- Doesn’t eating fat mean I’ll get fatter?
That’s the current party line but, again, it’s not even remotely true. The high fat/high
protein/low carb diet will actually make you thinner. It increases fat breakdown and
decreases fat buildup. While in the fat burning mode, you use your own bodyfat for energy.
Insulin is the real culprit here, and it’s insulin that plays such a large role in the high carb
diet. After a high carb meal, glucose floods the bloodstream. The pancreas releases insulin,
and plenty of it, to process the glucose. As much of the extra glucose as possible is stored
as muscle and liver glycogen to be converted back to glucose when the body needs it for
energy. What can’t be stored or used in the liver and muscle is converted to triglyceride
or bodyfat. If you’re eating a lot of carbs, you’re going to have a lot of that glucose being
stored on your body.
If you’re looking for something to blame those bulges and rolls on, you might be wiser to
look at your carb intake than putting the responsibility on society’s whipping boy, fat. - What about carcinogens?
Carcinogens are agents that attack normal body cells and, through prolonged contact, cause
them to become cancerous. It’s believed that one source for carcinogens are chemicals that
may occur naturally in foods. If consumed in large quantities, they may lead to cancer growth.
High fat diets have traditionally been a focus of cancer research. It’s believed fat may be
implicated in colon, breast, and prostate cancer. But research in this area remains largely
unclear at this time. In fact, many studies have minimized the importance of fat as a cancer-
causing source especially in the breast cancer area.
In reality, many factors have been linked to cancer. Diet, obesity, physical activity, and
heredity all seem to play a large role. Total caloric intake and lack of available antioxidants
have also been implicated here.
Though totally unconvinced of any link between fat and cancer, anti-cancer agents like
antioxidants have been built into our program, and will allow for protection against any
possible cancer link. - What about high cholesterol and heart disease?
We pointed out in Chapter 2 that many societies, both present and past, had low levels
of cardiovascular disease, despite having a high fat diet. It’s also certain that other factors
like smoking, lack of exercise, obesity, and stress are of equal if not greater importance to
cholesterol than diet.
Nonetheless, we’ve stressed the importance of cholesterol-friendly mono and
polyunsaturated fats in the diet. We’ve also provided for cholesterol-lowering supplements
and fish oils to be included with the diet, just to make sure.
Generally, we haven’t found any major problem with cholesterol buildup on the diet,
74 CHAPTER 6