Fat doesn't make you fat (part I)

Ever felt overwhelmed by conflicting nutrition advice while trying to improve your health? Especially around eating fat? You're not alone. In this two parts newsletter, let’s cut through the confusion together. Ditch the calorie counting or fad diets.

What we need is a deep understanding of how food affects your body. After debunking the medical lies surrounding cholesterol in a previous newsletter (If you missed it, I highly recommend catching up here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/controversial-approach-so-called-heart-villain-thierry-di-raffaele-g1tce/?trackingId=ESyIuEMzSyiu9wzSHxb4%2FA%3D%3D), it's time to start fresh with some simple healthy eating basics.

To start with, consider this: Despite the rise in low-fat food options and billions spent on chronic disease research every year, illness rates are still climbing fast. Why?

When it comes to chronic diseases, let's have a look into some alarming statistics over the last three decades, from 1990 to 2020:

The information I am about to share with you is dead simple. There is no rocket science. If you feed your body and mind the basic building blocks, the results are pretty astonishing. Of course, we need to respect bio-individually and some of you may require to avoid certain foods due to allergies/intolerances and some others may need additional nutrients support, but once you get your basis right, you are good to go.

21st century eating habits

Thousands of years ago, human life was vastly different. Though they faced diseases unheard of today, their pace of life was much slower than our 21st-century frenzy.

Today, we're caught in a whirlwind of sedentary living, fueled by stimulants like caffeine, chocolate, and alcohol. Our days are filled with work stresses, capped off by evenings glued to screens. This frenetic lifestyle saw the rise of convenience foods packed with harmful ingredients like glucose-fructose syrup and refined sugars, leading to a slew of new diseases like obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, ADHD, and cancer, dampening our quality of life.

Farming methods have also changed which now includes the use of pesticides and the once fertile soil is now depleted of vital nutrients. Raw organic milk once a simple and basic commodity is now frowned upon and treated like “poisonous and full of microbes”.

Many of us rush off to work each morning, skipping breakfast for a quick coffee and low-fat muffin en route. Some manage lunch, while others opt for another "stimulant" to push through. But why not? It gives us a temporary boost, right? Yet, as we rely on stimulants, our blood sugar levels skyrocket. This constant spike leads to internal chaos, resulting in weight gain, heart disease, low energy, brain fog, diabetes, dementia, and more.

Notice the weary faces on the journey home, collapsing onto the sofa from exhaustion. Our bodies labor tirelessly to combat excess sugar, fighting inflammation — the root cause of many diseases. But as the sugar levels drop, fatigue, irritability, and susceptibility to infections rise. It's a rollercoaster: what goes up must come down, leaving us craving more and feeling drained.

The Food Groups - Three is the Magic Number

In order to establish healthy food habits, you need to understand the three food groups. Each has a vital role in building and maintaining good health.

These basic food groups include carbohydrates, proteins, and fats — nothing groundbreaking. However, in recent decades, we've witnessed the emergence of synthetic "man-made" foods like refined carbohydrates, hydrogenated fats, artificial sweeteners, and emulsifiers. While often categorised within these groups, these products strictly do not belong among our essential dietary components.

Carbohydrates

Most of us love carbohydrates - I certainly do - and most can also easily name them: bread, pasta, rice and potatoes. But most will forget to add to this list salads, vegetables, fruits and whole grains!

Our body breaks carbohydrates down to basic sugar units (glucose) which mainly provide energy. Bread and pasta (pre-baked grains) are called high glycemic index (GI) foods. In other words they flood the blood with sugar very quickly. Elevated blood sugar doesn't just harm organs like the eyes, heart, and kidneys — it also impairs healing, weakens the immune system, disrupts metabolism, and fuels chronic inflammation.

When sugar floods the bloodstream, chaos ensues. The pancreas floods the body with insulin to lower sugar levels, prompting cells to store excess sugar—a cycle that crashes blood sugar levels. Meanwhile, adrenal glands, sensing danger, raise blood sugar levels. This vicious cycle overworks the pancreas and adrenals, stressing the liver and inducing unwanted acidity in the body. Such strain on internal organs leads to a cascade of symptoms, including weight gain, diabetes, chronic fatigue, and hormonal imbalances.

This internal drama is caused by high GI carbohydrates but sadly for the chocolate addicts, pastry and muffins lovers among us, these "junk" foods create exactly the same chaos within the body. These are rapidly broken down into sugar creating this vicious cycle. To attain optimal health and vitality, it's crucial to steer clear of these blood sugar extremes variations.

I hope you found this first part insightful and informative. Join me next week as we delve into the remaining two groups and uncover the naked truth: why fat doesn't make you fat.

Stay tuned!

Best,

Thierry