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i am referring to people en masse, not those that have particular problems, such as diabetes, or such.
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Currently in America alone, there are at least 20 million people that have diabetes and at least half as many again who have it and have not yet been diagnosed with it. That's a lot of people and doesn't even begin the address the number of people who are insulin resistant but have not yet developed diabetes. If that's not people en masse, I don't know what is.
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i want to see a marathon runner, etc., who is not intaking a lot of carbs.
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Have a look through the General Excercise forum. I also read about a doctor who works for the Atkins center, although I can't remember his name, who runs marathons while following a low carb lifestyle. Again, since you're talking about people "en masse", people en masse don't run marathons and certainly don't do so on a daily basis for those that do. For those that do run marathons on a regular basis, they most likely don't need to restrict their carbs as much as an average person who does not participate in such strenuous activities on a regular basis (and I'd wager that includes most of us).
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the goal of nutrition is not about weight control, although correct nutrition will stabilize one's weight. the goal of nutrition is to keep the body healthy, and working as it was designed.
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While this sounds good in theory, it doesn't seem to work as predicted in practice, when pursued through the recommended food pyramid. Americans have been exercising more and eating less fat and calories over the past couple of decades and yet heart disease, obesity and diabetes are soaring. One can have very good nutrition and still be overweight through various mechanisms besides simply too many calories. You're right in that the goal of nutrition is not weight control, it's about providing the body with optimal nutrients to function at its best but that doesn't address being overweight or give a solution for it.
Being overweight carries with it a great deal more health risks than eating in even an unbalanced manner for a period of time and we've already established that low carbing is not unbalanced if done properly; if provides the needed vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids and essential proteins that a body needs for good health.
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we should change the name of it to something other than "low carb", because low-carbohydrate diets are not optimal.
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It's called low carb, because in relation to what the average person eats in a day (300+ grams of carb) it IS low, even at maintainanace levels of 60-100 grams per day. There are a few who would need to consume less carbs than that to maintain and a few who can consume more and maintain, but 60-100 is the average. You also have not established that low carb diets are not optimal. In fact, it seems that we've established that optimal nutrition is quite possible on a level of carb intake even below 60 grams of carb per day.
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these diets give quick weight losses, which is why they are so popular, and make lots of bucks for those touting them. but the bottom line remains the same - they are not good for you. they allow too much fat, and not enough carbs.
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Again, you have not established that too much fat (how much would that be, by the way, and which types of fat?) is bad for you and that the body has some required level of carbs. In fact, there are no "essential" carbs while there are essential fatty acids, essential amino acids and essential vitamins and minerals. Studies have shown that the body can function just as well using ketones as an energy source as it can using glucose, in some cases (heart muscle, for example), it functions better on ketones than glucose.
Studies have also shown that the amount of fat, even saturated fats, typical to a low carb diet do not have the negative impact on cardiac profiles predicted. In fact, the cardiac profiles of those following a low carb/high fat regime as opposed to a high carb/low fat regime improved more.
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the more vigorous activity one does, the more carbohydrates one needs, but you never want to go as low as most of the low-carb diets talk about.
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I won't argue with that, but nobody needs 300+ grams of carb per day. Most people even doing vigorous excercise do just fine on less than 100 grams of carb per day. Again, going as low as most of the low carb diets talk about is for the purpose of weight loss while doing moderate exercise and carb levels are increased as the individual can tolerate througout that process until maintainance is reached. Since your profile indicates that you've read Protein Power, I'll assume that you understand the physiological reasons why lowering carbs would be necessary to get to that point. Personally, I never had a problem completing a Curves For Women workout, which combines cardio with weight resistance, on 30 grams of carb per day.
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we need to meet our protein requirements, our 2 essential fats, and then the rest in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. if people followed this, they would live to their maximum, which is somewhere between 100 and 140, and would keep their 21ish energy peak into their 50's.
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This has never been shown to be true. In fact, when they interviewed centenarians about their diets and lifestyles, they did not differ greatly from their counterparts who had died at a much younger age and their cardiac profiles were not better, either. It appears that genetics plays a much greater role in how long a person will live than merely diet.
Eating correctly, however, will certainly do much to keep you healthy and energetic longer than eating incorrectly. For me, eating correctly is low carb and involves eating every food that you listed above, although most likely in very different proportions than you do.