SPA Future Thinking, a market research firm did a “Question of Taste” survey. They surveyed 1,534 women around the world in the following countries: Brazil,  China,  France, Germany, UK and USA. Some of the key findings were:

1) Although most adults are on a diet (defined by some kind of restrained eating) for much of the time, 34% of British women had gained, rather than lost, weight over the previous year. This compared to 19% of German women who had gained over the previous year (that’s still a lot of people on the rise in the absence of many people losing).

2) 86% of British women had not lost weight since the previous year – this was the worst ‘dieting success statistic’. This is interesting because we have known for 50 years that sustained weight loss (on eat less/do more diets) has a 98% failure rate:

“Having reviewed the literature from the first half of the twentieth century and having done their own study Stunkard and McLaren-Hume (1959) concluded “Most obese persons will not stay in treatment for obesity. Of those who stay in treatment, most will not lose weight, and of those who do lose weight, most will regain it.”  Stunkard and McLaren-Hume’s own statistical study showed that only 12% of obese patients lost 20 pounds, despite having stones to lose, only one person in 100 lost 40 pounds and, two years later, only 2% of patients had maintained a 20 pound weight loss. This is where the often quoted “98% of diets fail” derives from.” (From The Obesity Epidemic: What caused it? How can we stop it?)

This statistic is astonishingly supportive of  Stunkard and McLaren-Hume’s finding. They found that only 12% of patients lost 20 pounds. This survey is saying only 14% lost anything at all.

3) Half of the British women surveyed said that they exercised for less than 3 hours a week.  Here’s the really interesting exercise bit, however – French and American women exercised the least – with almost a quarter doing less than half an hour per week. Using the most recent World Health Organisation estimated prevalence for female obesity per country, we find the following (the WHO takes women as aged 15+):

- Brazil 24.5%;

- China 3.6%;

- France 7.6%;

- Germany 22.1%

- UK 26.3% and

- USA 48.3%

So – the most obese and closest to the least obese exercise the least. The Daily Mail article quotes “diet experts” (not named) as saying “people are simply doing too little exercise.” On this evidence it doesn’t do the French any harm. Could it be that French women eat meat, fish, dairy and vegetables and very little refined carbohydrate and American people are told to base their meals on carbs?

4)  British women were only second in reliance upon convenience food – USA ‘won’ this category with 20% reliant on convenience food. The British figure was 13%. The other countries were in single figures – France and Germany at 6%.

If you want to be a successful dieting statistic this time next year, here are my top 3 tips:

1) Eat food – real food only and no processed food;

2) Eat three meals a day – stop snacking every couple of hours;

3) Manage your carbohydrate intake. Most people should be able to lose weight successfully with just tips 1&2. If you have weight to lose and are not losing by including ‘good’ carbs in your diet – these are the ones that need to go. Very carb sensitive people are becoming increasingly commonplace (hence the 171 million diabetics in the world – WHO data again) and they often need to cut back to naturally reared meat, fish, eggs, vegetables and salads to lose weight – no potatoes or grains or fruit or even dairy products in extreme cases.

1) Fat binders/blockers;

2) Carb blockers;

3) Metabolism boosters;

4) Appetite suppressants;

5) Those that claim to do most of the above and then some!

This second blog is on the Carb blockers:

Examples of products include: “DEcarb™  is a brand new weight management product that contains PhaseLite™, a natural glycoprotein complex made from white kidney bean that can reduce calorie intake by blocking up to 66 per cent of dietary carbohydrates eaten.”

Zoë comment: Of all the mechanisms going on in my body, the carbohydrate/insulin response is one that I would not choose to mess around with. We are already testing the body’s ability to handle carbohydrates effectively on almost an hourly basis by bombing the body with calorie counted, processed carbohydrates, which it has no chance of recognising. The pancreas then has to release what it thinks is the right amount of insulin and it has a low chance of getting this right unless we eat a real carb (like an apple), which it can recognise. Is it any wonder that over 2 million people in the UK have Type II Diabetes? (this is the type where the pancreas has become unable to respond to carbohydrates with the ‘right’ amount of insulin). Even if the claim made by this product about blocking the calories in carbohydrates is right (and I have serious doubts) the fact that a carb has been ingested is still registered by the body and the body tries to release the right amount of insulin. Insulin is called the fattening hormone for good reason – and once it is released into the body, it will be turn any glucose detected into glycogen and this then turns into body fat, if not used up.

Think about bulimics – they are often of normal weight or even overweight. Even though they ‘get rid’ of the calories quite quickly (undoubtedly more effectively than any carb pill) the body has still released insulin and it can still turn glucose into fat. Additionally, I would be concerned that this messing around with the carb/insulin balance in the body is far from ideal and can’t help the body avoid insulin resistance or carb mismanagement in the longer term. I personally really would not risk messing around with this critically important bodily function.

Hi Zoe

I am generally interested in nutrition and there were two books I have seen before that I wondered if you had ever come across and if so what your view was:

1. Skinny bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin
2. French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano

Thanx

I replied:

Hi Lily – I’ve not read either but I’ve got a copy of Skinny Bastards (the male version of the Skinny Bitch book) and I put it down immediately when I first got it. I just hated the language – there was swearing (F words etc) and insulting and I just found it aggressive and offensive and not how I like to take in information. I persisted a little to try to get the principles and, from admittedly a quick look, it seemed like the typical eat less/do more diet that won’t work. They call low carb diets “ridiculous“. They say that carbs are vital for providing energy (their emphasis). They are not – there are cultures today and have been many historically that have lived on meat alone for years. (The only debate is around Vit C and that’s a blog in itself one day!) RF & KB order people to stay off sugar (that’s fine with me) but then they don’t approve of milk or meat (which I don’t agree with). They want you eating carbs, basically – fruit, veg, pulses, beans, breads, pasta, potatoes etc. The American Dietary Association should love them! They don’t address for one minute the fact that the body cannot store fat without insulin and only carbs cause insulin to be released and therefore they think turning the body into a fat storing environment will create weight loss. Not a diet I would support or I book I would give reading time to.

The French women one – I got quite excited about when I first heard the title and I thought “Great – someone is doing a book on the French diet and how it is high real in food (fat) and low in processed food and this would make for a good story.” However (and I haven’t got a copy) I understand that it is more about the lifestyle of French women – eat anything, but eat slowly being an example bit of advice. I saw a great review on line that said “Her book is about lifestyle. Forget low-carbs. Ignore high-protein. Too reckless. Too du jour. As she likes to put it: ‘French women think about good things to eat; American women typically worry about bad things to eat.’ ” I like that last phrase – that makes a lot of sense. I don’t know if it advocates an eating plan or a lifestyle approach – if you read it please add a comment and let us know!
Very best wishes – Zoe

What low calories/low fat diets are effectively telling you to do is to drive from Scotland to Cornwall in the UK, or from the West to the East Coast of America, but without putting enough fuel in the car to do so (“Eat less”). Worse than that, you are invariably told to ‘flog the car’ even harder, so that it will conk out even sooner than it would have done, had you driven it to conserve energy (“Do more”).

If a car mechanic seriously told you to do this to your car you would think they were mad and yet millions of people in the ‘developed’ world are deliberately trying to run their bodies on less fuel than they need, every single day.

This is the very idea of the low calorie/low fat diet – take in less fuel than you need. The theory is that your body will make up for the calorie deficit by burning fat that you have stored already, but it is not as simple as this. Your body first and foremost is a survival machine. The human body has developed over hundreds of thousands of years and it has survived and adapted to far more challenging things than calorie counting. The body doesn’t know that you have read a diet book and it thinks you are starving and it will do anything it can to keep you alive.

The book “Stop Counting Calories & Start Losing Weight” takes you through the 3 direct things that happen when you follow a low calorie diet and the 3 indirect things and how every one of the unavoidable responses of the body to eating less works against you to keep you alive and to protect against weight loss.

Fat is also an essential part of the human diet. There are three macronutrients – carbs, fat and protein. Macronutrient is just the collective term for these three things. Fats and protein are essential for our body repair and maintenance, at the level of every single cell. Carbs are not essential. Carbs are the easiest macronutrient from which the body can get energy, but the body will turn fats and proteins into energy in the absence of carbs.

People who cut fat substantially out of their diet suffer with dry skin, brittle hair and nails. The cell repair functions of the body are impaired. Think, women especially, about how much effort you put into moisturising your skin – you can moisturise it so much better from the inside by having a good level of fat in your diet. (Drinking plenty of water is also invaluable).

Fat has been shown to have a much more effective level of satiety, so people feel fuller for longer when they have had fat in their meals. Try for yourself one day having an omelette for breakfast vs. cereal and see how much longer you can manage without wanting more food. Fat has a natural appetite regulation – try eating a bucket of popcorn or sweets and then try eating more than 2 large pork chops. We just have a far more natural appetite mechanism when it comes to real food.

The other key aspect about eating fat is that fat/proteins, like meat, fish, eggs etc, have no impact on our body’s need for insulin. We can eat a steak and the pancreas has no need to release insulin. We eat any carb e.g. a piece of fruit, or a cereal bar, and the body immediately MUST release insulin, to return our blood glucose level to the normal range. If the body doesn’t get this insulin release exactly right, we can release too much and our blood glucose level can end up lower than it was before we ate the carb. We then want another carb to get our blood glucose level up again and we are on the well known roller coaster of eating carbs and not being able to stop.

The USA, UK, Australia and NZ have spent the past thirty years testing low calorie/low fat diets, with tragic consequences – obesity has increased six fold in the UK, as an example, such that approximately one quarter of the population of all these ‘developed’ nations are now obese. Whatever diet you follow, don’t let it be low calorie/low fat!

Mincemeat (40%), wheat flour, butter (15%), sugar, whey powder, salt, raising agents (sodium phosphate, sodium carbonate).The mincemeat contains: sultanas, sugar, apple, glucose syrup, currants, orange peel, sunflower oil, COURVOISIER VS Cognac (contains colour (plain caramel)), almonds, brandy, acidity regulators (acetic acid, citric acid), lemon peel, corn starch, mixed spice, walnuts, glucose-fructose syrup, malted barley extract, vegetable oil, modified maize starch, preservative (potassium sorbate), orange oil.

Per 100g of product there are 58.5g of carbohydrate and 16g of fat. There are also 400 calories per 100g – remember calories are just fuel – but this is not the most nutritious fuel.

What would The Harcombe Diet say about this product?

1) If it is a real favourite food of yours then have it as a ‘cheat’ (checking all the tips for cheating), but if you could take it or leave it – leave it!

2) It is full of sugar, dried fruit (which the body sees as much the same as sugar) and wheat, so it is going to feed Candida, Food Intolerance and Hypoglycaemia.

3) Like most processed food, it mixes fats and carbs. The fats are actually good fats – butter, sunflower oil, walnuts etc. The carbs are not so good. Here are all the sugars – in case you missed any – sugar listed separately, sugar listed again under mincemeat, glucose syrup, caramel and glucose-fructose syrup. It is common for food manufacturers nowadays to list out all the sugars separately – if they lumped them altogether, sugar would invariably be the top ingredient.

4) Much better cheats would be dark chocolate, winter berries and cream, a glass of red wine, Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream etc.