{"id":601,"date":"2011-07-27T13:36:33","date_gmt":"2011-07-27T18:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/realfoodhouston.com\/?p=601"},"modified":"2011-07-27T13:36:33","modified_gmt":"2011-07-27T18:36:33","slug":"dr-mercolas-keys-to-curb-obesity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/2011\/07\/27\/dr-mercolas-keys-to-curb-obesity\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Mercola’s Keys to Curb Obesity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Mercola has posted a response<\/a> to an annual obesity report <\/a>by Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.\u00a0 The 2011 report that shows US obesity rates are rising–no surprise–and that twelve states have obesity rates above 30 percent while only four years ago there was only one state with an obesity rate over 30 percent.\u00a0 The report<\/a> gives many more details about the growing obesity epidemic.<\/p>\n

So what’s wrong?\u00a0 Why is the rate of obesity increasing so quickly?\u00a0\u00a0Dr. Mercola has proposed “Two Keys to\u00a0Curb Out-of-Control Obesity.”\u00a0\u00a0His two keys are:<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. Severely restricting carbohydrates (sugars, fructose, and grains) in your diet, and<\/li>\n
  2. Increasing healthy fat consumption<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    To support key number one, he\u00a0says that “Fructose is the NUMBER ONE source of calories in the US” and that “fructose, primarily in the form of cheap high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), is in just about everything\u2014even food items you’d never expect would need it, including diet foods and ‘enhanced’ water products.”\u00a0 The amounts\u00a0consumed are far from moderate.\u00a0 He says that even “most infant formulas contain the sugar equivalent of one can of Coca-Cola.”\u00a0 Also in support of key number one, he points out that “Refined carbohydrates (breakfast cereals, bagels, waffles etc) quickly breaks down to sugar, increase your insulin levels, and cause insulin resistance, which is the number one underlying factor of nearly every chronic disease known to man, including heart disease.”<\/p>\n

    About key number two–increasing fat consumption–he says that the health agencies and\u00a0food industry have been “equally wrong about fat.”\u00a0 Fats have for too long been considered to be “dietary villains, especially saturated fat.”\u00a0 He continues by saying that “Saturated fats are indeed good for you.. . .They provide the building blocks for your cell membranes and a variety of hormones and hormone like substances that are essential to your health, and saturated fats from animal and vegetable sources (such as meat, dairy, certain oils, and tropical plants like coconut) provide a concentrated source of energy in your diet\u2014a source of energy that is far more ideal than carbohydrates, and that’s why I chose these two specific “keys” in combination, because when you cut down on carbs, you generally need to increase your fat consumption.”<\/p>\n

    Dr. Mercola explains how fructose is metabolized and why it is especially harmful. He discusses the importance of adding healthy fats to the diet when carbohydrates are reduced. His sources of healthy fats include olive oil, coconut oil, butter from grassfed cows, nuts, egg yolks avocados, grass fed meats, and palm oil. He recommends olive oil for such uses as salad dressing and coconut oil for cooking.<\/p>\n

    It seems clear from the rapid increase in the obesity rate\u00a0that government recommendations over the past 50 years have not worked.\u00a0 His\u00a0“Two Keys” are worth considering and might prove more effective than “official” recommendations.<\/p>\n

    If you want to compare\u00a0Dr. Mercola’s\u00a0recommendations to what the USDA says you should eat, check out the USDA’s Personal Daily Food Plan<\/a>.\u00a0 Note the that the USDA plan specificly excludes\u00a0raw, unprocessed milk.\u00a0 Which diet plan would you think leads to better health and a reasonable weight?\u00a0 Which one would you prefer?<\/p>\n

    For more information, and resources,\u00a0about healthy fats, see my previous post, Everyone knows low-fat diets promote weight loss! Really?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Dr. Mercola has posted a response to an annual obesity report by Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.\u00a0 The 2011 report that shows US obesity rates are rising–no surprise–and that twelve states have obesity rates above …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,13,19,7],"tags":[35,24,57,51],"class_list":["post-601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diet","category-healthy-fats","category-real-food","category-weight-loss","tag-healthy-fats-2","tag-raw-milk-2","tag-saturated-fat","tag-weight-loss-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p70SEj-9H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":614,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601\/revisions\/614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}