Why do people fall for the Atkin's diet???

[Ted Striker]

Orangutans are omnivores also. I'm trying to think of that other primate that runs in packs and does the same thing...

[Urban Ranger]

Sure, you need to exercise. That's an important aspect.

Ted,

Found this on the Web:

Orangutans find their food in the trees where they live. More than half their diet consists of fruit. They also eat nuts, bark, and other parts of plants and trees. Every once in a while they eat insects such as ants and termites, as well as bird eggs. Orangutans even find the water they need for drinking up in the trees—in hollows, on leaves, or even on their own fur after a rain.

So orangs aren't strict herbivores, but not really omnivores either. Sort of like human vegaterians.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Odin

Complex carbs arn't fattening, simple ones (like sugar) are.

But complex carbohydrates are eventually broken down into simple sugars. When you eat supposedly healthy 12 grain wheat bread, at some point in time it'll end up being nothing but glucose. The only advantage you get from the complex carbs is that it takes more energy (calories) to digest them, and therefore you technically get less net calories out of them.

MtG: I doubt that your liver can get 'exhausted' from protein like your pancreas does when you eat too much sugar. But I guess I'll take your word for it.

[Ted Striker]

Well, I guess it depends on which source you believe.

Diet: Orangutans are omnivores, which means they eat a variety of foods - both meat and plants - like fruit, leaves and small animals. However, 70% of a wild orangutan diet is fruit. The juicy, smelly durian fruit (looks like a cantaloupe with thorns and smells like rotten eggs, but its taste is sweet as honey) is one of their favourites. They also eat, flowers, bark and insects such as, termites and butterfly larva.

I'll agree though that the orangutans eat more plants than anything. But I still feel that most apes are omnivores.

Damn what is the name of that ape? It is a scary looking ape and you don't want to mess with it because 1 on 1 it will destroy a human but it also travels in huge packs that fight lions.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

I minor in anthropology and its actually a well known fact among many anthropologists (or at least, widely believed since nothing is really "known" for a fact) that humans evolved largely because of their increasing reliance on hunting for food. And as you can guess, the smarter hominids were able to make better tools and hunt with more proficiency, and so those hominids survived and interbred with one another... causing evolution. To some extent at least, there were many other factors at play, most of which aren't entirely known.

Of course this is just one school of thought, I buy it though.

[One_Brow]

Originally posted by Darius871
But complex carbohydrates are eventually broken down into simple sugars. When you eat supposedly healthy 12 grain wheat bread, at some point in time it'll end up being nothing but glucose. The only advantage you get from the complex carbs is that it takes more energy (calories) to digest them, and therefore you technically get less net calories out of them.

There are two additional advantqges: complex carbohydrates ake extra time to digest. This spreads the glucose distribution over a longer period of time. helping to prevent a glucose spike.

Also, when you eay 100% whole grain breads, you are getting an excellent source of chromium, a key mineral in the operatiion of insulin.

As for the Atkins diet, I prefer diets that don't require supplements, emphasize slightly more protein than the Food Pyramid, and don't need to be modified over time, like the Zone or Sugar Busters.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Odin
Che, the genus australopithicus IS ancesteral to the genus Homo, look in every recent book on human evolution, they say Homo evolved from Australopithicus afracanus, Australopithicus robustus, or Australopithicus afarensis.

Homo habilis coexisted at the same time as australopithicus afracanus, and australopithicus robustus. We come from homo habilis. Australopithicus afarensis. is the direct ancestor of africanis which is the ancestor of homo habilis and robustusbut hung around for a few hundred thousands years after the other two arrived on the scene.

We also have the teeth of a mostly herbivorous animal; our molars are made for eating tough gritty plant material. We have thicker enamel on our teeth than any other primate, showing that our ancestor's diet changed from fruit eating to eating nuts and vegies.

Homo habilis was the first stone-tool using hominid, and those tools were hunting weapons and cutting tools. We and our ancestors have been hunting prey for millions of years, and we have evolved with our diet.Despite the fact that our choppers are desgined to eat tough fiberous foods, our intestines are much shorter than an herbivores, though a little longer than a carnivores. We need shorter guts to keep meat from rotting in our intestines. Hunting also requires a more upright gate, feet designed for walking and running, and a larger brain (for calculating balistic trajectories). We are clearly "designed" to be omnivores.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Darius871
But complex carbohydrates are eventually broken down into simple sugars. When you eat supposedly healthy 12 grain wheat bread, at some point in time it'll end up being nothing but glucose. The only advantage you get from the complex carbs is that it takes more energy (calories) to digest them, and therefore you technically get less net calories out of them.

Well, food is either used as building blocks of your body or as energy. Any excess will be stored as fat. Even if you eat loads of protein, you'll end up fat.

[Sarxis]

Re: Why do people fall for the Atkin's diet???

Originally posted by Odin
If one knew human biology and evolution enough

What does this have to do with evolution? o_O

[Sava]

It's not as if there is some magic recipe that human beings are supposed to eat. Through 2 million years of evolution, humans ate animal meat and whatever grew wild. It's only in the last 10,000 years that agriculture has revolutionized the way humans eat.

IMO, the Atkinss diet is based on a sound principle, less carbs, more protein. Which is good if your current diet consists of too many carbs (pizza, pasta, beer). The people that have problems with the Atkin's diet are the ones that can't control themselves anyways. Everything about the human diet is about balance. Too much of anything is bad. Personally, after speaking with my doctor and many nutritionists in the past, the food pyramid is the best and most balanced diet there is. For people that want to lose weight, it's not about which diet works better, its all about following through with the diet through moderation. If you eat a lot, you get fat... duh!!

Changing the type of foods can have different effects. Eating 3,000 calories a day of just bread is different than 3,000 calories a day of meat because of the makeup of the food: carbs, protein. Each is digested and used by the body differently. Protein tends to be used to replace muscle tissue. Carbs are used as energy and then stored as fat. Your body will filter out most of the extra protein it doesn't need, while it keeps the carbs no matter what. That's why the Atkin's diet works (in some manner).

UR: True, but all things being equal, more protein will be expelled from the body (instead of being store as fat) than carbs.

[reds4ever]

it worked for me, last summer i had gone from 140 lbs to around 155lbs (the soccer world cup was mostly to blame) which is a big jump when youre 5 ft 8 ins. i cut out pasta, rice and bread and lost the weight in less than a month. i would point out though that pasta and rice are a BIG part of my normal diet so rermoving them and not replacing them with anything was bound to have a big effect. i just ate lots of chicken, fish, veggies and fruit, all of which i like anyway so it's was a very easy diet to follow for me.

i didn't notice the famed 'detoxing' effects that a lot of people talk about though.

[Solly]

Can tell you are a Liverpool supporter if you lose it that quickly.

[MikeH]

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by Boddington's
Can tell you are a Liverpool supporter if you lose it that quickly.

yep, i managed to lose 23 lbs out of a possible 27, not bad! still smiling though!