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Friday, 19 September 2014

Princess Health and Food Reward Friday. Princessiccia

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Today's lucky "winner"... waffles!!!


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Thursday, 18 September 2014

Saturday, 13 September 2014

Princess Health andH+P at the 2014 Harvest Half.Princessiccia

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Today, the Waterloo Running Series held the inaugural Harvest Half in support of the Kenyan Kids Foundation!  H+P had a solid contingent in both the half and quarter marathon events.  Here are the full results:



Half Marathon (FULL results):

  • RunnerRob won the event OVERALL with a fantastic new PB of 1:15:08 (Thanks for the great pic Krista Duchene!)
  • Hot on his tail, Brendan Hancock showed that he is quickly coming back into the form he showed last summer.  He ran a solid 1:15:39 to finish second OA.
  • Dave, the ageless wonder, Rutherford came in with a very sold 1:23.  This was good enough for 7th OA, and to dominate the 50-59 AG!
  • Sam Lalonde was in next for the team with a massive PB (by about 8 minutes), running 1:39 and placing 9th in his AG.
  • Nicole Green showed a huge improvement over the last month of training  She managed an outstanding 1:42, and placed 2nd in her AG!
  • Justin Buis ran a MASSIVE PB of 1:46- once again showing that his hard training over the course of the summer is paying dividends.  
  • Derek ran a very solid PB of 1:47 (in a tutu no less) placing 5th in his AG!
  • Tammy ran a solid time of just over 2:00-hours, and also finished 5th in her AG!

1/4 Marathon (FULL results):
  • Nick Burt had a very solid race, running just over 40 minutes and placing 2nd OA!
  • Holger was in next for the team with an outstanding time of 43 minutes, winning his AG and placing 5th OA.
  • Paul had a very solid finish with a time of 49 minutes.  This was good enough for 8th OA!
  • Ed and Candy Shrigley did exactly what they wanted to do: break 1 hour and finish together.  They ended up with a time of 58:11, nice work!
  • Will finished with a great time of just over 1 hour, and finished 3rd in his category! 

Monday, 8 September 2014

Princess Health and Thoughts on the McDougall Advanced Study Weekend. Princessiccia

Princess Health and Thoughts on the McDougall Advanced Study Weekend. Princessiccia

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For those of you who aren't familiar with him, Dr. John McDougall is a doctor and diet/health advocate who recommends a very low fat, high starch, whole food vegan diet to control weight and avoid chronic disease. He's been at it for a long time, and he's a major figure in the "plant-based diet" community (i.e., a diet including little or no animal foods).

Dr. McDougall invited me to participate in his 3-day Advanced Study Weekend retreat in Santa Rosa, CA. My job was to give my talk on insulin and obesity, and participate in a panel discussion/debate with Dr. McDougall in which we sorted through issues related to low-carb, Paleo, and the health implications of eating animal foods. I was glad to receive the invitation, because I don't see myself as a diet partisan, and I believe that my evidence-based information is applicable to a variety of diet styles. I saw the Weekend as an opportunity to extend my thoughts to a new community, challenge myself, and maybe even learn a thing or two. It was particularly interesting to compare and contrast the Advanced Study Weekend with the Ancestral Health Symposium, which is more Paleo- and low-carb-friendly.

General Observations

The attendees were a lot older than AHS attendees. I estimate that most of them were in their 60s, although there were some young people in attendance.

I don't place too much emphasis on peoples' personal appearance at conferences like this. You don't know what a person's background, genetics, or personal struggles may be, you don't know how closely they adhere to the program, and you don't know to what degree a group of people might be self-selected for particular traits*. But I will note that Dr. McDougall, his family, and many of the other starch-based/plant-based diet advocates tended to be extremely lean with low fat and muscle mass. They also tended to have a healthy and energetic appearance and demeanor. As I would expect, decades of exceptionally high starch intake hasn't made them obese or obviously ill.

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Friday, 5 September 2014

Thursday, 4 September 2014

Princess Health and What about the Other Weight Loss Diet Study??. Princessiccia

Princess Health and What about the Other Weight Loss Diet Study??. Princessiccia

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The same day the low-fat vs low-carb study by Bazzano and colleagues was published, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a meta-analysis that compared the effectiveness of "named diet programs". Many people have interpreted this study as demonstrating that low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets are both effective for weight loss, and that we simply need to pick a diet and stick with it, but that's not really what the study showed. Let's take a closer look.

Johnston and colleagues sifted through PubMed for studies that evaluated "named diet programs", such as Ornish, Atkins, LEARN, Weight Watchers, etc (1). In addition, the methods state that they included any study as low-carbohydrate that recommended less than 40% of calories from carbohydrate, was funded by the Atkins foundation, or was "Atkins-like". These criteria weren't extended to the low-fat diet: only studies of name-brand low-fat diets like the Ornish diet were included, while the meta-analysis excluded low-fat diet studies whose guidelines were based on recommendations from government and academic sources, even though the latter group represents the majority of the evidence we have for low-fat diets. The inclusion criteria were therefore extremely asymmetrical in how they represented low-carb and low-fat diets. This fact explains the unusual findings of the paper.

The abstract immediately activated my skeptic alarm, because it states that at the one-year mark, low-carbohydrate diets and low-fat diets both led to a sustained weight loss of about 16 pounds (7.3 kg). Based on my understanding of the weight loss literature, that number seems far too high for the low-fat diet, and also too high for the low-carbohydrate diet.

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