The Gay Caveman Diet: Part II

Last week we established that obesity has become a global problem and this may be related to the disconnect between the natural or wild-type diet meant for our species and what we eat now. And, as also mentioned last week, experts in nutrition, cardiology and diabetes recommend a diet even farther away from our natural, species-specific menu than what we would eat left to ourselves!

So, let’s see what’s happened in the 30 or so years ending in 2000 since the experts demonized fat and worshiped at the altar of complex carbohydrates:

As you can see, since the mid 70s, the proportion of fat in our diets has dropped significantly and the proportion of carbohydrates has increased significantly (the figure above is for men, but the graph for women is essentially identical). Now look at this graph, concentrating on the top line which shows the overweight plus obese American adults (overweight is defined as a body mass index [BMI] greater than 25; obese is defined as a BMI over 30; go here to quickly and easily calculate your BMI) :

The graphs are practically super-imposable. Think these trends might be related? It certainly does seem that when our dietary carbs began to move from about 41% of our caloric intake to about 49%, we started gaining weight (however, caution must be used because, as noted previously, association does not prove causality). With that being said, I do believe they are related. Why? Well, there are some corroborating points: reducing carbs might lead you to eat less total calories since low carbs and higher protein and fat are more satisfying so you experience less hunger and eat less than on a higher carb diet; for example, see here. And, there are positive metabolic changes that a low carb diet induces. Or, see here. But I digress…

The reason I began writing these two diet-related columns a few weeks ago was that a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reportedly showed no difference in weight loss from diets containing low vs. high amounts of carbohydrates. In other words, calories are the only things that count. The popular press dutifully reported this (for example, see here and here) with the implication, of course, that the Atkins Diet (or any other low-carb diet) was mere hype and the only thing that counted were the total calories.

Here’s the primary author, Dr. Frank Sacks of Harvard interviewed in the NY Times:“It really does cut through the hype,’’ said Dr. Frank M. Sacks, the study’s lead author and professor of cardiovascular disease prevention at the Harvard School of Public Health. “It gives people lots of flexibility to pick a diet that they can stick with.”

Well, I guess that settles it, eh? You would have imagined that Dr. Sacks rigorously tested the most popular low-carb diets against the standard "balanced" calorie-restricted diets that nutritionists recommend and found them all equal. If you did, you would have been wrong; it is Dr. Sacks who is the party involved in "hype" here, hyping his study which sheds absolutely no light on the question dieters want answered: do low-carb diets work? What Sacks did was use diets where the lowest carb percent was 35% of daily calories, a percent not close to the Atkins’ number which is about 5% on induction (i.e., less than 20 grams of carbs/day for the first two weeks).

What makes this particularly galling is that neither Sacks nor any of the reporters differentiate their “low carbohydrate” diet from Atkins and just leave the implication out there that they tested the Atkins diet or one similar to it. In the Sacks study, he and his colleagues refer to studies that did show the Atkins diet superior to other diets (for example, here in the New England Journal of Medicine and here in the Journal of the American Medical Association), but they do not even hint that the carb content of the successful diets only contained about one-sixth the percent carbs as the lowest carb diet in his study. So, Sacks and the people that reported on his study all grossly misrepresented what was found by what they left out, i.e., the low carb diets tested bore no relationship at all to the Atkins and other very-low carb diets.

Why would they do this? What are their agendas?

Well, here’s what I think: dietitians, nutritionists and their physician fellow-travelers have all heavily invested in a few (purportedly) God-given truths about diet that they have pushed on us for decades. The most sacred tenets of this nutrition religion are:
I. Calories that cometh from any source (be they from fat, carbohydrates or proteins) are the same as they relate to thine weight and metabolism (The Holy Doctrine of the Immutable Calorie)
II. Complex carbohydrates are sacred (The Shrine of St. Pasta of Linguini) and fats are evil (for example, saturated are really Satan-ated fats and must be demonized at every turn) and
III. Raising the proportion of dietary fats and lowering dietary carbs will cause your cholesterol to go dangerously high (The Diet of (af)Firms (affirms what we believe, that is).

And, it turns out that just the opposite occurs with serum lipids when on Atkins.

This sclerotic thinking has helped lead Americans to be fatter than ever. And, the Academic Nutrition/Food Industrial Complex has so much invested in these Eternal Truths that they seem to feel that if they back down at all at this point their credibility will collapse. For example, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends 45-60 grams of carbohydrates per meal. That is, about 600 calories of carbs three times/day, not counting snacks. If followed closely, that could result in more than 60% of calories from carbs (the ADA recommends 55-60% of total calories from carbs).

So what does this all mean? We're going to look at this in two separate parts: losing weight and maintaining weight loss (or normal weight). Maintenance of weight loss has been shown in study after study to be extremely difficult. Whatever method is used to lose weight, the great majority of people gain it back in a year or so: this is the greatest problem faced by dieters with good intentions.

So, I will dispose of the weight-loss part quickly: if you want to lose weight, that is, if you have flipped the switch in your head and agreed with yourself to really do it, use whichever method is most compatible with you. Whether it's the Atkins or South Beach, the Cookie Diet or NutriSystem, Weight Watchers, or even just staying on a 1200 cal/day diet, DO IT! Atkins works best for me, but they ALL work if you apply them with discipline. For maintenance, however, it's the Gay Caveman Diet (I mean Cavewoman too, but caveman is easier than caveperson.

Okay: first the gay angle. Back in the seventies there was a movie based on an off-Broadway show about a party held by a bunch of gay guys in NYC entitled The Boys in the Band. This was a mainstream, successful movie that was very funny, but sad and poignant at the same time. In one scene, one of the characters was verbally going after another, and during the tirade, he mentioned how Harold would starve himself only to eat like crazy at a weekend party. This stuck in my mind. So, here is the strategy for the Gay Caveman’s Diet:

During the week, eat like a caveman ( Loren Cordain's Paleo Diet is the one to look at) and stay away from dairy products, breads, pastas, cakes, cookies, pies, cereals, etc. Eat nuts, meats, fish, veggies, fruits, seeds. And on the weekend, have a slice of pizza, have that bagel, order the key lime pie or chocolate cake for dessert Saturday night....you get the idea. Caveman during the week, but a bit more self-indulgent on the weekend, applying the five-day discipline and two-day indulgence that some in the gay community use.

Now, you needn't be as strict as Dr. Cordain during the week, and you can modify your approach to cavemanism. For example, for a snack during the week before dinner, I have some cheese and pistachios, so overall, my Sunday night through Friday lunchtime is a cross between Atkins and the paleo diet.

And yes...no more daily bagels for breakfast during the week. And use low carb wraps or wheat bread for lunch sandwiches and stay away from Kaiser rolls--during the week. Take a bit from the gays and the cavemen and you may just be able to beat the odds and maintain your weight loss.

Full disclosure: Dr. Mennen has no financial interest in any of the diets, programs or issues mentioned in this column

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