Big Breakfast


The headline in this morning's paper confirms my current experience: Big breakfast aids weight loss. I'm dieting again, starting the day as the caption suggests, and pleased with the results over the past few weeks.

But I'm on a different regimen from the one being promoted in the article. A researcher in Venezuela says she has proof her high carb breakfast is way more effective in the long run, than my classic "Atkins" approach.

With scientists from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Jakubowicz and her colleagues compared their high-carb and protein "big breakfast" diet with a strict low-carb diet in 94 obese, sedentary women.

At four months, there was no significant weight-loss difference between the two diet groups. Women on the strict low-carb diet shed an average of about 28 pounds, while women on the big breakfast diet lost nearly 23 pounds, on average.

But at eight months, the low-carb dieters regained an average of 18 pounds, while the big breakfast dieters continued to lose weight, shedding another 16.5 pounds.

Those on the big breakfast diet lost more than 21 per cent of their body weight, compared with just 4.5 per cent for the low-carb group.


Well, that contradicts a lot of other studies that I've read about, but certainly sounds worth looking into. There wasn't much else to go on in the Windsor Star, so I googled the good doctor's name and found a longer version of the story at this website.

The 46 women on the very-low-carb diet consumed 1,085 calories a day, consisting of 17 grams of carbohydrates, 51 grams of protein and 78 grams of fat. The smallest meal was breakfast, at 290 calories. For breakfast, the low-carb dieters were allowed only 7 grams of carbohydrates, such as bread, fruit, cereal and milk, and they could eat just 12 grams of protein, such as meat and eggs, in the morning.

In contrast, the 48 women on the "big breakfast diet" consumed 1,240 calories a day. Although lower in total fat (46 grams) than the other diet, the big breakfast diet had higher daily allotments of carbs (97 grams) and protein (93 grams). Dieters ate a 610-calorie breakfast, consisting of 58 grams of carbs, 47 grams of protein and 22 fat grams.


Hmmm. There are three kinds of diets. The low fat diets of recent fashion have turned out to be miserable failures. The low carb diets have been around for a couple of centuries but fell out of favour in the last 50 years during the war against cholesterol.

The two diets in this particular study however, are both, despite their differences, low calorie diets. I'm impressed that the women were able to stick to them for so long. Not many people can. The average 150 lb person burns about 2,000 calories a day.

Every diet works for some people, and they all have high failure rates that probably have as much to to do with genetics as will power. From what I've read low carb diets, and there are a variety, are generally more successful than the others. The nice thing about low carb is that you don't have to focus on the amount of food you eat, just the kinds.

My diet starts out very low carb, about 20 grams of leafy green vegetables, lots of protein and fat, and I lose a lot of weight in the first few weeks. Then I gradually add more carbs each week until I stop losing weight, at which point its time to cut back again, just a bit, on the bread and whole grain cereals. I've done this twice in the past six years, losing about 30 pounds each time. And kept it off for a year or two afterwards.

Why did I gain the weight back? I'd like to blame the knee injury, when I tore a tendon in the middle of some intensive jogging a few years ago. And last December and January I had some annoying back and groin pain after falling on some ice. But the sedentary lifestyle is just a scapegoat. Carbs are comfort food, and when I'm down I have a weakness for pizza. And toast, and french fries, and potato chips, and hash browns, and...

I've been exercising since February, and gaining more weight while doing so. Until I changed my diet.

So what have I been reading that has me returning to the much maligned Dr. Atkins for a third time?

Gary Taubes, of course. His 2002 essay in the New York Times Magazine, What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie? convinced me to give low carb a try. His most recent book is Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease.

A webcast of a lecture by him, Big Fat Lies, is here.

For a critical review of the book, see Carbophobia, by Gina Kolata.


Posted: Sat - June 21, 2008 at 07:58 PM          

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