Six common beliefs addressed, Part 102

1. Fruit has too much sugar.

Some do, some don't. It depends on the type of fruit. 

• Tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini and basically all other nightshades are low sugar fruits. They can be eaten with no restriction at mealtimes. 
• Berries and stone fruits are less likely to be hybridized, so they are fine to eat on occasion and as a garnish to your main meal. 
• Tropical fruits and other common fruits, like apples and grapes, are highly hybridized to contain much more sugar than they would have naturally and for this reason they are eliminated from the diet. 

Questions about fruit are very common, but this only places focus on food items that are not important, nor relevant to this diet, such as fruit. This diet is not about trying to incorporate what you used to eat into it, it's about eliminating what you used to eat from it. 

2. Fructose is "toxic" to humans. 

Fructose is a liver toxin, just like alcohol, when it is consumed in excess. "Excess" is not well defined, anywhere, as there seems to be a genetic variability in tolerance among individuals. Certain ancestries can better metabolize fructose than others. This is also the case for alcohol. 

For this reason, on this blog, we stay away from fructose, which basically means sugar. Sugar is half glucose and fructose. There is no established "safe" amount of sugar consumption and for that reason, no amount should be consumed. It's really that simple.

People tend to take a hot topic and sensationalize it by giving it properties such as "poisonous" or "toxic", to try and convince themselves to not consume it. But in reality, the only reason it should not be consumed, is not because of its "toxicity", but because it makes and keeps you fat.

3. Calories in/calories out (CICO) is useless because you never know how many calories are in a given food. 

Knowing the exact calories in food is irrelevant. Knowing the exact calories you are burning is also irrelevant. 

CICO is useless because it is a short term weight loss method that does not address blood glucose dysregulation. Overweight/obesity requires a long term fat loss method that consistently addresses blood glucose dysregulation. That's really all you need to know about CICO and why it fails as a treatment for obesity. 

Overweight/obese people misuse both the calories that come in and the ones that go out, irrespective of their amounts. 

4. You can consume all of the heavy whipping cream you want and still be successful on low carb.

You can consume it, until you are unsuccessful. Outcomes are completely individualized. 

If you are an obesity resistant person, you can get away with in taking quite a bit of heavy whipping cream until you become nauseous from it but you will not become obese because it does not affect blood glucose. Because of this, obesity resistant people have great leptin sensitivity which they sustain. They can go all the way up to 150 grams of fat a day, while on low carb, and be just fine. Sometimes they can even go upwards of that. 

Most obese people have terrible leptin sensitivity and they can't consume that amount of fat without stalling or gaining weight. They need to keep their fat intake on the low end of about 50 grams a day, but no less than that. Their blood glucose control is very poor and the storage of fat, which they don't burn, stimulates insulin which further contributes to blood glucose irregularities, reinforcing the problem.

 

If the goal is fat loss, there is really no reason to be using heavy whipping cream at all, unless it is required for a specific recipe. All heavy whipping cream will do is take up most of your fat macros, for the day, and you will be skimping out on more important food items, like meat, which also contains fat. 

Protein should be your priority, not items that are mostly fat. That is why dairy is to be used as a garnish and meat is the meal. Do not base your meal on liquid fat calories, as that's not a proper meal. 

5. You cannot "overeat" if your snacks are low carb. 

You should not be snacking. Period. Not because it's "overeating", but because it's obesogenic. 

6. It is very difficult to think about food in any other context that is not calories. It is also very difficult thinking of body composition, rather than just "weight".

On this blog, we do not chase symptoms, calories or the scale because neither of those work. You will have to get use to thinking of obesity in a different way or you will never be able to tackle it successfully.