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Health Headlines: Low-carb is Not the Answer to Weight Loss
Aired December 11, 2003 - 14:39 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PHILLIPS: High protein, low carbs. Have you tried it? It's the latest diet fad. And store shelves are loaded with low-carb foods to satisfy the craze, but nutritionists say those prepackaged weight-loss helpers could set you up for a bit of a diet failure. CNN's medical correspondent Holly Firfer about to burst yet another diet bubble. We've tried, haven't we?
HOLLY FIRFER, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, yes. If you haven't done it, you know somebody who's on South Beach or Atkins. It is, it's one of the hottest new trends, a multibillion dollar industry, low-carb foods. You see them everywhere. Low-carb bars, low-carb bread, low-carb shakes and on and.
But why are Americans still fatter than ever? Why can't dieters take off that weight? Well health experts say just look back a decade to another recent trend and you can draw a conclusion: we're still eating too many calories.
Remember when low-fat foods were all the craze? We picked up SnackWell's like they were the last food on the planet. Even though we were counting fat grams We forgot to look at calories and sugar. And the same goes for carbs.
Although many are low in carbohydrates, they can be loaded with calories and sugar. Let's put some perspective on this. The recommended daily allowance for calories is between 2,000 and 2,500. You should get no more than 10 percent of your fat from these calories. So we're talking about 65 to 75 grams of fat a day.
And sodium counts. You should have less than 2,400 milligrams. And just so you know, the daily recommended allowance of carbs is 300 grams.
Now if you look at some of these labels, on the carb foods the low-carb bar has 270 calories. So it's fine within itself. If you have them in addition to a meal, however, or if you snack on a couple of them, you're adding that many more calories.
And let me show you this. See this bag of chips? I would eat this bag by itself for a snack. This is actually two servings. So if you look at the label, 150 calories per serving. That's 300 calories in this, 13 grams of fat per serving, 26 grams of fat in this little bag which means almost a third of your dietary intake of fat in one snack.
So it doesn't matter how much or how little you're eating, you're getting too many calories. And also remember you need to exercise. Thirty minutes of moderate exercise a day will the trick. That's all.
So once again, this low-carb craze is not a magic bullet, sorry to say. Kyra, it's just another way to test your will.
PHILLIPS: All right, what are impact carbs?
FIRFER: You see them on all the labels. It's really just a marketing ploy. There really isn't such a thing as impact carbs. You won't see it on the FDA or USDA labeling.
The concern is glycemic index. Carbs do raise your blood sugar. When that happens, you secrete more insulin. Insulin's a hormone that helps your body store calories as fat and it also can make you hungry so you want to eat more.
Good rule of thumb, go for high-density carbs. Things like whole wheat bread, brown rice, not the processed foods like white flour or white rice. Stay away from them
PHILLIPS: All right. I'm listening.
FIRFER: All right.
PHILLIPS: Holly, thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Loss>
Aired December 11, 2003 - 14:39 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PHILLIPS: High protein, low carbs. Have you tried it? It's the latest diet fad. And store shelves are loaded with low-carb foods to satisfy the craze, but nutritionists say those prepackaged weight-loss helpers could set you up for a bit of a diet failure. CNN's medical correspondent Holly Firfer about to burst yet another diet bubble. We've tried, haven't we?
HOLLY FIRFER, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, yes. If you haven't done it, you know somebody who's on South Beach or Atkins. It is, it's one of the hottest new trends, a multibillion dollar industry, low-carb foods. You see them everywhere. Low-carb bars, low-carb bread, low-carb shakes and on and.
But why are Americans still fatter than ever? Why can't dieters take off that weight? Well health experts say just look back a decade to another recent trend and you can draw a conclusion: we're still eating too many calories.
Remember when low-fat foods were all the craze? We picked up SnackWell's like they were the last food on the planet. Even though we were counting fat grams We forgot to look at calories and sugar. And the same goes for carbs.
Although many are low in carbohydrates, they can be loaded with calories and sugar. Let's put some perspective on this. The recommended daily allowance for calories is between 2,000 and 2,500. You should get no more than 10 percent of your fat from these calories. So we're talking about 65 to 75 grams of fat a day.
And sodium counts. You should have less than 2,400 milligrams. And just so you know, the daily recommended allowance of carbs is 300 grams.
Now if you look at some of these labels, on the carb foods the low-carb bar has 270 calories. So it's fine within itself. If you have them in addition to a meal, however, or if you snack on a couple of them, you're adding that many more calories.
And let me show you this. See this bag of chips? I would eat this bag by itself for a snack. This is actually two servings. So if you look at the label, 150 calories per serving. That's 300 calories in this, 13 grams of fat per serving, 26 grams of fat in this little bag which means almost a third of your dietary intake of fat in one snack.
So it doesn't matter how much or how little you're eating, you're getting too many calories. And also remember you need to exercise. Thirty minutes of moderate exercise a day will the trick. That's all.
So once again, this low-carb craze is not a magic bullet, sorry to say. Kyra, it's just another way to test your will.
PHILLIPS: All right, what are impact carbs?
FIRFER: You see them on all the labels. It's really just a marketing ploy. There really isn't such a thing as impact carbs. You won't see it on the FDA or USDA labeling.
The concern is glycemic index. Carbs do raise your blood sugar. When that happens, you secrete more insulin. Insulin's a hormone that helps your body store calories as fat and it also can make you hungry so you want to eat more.
Good rule of thumb, go for high-density carbs. Things like whole wheat bread, brown rice, not the processed foods like white flour or white rice. Stay away from them
PHILLIPS: All right. I'm listening.
FIRFER: All right.
PHILLIPS: Holly, thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Loss>
