Today's Los Angeles Times has a series entitled "What's Making Us Fat?", looking at a few of the theories about this. One of them is that "Maybe Low Fat Foods Made Us Eat More". They go on to look at the pros and cons of this theory.
This hypothesis squares very well with the experience of many of us for whom a low-carb diet is helpful in turning down our appetites. We tend to be hungrier on high-carb diets (low-fat diets are usually high in carbs).
One of the opponents, Barry Popkin of the University of North Carolina, says, "there's plenty of evidence that a variety of dietary patterns will sustain weight loss -- low-fat and high in complex carbs; low-carb and high in lean proteins; diets higher in fat. "The issue is cutting calories...".
It's pretty clear by now that people who have issues processing glucose are probably the ones for whom cutting carbs (all of which break down into glucose in our bodies) works the best. If cutting carbs makes it easy to cut calories, then that is an extremely important factor which is often overlooked.
A point in the article brought up by David Ludwig of Harvard is that a diet with a low glycemic load tends to lower our fat setpoints, and that people are less hungry on them. This also resonates with many of us. My weight, though higher than I wish it was, is very stable at about 20-25 lbs lower than when I went on a low-carb diet for the last time about 7 years ago. Year in and year out, I can wear the same clothes! Whee! Also, my blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose, etc, are now normal and stable (although HDL, the "good cholesterol" actually keeps going higher). I wish my setpoint was lower, but I'll take "healthy", thanks!!
Photo © Olga Lyubkina
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