Trainer’s Clients Disprove The Success of Low Fat Diets

“A lot of our clients in the early 90s were not losing weight on low fat diets. They would try the Atkins diet. As trainers we could not advise against this more strongly. You’re going to get a heart attack!,” says Jonny Bowden, PhD, nutritionist and author of Living Low Carb. Bowden has been nicknamed the Rogue Nutritionist by changing his diet chasing the high he got from nutrient dense food. “Your blood lipids are gonna go through the roof! You’re gonna have high cholesterol! You’re gonna die! It’s cockamamy, it’s crazy, it’s medical malpractice.”

Much to his chagrin they ate low carb, high fat anyway.

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This was Dr. Bowden’s turning point. He says, “Then they’d come back. Not only had they lost weight but they’d come back with blood tests that were off the charts good. Cholesterol didn’t go up. Triglycerides are going down. Blood pressure is dropping. They’re losing weight. The Atkins diet is supposed to kill you, those two things don’t fit.”

He began to question his teachings and started to research. His findings were completely contrary to his education. “We’ve been wrong about all this stuff. You should eat healthy saturated fats. You should eat more fat, more protein and less carbs.”

The switch with his clients was even more difficult. In his efforts to convince them to switch to saturated fats he saw different opposition, “I would meet tremendous resistance from the clients that I was seeing. They would say, ‘But my doctor! But my doctor!’ and to be honest it was so exhausting to fight with these doctors who knew nothing of nutrition, who had never even heard of omega 3s.”

However the results were contrary to the doctor’s orders.

Chicago Tribune News reported in 2013, “The number of hours devoted to nutrition education in medical schools is decreasing, leaving doctors unequipped to deal with common patient concerns about diet.” They quoted Dr. William Davis, famous preventative cardiologist, saying, “There’s tremendous ignorance about nutrition among physicians. It has never been part of the culture.”

Pauling Chen, MD reported in the New York Times, “I wasn’t sure I knew that much more after medical school than I did before,” on the topic of food and diet. When she confessed her feelings to another doctor she was advised, “Just consult the dietitians if you have a problem.”

The National Academy of Science published the report Nutrition Education in US Medical Schools saying, “The Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) of the National Research Council viewed the question of adequate and appropriate nutrition education of medical schools to be of significant national concern to warrant assessment.”

This causes a problem from multiple levels, including the situation Dr. Bowden was facing. To make matters worse his status as a nutritionist was sub par to the status of the doctors.

Dr. Bowden saw a brick wall in front of him saying, “What am I, I’m just a nutritionist, he’s a doctor, he knows everything! This made it very difficult.”

He continued with the opposition and told his clients, “Throw that damn margarine out and eat butter! You’re not going to get heart disease, you’re gonna be fine.” He adds, “The demonization of saturated fat seemed to be very wrong.”

In his book The Great Cholesterol Myth Dr. Bowden discusses the studies on saturated fat, cholesterol and heart disease. Dr. Bowden says, “Remember cholesterol is a marker. You care if you’re going to get a heart attack. We’ve kind of made these markers almost like it’s a medical condition itself. High cholesterol is not a medical condition, heart disease is a medical condition.”

He goes on to say, “In the latest studies they’ve actually looked at saturated fat. They wanted to know do people who eat more of this stuff actually have more heart disease. This answer is no! They do not. There is no connection between saturated fat in the diet and a greater risk of heart disease.” 

Dr. Bowden says he has heard every doctor tell him the same thing. When they entered medical school they were taught, “Fifty percent of what we teach you will be wrong. The only problem is we don’t know which 50% it is.” 

Saturated fat is appearing more and more evident to be the incorrect 50% Bowden says. It was eaten for centuries, then it was shown to be bad, people got sick and now we are leaning back on what our ancestors did to remain healthy.

*Nourishing Plot is written by a mom whose son has been delivered from the effects of autism (asperger’s syndrome), ADHD, bipolar disorder, manic depression, hypoglycemia and dyslexia through food. This is not a newsarticle published by a paper trying to make money. This blog is put out by a mom who sees first hand the effects of nourishing food vs food-ish items. No company pays her for writing these blogs, she considers this a form of missionary work. It is her desire to scream it from the rooftops so that others don’t suffer from the damaging affect of today’s “food”.

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 Other sources:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-26/health/ct-met-heart-nutrition-20130326_1_mediterranean-style-diet-heart-disease-diet-and-nutrition

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/cholesterol-facts-vs-myths

http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/07/healthiest-foods-nutrition-lifestyle-health-healthiest-foods.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jonny-bowden/

http://www.jonnybowden.com/

https://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2013/feb2013_br_01.htm

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=597

http://totalhealthmagazine.com/blog/Jonny-Bowden-PhD-CNS.html

http://www.youtube.com/user/DrJonnyBowden