If you're snacking on fat-free cookies and buying fat-free salad dressing without weight loss success, Professor Tim Noakes has a message for you: Fat is not the enemy. Since revealing his high-fat low-carbohydrate diet success, Noakes has kicked off a revolution in the weight loss world. He's even authored a book about it: "Challenging Beliefs: Memoirs of a Career" (click for details).
Among Noakes' revolutionary views:
- Eating high fat foods is not linked to high cholesterol or heart disease.
- Those "carbo-loading" theories for athletes are bogus.
- A diet high in fat is much healthier than a diet high in all those whole grains we've been led to believe are so good for us.
In a recent column for Health 24, Noakes revealed his views on why this plan is right for him - and possibly for you.
"This is not a diet, it is an eating plan for life – it is a life style, it is a new eating behavior." he emphasizes.
And it's not designed as a short-term diet. Instead, if you go back to eating all those fat-free, high carb foods after losing weight on this plan, you "will regain that weight and more," he warns.
For athletes, Noakes makes the point that carbohydrates do not equate to optimized performance.
"There are many overweight or obese cyclists and runners who are eating a high carbohydrate diet because that is what they think they should be eating," he notes.
"But they do not understand (as I did not until I switched) that because of their CR, their high carbohydrate diet is simply making them fatter and less healthy, despite all the exercise," warns Noakes.
Instead, by follow his plan, they will lose weight and "substantially improve their running and cycling times."
Noakes emphasizes that the plan works for him because of his own "biological needs."
He inherited "a predisposition to develop adult-onset diabetes because I am what is known as “carbohydrate resistant” (CR) and hence “pre-diabetic”. My biology is such that I am unable effectively to clear from my bloodstream, the breakdown product of ingested carbohydrate, glucose. As a result my pancreas must over-secrete the hormone, insulin, one of whose normal functions is to direct the glucose from the bloodstream into the liver and muscles," he explains.
Consequently his diet is as follows:
- Eggs – from free range hens
- Fish – an excellent source of omega 3 fatty acids
- Meat – not processed and preferably from sources that are organically raised eating grass. This group includes biltong, preferably game or ostrich.
- Dairy Produce – milk, cheese and yoghurt – all full cream and from organically fed cows.
- Vegetables – mainly leafy, low carbohydrate sources like lettuce but also including broccoli, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, avocado and many others. The choice is based on their nutrient value and their low carbohydrate content.
- Nuts – especially macadamias, walnuts and almonds but specifically excluding the non-nuts, peanuts and cashews which are high in carbohydrates.
- Fruits – only those which have a lower carbohydrate content like berries and apples.
- Water, tea and coffee (all unsweetened)!
