample size) and show you the correlation. Figure 3 shows the results of my study:

Figure 3. Correlation between CHD Vs. total fat intake (%) in Yogesh Verma’ 8 countries study. Green line is a linear (least-squares) fit to the data.

From this data it’s quite obvious that the more fat one consumed the less the likelihood of developing CHD! Makes sense, right? My point being, that any scrupulous researcher should consider all data before making any conclusions. Figure 4 shows the data from all 25 countries that were available to Ancel Keys.

Figure 4. Correlation between CHD Vs. total fat intake (%) for all 25 countries. Blue line is a linear (least-squares) fit to the data (left). Table showing the 25 country data (right)

Here, if you look at the (blue) least squares fit it shows a flat line, i.e., no correlation! The variation in the data is of a random variable! That’s exactly right there is absolutely no correlation between the amount of dietary fat consumed and the incidence of CHD! Hard to believe, eh? That’s because we have been fed this utter non-sense about dietary fat and how it increases our chances of developing CHD for so long that we have forgotten that the lipid hypothesis was a hypothesis to begin with and it still is to this day. This brings us to the third important failing point.

3)    Epidemiological studies cannot be used to determine causal relationships.

Epidemiological studies (ES) are the observations of certain behaviors of populations in terms of diet and other health habits. It is the cornerstone of public health research and is used to determine the possible causes to a certain disease or physical condition. ES alone cannot be used to determine a cause and effect relationship between a variable and a particular disease (in our case fat/cholesterol and CHD). At best the role of an ES is to link possible variables to a disease and to form a hypothesis about the cause and effect, which then needs to be verified through carefully designed controlled studies. For example in the 7 countries study (if that was the only data available) the data should have only been used to formulate the lipid hypothesis. Ancel Keys should then have conducted carefully controlled studies to determine the cause and effect relationship between fat intake and CHD, not the other way around, i.e., assume a causal relationship and then look for ES data that fits the hypothesis. The data gathered in any ES can have a lot of confounding variables, like smoking habits, drinking habits, socio-economic stresses, etc. that need to be carefully eliminated in a well designed controlled study.

So the whole fat and cholesterol hypothesis was wrong on three counts. It was driven by a few powerful and influential people and organizations that had to prowess to influence public policy decisions. It was built on consensus by the medical community (AHA) “experts” and other NIH personnel because there was no science to back it up. No one could have said it better than Michael Crichton (the author of Jurassic Park):

I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

"Let's be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

"There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period. . . .

"I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way. ."

I am not saying that the research community isn’t realizing the flaw with the lipid hypothesis. A recent (Jan, 2010) meta-analysis of 21 cohort studies showed no correlation between saturated fat intake and the incidence of CHD[5]. The recent revision of the food pyramid to a “my plate” is evidence of this change. The emphasis on whole grains and vegetables instead of just any carb is evidence of this change. But fat still remains the pariah of the macro-nutrient group and that needs to change. We have been lied to for the last half century and that needs to stop! The medical and research community needs to come clean because thats the least they owe us.

References:

1)    Anichkov NN. Experimental arteriosclerosis in animals. In: Cowdry EV, editor, Arteriosclerosis: A survey of the problem. New York: MacMillan Publishing; 1933. p. 271-322.

2)    Gofman JW, Lindgren F. The role of lipids and lipoproteins in atherosclerosis. Science 1950;111:166-71.

3)    Norum KR (1978). "Some present concepts concerning diet and prevention of coronary heart disease.". Nutr Metab 22 (1): 1–7. PMID 619310

4)    from NIH Consensus Development Conference, JAMA 1985, 253:2080

5)    Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease, Patty W Siri-Tarino, Qi Sun, Frank B Hu, and Ronald M Krauss, Am J Clin Nutr doi: 10.3945/ajcn.2009.27725.

WHAT IS THE CORE

What is the core? I see a lot of people at the gym claim to work out their core when they actually are working out their abs. So what exactly is the core? Simply put, the core is the group of muscles that connects your upper body (head, chest, shoulders, and arms) to your lower body (legs and feet). It consists of the abs, the obliques (the sides of your abs) the lower back, hip flexors and your glutes (butt). The core is a lot more than just a six-pack and its function is a lot more complex than just looking good on the beach. Whenever you lift something off the ground or you throw something, or you pull or push something it involves your core. All athleticism and explosiveness in sports comes from a strong core.

True power, as any martial artist would tell you, comes from the core and is transmitted to your extremities (hands and legs). Let me clarify what I mean by that. Mike Tyson’s arms measure 17" around and Evander Holyfield is a mere 16". Now consider an average bodybuilder with 21" arms. Who do you think can throw the harder punch? The answer is obvious. And the reason Tyson can throw a harder punch with his arm than a bodybuilder with 40% bigger arms is because Tyson doesn't punch with his arm! The arm is a mere medium to transfer the power that is generated in the core. An Olympic lifter with average sized arms and shoulders can lift more weight overhead that any bodybuilder with massive arms and shoulders only because the Olympic lifter lifts with his core and his arms merely serve the purpose of hoisting the weight. So how is this power generated at the core? It’s by being explosive at the hip joint. It’s by having powerful hip flexion that comes from having a strong lower back, hip flexors and glutes. Notice this Olympic lifter in slow motion. You will notice he brings up the weight in a controlled fashion until it reaches his hips and at that very moment he does a powerful hip snap and knee flexion that lifts him off the ground and sends the weight airborne. And as the weight is on its way up he quickly drops under the weight to 'catch' it overhead and then stands upright. At any point during the whole movement he doesn't use his arms to lift the weight. The power is generated at the core from his hip and knee flexion and transfers to the weight via his arms. The same applies to pretty much all athletic activities. The pitcher in baseball throws with a powerful hip rotation and flexion, the football player obviously needs a strong core and lower body to run and plow through opponents. A gymnast flips and somersaults mainly from the energy generated at the core. All of the strength and mixed martial art (MMA) athletes need a strong and explosive core and so do basketball players.

So now that we know the importance of a strong core, the next obvious question is how you train to attain it. Again, dare I say 'functional training?' Once again the best way to train functionally is to train the body as one whole unit and not in pieces (isolation exercises on the machines). While doing crunches will give you an enviable six-pack (if your body fat level is low enough) it won’t do much to give you a strong core. Planks, renegade rows, overhead squats, Olympic lifts, various kettle-bell drills (swings, snatches, Turkish get-ups etc) and most Pilates will give you a strong core and will make you more functional. Until next time…

THE DRAWBACKS OF CONVENTIONAL WEIGHT TRAINING SPLIT ROUTINES

By now you must have gotten a pretty good idea that I am a proponent of strength or weight or resistance training. Having been doing some form of resistance training since my 20’s I have always been drawn to lifting weights over, say, running on the treadmill (although at one point in my life I was addicted to running). But I have always stuck to conventional methods of training perpetuated by the bodybuilding community.  In the past few years, thanks partly to CrossFit, I got interested in the Olympic style of weight training or functional strength training and realized it was much more taxing on my system not only metabolically but also mentally. So how does functional strength training differ from the conventional exercises in the gym? Well for one you get much more work done per unit time doing, for example Olympic lifts, than perhaps a shoulder press or bench press. Let me clarify what I mean by that. The technical definition of work is the force times the distance moved (W=F*d), or the amount of weight you move times the distance it moves. So if you take the example of bench pressing 100lbs . The amount of work you do bench pressing this weight over a distance of 15 inches (20 inches if you have long arms) is 1500 force units (ignore the mixed up units for now). Now take the same weight moved in a Olympic snatch. The weight moves all the way from the ground to the top of your head over extended arms which would be about 6.5 ft (for an average 5.5 ft person). That would be 78 inches. So the amount of work done would be 7800 force units. So the work done is about 6 times more for the snatch vs the bench press. So basically I would have done the same amount of work in 1/6^th the time doing the snatch vs. doing the bench press. So instead of spending one hour in the gym I can get the same work done in 10 minutes. 

That’s just one part of it. The second and more important part is functional vs. specialized strength. Just to give you an example consider a guy in the gym that does countless sets of shoulder presses and bicep and tricep curls on the shiny machines and is ready for prime time on the beach with his impressive body but after he packs his suitcase to head out for a weekend trip to the beaches of Miami he throws his back out while putting that suitcase in the airplane’s overhead cabin and ends up in the hospital instead. Alright that example is a bit extreme but you get the drift. Basically his training methods are making him some impressive muscles but are not making his body any more ‘intelligent’ in the sense that his body is not able to put the strength to any real life functional use. This is the biggest gripe I have with the current system of training that’s perpetuated by the bodybuilding community that trains a body for mere aesthetics. The split routines that individually focus on every single muscle for maximum growth and size create a disconnected system of muscles that are very strong in their own little range of motion but cannot ‘work together’ to complete a functional task. It actually creates muscle imbalances and makes the body ‘dumber’, if you know what I mean. 

This is where the ‘intelligent’ part of functional training comes into play. Unlike conventional bodybuilding type isolation exercises that are muscular in nature, Olympic lifting for example, is neuromuscular. It not only trains the body but the mind as well. It teaches the muscles to work in coordination in order to complete the task of lifting the weight from the ground to overhead in one explosive movement. This requires training the mind & body as one single unit which is how the body functions in real life. Take for example lifting a heavy suitcase and putting it in the overhead cabin.  You have to first bend your knees pick up the object keeping a tight straight back and then be able to stand up and push it up over your head into the cabin. This requires all the muscles in your body, the legs, back, core, hips, arms and shoulders to work in tandem to complete the task. So when life’s challenges require your body to work as a single unit why train the body to work in disconnected pieces? After all the goal of any fitness program should be to make you healthier and fit to take on life’s real challenges and not just to look good on the beach. 

Don’t get me wrong, but I have a lot of respect for the sport of bodybuilding (if you consider it a sport) as it requires the utmost disciplined diet and training regimen and I certainly don’t mean that bodybuilders aren’t healthy (at least the ones that don’t dope) or strong. There is a place for isolation type exercises but only if you are recuperating from a specific injury and not if you are training for general fitness. So go run, swim, lift sand bags, kettlebells, play sports and get healthy and ready to take on life’s real challenges rather than spend 2 hrs everyday in the gym doing isolation curls and calf raises so you can look impressive in those sleeveless shirts and shorts.

MY KETTLEBELL, OLYMPIC LIFTING & PALEO JOURNEY

Finally after getting tired of carrying the extra gut around all day, I decided to do something about it. I have always been on and off some form of weight training so the choice of exercise program came naturally to me. But instead of the conventional gym exercises I choose to do some form of ballistic training using Kettlebells and Olympic lifting. Diet was based around conventional (pseudo) Paleo ingredients like meat, seafood, some dairy, nuts, beans, lentils, veggies and fruits.  I call it pseudo-Paleo because some of the ingredients like dairy, lentils and peanuts are not allowed in Paleo. My diet basically avoids all simple starches and almost all grains but allows the complex carbs from fruits and vegetables. Basically, a solid program of simple nutritional commonsense and ass busting workouts and no calorie restriction.  I call it the KOP (Kettlebells, Olympic lifting and Paleo) routine! Lets see where I get in 30 days. The journey begins….

Day 1: Jun 19’th (Sunday)

The first week is always the toughest in such a diet regimen. Basically getting your body off the insulin dependence is tough, but it gets used to the low insulin levels in a week or so. I had fruits, lentils, vegetables, quinoa, peanuts and milk. Since I am not counting calories (does that even work?) I am not sure of the number of calories I consumed but I wasn’t hungry after any meal, so enough calories but no exercise on day 1. Starting body weight 205 lbs.

Day 2: Jun 20'th (Monday)
After the morning fruit and protein shake, the day started with kettlebell swings, one hand snatches and one handed swings with a 26lb kettlebell. sounds light but 12 minutes of throwing them around had me panting for breath. By the end of the day I was starting to miss the carbs and felt like my energy level was sinking. That's quite normal as the body sees the withdrawal effects of simple starches and carbs. This should be gone by the end of the week and the energy levels will be back to normal again. Morning snack of banana and protein shake, post workout almonds (handful) another shake and an apple. Lunch was half a papaya and a handful of peanuts. Mid-afternoon snack of pistachios and coffee and dinner of quinoa, chicken and veggies. Plenty of calories throughout the day. Day 2 over and tomorrow is another day...

Day 3: Jun 21'st (Tuesday)
Feeling under the gun a little when I woke up. Decided to do some Olympic lifts in the morning. Same old morning snack of a banana and a protein shake and post workout apple and another shake. Lunch of salmon and quinoa. So far the day is going OK no cravings just some lack of energy. mid afternoon snack of marinated chicken and veggies and dinner of two butter pan-friend pancakes made of a few different lentils with peanut chutney. Workout was Olympic cleans. few sets of single rep max.

Day 4: Jun 22'nd (Wednesday)
Today was a light workout day. Just some kettlebell presses. Morning snack of apple and protein shake. Post workout was 3 eggs and butter omelet. Papaya with nuts for lunch. Mid after noon snack of coffee and cheese cubes with grapes and green apple slices and dinner of two butter pan-friend pancakes made of a few different lentils with peanut chutney. Overall I feel the energy level still low especially in the mid afternoon but its improving. Another day gone...:)

Day 5: June 23'rd (Thursday)
Today was a much better day in terms of energy level. I finally feel like I am weaning off the insulin dependance as I didn't miss the usual carbs and my energy level was high throughout the day even though I had a tough workout. I did Olympic snatches, Kettlebell renegade rows and kettlebell military presses. I had the usual fruit and protein shake in the morning. Three egg butter omelet post workout. Lunch of apple and nuts. mid-afternoon snack of pistachios and half an apple and coffee. Dinner of quinoa, lentils and veggies and a bed time glass of buttermilk.

Day 6: June 24'th (Friday)
Again a good day in terms of energy levels. Started off the morning with some squats and kettlebell swings. The same morning snack followed by 3 egg butter omelet and quinoa and veggies post workout. light lunch of and apple and few almonds. Mid afternoon snack of a protein shake and dinner of quinoa and pinto beans soup. Now there is no missing the simple carbs and the energy levels are great! Lets see what the weekend brings! With the parties and some eating out it will be tough to stick to my diet but lets see....

Day 7 and 8 (Sat and Sunday)
Two days of much needed rest. Pretty much the same diet routine in the morning minus the two protein drinks. Banana and nuts for breakfast, Bacon, eggs and quinoa for lunch. And I am proud to say I was able to resist all the goodies at a party like samosas, biryaani and daal makhni and just stick to salad and palak paneer (spinach and cottage cheese)...woohoo. That wasn't all, come Sunday there was pudding, kachoris, pooris and other delicacies made at home for another party and yet again I was able to resist the yummy food and stick to my quinoa, chicken, salmon, veggies and eggs. I would be lying if I said I wasn't tempted with all the good food around me all weekend, but it paid off keeping myself in check. I ended the week at a body weight of 202 lbs. That's 3 pounds off in the first week! Since my routine is pretty much going to be the same as week 1, I'll only update once a week going forward. Now on to week 2...

Week 2
Week 2 was just like week 1 only easier with the diet. I am must say I am getting addicted to kettlebells as I didn't do any Olympic lifting and not even my favorite squats. Did the kettlebell variations of Olympic snatches and cleans and jerks. In terms of diet ate a lot more fruits especially mangoes and watermelons (I know its high in sugar but they are the best in summer:)). Ended the week at a weight of 199 lbs. So that's another 3 lbs off. Finally broke under the 200 lb mark after a long time. Will post next week if something changes otherwise I'll post my progress after a month on this diet. Wish me luck...

Week 5
Have been on this program for 5 weeks now and having lost 11 lbs I am more gung ho than ever! Continuing the same diet regimen and believe it or not there is no more cravings for any kind of simple carb.  Got my first pair of professional competition kettlebells (44lbs) and love doing snatch and cleans with them. Built my 150lb sand bag from scratch and love doing shoulder cleans with it. Will continue this program till I achieve my ideal body weight around 180lbs. I am expecting that in the next two months I should be there. Will post and update after 2 months.

FROM PYRAMID TO PLATE: THE NEW USDA FOOD GUIDE

It’s no longer a pyramid! Yes, the new dietary guidelines that came out last week from USDA look more intuitive as they are arranged like a real plate. It’s called MyPlate! I consider it a big step forward for guiding people towards making healthy eating choices. The biggest difference between the old ‘pyramid’ and the new ‘plate’ is that while the old pyramid weighed heavily towards grains, making no distinction between whole and refined grains, the new plate places more importance on fruits and vegetables and recommends half the grain servings come from whole grains. It recommends filling half the plate with fruits and vegetables and the other half with grains and proteins. It recommends getting bulk of your protein from beans, nuts, soy products and lean cut meats and seafood. Instead of dessert it has a side serving of diary to meet the calcium requirements but it recommends that the diary be either non-fat or the low-fat kind. Calcium fortified soy milk is also considered part of the dairy group. 

So where did fat go? Although not obvious if you read into the food groups it does account for fat intake and further makes the distinction between vegetable oils and solid (saturated) fats. While it makes the recommendation to eat a certain amount of oils it lumps all solid fats and sugars into what it calls the ‘empty calories' group. This group, according to USDA, adds calories without any nutritional value.

So what’s my take on MyPlate? I think it’s a step in the right direction towards giving people healthier eating recommendations and should help curb the obesity epidemic to some extent. What I like best about MyPlate is the heavy bias on fruits and vegetables which I think is crucial to a healthy diet. And while they make a recommendation for eating more of healthy oils (poly-unsaturated and mono-unsaturated fats), what I don’t like about MyPlate is that there is no explicit recommendation on what percentage of the daily calorie requirement should come from fat. Moreover I don’t quite agree with lumping saturated fats like butter and coconut oil with simple sugars as empty calories.

THE LINK BETWEEN SALT AND HEART DISEASE

None! Yeah you heard it right, there is no link between salt intake and heart disease. There is certainly a link between high salt intake and high blood pressure (hypertension) but how that translates into a higher risk for heart disease is unclear at best.

Popular theories claim that a high salt intake causes, due to osmosis, the circulatory volume  to be higher in the blood vessels. This higher volume causes excessive pressure along the walls of the blood vessels causing them to thicken and as a result contrict the blood flow. Just as working the muscles hard in the gym causes them to enlarge in size the higher volume required to pump causes the heart to enlarge dangerously.  But if the muscle enlargement in response to stress analogy was true for blood vessels then the blood vessles should enlarge in response the the added stress and it should actually help with blood flow if anything. If the expansion of heart in response to pumping stress was dangerous, then running a marathon would, by the same token, increase the risk for heart disease because its a well known fact that running frequent marathons increases heart volume. The real danger with excessive salt intake is renal stress in response to excreting the excess salt. I call it a real danger because the excess filteration of salt in the kidneys causes a vascular disorder known as “hypertensive nephrosclerosis,” a major cause of kidney disease. 

So while eating excess salt is dangerous for other reasons it has little correlation with heart disease. An 8 year European study found no correlation between salt intake and the risk for heart disease. In fact they found the exact opposite, i.e., people with high salt intake are less likely to die of heart disease. So while I wouldn't advice excessive salt in diet, there is no reason to avoid this condiment and eat bland food.

ROLE OF DIETARY IRON

Iron is an essential micronutrient in our diet. It's part of hemoglobin in blood and serves the purpose of transporting oxygen to cells. It’s also an essential part of many proteins and enzymes that maintain good health and is also essential for regulation of cell growth and differentiation. A deficiency of iron limits the delivery of oxygen to the cells resulting in fatigue, low work efficiency and poor immunity. On the other hand excess amounts can lead to toxicity and in extreme cases, even death.

Dietary iron is present in two forms, heme and nonheme. As the name suggests heme iron is present in the form of hemoglobin and is more bio-available than the nonheme form. Animal sources of Iron like red meat, fish and poultry are rich in heme form of iron (sorry vegetarians, meat wins here again) while the vegetarian sources contain the nonheme form. The following table shows the common sources of dietary iron separated by heme and nonheme sources. Please note that even though the plant based sources of iron seem richer in absolute quantities, they are poorly absorbed in the body. Also most fortified cereal and juices in the market contain the nonheme type of iron.

Absorption of iron in the body depends on the available reserves of iron. If the body is running low on iron reserves the absorption is high and when the reserves are high the absorption is low to protect against toxic effects of excess iron. Also animal sources of iron are absorbed anywhere from 15-35% while the absorption from plant sources is in the 2-20% range. Also iron from animal sources is absorbed independent of other dietary components while absorption of iron from plant sources is dependent on other components in diet.  For example tannins (found in tea), calcium, polyphenols, and phytates (found in legumes and whole grains) can decrease absorption of nonheme iron. Some proteins found in soybeans also inhibit nonheme iron absorption.  Keeping an adequate level of iron in the body is important for vitality and overall health. So if you are feeling fatigued and out of breath doing daily chores and keep getting sick often then perhaps fortifying your daily iron intake is in order.