Say yes to low-carb diets!
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Forget everything you've read about the Atkins Diet and how it was discredited - Professor Tim Noakes has! Find out more about why you should switch to a low-carbohydrate diet...
You could be carbohydrate resistant and not even know it! Tim Noakes, Discovery Professor of Exercise and Sports Science at the University of Cape Town, is telling us to ignore all previous advice about carbs (including his own book - "If you've got Law of Running, tear out the section on nutrition!").
In the course of his research on the subject, Noakes discovered four key facts about carbohydrates and their effects on our health and weight:
1. We've been eating meat far longer than bread
In a column for Discovery Health's newsletter, Noakes writes, "cereals and grains have been a staple of the human diet for only the past 20 000 years, whereas we began to eat meat perhaps 2,5 million years ago. More interestingly, this change from a protein- to a cereal-based diet produced a reduction in average human height and the first appearance of nutritional-deficiency diseases, including beriberi, pellagra and scurvy. These diseases led to the discovery of vitamins only in the early 1900s."
2. We're better designed to digest protein than carbs
Noakes' research suggests that the reason for humans' current size and particularly for our large brains is that early in our history we discovered high-protein foods (such as meat and fish) from sustainable sources. Over the years our intestine has evolved to become especially well designed for digesting high-protein foods.
3. Low-carb weight-loss diets are effective
Research shows that low-carb weight-loss plans are at least as effective as the traditional low-fat, high-carb slimming diets, and are not responsible for any of the rumoured nasty side effects diets like the Atkins Diet have been accused of.
4. Protein is an effective appetite suppressant
Writes Noakes, "perhaps because a too-high-protein diet is toxic to humans. As a result, low-carbohydrate diets with increased protein do not cause the frequent sensations of hunger and privation that accompany calorie-restricted, high-carbohydrate diets. This absence of hunger is more likely to encourage compliance and sustained weight loss. In contrast, there may be an addiction, especially to rapidly-assimilated carbohydrates like sugar and refined carbohydrates, that drives the overconsumption of all foodstuffs, fat included, and hence leads to weight gain."
Noakes suspects that the truth about carbohydrates and their health consequences has been suppressed as too many large industries that produce refined carb products (soft drinks, sugar and confectionary) stand to lose a lot if people were to go low-carb. In order to test his theory about the low-carb diet, Noakes underwent an experiment on himself: avoiding pasta, grains, cereals and rice, and replacing them with healthy meats, fish, fruit, vegetables and healthy fats, like nuts.
"Five months later, I am at my lightest weight in 20 years and I am running faster than I have in 20 years. For the first time since I ran heroic weekly mileages in training have I learned exactly how to maintain an ideal body weight without any sense of privation. And with only as much exercise as I want to do."
Sounds like it's worth a try!
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