MBOMBELA – The renowned sport scientist, Prof Tim Noakes, who has gained international accreditation for his revolutionary take on dietary intake, as well as his opinions about the Banting diet, made his long-awaited appearance at Emnotweni Arena on Wednesday, and his message was devoured by a full house.
For almost three decades, the medical and marketing industries have been deceiving consumers about what they should see as healthy food. Carbohydrates, processed foods and sugars, Noakes said, should be eliminated from our diet.
“Carbohydrates make you hungry. Once you take carbohydrates out of your diet, you lose your hunger – which is key to losing weight.”
Read the remarkable story of how Brian Berkman lost 78 kilograms here.
He continued by saying that humans’ energy should come from a healthy intake of animal fats.
“In 1977, due to marketing and money-making by big corporations, we have been told to eat more grains and refined foods,” he said. “These corporations did a calorie ‘health wash’ to make consumers think that calories were healthy. This is simply not true.
“Before the 70s, people were still lean and healthy. In fact, diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular diseases were not nearly as common as they are today.”
The main problem with heart attacks, strokes and diabetes, he said, was not the level of cholesterol it produced, but people’s level of insulin. According to him, it is insulin that causes fat around the waistline and can kill people, not cholesterol.
“We have been told that it is the ‘high-calories-in, low-calories-out’ model that makes us fat. The truth is, excessive dietary intake, caused by the addictiveness of some foods, worsens a person’s insulin resistance.
This and increased calorie intake cause obesity, which in turn cause people to be more sluggish.
Noakes presented graphs showing the immense increase of diabetes, obesity and other chronic health issues over the past 30 years.
According to him, carbohydrates and sugars are addictive foods and cause people to be constantly hungry. If people ate more fat and less carbs, he said, our bodies would release enough energy without having to take in excessive calories.
“Basically, we need to return to the diet humans followed while we were evolving, which is high in fat and protein and low in carbohydrates.
“Our bodies have adapted to process those kinds of foods, not these low-fat products we are used to seeing today.”
Fasting, he said, is not only important, but will happen naturally because one will not get hungry.
We have an appestat in our brains controlling our appetite and hunger. Our current dietary routine has compromised our appestats to think that we must get hungry at lunchtime, in stead of telling us to eat only when we are hungry.
This diet, Noakes claims, will address many health conditions, like hypertension and heart diseases.”
Many doctors and nutritionists don’t treat the cause of the problem, they simply prescribe medication for the symptoms. Many of them will not admit that this approach is wrong.
He highlighted an excerpt from his book Lore of Running where he promoted a high-carbohydrate diet for athletes.
“Please let me be the first to say I was wrong. The view I have now, refutes the one I promoted in the book.”
The event was hosted by Old Mutual as part of its nationwide drive to promote health and wellness.
Listen to Lowvelder’s short interview with Noakes here:
