Response from Dr. Loo

Here is Dr. Loo's response to my earlier blog:

Well, a proper diet is something lots of people are concerned about. My take on the whole issue is not to exclude on one type of food or another, but rather to eat a variety of foods to get a good balance of carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, and minerals. If losing weight is the main focus, then the total caloric intake of your meals is what is important.

The reason for this is because the body has a huge number of biochemical pathways to convert basic building blocks (proteins for example) that it has in excess, to building blocks that it is lacking in, that what you eat in particular doesn't really matter.... if you eat more than what your body needs, it will tend to pack away the excess in the form of fat tissue.

But you still should eat a variety of foods because there are certain essential nutrients that your body can't make from other "basic building blocks", and if they aren't in your diet you'll eventually develop a malnutrative disease. Also, I haven't looked into it very closely, but from what was described to me, the atkins diet seems to cause weight loss through inducing ketosis, which in turn causes you to lose body water. This doesn't seem healthy to me, plus most people don't want to lose water weight, they want to lose fatty weight.... Read More

We were taught to encourage regular exercise to promote health, but anyone that has run a a treadmill will realize that you don't burn many calories at all. (ie. you run for 3 hours, but the amount of calories that you burn is replaced in excess by just eating a piece of toast...)

But: exercise promotes good cardiovascular heath & changes the cholesterol ratios in you body to prevent heart disease. In addition, one should also exercise with weights to increase or maintain muscle mass. This is important because it helps fend off osteoporosis (esp. in women and older folks), and muscle tissue has a higher resting metabolic level than fat. So, if you have a bit more muscle mass, you tend to burn more calories per day without doing anything differently.

I guess the long and the short of it is:
1. eat a good variety of things for proper nutrition.
2. watch what you eat (ie. less cholesterol & fats)
3. watch how much you eat (again, total caloric intake versus what your daily metabolic rate can burn off will determine weight gain or loss)
4. And exercise regularly (cardio and weight training)

At least, that's my take on it. Hope its helpful...
Wed at 1:33pm · Delete