THE GREAT DEBATE John McDougall: High vs. Low Protein Diets A Primer: "Eicosanoid Balance & Essential Fatty Acids" (Doctors'Medical Library) "Impossible Advice": A Rebuttal to the Zone Diet High-Protein Diets: Are you losing more than weight? (Monique N. Gilbert) Few dietary programs have had the kind of impact on the national consciousness as that of Dr. Barry Sears, whose program, known as "The Zone Diet," has spawned not less than four best-selling books on the subject. This page details the specifics of his thinking and how it relates to his dietary recommendations. For those who want to follow the "Zone Diet," our message is simple: you do not need to reply on animal proteins to achieve your dietary goals. Vegetable proteins will allow you to arrive at your destination... Now, for a quick review of Sears' major principles: Fatter Than Ever! For years, Americans have been told to cut down on fats. "Fat makes you fat." "If you want to lose weight, then cut down on your fat calories," etc. And it would seem to make sense, wouldn't it? I mean... weren't we taught in high school biology that fat has twice the calories per gram that protein and carbs do? And yet, Americans are eating less fat than ever before and getting fatter than ever before -- so what gives? Well, the answer is remarkably simple: the "caloric intake" model is just plain wrong. It's been scientifically debunked. The gaining and losing of weight is determined by the hormone, insulin; not the raw calorie counts of the consumed foods themselves. And fat doesn't raise insulin levels. Only carbohydrates do. There are, as it turns out, about 25% of adults who are lucky enough to be blessed with "low insulin response" -- (we've all met people who could eat whatever they want and never seem to get fat!) -- but the rest of us aren't so lucky. Carb-Based Diet Only Recent Early man was exposed to two food groups only: low-fat protein and low-density carbohydrates (fruits and vegetables). Consequently, this is what man is genetically designed to eat. Grains came into the picture about 10,000 years ago, and where human society shifted to grain-eating, archaelogical research tells us that three immediate and dramatic changes took place. Dr. Sears write: Mankind shrank in height from lack of adequate protein. Diseases of "modern civilization," such as heart attacks, first appeared. Obesity first became apparent. Sears goes on to compare Egyptian mummies to the skeletons of Neo-Paleolithic man. "Ancient Egyptians were shorter by about six inches than Neo-Paleolithic man, probably because the Egyptians' protein consumption had dropped so dramatically." Ancient Egyptian medical textbooks going back 3,500 years actually describe heart disease in "frightening detail." These writings are confirmed with the discovery of atherosclerotic lesions on mummies with preserved visceral tissue, even though the average Egyptian lifespan was only twenty years. "Finally," Sears writes, "it is estimated that the extent of obesity in ancient Egypt was similar to the extent of obesity currently found in the United States. We can determine this from the excess amount of skin folds found around the midsections of preserved Egyptian mummies. (Keep in mind that the diet eaten by the ancient Egyptians was very similar to the diet now recommended by the U.S. government for every American. Talk about history repeating itself.)" It Takes Fat to Burn Fat What the calorie-counting crowd doesn't know yet is that fat acts like a "control rod" in a nuclear reactor. Fat slows down the entry rate of carbs into the bloodstream, thus decreasing insulin production. Fat also tells the brain (with a hormonal signal) to stop eating -- yet another way it reduces the production of insulin. Because excess insulin makes you fat, having more fat in the diet is vital for reducing insulin. The best types are monounsaturated: olive oil, guacamole, almonds, and unhydrogenated soybean oil (which Lumen Foods uses). Accessing Your Excess Fat At any given moment, the average American adult carries a minimum of 100,000 calories of stored body fat. That's the equivalent of 1,700 pancakes. The Zone Diet (and we will discuss the Lumen Foods version in a moment allows people to access this massive amount of energy which is already stored in the body. Elevated Insulin & Heart Disease How can you tell if you're insulin level is too high? Your size. If you're plump and "shaped like an apple," you have high insulin levels, and you're at a high risk of an early heart attack. Nonetheless, you can still be thin and have elevated insulin: with high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol. It is for this reason that high-carb, low-fat diets are dangerous to cardiovascular patients (even if they lose weight). They often have an increase in triglycerides and a decrease in HDL cholesterol levels. This has been made possible by years of confusing information, including recommendations by the National Research Council's comittee and the Consumer Reports panel on nutritional guidelines. Both have been recommending low-fat, high-carb diets for years. Of no help either has been the radical position of "low-fat gurus" such as Nathan Pritikin (now dead) who advocate a diet of 5-10% fat, 10-15% protein, and a whopping 75-85% carbohydrates. So what can you do to lose weight permanently? Enhance mental productivity? Help prevent degenerative disease and reset your genetic code? Read our conclusion to this article on the next page . . . Sears Major Dietary Points Fat makes you fat. (Sears: It can... but only in the presence of an elevated insulin level, brought on by excessive carbohydrates.) The goal of exercise is to burn calories, which in turn burns fat. (Insulin plays an infinitely bigger role. The calories you burn in most forms of aerobic exercise are regained with just one or two bran muffins. If you run an entire marathon, you only consume 2,000 calories - an amount that every adult stores in their body in carbohydrates alone.) You can lose weight by restricting calories -- you only need willpower! (Truth: Eating less and losing excess body fat do not necessarily go hand in hand. A diet that is low-calorie, high-carbohydrate actually works against the dieter: it generates a series of biochemical signals that make it more difficult to access stored body fat for energy. The result: you reach a weight-loss plateau, beyond which you simply can't lose any more weight. The most destructive aspect of this myth is that the dieter almost always get tired of feeling hungry and deprived, so they go off the diet, put the weight back on (mostly increased body fat), and then feel bad about themselves for not having sufficient will power, discipline, or motivation.) Starches are better for you than sugars. (Sears: Carbs are carbs, simple or complex. Gram for gram both have the same caloric value. Both similarly raise blood triglyceride levels. Your body treats the carbs in a two ounce candy bar the same way it does two ounces of complex carbohydrates in a plate of pasta: both raise insulin. Both tell the body: store more fat now!) Sugars affect your hormones faster and more radically then starches. (Sears: The exact opposite is true. The entry rate of a carbohydrate into the bloodstream is known as its glycemic index. The lower the glycemic index, the slower the rate of absorption. The fact is, refined table sugar has a lower glycemic index than most breakfast cereals. A food which is basic to many weight-reduction programs, puffed rice cakes, has one of the highest glycemic indices -- higher than even ice cream, which is supposed to be a weight watcher's worst enemy. Athletes perform better on a high-carb, low-fat diet. (Sears: Dr. Sears, working in conjunction with several athletic programs nationwide, most notably the Stanford University swim team, has consistently demonstrated that athletic performance improves with a moderate carb / protein / fat model: again, a dietary model built on a caloric intake of 40% carbohydrate, 30% protein, and 30% fat. This is less carb and more fat that conventional wisdom suggests. Juicing is a better way to ingest nutrients. (Another dangerous fad: juicing increases carbohydrate density, and removes a primary control rod -- fiber -- from the carbohydrate, meaning that the carbohydrate enters the bloodstream too fast. Higher protein means more animal. Not necessarily. Sears most recent book details his belief in soy as a suitable substitute for animal protein sources. In fact, using vegetable sources alone, you can easily reach the Zone target of 30% caloric protein intake. We examine this approach on the following page. Continue on to Page Two of this article (Disclaimer: This article is based on the work of Dr. Barry Sears, best-selling author of The Zone and Mastering the Zone. This article should not be construed as a formal endorsement of Lumen Foods' products by Dr. Sears as such. You can purchase any of Dr. Sear's books at your local bookstore, or online through Amazon.Com bookstore). Lumen Home Page The Whole Earth Vegetarian Catalogue