Well, strictly speaking, they're not my pearls of wisdom, LOL.
I'm reading other people's stuff - and here and there putting my own spin on it.
But those of you who like this sort of thing won't be surprised to hear that I've been dipping in and out of stuff written by Gary Taubes, Mary and Mike Eades, Jimmy (Livinglavidalowcarb) Moore and Zoe Harcombe. I felt oddly disloyal to Marisa Peer while reading Zoe's thoughts - but I've just found a 5 star review of one of Zoe's books on Amazon that was actually written by Marisa, so I feel much better now.
So why isn't a calorie a calorie? It's complicated and I'm wary of getting too deep into science right here right now. But it's because it's based on a really dodgy premise - that energy in = energy out. But that only works in a closed system - and the human body is not a closed system. You can never tell what the body is going to do with the calories that we give it (by way of food). Except - that if you give it sugar, it's going to do its damndest to burn that off first and put fat burning on hold. That's why the conventional low fat/low calorie diet is doomed to failure. The only way to eat enough calories to feel even remotely satisfied on a low fat/low calorie diet is to eat them in the form of carbs (glorified sugar). Oops. Might be a while then before your body gets around to fat burning.
But there's so much more to the when is a calorie not a calorie thing than that and I'm not even going to scrape the surface in just one post. Cogitate on this though: the body uses up to 25% more energy when digesting protein than it does digesting carbs. That's why there's a metabolic advantage to eating low carb - you burn more calories burning protein than you would if you were consuming the same number of calories' worth of carbohydrate.
The whole eat less, move more theory is also fundamentally flawed. If you eat less and move more, your body will do at least one of two things (and probably both), (1) conserve energy and (2) send signals to your brain that tell you you need to eat! Small wonder then that nearly all of us will fall off a low calorie diet at some point, no matter how strong our will power. I suspect one of the few reasons why we can get away with the low calorie intake of Cambridge is because its low carb content puts us into ketosis. But on a conventional low calorie diet, you'll probably be drawn to eating carbs - which play havoc with your blood sugars.
So if you are contemplating swapping to another diet when you're done with Cambridge, it seems that you really would be best off with a low carb plan. If you do go for something like WW or SW though, it seems it might be best to eat your points/free foods in the form of meat, poultry, veg and fruit - and stay as far away from carbs as you can...
More on this to come, I'm sure...
I am having a good day, thanks Mel. As for negative reinforcement, well you could say I've been brainwashed (I do!), but I don't see it that way. Why do we eat wheat? Even cattle shouldn't be fed wheat - they should be eating grass! The only reason wheat-based products have proliferated is because wheat is dirt cheap and there are enormous amounts of money to be made from making them look extremely appetising.
As for milk - Marisa's not the only person to comment on the pus content. And it isn't just the pus, it's the fact that it's naturally full of growth hormones - hormones designed to make a calf grow to be the size of its mother in a year.
Food for thought quite literally, eh?
