By Sarah B.
Weir, Shine Senior Writer | Healthy Living
If you follow diet trends closely, you could get whiplash. One year fat
is the enemy; the next, sugar is poison. Recently, twin brothers, Chris and
Alexander "Xand" van Tulleken set out on a month-long radical
experiment to put the debate to rest over which is worse.
Chris adopted a super low fat diet, consuming only the 2% he would need
to maintain his health. Xand opted for a high protein diet that ditched all
forms of sugar (i.e. carbohydrates), from table sugar to flour to fruit. The
brothers, who both work as physicians, shared similar daily routines and stuck
to the exact same fitness regimen. Furthermore, because they share identical
DNA, any changes they experienced would be attributable to diet, not genetics.
A film crew followed their nutritional journey, and it's airing as a
documentary on BBC2 on Wednesday.
Xand was motivated because he was at his highest weight ever — 245
pounds. He told the Daily Mail he looked like the "fat version of his
twin" and was a living, breathing "cautionary tale." He realized
that while he and Chris were both doctors, they really didn't know that much
about nutrition and diet. "These topics fall between the cracks at medical
school. Yes, we understood biochemistry and food metabolism, and knew a lot
about the consequences of being overweight," he said. "But which
diets work, why we eat too much and why losing weight is so hard don't sit
within any medical specialty."
The diets were easy to follow because the rules were so specific.
Although there was no limit on how much the twins could eat , Xand says both
plans were, ultimately, "miserable." Initially, he thought he had the
better deal, devouring piles of meat, eggs, and fat — but eliminating sugars
had some nasty side effects. His breath stank and he felt constipated.
Moreover, he was sluggish, tired, and his brain was in a fog. When he and Chris
raced each other uphill on bikes, he realized that his endurance was shot.
Chris flew up the hill while Xand's heart rate surged. "He just keeps
getting further away and I cannot make my legs go any faster," Xand huffed
to the camera crew.
Xand was the weight loss winner, dropping a total of 9 pounds, but he
says his high-protein, low-carb diet caused his body to go into ketosis — a
state in which the body burns fat but doesn't effectively provide the brain with
the glucose (sugar) it needs for energy.
Nutrition expert Angela Lemond explained to Yahoo Shine, that high
protein diets produce chemicals called ketones, which promote weight loss but
can lead to kidney failure. "We recommend staying above 100 grams of
carbohydrates per day to avoid going into ketosis," she said and added,
"We know people cannot sustain this way of eating and therefore, they
re-gain the weight."
Meanwhile, Chris wasn't faring much better. He had lost a little
weight, but without the added fat, even supposedly decadent foods, such as
pasta, tasted like cardboard. Lemond explained that fat increases the feeling
of satisfaction, and indeed, Chris experienced a constant gnawing hunger.
At the end of the month, neither brother felt like his diet was
superior. Speaking with scientists working in cutting edge nutrition, they
decided that the real problem was the combination of sugar and fat found in
many processed foods. "We should not vilify a single nutrient…" Chris
told the Sunday Express. "It is too easy to demonize fat or sugar but that
enables you to let yourself off the hook in other ways. The enemy is right in
front of us in the shape of processed foods."
The brothers concluded that searching for "one toxic
ingredient" was fruitless and we should rather be watching calories,
portion size, and eating whole foods whenever possible. Its an un-sexy approach
that won't spark any diet crazes or launch a bestseller, but could actually
work.
http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/twin-brothers-act-guinea-pigs-sugar-v-fat-190600102.html
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