Recently, I was asked by a gym member what I thought about an article titled “5 Reasons Carbs Are Not The Enemy” which was written by a dietitian and published on the website of one of the gyms (Goodlife Health Clubs) where I work.
Aside from agreeing with the first two lines of the article, I pretty much disagree with everything else – and here’s why. The article misses the mark on some of the most basic principles of metabolism, it mischaracterizes the low-carbohydrate diet, and it ignores the latest scientific evidence.
1. The author claims that carbohydrates “help to balance your energy levels” and justifies this by saying that low glycaemic index (GI) foods help achieve a “steady, stable stream of energy for two or more hours post consumption”. This is plainly wrong.
When researchers actually put this to the test under experimental conditions, they found that after ingesting carb-laden food with a known GI, the blood glucose response in 63 different people was so wildly varied and unpredictable that the researchers had to conclude that the “GI” value of food could not be used to predict anyone’s glycaemic response.[1]
Nutritionist Jennifer Elliott published a detailed critique of the flawed GI concept in a submission to the Western Australian Government’s investigation into type-2 diabetes (T2DM) prevention and management. She wrote:
“GI ranking of foods [is] one of the most inane concepts in the world of nutrition, despite reasonable competition… The harm caused to people with diabetes in putting their faith in the GI as a way to make food choices that will help manage their condition, instead of a method with a sound physiological basis and proven benefits eg reducing carbohydrate intake, is potentially immense.”[2]
It only takes common sense to realize that minimally processed foods and whole foods like eggs, fish, meat, and butter do not cause dramatic spikes in blood glucose levels; they provide sustained satiety and should constitute the majority of your diet.
The article posted on the gym’s website also claims that “very few people can maintain a low-carb diet beyond 3-6 months, without negative side effects.” A recent peer-reviewed study led by Dr. Sarah Hallberg published in Diabetes Review[3] demonstrated long-term adherence to a low-carb diet that included healthy, satiating fats. The study, funded by Virta, presented data from the first 12 months of a five-year study investigating standard-of-care, low-fat, and low-carb therapies.
I myself have been following an LCHF approach to nutrition for six years, and it is easy. What I find frustrating is when we are constantly told by so-called experts that our brains are going to stop working if we don’t eat enough carbs.
The truth is that on low-carb diets, once we become “fat burners” instead of “carb burners”, our brains can also use ketones (a byproduct of fat metabolism) as a supplementary fuel source.
I have personally coached over 200[4] people over the last three years to improve their health and move away from the poor advice being disseminated to the public. The majority of them are still following their new lifestyles and are loving it.
Professor Tim Noakes,[5] who founded the Sports Science Institute of South Africa and was awarded the prestigious South African Association for the Advancement of Science prize, also adopted an LCHF approach six years ago after his father died from T2DM.
Prof. Noakes was shocked after he himself developed T2DM despite being a fit marathon runner. He blamed the constant “carb loading” he did in preparation for his marathons as well as his family history. As a result, he has become one of the world’s biggest advocates for LCHF and has established a research foundation[6] to help turn the tide on obesity and diabetes.
2. The article claims that carbs are “essential for exercise performance.” However, one of the most enduring myths about carbohydrates is that they are “essential” in the diet. Even the most basic biochemistry book will tell you that dietary carbohydrate is not essential macronutrient,[7], unlike protein and fat.
I am not suggesting that we remove all carbohydrates from our diet, as the consumption of appropriate vegetables, depending on your own level of insulin resistance, body composition, and intensity of exercise are important considerations.
The key point is that you do not need to consume carbohydrates because your body can synthesize all the glucose your body needs to carry out the biological process of growth and metabolism. The liver is able to perform this function in a process known as gluconeogenesis.
Research by Dr. Eric Westman analyzed the traditional diets and health statuses of the Inuit, who ate very low-carb high-fat diets, and it clearly shows that these people were very healthy and able to work very hard for weeks and months without ingesting carbohydrates.[8]
While there are healthy populations that have eaten relatively high-carbohydrate diets compared to the Inuit, or the Maasai in Tanzania and Kenya in general, the world has become obese and sick by following the mantra that we need to eat mostly carbs and should not deprive ourselves of them.
There is growing anecdotal evidence that marathon runners and those participating in Iron Man and other ultra-triathlon events have improved their performance after reducing their daily intake of carbohydrate-rich foods.[9]
If you’re interested in hearing more, there is a podcast featuring Stefano Passarello, a CEO based in Hong Kong, who has attained the highest level of triathlon success in his very first year in the sport.
A 2:26 marathon runner who turned to triathlons due to repeated injuries, Stefano qualified for the Hawaii Ironman World Championships and ran a 2:53 marathon off the bike in Kona! This is the third fastest amateur marathon split in the 40-year history of the Ironman!
Stefano’s approach to nutrition is ultra-low-carb.[10][11]
From my own experience over the last six years, I have been training 15 hours a week for Half Ironman and marathons and my performance has increased. I train endurance athletes, all of who follow an LCHF approach to nutrition and it works. Some of the world’s best endurance athletes follow this approach.
I also know from personal experience, when I was following the advice of a highly qualified (but mainstream) nutritionist, I was overweight, frequently injured, and always hungry and stressed. Since sacking them and moving to an LCHF approach, I have been between 64-66kg for six years and running and performing faster than when I was 48.
Interestingly, Virta co-founder and CEO Sami Inkinen[12] won his age group at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships only to find out that the same year, he had prediabetes. Unsatisfied with the conventional wisdom of “exercise more and eat less,” Sami delved into the causes of T2DM, leading him to Drs. Stephen Phinney and Jeff Volek, renowned experts on the science of carbohydrate restriction and metabolic health. In a recent blog they wrote:
“Published science has shown that ketones that are produced from either dietary fats or triglycerides stored in our adipose tissue reserves are an excellent fuel for the brain. Further, we now know that these ketones produced by the liver also have multiple beneficial effects on the heart, kidneys, and other organs that appear to translate into improved longevity.[13] [14] [15]
Additionally, new research has highlighted that skeletal muscles, even those of competitive athletes, are not solely dependent on high dietary carbohydrate intake for glycogen replenishment and performance [16].”
Sami Inkinen 2011 Ironman World Championships
Getting back to the article about why you allegedly “need to be eating carbs”, the author also falsely states that if you are “not consuming enough carbohydrates to fuel your exercise, replenish glycogen stores and support essential bodily functions, there is a risk your protein intake will be used for these tasks, and not for muscle growth and repair”, and that this will leave you “vulnerable to injury and illness in the long term.”
This statement is breathtaking, as is the claim that if you are looking to build size and muscle mass, carbohydrates can help you “reach the calorie surplus you need.” To understand how misleading this claim actually is, you only have to read the seminal work of Phinney and Volek: The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance.
Phinney is a physician and Volek is a dietitian and former champion powerlifter; both have been on a ketogenic (very low-carb, very high-fat, moderate-protein) diet for upward of two decades. They also happen to be two of the world’s foremost experts on the topic of carbohydrates and sports performance.
3. The article claims that high-fiber carbohydrate foods promote bowel health. However, a closer analysis of the literature has led doctors to believe that the benefits of fiber have been oversold.
For example, a well-designed study showed that issues relating to constipation, bloating, bleeding, and pain significantly improved when people cut fiber from their diet.[17]
In a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, there was a major review article on the causes and treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).[18] One of the points discussed was the role of fiber in bowel function.
For years, modern gastroenterology has put an emphasis on the fiber theory of bowel function which, briefly stated, is the theory that those who consume lots of fiber will have healthy bowel function. Fiber, by the way, is a term that encompasses the family of complex carbohydrates and other substances that are present mainly in the cell walls of plants used as food.
The term includes cellulose, gums, mucilages, pectins, and lignins. Humans cannot digest fiber, and yet these substances are said to contribute to the health of the digestive tract.
Rather than focusing entirely on fiber, we should look at the intestines as a complex ecosystem. Like all ecosystems, the intestines are populated by a wide variety of organisms, all of which interact with each other and their host.
Each organism needs to be fed and its waste products eliminated, and each individual organism and the organisms as a whole have a profound connection with the health or disease of their host.
The big problem with legumes and whole grains is the fact that they can cause serious damage to our digestion, which can lead to mineral deficiencies in the body. As discussed in the reference from the Weston A.
Price Foundation,[19] phytic acid in grains, nuts, seeds, and beans represents a serious problem in our diets. This problem exists because we have lost touch with our ancestral heritage of food preparation. Instead, we listen to “food gurus” and ivory tower theorists, and we eat a lot of high-phytate foods like commercial whole wheat bread and all-bran breakfast cereals, both of which often contain high amounts of sugar.
The author uses epidemiological studies to justify this claim. However, these types of studies are often fraught with limitations because epidemiological studies that show a “weak association” between two factors cannot prove causation.
For example, the idea that vegetarians are healthier than meat eaters is likely to be because the latter group might smoke more or exercise less – in other words, it may have nothing to do with their meat consumption.
On the other hand, there is a considerable amount of evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs, the so-called “gold standard of modern science) to show that low-carb diets are more effective at managing diabetes and weight gain compared to low-fat diets.
The article also claims that low-carb diets are “trendy”, ignoring the fact that this nutrition approach was the gold standard treatment for people with type-1 diabetes before the development of medications like insulin.
For further reading, I’d recommend the works of US science writer Gary Taubes, author of Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It, and Nina Teicholz’s ground-breaking work Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet.
Is Goodlife Health Club and the fitness industry as a whole focused on the health and well-being of its members and the community?
Misleading advice from articles like the one I write about here is sure to keep its members overweight and struggling to be fit and healthy, which in turn will keep the fitness industry filling the classes and booking those PT sessions.
I feel quite strongly about this issue, and I’m concerned about the conflicts of interest that exist for the fitness industry at large in terms of delivering appropriate, unbiased messages to the community while trying to maintain its profit margin.
It is time to step up and consider this and to really think about the misinformation that is being peddled to the public in an attempt to capture your business.
Andre Obradovic is an ICF Leadership PPC Level Coach, A Primal Health Coach, a Certified Low Carb Healthy Fat Coach, & a Certified Personal Trainer. Andre is also a Founding member of the Dr. Phil Maffetone MAF certified Coach. He is an Ambassador for the Noakes Foundation, and a regular subject matter expert lecturer for the Nutrition Network (a part of the Noakes Foundation) Andre has completed 16 x 70.3 Ironmans and in 2017 he competed in the 70.3 Ironman World Championships. He has completed 18 Marathons and over 30 Half Marathons. Andre currently focuses his athletic competition on Track and Field with the occasional Marathon.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27604773
[2]http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/Parliament/commit.nsf/(EvidenceOnly)/44D0D4EEDB83D60C482582F20028F824?opendocument
[3] https://www.virtahealth.com/blog/2yr-t2d-trial-outcomes-virta-nutritional-ketosis
(more…)As a personal trainer, I have a responsibility to my clients to provide them with the best advice based on up-to-date science.
I recently watched a video interview by some young personal trainers on #wastebook, and the advice they provided about health and nutrition prompted me to write this article. This is a small section of the full article. If you want to learn more and read the full article, simply click here.
As far as I’m concerned, the advice some trainers are providing and the intense training they are putting their clients through, as though everyone is the same, is based on old principles and old science.
The problem is that almost anyone can become a personal trainer these days. With government funding supporting these courses and the number of gyms supporting these personal trainers, I think it’s getting worse.
In my opinion, there is not enough content covering nutrition on the accredited personal trainer's courses in Australia – certainly not enough to provide the proper advice to someone who has had weight problems for years. Because of this, the advice provided can actually do more damage than good.
This includes injuries through high-intensity workouts that often lack appropriate techniques and elevated cortisol (stress hormone) levels, day after day, session after session, which often leads to adrenal fatigue, weight gain, self-doubt, depression, anxiety, and binge eating.
As a fully qualified personal trainer, group fitness instructor, advanced level 1 Les Mills RPM instructor, spin coach, USA and Australian triathlon coach, and currently ranked number one in my 50-54 age group in the AWA Ironman 70.3 rankings, I do know a little about exercise and nutrition (about me).
However, I don’t pretend to know it all, and I turn to real experts in their fields for guidance.
With help from these experts, I’m going to correct some nutritional advice provided by some young personal trainers. After four years of restructuring my approach to nutrition and reading an extensive list of books, I have decided to collate much of what I have learned in order to save you four years of your own research.
If after reading this article, you do decide to fundamentally challenge your beliefs on training and nutrition (thanks, Prof. Noakes), you should book some time to talk to me.
Dr. Jason Fung says that the reason why traditional societies can eat high-carb diets without showing signs of obesity or diabetes is that these carbs are unrefined and unprocessed, which means they are very high in fiber, which is the protective mechanism of the food.
Carbohydrates in their natural, whole, unprocessed form always contain fiber. However, dietary proteins and fats contain little to no fiber because our bodies have evolved to digest these foods without the need for them.
For instance, the Okinawans base their diet on sweet potatoes and consume an estimated 80% of their calories as carbohydrates.
The fiber content in the sweet potato protects against obesity. Until recently, they were one of the longest-living peoples on earth. The Kitavans of New Guinea followed a diet estimated to be close to 70% carbohydrate with no evidence of ill health.
Traditional Italians make their own pasta from flour that they grind themselves – this flour still contains fiber, fat, and protein. It is the introduction of the Western diet into these traditional societies that have caused chaos.
Here is a summary of the impact of the Western diet.
Dr. Tom O’Bryan says: “No human has the enzymes to fully digest the proteins of wheat, rye, and barley. These grains will cause inflammation and intestinal permeability every time they are eaten.
Dr. Alessio Fasano conducted research at Harvard University and recently published a paper that showed that gluten in wheat causes intestinal permeability in every human.
His team studied four populations; recently diagnosed coeliacs, coeliac patients in remission, non-coeliac gluten sensitivity patients, and patients with no sensitivity to gluten, amazingly in his conclusion he states that “increased intestinal permeability after gliadin exposure occurs in all individuals.”
Prof. Noakes says: “Humans do not have any essential requirement for dietary carbohydrates. Humans cannot survive unless they include fat and protein in their diets.
But carbohydrate serves only two functions in humans – it must be either burned as an energy fuel or stored as fat; it cannot be used to build any of the body’s structures.”
Prof. Noakes says: “Weight gain cannot occur without the ingestion of more calories than are needed by the body. In this sense the energy balance model of obesity is correct. But the point is that the over-ingestion of calories cannot occur if the brain appestat is functioning properly, as it did until 1980.
The appestat of the obese must fail because it is especially susceptible to the appetite-stimulating effects of high-carbohydrate foods, especially those found in modern processed foods that are designed with the single goal that they are highly addictive.
It is those addictive foods that have invaded the human food chain in the past 30 years.”
Ben Greenfield says: “Eating less does not create the need to burn body fat. Instead, it creates the need for the body to slow down. Contrary to popular opinion, the body hangs on to body fat. Instead, it burns muscle tissue, and that worsens the underlying cause of obesity.
Only as a last resort, if the body has no other option, it may also burn a bit of body fat. When you are starving your metabolism wants more stored energy and body fat is the greatest source of stored energy – so it holds onto it.
Your tissues burn a lot of calories so when your metabolism thinks you’re starving it gets rid of calorie-hungry muscle tissue. Studies show that up to 70% of the weight lost while eating less comes from burning muscle – not body fat.”
Tim Rice says: “The old disproven “calories in vs. calories out” model of weight loss simply doesn’t work and does not account for the differing hormonal effects of varying macronutrients.
It is much more likely that an overweight person has eaten too much of the wrong kinds of foods and unfortunately, due to misguided nutritional advice given out by most healthcare providers, they don’t even know what the wrong kinds of foods are.”
Prof. Noakes says: “Persons with insulin resistance have a reduced capacity to burn carbohydrates as fuel both during exercise and when at rest. Humans differ in the ease with which they will gain weight when exposed to a high-carbohydrate diet.”
Tim Rice says: “Obesity is a slow, degenerative, metabolic process of gradually increasing degrees of insulin resistance.
No one just wakes up one day to discover that they are obese. The simplistic “eat less, move more = weight loss” was conceived under the notion that all calories behave the same in our bodies.”
Dr. Jason Fung says:
Dr. Aseem Malhotra says that “it’s about the quality of the research – Cambridge Medical Research Council did a very big study, with over 600 thousand participants, which concluded that saturated fat could be part of a healthy diet as long as you’re getting the rest of it right.
Cut out refined carbs and sugar, and have vegetables, olive oil, nuts, oily fish, and some meat. Fat is very satiating and has the least impact on insulin responses.”
“Too much-refined carbohydrates — white bread, white rice, potato products — all the foods that crept into our diets as we’ve followed the low-fat craze has undermined our metabolism.
In other words, the high-carb, low-fat pattern of eating caused us to become hungrier and burn off fewer calories. It’s a double-whammy for weight gain. We’ve been told for decades that if you don’t want fat on your body, don’t put fat into your body. It’s a very appealing notion, but the problem is it’s wrong,” says Dr. David Ludwig.
In conclusion, it’s important to look at all aspects of the human body when it comes to health and exercise. Below, I have provided a summary of the key points to consider before embarking on a health and lifestyle change.
Each individual is unique, and although one individual may be able to utilize carbohydrates effectively, another may not. Listen to your body and think about how your body reacts to what you feed it. Choose your carbohydrates wisely – select whole, unprocessed carbs with fiber instead of refined carbs.
If you’re going to be eating carbohydrates, make sure that you’re using them for fuel. Otherwise, they will be stored as fat, particularly if you’re insulin-resistant. Avoid wheat at all costs, as it causes damage to all individuals.
Exercising more and eating less is just going to make you hungry, which in the long run is an unsustainable approach because eventually, you’ll revert to your previous way of eating and put all of the weight back on, and possibly more.
This happens because the body reacts to weight loss by trying to return to its original set body weight.
The first step to getting lean is to get the appestat working again.
You’ll know that it’s working correctly because you won’t be hungry. If you’re lean, it means that your appestat is functioning perfectly. If you are overweight, it’s because your appestat is not working.
Eating processed carbs distorts the appestat and tells you to eat more than you should, which makes you put on weight and keeps you hungry.
Reduce the number of carbs in your diet and increase the fat to keep you satiated. “Banting works so effectively in so many because it quietens the appestat so that calorie consumption drops without hunger and weight is lost effortlessly.” – Prof. Noakes
I’ve helped many people lose weight and keep it off by following the above principles. Let me guide you to your optimal health and ideal weight.
The approach I take is based on the Real Meal Revolution’s four-phased approach to weight loss as a certified low-carb, healthy fats coach.
I include one-on-one coaching sessions that will help you change your mindset to really optimize your life.
https://idmprogram.com/fibre-reduces-insulin-how-to-lose-weight-x/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25734566
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3384703/
The world’s healthiest foods are the basis for my preference for fueling after exercise. I train in excess of 24 hours a week, so I take this seriously. They are whole foods and they are nutrient-rich. Here are the three top takeaways:
This is full of vitamins K and A. It also contains high levels of manganese, folate, magnesium, iron, and potassium.
Moreover, spinach contains significant protection against damage to cell structures, and the flavonoids act as anti-inflammatory compounds, which help with recovery. It’s a major source of selenium – an antioxidant – and helps lower the risk of oxidative stress.
(Go easy if you’re trying to lose weight.) If you are lean, this is great food, but serve them with sour cream and good quality butter. Why? Because good healthy fats help keep our blood sugar lower, which lowers the impact of insulin on storing FAT.
Sweet potatoes have an unusual blood sugar-regulating benefit; they contain adiponectin, which is a protein hormone produced by our fat cells, and it serves as an important modifier of insulin metabolism.
The vegetable is also a high source of bioavailable beta-carotene. It promotes antioxidant and anti-inflammatory protection and is high in vitamins A and C.
This vegetable is on the top of the clean fifteen of organic foods. It’s full of mono-saturated fats, high levels of phytosterols, and polyhydroxylated fatty acids with excellent anti-inflammatory benefits. It also increases our HDL and lowers our LDL cholesterol.
The combination of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds in winter squash has shown this food to have clear potential in the area of cancer prevention.
It’s high in vitamins B1, B3, and B6, which are also beneficial for blood sugar control.
High in levels of carotenoid, they also have an important antioxidant function of deactivating free radicals, which are single-oxygen atoms that can damage cells by reacting with other molecules.
This is full of health-promoting compounds such as glucosinolates, which promote detoxification. It also contains high levels of phytonutrients, antioxidants, and carotenoids.
It’s high in vitamin K and C and chromium, and it’s great for heart health, digestive health, and metabolism.
Don’t eat it raw, just lightly cooked and covered with olive oil or butter.
This contains high levels of CLA, or conjugated linoleic acid (2.5 times more than from non-grass-fed beef).
The benefits of this are increased immune and anti-inflammatory system support, improved bone mass and blood sugar regulation, reduced body fat, and maintenance of lean body mass. Don’t be scared of eating the fat in the meat.
Ribeye and scotch filet are fantastic – cook it with good-quality butter, lard, or olive oil or grill it on a BBQ grill. Never use vegetable oils. Beware of beef that is finished on grain. Ask questions and do your research for the best meat possible.
There are significant benefits here for cardiovascular support because of the high levels of Omega 3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic (EPA).
One serving can deliver 450mg of EPA. Numerous inflammation-related health problems have been shown to be reduced with improved EPA intake. The meat is also one of the top sources of vitamin D to help with pro-inflammatory signaling.
Moreover, it contains high levels of selenium, which supports the function of metabolism and protects from oxidative stress. (Only buy wild-caught salmon, not farmed, as farmed fish is usually fed grain.)
These are very high in vitamin B12 and selenium and very rich in heart-healthy Omega 3 fatty Acids (EPA) and bone-building calcium.
They promote heart health and, like salmon, they have excellent levels of alpha-linilenicacid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).
They are one of the top foods for Omega 3 richness, even higher than salmon. Have them for breakfast and power your body through the day and after your workouts.
Free-range/pasture-raised eggs have very broad nutrient support. All B vitamins are found in eggs. They also contain high levels of choline, iodine, and selenium, as well as high levels of Omega 3s and excellent levels of phosphorus.
This is critical for your bones, teeth, and DNA/RNA. It’s also one of the main regulators of energy metabolism in organs and helps generate energy in every cell of your body.
The best thing is that eggs can be easily taken to the gym boiled and are a great fast, healthy meal to eat any time, not just for breakfast. I eat two eggs every day of the year without fail.
Flaxseeds or flaxseed meals and oils are excellent for athletes.
They are unique in regard to nutrition, being incredibly rich in anti-inflammatory Omega -3 fatty acid and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). Special support is provided for digestive health that’s critical for proper nutrient uptake into our bodies. It’s a great food to support women’s health to lessen menopausal symptoms too.
Finally, it’s high in fiber to help with the passage of food through the digestive tract, which is critical for our ability to take in nutrients so we can train and recover properly.
Andre Obradovic is an ICF Leadership PPC Level Coach, A Primal Health Coach, a Certified Low Carb Healthy Fat Coach, & a Certified Personal Trainer. Andre is also a Founding member of the Dr. Phil Maffetone MAF certified Coach. He is an Ambassador for the Noakes Foundation, and a regular subject matter expert lecturer for the Nutrition Network (a part of the Noakes Foundation) Andre has completed 16 x 70.3 Ironmans and in 2017 he competed in the 70.3 Ironman World Championships. He has completed 18 Marathons and over 30 Half Marathons. Andre currently focuses his athletic competition on Track and Field with the occasional Marathon.
The way my story started out is probably very similar to your current one, but it has a happy ending, and yours can too.
In 2014, I was about 10 kg heavier than I am today. I was doing everything “right”; I was on a highly structured low-fat diet from a nutritionist, eating at least six times a day, and running 70 km a week.
I was constantly watching what I ate, and even though I ate so many times during the day, I was still hungry. And no matter how much I punished myself in the gym and on the road, the roll around my tummy wouldn’t budge.
My life was a constant tug-of-war to try and burn the calories I was consuming and get the body I always wanted to be able to perform in the best way. I was tired, hungry, overweight, stressed, frustrated, and at my wit’s end.
When you’re at your breaking point, that’s usually when you have an epiphany. Mine came at the end of 2014 when I went to watch Dr. Stephen Phinney talk about nutrition.
From that moment on, I had to challenge my beliefs about healthy eating because his talk made me see that I was doing everything wrong, even though I thought I was doing all the right things!
The fact of the matter was that I was insulin-resistant. My body was storing all the excess sugar from the carbs I was eating as fat, and that’s why I couldn’t lose weight.
No amount of exercise was going to help if I didn’t change what I was eating. Prof. Noakes experienced this firsthand and even reversed his stance on eating a high-carb diet to fuel performance. He says, “If you have to exercise to regulate your weight, your diet is wrong!”
My fear of fat was huge because low-fat eating had been drummed into my brain, and I was addicted to all the carbs I had been consuming.
Nevertheless, I decided to conduct an experiment on myself after immersing myself in all the science I had heard at Dr. Stephen Phinney’s talk about the low-carb, healthy-fat lifestyle. So, a few days before Christmas 2014, I dropped all of the carbs I loved so much and focused on real foods and healthy fats.
I had my blood lipid tests done to see what would change after the six-month experiment. The advice I received from my GP was not to do it because, according to him, my cholesterol was too high. When I told him I was following Prof. Noakes’ eating approach, he became even more dismissive. His reaction just made me more determined to give it a shot.
My results after six months were up surprised even me. Not only had I finally lost that stubborn tummy roll, but I could go for a 15 km run and not feel hungry for two or three hours afterward! I had so much energy, and my mental state was stable during the day.
I effortlessly dropped down to eating two meals a day without ever thinking about food, even though I exercised 20 hours a week.
I had a new lease on life, and I had found the inner wisdom to know what to eat and what my body needed. Just look at the results below. My HDL almost doubled, and my triglycerides were down to a much better level.
As a personal trainer and triathlon and endurance coach, I come into contact with about 400 people a month, just in my indoor cycle classes. Through these interactions, I realized that we were all being fed the same information – and it was wrong!
This information was coming from the top and trickling down. I was shocked to read the material that trainers were receiving.
The nutrition courses that I attended were all based on the belief that we had to continue feeding our bodies or our metabolisms would collapse. It was the same in my own triathlon coaching course and personal training course.
The fitness institutes are all pushing the one-size-fits-all approach for clients: a low-fat, high-carb nutrition plan with at least three main meals a day and snacks in between. But where did this even come from when it clearly doesn’t work for many of us?
In the wise words of Dr. Jason Fung, “Nobody makes money when you skip meals.”
I recently attended a group fitness instructor’s module from a world-leading brand, and I was amazed at the number of young people complaining about being dizzy after 45 minutes of exercise and relying on jellybeans and protein shakes to increase their energy when it didn’t seem that they were working all that hard.
One of the girls on the fitness course said to me, “They have no idea that they don’t need all of that sugar. These people, like the majority of the fitness industry, have been conned by the big food companies, soft drink companies, and marketing about needing to refuel before, during, or after a workout on “healthy” sugar-filled foods and drinks.”
Wherever we look, we’re being fed the wrong information, and it’s all driven by greed and profits. Knowing what I knew and how my life had improved from turning standard nutrition on its head, I couldn’t sit back and let my clients believe the wrong stuff. I had to figure out a way to get the message across without stepping on any toes.
Here is an example of what I was dealing with.
As quoted from the article: “Carbohydrate is a key fuel source for exercise, especially during prolonged continuous or high-intensity exercise.”
This may be true if you’re not insulin-resistant, but from talking to all the people I train, it seems the majority of us fit into the insulin-resistant category. If you cannot lose your tummy, or your “insulin roll” as Prof. Noakes calls it, no matter how hard you exercise, then you fall into that category too. Not only will you struggle with your weight, but eating a high-carb diet for a prolonged period can have serious adverse implications for your health.
This paper written by Dr. Stephen Phinney and Prof. Noakes sums up the reasons why you can’t outrun a bad diet.
Last year, after my first triathlon season, I was struck by the number of overweight people racing. I overheard a husband telling his wife that he needed to eat a certain number of carbs for his body weight – otherwise, he wouldn’t run as fast. I was horrified.
He was very overweight and eating a huge bowl of pasta. From my own results, I knew this food was not doing him any favors, and I was tempted to go up to him and tell him so. By losing 10 kg, I was running my best, recovering better, getting fewer injuries, and enjoying life more. So many people were missing out on this quality of life.
I wanted to get my message out there, so I approached my mentor Peter Defty to co-author an article on the beliefs of challenging conventional wisdom for endurance athletes, and it was published in the USA Triathlon Coaching newsletter, with a hugely positive response.
An amazing talk by Prof. Tim Noakes on challenging beliefs has always stayed with me. I was so passionate about this topic that I even read the book with the same title three times. As a coach, I have a role to guide my clients and get them to ask questions so that they can challenge their own beliefs.
Along with the thoughts I often shared on health (hydration, digestion, gut health, and the myths about why we get fat), in the two-minute interval breaks of my spinning classes, I also started to share my story.
Eating two meals a day and being able to train 20 hours a week was met with great intrigue. I challenged my students to match what I ate for breakfast – just an omelet filled with bacon/salmon, spinach, cabbage, zucchini, capsicum, feta, and tomato. And while they were at it, I told them to avoid the sugar in their coffee, as well as bread, potatoes, rice, and pasta, and to see what happened.
The following week, Gemma (not her real name) came to class raving about how great she was feeling. Five weeks later, Gemma showed me a before and after photo of herself; her body shape had changed.
Not only that, but her mental clarity had also improved. According to her, those simple changes were the best thing she had ever done for her health.
Another member of my class was John (also not his real name). He worked out at the gym five times a week but still seemed to put on weight. He asked me how I stayed so lean, so I told him. “Really?” he questioned. “How do you eat eggs without toast?”
I gave him my number and asked him to ring me that afternoon to let me know how he was doing.
He phoned me at 3 pm telling me that he hadn’t eaten since his healthy breakfast at 8am and that he wanted to meet to find out more.
Just eight weeks later, John was still smashing himself at the gym but had now added smashed avocado to his day instead of toast or pasta. He has lost 9.2 kg and was feeling great. Even better was that his constant hunger had disappeared, although he was only eating a maximum of three meals a day.
He had challenged the advice he had received from the fitness industry and had forged his own way forward to better health and performance. That sounds like a happy ending to me!
If you want to optimize your health too (mental, physical, and emotional), consider taking the below steps:
Andre Obradovic is an ICF Leadership PPC Level Coach, A Primal Health Coach, a Certified Low Carb Healthy Fat Coach, & a Certified Personal Trainer. Andre is also a Founding member of the Dr. Phil Maffetone MAF certified Coach. He is an Ambassador for the Noakes Foundation, and a regular subject matter expert lecturer for the Nutrition Network (a part of the Noakes Foundation) Andre has completed 16 x 70.3 Ironmans and in 2017 he competed in the 70.3 Ironman World Championships. He has completed 18 Marathons and over 30 Half Marathons. Andre currently focuses his athletic competition on Track and Field with the occasional Marathon.
Before we started believing the false science about fat and cholesterol, we were lean and did not develop many of the diseases that afflict a significant proportion of the world today. Prior to the 1970s, our grandparents and even some of our parents cooked with lard, butter, or duck fat.
In those days, obesity and diabetes rates were very low. Today, supermarket is full of low-fat products that come with Heart Foundation Ticks. Many of these so-called healthy foods are full of sugar, additives, genetically modified grains/flour, and toxic vegetable oil products.
The thing is that low-fat foods taste awful unless lots of sugar is added. The common misconception that when you eat fat, you get fat is just plain wrong. Why?
In the ‘60s and early ‘70s, cardiovascular disease (CVD) was becoming more prevalent in the USA. CVD was seen as the no. 1 health problem in the U.S. Well-intentioned scientists had an invalid hypothesis that there was a link between dietary cholesterol intake and CVD.
In response to this incorrect science, the government released new dietary guidelines – low-fat, high-carbohydrate food was the order of the day in the newly developed food pyramid. People stopped eating healthy fats and started using highly processed vegetable oils.
These oils have an adverse effect on our bodies right down to the cellular level, and therefore disrupt every system within our body. People were also encouraged to eat high-carbohydrate foods.
Watch this short 5-minute video. How many overweight or obese people do you see in this video from the 1970s?
When we eat highly processed, nutrient-void carbohydrates, they can cause dramatic surges of glucose into the bloodstream.
These constant surges of too much glucose from highly processed food being released into the bloodstream cause many problems for the organs that are trying to control our blood sugar regulation – namely, the pancreas, liver, and adrenal glands. These organs eventually become exhausted and further impact other systems within the body.
As glucose levels soar, excessive amounts of insulin are needed to bring the body back into homeostasis. However, insulin is a storage hormone.
Yes, that’s right – it is a FAT storage hormone. Most people think its job is to lower blood sugar, but this is not true. Its main job is to transport glucose to the cells for energy and then store any excess in the muscles and liver.
When we constantly have too much glucose and therefore too much insulin in our blood, eventually, the liver and muscles become full, and the insulin then carries the glucose to the adipose tissue to be stored as triglycerides. This is the cause of us putting on weight, especially visceral fat around the tummy.
It is therefore the consumption of medium and high levels of carbohydrate foods, along with poor-quality hydrogenated vegetable oils, that have caused us to become fat, not the consumption of healthy animal fats.
Unfortunately, we have all been sold the biggest health lie in the history of the world, and this has created a global epidemic of chronic disease… and massive wealth for a small number of massive global processed food corporations that are complicit in helping people to an early grave.
Blood sugar regulation is a hardwired system in our bodies. Our bodies have the innate intelligence to regulate all their systems. However, today, the intelligence of the body has been largely impeded by stress.
This stress is not just the normal stress you would think about, but rather the significant stress our bodies are put under by having to react to hourly dips and high of blood sugar levels.
Our fear of the very thing that we are led to believe makes us FAT and gives us heart disease is actually the one thing that, if we include it in our diet, can help improve our health.
The best macronutrient for the heart is FAT – our hearts need FAT to operate in an optimized state. Inflammation is the true cause of heart disease. So what causes inflammation? You guessed it: high-carb diets, high insulin levels, processed foods, stress, smoking, and alcohol.
Low cholesterol is not healthy. Low cholesterol is linked with depression, aggression, Alzheimer’s, and suicidal thoughts, to name only a few negatives. Cholesterol is required to make brain cells. You need cholesterol for memory and cognitive function.
Yes, the pharmaceutical industry that makes $30 billion a year is now even pushing for children to take cholesterol-lowering drugs when they are as young as 5 years. T
hey are driving to change the health policies of safe levels of cholesterol. If that isn’t like putting the fox in the chicken coop, I don’t know what is.
Well-meaning researchers wanted to cure the population of heart disease, but they jumped in too fast and sought fame, and they started passionate experiments with ingrained hypotheses.
When the results did not align, they discarded those results and only used the data that supported their beliefs. They then gained positions on the most influential boards and government panels to influence dietary guidelines.
They jumped the gun. The notion that fat makes you fat and eating cholesterol raises your cholesterol are ingrained in our beliefs and seem logical and true. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is this simple concept of “fat makes you fat and eating cholesterol raises your cholesterol” that actually requires a lot of science and understanding to de-bunk, and therein lies the problem.
To prove a simple theory wrong, you have to have a great understanding to truly believe what is counterintuitive. I and many others call this “challenging a belief.”
Sugar of all types is a drug that strips us of our innate intelligence and our dynamic balance to manage our bodies and health. Remember, most low-fat foods are full of sugar.
Let’s challenge beliefs more, as sometimes, we will find that our beliefs are wrong – like that eating healthy fats makes you fat.
If this has piqued your interest, head over to my resources page – subscribe to my newsletter and you’ll be able to access plenty more useful content and hints directly from my members-only resource page.
Clinical trial research shows that people who reduce total carbs are the ones who see the benefit in terms of weight loss, blood glucose control, and lipid markers.
If you really want to get one of the best books on this topic, Nina Teicholz, who reviewed my blog post, provided me with the note below to make more people aware of her book, which I have now read three times and is an international best-seller.
The Big Fat Surprise explains the politics, personalities, and history of how we came to believe that dietary fat is bad for our health. The Big Fat Surprise was also the first mainstream publication to make the full argument for why saturated fats – the kind found in dairy, meat, and eggs – are not bad for our health.
The Economist named it the best science book of 2014 and called it a “nutrition thriller.” The BMJ praised the book in an extensive review, and the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition said, “All scientists…and every nutrition science professional…should read this book.”
Download a pdf version of “Why Do We Get FAT?” (239 kB)
Andre Obradovic is an ICF Leadership PPC Level Coach, A Primal Health Coach, a Certified Low Carb Healthy Fat Coach, & a Certified Personal Trainer. Andre is also a Founding member of the Dr. Phil Maffetone MAF certified Coach. He is an Ambassador for the Noakes Foundation, and a regular subject matter expert lecturer for the Nutrition Network (a part of the Noakes Foundation) Andre has completed 16 x 70.3 Ironmans and in 2017 he competed in the 70.3 Ironman World Championships. He has completed 18 Marathons and over 30 Half Marathons. Andre currently focuses his athletic competition on Track and Field with the occasional Marathon.
