The Bread For Life Diet - May the Yeast be With You

I knew it was just a matter of time. In fact, I used to joke that sooner or later someone would come out with the "Bread and Water" diet. So, here we go!

I first heard about this new diet from a Newswire email I got. Seems there's a "nutrition" researcher named Olga Raz from Israel that came up with this concoction. According to the release, she is supposed to be as popular in Israel as Atkins was in America.

Debora Yost, the editor of her book "The Bread for Life Diet: The High-on-Carbs Weight Loss Plan", stated that other publishers didn't want to touch this book because it was so anti-Atkins and South Beach diet. I've got a better reason- it's because it's a load of crap!

Yost goes on to say that "As soon as I saw it I could see that it made perfect sense" referring to the diet. Sure it makes sense - if you're trying to hype up worthless information and then sell it to the unsuspecting public.

The key to this diet is that by eating a lot of carbs, you can keep serotonin levels high and prevent cravings and hunger. Without getting technical, serotonin is a hormone and it does have an affect on diet control and emotions. It is , however, only one piece of a very complex puzzle as to how, why, when and what people eat during the course of a day.

What floored me the most was the part of recommending up to 12 slices of bread per day for a woman and 16 slices per day for a man. I hope you like eating your bread plain, because this alone will give you anywhere from 600 to 1400 calories, or a good part of your entire daily calorie intake.

Advocating what amounts to nearly a pound of bread a day as a healthy way to eat is downright criminal. I have no doubt that if a majority of people put away this much bread in a day, both obesity and diabetes rates would increase dramatically.

Since all types of bread have a high glycemic index, for most this diet would play havoc with blood glucose and insulin levels. Bread is also relatively high in calories so other nutritious foods would have to be greatly limited, leading to a very inbalanced diet.

This diet goes against the "grain" (pun intended) of documented studies, credible research and just plain common sense. In Israel they call this the Raz Diet. My suggestion is to change the name by adding two letters and you will have what it really is - the CRazY Diet.

the Diet Meister

Livin La Vida Low-Carb Update

I had intended my next article to be on Barry Sears, author of the Zone diet. Instead, I decided to do another piece on Jimmy Moore, author of the blog livinlavidalocarb.blogspot.com.

I wrote a critical article on a sample diet plan he gave at his blog and he sent me an email thanking me for mentioning him. Hmmm ... what's up with that?

I thought, what the heck, maybe I should do another review of his blog and get a better handle on what this guy is all about. Time to dig a bit deeper.

First, I decided to do a nutritional analysis of the sample diet items he listed in his post to see how balanced or unbalanced it actually was. I ran the numbers using software from credible sources I have so I am sure what I came up with is reasonably accurate for this review.

First, the total calories he took in were around 2500 for the day so this wasn't the typical 1200 to 1600 low calorie intake a lot of other diets would have you on.

Total protein intake was approximately 200 grams, carbohydrates 55 grams, and fats 130 grams, with a percentage breakdown of protein 33%, carbs 10%, fats 47%. While some may argue the percentage of carbs is too low, the fats and protein too high, for many I don't see a problem with this ratio, especially if someone is trying to lose weight. The roughly 200 grams of protein is quite a bit, but then again Jimmy is still a big boy and at 230 lbs that comes out to be around .87 grams per lb for him which isn't bad. For a number of people, however, boosting the carb intake anywhere from 75 to 130 grams per day may prove easier to handle, both emotionally and physically. That's an individual call.

So far so good with the total calories and macro nutrient ratios. But now we get into the micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients) and here's where the problems start.

Jimmy lists he takes a fish oil capsule daily. If it's cod liver oil then he is getting a good amount of vitamin A and D which is lacking in the rest of his diet, so these two vitamins may be covered. He also takes a multivitamin which is beneficial, since I found intakes of Vitamin E, C, B1 Thiamin, B5 Pantothenic Acid, B12 and Folate to be low (less than 100% DV which are barely adequate levels to begin with). Also, a very important vitamin which is often not in a multivitamin, Vitamin K was only about 35% DV.

There was a more serious problem when it came to his mineral intake. Zinc, copper, iron, manganese, selenium, sodium were all okay. Potassium was low at around 60% DV but what really could cause problems were the amounts of calcium, magnesium and phosphorous.

Jimmy's high consumption of diet soda gives him around 2765 mg per day of phosphorous which is 275% of the DV. This is not good. Since phosphorous and calcium should be in a one to one ratio, perhaps he tries to compensate for this by taking a 1200mg calcium supplement each day. Only problem is when you add this to the rest of the calcium he is getting (just the 2 Fibercon supplements he takes daily add 244 mgs calcium) you get a calcium total of...(drum roll) over 3,000 mgs per day!!! That my friends is a lot of calcium.

What's worse is the ratio of magnesium to the amount of calcium. It is critical you get a sufficient amount of magnesium in your diet and in balance with the amount of calcium you take in. Jimmy is getting around 400mg of magnesium which is good but the ratio of calcium to magnesium should be anywhere from 2:1 or 1:1 and his is more like 8:1. This could lead to a number of serious problems over time, especially regarding the cardiovascular system.

I can cover the rest of the sample diet by saying it was severly lacking in a vast array of phytonutrients that you need to get daily by eating an assortment of vegetables and fruits. Important nutrients such as lycopene and lutein were missing along with literally hundreds if not thousands of other beneficial plant chemicals everyone should be consuming daily.

There is no shortage of diet plans on the market. From Atkins to the Zone, from low carb to low fat. In my opinion, however, there really are only two diets you can be on. Either one that is balanced and healthy or one that is not. We all must eat out of necessity but eating wisely for optimal health is actually a science and art that takes time to learn and is different for everyone.

In summation, my personal take on Jimmy Moore is that he is an honestly good guy that just needs to tweak his diet a bit more, which is something that everyone can do. I think he has already modified what he eats so it is likely he is now on a much better diet.

I believe the main reason Jimmy has been able to lose all the weight he has, is by following the first rule I advocate, which is to first get a diet you can stay with. Jimmy has also demonstrated an admirable amount of will power and determination that far too few possess. If he can harness those qualities and inspire others as he has inspired himself, he will be a worthy role model to follow. Perhaps he has already done that as he has written a book that will be out soon. I think the book is called "Livin La Vida Low-Carb" and I look forward to reading it and writing a review some time in the future.

the Diet Meister