Fitness Challenge!

[Brett]

I have been working myself on getting back into fitness. I have found that Weight Watchers works very well. NOTHING is completely verboten, it's a question of portion control and moderation (something I am not good at ). The program emphasizes eating the right foods, in reasonable quantity and getting activity (aka exercise). I have lost a considerable amount of weight, 8 inches off my kilt waist, and gained a whole bunch of stamina and strength. What I believe, and the nutritionists and food scientists at WW seem to agree, is that the human body works best with a combination of protein, carbs, fiber, and healthy oils. But I also believe if it works for you, go with it. What ever gets you off the coach is good!

WW is a fine system and works for many people. There are many ways to skin a cat and when people ask me what the "best diet" is, my answer is always, 'the one you will stick to'. For some that's WW, for others it's Atkins and others do well on the traditional higher carb, low fat diet.

Ultimately, for weight loss, once the caloric defecit is figured out for an individual and enough protein is included to maintain muscle mass, wether the remaining calories come from carbohydrates or fat is largely irrelevant. At least, that's what the years upon years of research concludes. There may be a slight metabolic advantage to lowering or eliminating carbohydrates, but once water loss is factored in, it's not terribly significant. What is significant is that the particular diet helps an individual deal with hunger and craving issues. This varies from person to person and bodytype to bodytype.

Regardless of wether carbohydrates or fat are the main source of calories outside of protein, no diet can outfox the laws of basic physics, although many diets claim to be able to do just that.

Now if we're talking not just weight loss, but optimum health, than things change a little bit and as the science fleshes out further, I would imagine we'll see the paleo style diets are going to win out.