2020-03-07 New Zealand Listener

MARCH 7 2020 LISTENER 23

rather than reductiveness. He

gets that people feel discour-

aged being told to eat less and

count calories. Basing your diet

on whole-plant-based foods

means you can eat lots of food,

he says, and the transition from

calorie-dense to fibre- and water-

rich foods will give rapid weight

loss and health benefits. “Some

people initially have trouble

eating all the food. It’s not easy

for everyone. That’s why I say,

‘Try this for three weeks and

don’t give up.’”

He even allows in his book

that if people are replacing

high-calorie food such as fried

chicken with dishes jollied

up with fats, such as buttered

broccoli, over time they’re still

going to get a considerable

benefit. When vegetables, leg-

umes, lentils and the like are

the main event and risky foods

are reduced to mere condiment

proportions, the calorie math-

ematics dramatically change.

Of course, he would rather that

people eliminated the risk foods.

BLESSEDLY LIBERATING

Is he worried about people’s

eating becoming bedevilled by

a sort of moral and scientific

absolutism, creating eating

disorders such as the extreme

“clean eating” movement?

“Well, look at it this way.

What if I said to you, ‘I’m am

never going to smoke a ciga-

rette. Not even one or two on

holidays or special occasions’?

Would you think that was an

unhealthy attitude? No, because

cigarettes are bad for my health.

Now, what is wrong with put-

ting certain foods into that

category?”

However, much of what

Greger has to report may strike

serial dieters as blessedly lib-

erating from the traditional

injunctions of academia’s health

activists. For instance, his book

elucidates that the strict “calo-

ries in, calories out” equation

that some activists want to be

in the banner headlines is mis-

leading. Studies have found that

what happens to calories when

we eat them varies considerably,

depending on a range of factors

• some of which, tantalisingly,
  we can nudge to our advantage
  (see panel, page 20).
  Nor is he, like many main-
  stream scholars, dismissive of
  exercise as an important part of
  the weight loss and health pic-
  ture. Aside from its other health
  benefits, it can have a multiplier
  effect on the calories we expend
  long after we’ve finished a walk
  or dismounted the bike (see
  exercise panel, left).

FIXING GRANDMA

Greger was set on his career

in nutrition science when, as

a youth, he saw his beloved

grandmother reverse her diag-

nosis of terminal heart disease

by following controversial 70s

and 80s nutritionist Nathan Pri-

tikin’s health regime. Regarded

as rather cranky by some at the

time, Pritikin preached rather

than taught that sugar was evil.

Before Greger’s eyes, his nana

regained her health and mobil-

ity and outlived the prognosis of

extra calories a day, only an

average of 400 calories ended

up being stored as fat, because

the extra fuel made people

busier. They were more likely

to fidget, potter about and be

active.

That’s not a cue to lose

weight by eating more calories,

rather an illustration of the

body’s ability to link fuel

intake with energy output. It

also chimes with Greger’s and

Fuller’s advice to eat a high

volume of food so the body

doesn’t go into “starvation”

panic.

Greger says there’s also a

framing issue. Further stud-

ies have found people ate

less after doing something

couched as a “fun walk”

than after the same expedi-

tion described as “exercise”.

Yet other studies have

found a lot of overweight

people enjoyed exer-

cise more than they had

expected.

The current – and

lucrative – buzz is around

high-intensity workouts,

including interval training

and even workouts where

people go hard out, into

anaerobic exhaustion, for

only a few minutes a day.

There’s reputable science

behind all this in terms of

fitness and health benefits,

but it’s horses for courses.

As a general rule, when

weight loss is the primary

goal, Greger says: “Continu-

ous high intensity beats out

lower intensity, but short

bursts of high intensity do

not beat out continuous,

moderate-intensity exercise.”

Because it’s so

calorie-dense, we

can eat lots of fat

eat faster than our

body’s satiety kit

can register it.

In studies where

people are

deliberately

overfed, they start

moving more,

even if they’re not

conscious of doing

actual exercise.

From page 19

“I learnt very

early, from the

experience of my

grandmother, how

much nutrition

alone can do to

reverse disease.”