thank you adkpam for explaining that. I wanted to introduce that line of thinking into the conversation, but I didn't want to type it.
fender you have a point about many people not living that long in some areas years ago. but it was an incomplete point just like mine.

we can also say that in Asian countries, like China and Japan, because it seems we like to use those as comparisions a lot, that rice was such a main stavel in the diet.
High Carbohydrates is not so much the culprit as is REFINED carbohydrates. Today they are unavoidable. They are nearly in everything that is grained, and nearly everything is processed and sweetened. People that do low carb diets and incoorporate grains into their daily meals do so and must turn to unrefined sources and soy flours, flaxseed and steel cut grain that is so much lower in carbos it will make your head spin. Now if we as people had ate that way our whole life, then we wouldn't have weight to lose, so there for we wouldn't need to decrease our normal consumption of such healthy foods in order to initially lose weight.
As for the rice...which no matter how you cut it is high in carbs...I would like to point out that foremost, the Asian cuisine has always been heavily reliant on oil for frying. Vegetables accompany rice in almost all incidents. I learnt a lot about Chinese food in general when my best for two years was from China.
The portions are smaller. The tea is unsweetened. There is nothing like preserves. Milk is drank with meat as a desert. Before Westernization in the last 10 years, there was not a high rate of obesity there-in, because most nations are more physically laborous than the US and Canada and the UK. We three really share the same palette of food, albeit slightly different naming conventions. If you in Britan aren't getting a good slab of white bread along with a hot dog in the park, then you'll be having it in your pudding in a traditional bowl of berries made with saturated white bread. And the country where my father is from is almost is worst with potatoes and pork. I never really liked pork, but I always ate pierogies and sweetened saur kraut.
I think it is important to identify exactly what you are realizing you will be eating and not eating in this WOL. It is simple really. Yes, you need to not eat over 20 CARBS at first. Then you add a few more. 25 or 35. You continue to lose weight or return to healthy cholester. levels. No, there is nothing to fear from eating fat and cholesterol.
Fat is neutral in your body and does not cause blood sugar to soar, making burning your fat impossible. Cholesterol is an important part of your body and if you cut back on it dramatically, your body will overproduce it to compensate in the same way it hordes calories when you are on a low calorie diet. The body strives to maintain a normal level.
If you want, I have read a study somewhere about some Risk Trial, talking about cholesterol and risk for hearth disease, but I don't know where it is in my bookmarks. I also have studies on adoptive tissue andeven though I don't have the book, a very good reading material is called Guyton's Physiology, which explains exactly how fat is stored and burned. It is a complicated read, sort of, kind of like reading a health book. But if you want to find the puddle of truth in the world which is a sea of mythical propoganda, it takes personal exploration or a really expensive nutritionalist who isn't afraid of the FDA.