Is anyone else concerned about Saturated Fats on this WOE?

[LilBit]

I'll repost this from yesterday's post, it's the best explanation for my question.....

REPOST:

I finally got around to going to Fitday.com and creating an account.

Here is what today looked like for me, if some of you remember, I was concerned about the Fat/Protein/Carb ratio, and what those numbers should be. I'm a bit off kilter of the 65/30/5.

Calories Eaten Today
source grams cals %total
Total: 1010
Fat: 80 721 72%
Sat: 36 322 32%
Poly: 8 73 7%
Mono: 30 268 27%
Carbs: 3 13 1%
Fiber: 0 0 0%
Protein: 66 265 27%
Alcohol: 0 0 0%

This was supposed to also include a serving of Zuchinni, baked with olive oil (Zuchinni fries), but for some reason, I couldn't find Zuchinni listed in the food items. Odd. Anyway, however much Zuchinni adds to this, can someone please tell me how this looks?

These amounts and items are a pretty normal menu for my day each day, except that we are getting a bit burned out on salad, so I skipped that tonight. Normally, I ALWAYS eat a salad, even before this WOL.

This menu consisted of a boneless skinless chicken breast, baked with parmesan cheese, a serving of Zuchinni, 3 fried eggs in butter for breakfast, and 9 pepperoni slices nuked with parmesan for lunch. I counted 3 tbsp. of butter for the day, I think that's a bit high, but I fried the eggs in a bit of butter this morning, as well as dredged the chicken breast in a bit of melted butter before coating it with parmesan.

Oh, and my usual 128 oz. of WATER.

It says that I had no fiber today, hmmm, but the Zuchinni should count for that if I was able to include it in the food items, yes?

Also, I'm not sure that I understand the Fats breakdown, or where they all came from exactly.
************************************************** ***

Now, my quandry is this: I thought we were embracing GOOD fats on this WOE? Fats that helped your cholesterol, not saturated fats.

As you can see, yes, I had 3 eggs, but that isn't unusual from what I've read here. Many people have them for breakfast, as well as taking a couple of hard-boiled eggs for lunch.

I had no string cheese, and no cream cheese; two foods that I often do eat...thank God I didn't yesterday or my Saturated Fats would even be higher! I also had poutry rather than red meat. My point is, if you add in an innocent hamburger patty for the day in place of the chicken which could have very well been my choice instead, the Saturated fats for the day would have skyrocketed.

As it is, I think they're MUCH too high, particularly considering both of my parents died of heart disease.

What's up with this? I'm choosing foods from the list, and again, I understood that this WOE helped people to drive their cholesterol DOWN.....not UP with Saturated Fats.

Is anyone else concerned about this, or have you paid much attention to what your Saturated Fats have been per day?

Is this why Atkins WOE gets such a bad rap from some of the medical community as well as dieters?

I'm really looking for some answers here, because right now, I'm fairly depressed about this.

[Kent]

Really the only fat intake I watch is transfats, the partially hydrogenated ones that are the real culprit behind most of the heart disease and the like. As for saturated fats, I am not unduly concerned over the presences of them in my diet. I eat about 50-60% of my meat in non lean meats, steaks, sausage, ground beef. I also feature a lot of butter as well as opposed to margerine. My blood work for after one year was pretty much perfect, especially the cholesterol #. Anecdotally, I have seen no problems from the saturated fats.

Here's a couple links:

http://www.mercola.com/2004/dec/15/saturated_fats.htm

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/80/5/1175?ijkey=e4610ec5427b8118b39ec347e078d34a367efd11&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha

http://www.mercola.com/2004/sep/8/saturated_fat.htm

It really comes down to personal preference in my book not health aversion. If you prefer a lower sat fat diet, you certainly can still be doing Atkins, or vice versa.

[LilBit]

Thank you for those links Bowulf. I find it interesting that the Dr. in the first link does not recommend the Low Carb WOE, and yet he also states that the Carbs are what is driving up people's weight and Cholesterol. Confusing to say the least, and the problem here is that if the medical community can't seem to decide on what's good or bad for us, it is no wonder why most of the population is confused.

I absolutely agree with you on the Trans Fats, and I do know that I started feeling the difference in my own body/energy/lethargy/"drugged-state" after having been on this WOE for only one WEEK. It was amazing.
When I think about the hundreds of tubs of margarine that my family has shoveled in over the years before switching to butter, I shiver.

As far as your statement that you can do low-fat with low-carb, I'm not really sure about that one. First of all, when I saw what my fat intake was on Fitday.com, I thought, "OK, cut out the eggs for breakfast, that'll save some fat." Then my mind got to thinking about breakfast alternatives, and I went to breakfast sausage or bacon, nope, still fat intake. Then I thought about Mock Danish, no, the cream cheese has mega amounts of fat in it. Snacks as well, even on this WOE. So basically, unless you eat green pepper and lettuce for breakfast and lunch, with chicken for dinner, you're going to be consuming ample amounts of fat on this WOE - BUT - I also realize that I was eating far MORE fat on my 'other WOE', laden also with Carbs to boot.

In some ways, it just seems a Catch 22 situtation. I guess we have to pick our battles and decide whether we're going to eat Trans Fats with a side order of Carbs all our lives, or cut the Carbs and trust those in the medical community that have found Saturated Fats to not be as harmful as we once thought. I only wish they'd get it together and the majority agree, as I can find just as many articles that also state that Saturated Fats are killers for the heart.

One other thing that I do know to be true is that when I've gone for some time without eating, a salad will not do it for me. I need Fats to satiate my appetite, and often times, a small amount, pork rinds & cream cheese for example, will more than satisfy me for a long time. Same with the Danish for breakfast, which is why I love it. My job doesn't lend itself to a regular set lunch hour, so between meetings, etc, I have to grab what I can when I can. The Danish holds me over until lunchtime can happen for me, so it's obviously the Fat in it that does the trick.

Thanks again Bowulf, you somewhat eased my worry. :hug

[2big4mysize]

first the zuchinni is a summer squash green I think on fitday.

Those of us with genetic high LDL levles are very concerned about our saturated fats on our Atkins plans and as such have make the choice to use monosatureated fats in our eating and pick lower saturated cuts of meat. If you look at something like filet mingon sp? the sat fat in it is around 23%. Most proteins have mono. poly and saturated fats. You can cut your sat fats by not using pure fats that are saturated and using monosaturated fats as those are the fats that lower cholesterol levels.
You had 36 grams of saturated fats for the whole day your percent would have gone down had you added your olive oil mono saturated fats with your zuchinni, but you are only 16 grams over what the American Heart Association recommends for their low fat saturated fats limits on your high fat Atkins.

If when you get to your 6 months on Atkins blood tests and you have been eating your Atkins healthy and doing the mandatory exercise part of your Atkins( assists in weight loss and in cholesterol control) and you find your genetics gives you higher then you want LDL you can take some additional steps in your food choices to asssit in lowering your LDL.

Happy low carbing

[not2late]

Just adding to what 2Big and Bowulf wrote...

The concern about saturated fat and heart disease is based on a study called "The Seven Countries Study" published by Ancel Keys in the 1950s. Keys analysed data from 7 countries and found that in these countries the rate of heart disease was directly proportionate to the amount of saturated fat the people were eating. From this data, Keys formulated the "Lipid Theory" (fat + you eating it = heart disease = death).

The problem with the Seven Countries Study was that Keys had data from 21 countries. And if he had included all the data, he would have found that there was no correlation between fat and heart disease. But he cherry-picked his data.

The Seven countries study was "supported" by a study by Kritchevsky. This one examined the effects of saturated fat on blood vessels. Kritchevsky fed cholesterol and saturated fats to rabbits and examined their vessels. They were clogged. Here's the problem with this experiment. Rabbits are obligate herbivores--their bodies were not designed to use saturated fats.

This link discusses the Fat Myth in more detail.

http://www.diabetes-normalsugars.com/articles/truth_about_fats.shtml

I hope that helps you.

[Elizellen]

btw - in fitday you can type just the first few letters of a word if you are not sure of the spelling.
So zuc will find zucchini whereas spelt any other way it wont :yikes

[theredhead]

I just read through that article and I was furious! What a scam! The public is suffering thanks to the greed and pride of those fools! Think I'll go have some eggs cooked in butter now.

[not2late]

Laurie, if you think that is bad, then you might be interested in this link..

http://www.dragonflymedia.com/sv/2004/sv1711/wh_lead1711.html