In one of the largest and most expensive feeding trials ever conducted, new research shows that all that advice your doctor’s given you about eating a low-fat diet may be flat-out wrong. The New York Times reports that a $12 million study found that cutting carbs and replacing them with fats — exactly the opposite of what you’ve been told — not only helped overweight adults lose weight, but increased their metabolism as well.
Study subjects on the high-fat, low-carb diet burned about 250 calories more per day than those on a low-fat diet.
I don’t know if the study subjects also experienced a feeling of increased quality of life, but I’d be willing to say that, even if they couldn’t explain why, they probably did start feeling better all over. As I explain in my book, “Fat for Fuel,” the key to getting healthy is to eat in such a way that your body is able to burn fat as its primary fuel rather than sugars.
When your body is able to burn fat for fuel, your liver creates water-soluble fats called ketones that burn far more efficiently than carbs, thus creating far less reactive oxygen species and secondary free radicals that can damage your cellular and mitochondrial cell membranes, proteins and DNA.
This is why being an efficient fat burner is so crucial for optimal health. Ketones also mimic the life span-extending properties of calorie restriction (fasting), which includes improved glucose metabolism and reduced inflammation.
To that end, ketogenic diets are very effective for this, as is intermittent fasting in a feast-and-famine cycling style. This means basically going through a one-day-per-week fast and one or two days a week of feasting, where you eat double or quadruple the amount of net carbs.
The next question, then, is what kinds of fats should you eat to obtain the best and most nutritious results? Together with cardiovascular expert James DiNicolantonio, I explain that, too, in my latest book, “Superfuel: Ketogenic Keys to Unlock the Secrets of Good Fats, Bad Fats and Great Health.”
In “Superfuel,” you’ll learn what’s wrong with our modern diet, and why the low-fat, high-carb advice you’ve been getting simply doesn’t work. You’ll also learn why eating a ketogenic diet will help you get back on track to reducing your cardiovascular risks as well as your weight and other degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, diabetes and arthritis, to name a few.
In a nutshell, "Superfuel" guides you back to a diet closer to what was eaten during Paleolithic times — and debunks the notion that your body needs to regularly consume glucose for energy. The truth is, like The New York Times is reporting, most long-term low-fat, high-carb diets are the exactly the opposite of what you really to boost healthy mitochondrial function and solve the obesity epidemic.