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Hey peeps. What did you think of this article?

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/eating-fat-staying-lean/?ref=health

It's nice to see NYtimes publishing more information on the subject, though I have more than a few qualms with the article...

I also have some major question marks on the Dr. Phillips study:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3032663/

but, curious as to your thoughts why the study showed decreased visceral fat with the Low Fat diets.

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Out of an apparent masochistic tendency, I did glance at the NYT article by Gretchen Reynolds, who manages to get things half-right as usual, while dispensing just enough misinformation to be harmful. Then I read a handful of comments and felt my blood pressure rising, so I stopped. Getting health info from the NYT is hit or miss -- mostly miss. They do post some good info from time to time, but you have to know how to weed through the crap, and most people don't. – JJ Jun 2 2011 at 15:32
yes, i agree... plus, they like catchy headlines. – smartcookie Jun 2 2011 at 15:48
Yeah, the article mentions that Johns Hopkins recruited a group of "46 healthy but overweight men and women..." I hope this BS hasn't entered the national lexicon, but the fact that NYT prints it is not a good sign. Overweight =/= Healthy! – Futureboy Jun 2 2011 at 19:21
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 Futureboy, you have to define overweight. Remember given the current standards, Michael Jordan is considered obese... We have no context! – DavidHill76 Feb 16 at 16:17

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couple of points. Stephan over at whole health source during his recent posts about food reward has been trying to prove that one of the major factors in fat loss is food reward and it's connections with satiety and other pathways that i don't understand. in one of his posts, he pointed out that low-fat, high fat, paleo, and even vegan diets have been beneficial in people who are trying to lose fat. there are a lot of ways to skin a cat but i'd argue that there are better and more efficient ways...

in my experience, a high fat, moderate protein, low carb diet helped me move my bf% into a normal range. after hitting that setpoint and staying there, i have had to recently go on a psmf with basically very little fat, high protein and low carbs to get my setpoint moving again. depending on your goals, sometimes you have to adjust things a bit to achieve them...

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good points - and maybe psmf is better for targeting visceral fat? still wondering why the hf subjects would have higher amounts than the lf subjects - or if it matters. – smartcookie Jun 2 2011 at 15:55
when i started psmf'ing, it basically started stripping me down very quickly. the key is to make sure you are eating maintenance levels of protein- i eat about 1.25 per lbm to maintain the lbm and lift 2x a week. – luckybastard♦ Jun 2 2011 at 16:37
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Meh, they still focus too much on the exercise and calorie restriction at the cause. It's less "high fat may be good for you" than it is "well it seems that - on the short term - high fat may not be as bad as we thought for you". So it really wont't provoke any thought to those who still think fat is bad. It's a generic waffling article like you would see in the mainstream press, just regurgitating what the researchers told the "journalist" without actually doing any thought on their own.

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I generally get the feeling, with this article in particular, that they don't trust the findings and are waiting for 'the catch' before they publish the follow up.

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