Lately, I notice that a lot of people, who have never in their life made the effort to read a single book that has to do something with the way the body functions and what it needs to do so, state their really “competent opinion” and give advices about how we are supposed to eat and train. I don’t have a grudge on people, who have the opposite of my opinion, but people who have their own arguments, based on more than the common information printed in newspapers and magazines!
As I’ve mentioned before, I abandoned the need to be always right and to prove everybody that behind my opinion there are AUTHENTIC facts. Lately, I am often forced to listen to people, who explain me how healthy it is to eat fruits and oats for breakfast, a bunch of grains and how fats should be limited!
You will think that it is stupid to listen to this, without ever trying to share my opinion, but I realized that with some people it is completely pointless to discuss some topics and sometimes it is far better to let them do the talking and then just continue on your own path!
And because my blog, is the place where I love sharing my opinion, today I will try to structure some of the reasons, because of which I deeply believe that fats, and not carbs are the preferred fuel source of our bodies! The reasons, that I think prove, that obesity has more to do with eating a bunch of carbs, than it has to do with eating fats!
First of all, let’s get it straight, how myths about what’s healthy and what’s not are being spread!
This happens with the help of scientific studies or to be more accurate with the help of their wrong interpretation! Sometimes when somebody sends me a scientific research, so he could prove me how unhealthy is a diet high in fats and low in carbs, I really want to start hitting my head in the keyboard! It is about time to realize that not just the results of the study, but also the methods and the key factors that are being studies, along with those that are left aside MATTER!
For example, I bet that you’ve heard how The Mediterranean diet is 14 times healthier than the Western diet. They claim that the first one has 14 times less risk for a cardiovascular disease, than the second one! At first sight, this sounds like a HUGE difference, doesn’t it?
Well, I am not so impressed, because I made the effort to read the SCIENTIFIC study that claims this, and take a look at the raw data. After this I found out that the Mediterranean diet has a 0,05% probability to cause a cardiovascular disease and the Western diet carries a 0,7% probability! A big difference, right? 😀 But in reality the first number is really 14 times less than the second one. But is that really such a big difference? Definitely NOT!
But because people, rarely make the effort to take a look at the raw data and trust the statistical data, they get misled, and start spreading myths about healthy eating, changing the habits and the nutrition of thousands of people!
Statistics is a science, which could be used, so it can create the illusion of a significant difference, where in reality such a difference does not exist! So please, be careful when you trust such number! Let’s not forget that the media’s main job is to search for sensations and they don’t really care what are the facts in reality!
So, let’s move forward! If you make the effort, to dig deeper into scientific studies, you will find out that all the researches, which are the resource of the notion that fats in a diet are unhealthy, are actually completely useless? Why?
When I tell you that you should eat more fat, I mean A LOT MORE. Carbs shouldn’t be more than 15% of your daily calorie intake and they should come mainly from veggies. Only if you meet this condition, the big amount of fats, will give the desired results and this will let you to finally get convinced in the truism of my words!
But researches, which claim the low carb, high fat diet to be unhealthy, usually are made on the base of a nutrition plan, which mimics the so called supermarket diet, which contains about 15-20% proteins, and about 40% +- fats and about 40% +- carbs! Do you see the same thing as me? That this diet could really contain more fats, but it also contains almost the same amount of carbs! Let me remind you about my favorite example with the chemical reactions, where the quantity of the different chemicals, included in the experiment has a key role in the final outcome!
What does that mean? That a diet where fats and carbs are in quantities around 40% and a diet, where fats are around 55-65% and carbs are not more than 15%, would lead to a completely different outcome!
This means that the results from these researches could not be taken seriously and could not be referred to the way of eating, that I and other people who eat like me, are trying to popularize!
The worst thing about scientific studies is the incline to make assumptions! By getting the results that a diet which contains 40% carbs and about the same amount of fats + 15-20% proteins, is unhealthy, to make the assumption that every diet which contains more fats is without no doubt unhealthy!
The misleading comes from the fact, that there is no criteria about what is considered a low carb diet and what is considered a high carb diet! Usually diets, which contain less than 45-50% carbs are considered low carb diets, and this couldn’t be further from the truth!
With today’s post, I want to make you think more about the authenticity of scientific researches and to be more careful when you accept everything you’ve read, that has the name of “scientific”, as a final thought and a leading factor, when it comes to determining what is healthy and what’s not! And because the post got too long, I will keep on sharing my opinion and my observations about the myths about healthy eating and what is actually the truth! Stay tuned for the next part tomorrow!
P.S. If you liked this post, please take a minute and share it with your friends! I’d greatly appreciate it!
