Low fat diet versus low sugar diet

It surprises me the medical  fraternity is still debating which is worse – a high fat diet or a high sugar diet?  The question is irrelevant.  What we know is a diet high in bad fats and/or refined sugar is bad for you.  We also know we benefit from a certain amount of good fats and complex carbohydrates.

It is very easy to obtain the foods to provide a balanced diet.  We can eat daily foods that provide protein from both meat and non-meat sources, fat which is large poly- or mono-unstaturated and unrefined sugars. 

A piece of lean meat fried in olive oil and a variety of steamed vegetables – carrots, beans, broccoli and spinach.  Whack on one or more herbs and you have taste sensation thats great for you. 

I see two main challenges.  Firstly, many of us currently rely on bad fats to give taste to our food.  To address this we should move to healthy AND tasty meals.  While low-glycemic diets have been developed for people with diabetes they are appropriate for everyone.  They ensure we get a steady stream of  ’fuel’ that avoids the fluctuations in blood sugar associated with foods high in refined sugar.  

Secondly, whatever we eat we eat too much.  This is a double whammy when the food we eat is high in fat and/or sugar.  This is probably the harder challenge, both initially and in the longer term.  We need to train ourselves to eat smaller meals and limit the in-between snacks.   While there is no alternative to eating only what we are going to burn up during the day we can mitigate over-eating by changing what we eat.  If you are going to have a blow out then eat food that is lower in fat and/or sugar.  For example, fill up on salad greens rather than potatoes.

With attempts to change any ingrained behaviours it does take persistance.  With something as central to our lives as eating most of us do not have the discipline to stick stick to a regime that isn’t pleasurable.  So enjoy losing weight and stick with a healthy and tasty diet.

Keith