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Comparing the Diets: Part 2

Having examined the traditional high-carbohydrate/low-fat in Comparing the Diets: Part 2, I now want to look at the second major diet ‘type’; moderate-carb/moderate-fat.

A quick note on the percentage nutrient notation: as much as possible I tried to adhere to a format where the percentages represent percentages from protein/carbohydrates/fat in that order. So a notation of 30/60/10 means a diet where 30% of the calories are protein, 60% are carbs and 10% are fat.

The Moderate Carbohydrate/Moderate Fat diet

The next major dietary camp refers to any diet consisting of relatively moderate carbohydrate and dietary fat intakes. This includes diets such as Barry Sear’s “The Zone”, Dan Duchaine’s “Isocaloric diet”, 30/40/30 nutrition and others. Such diets generally recommend a macronutrient split based on fairly equal amounts of protein, carbs and fat. Various scientific rationales, usually involving hormonal control are typically given.

The Zone, for example, recommends a 30/40/30 split while Dan’s Isocaloric diet is 33/33/33.… Keep Reading

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Comparing the Diets

As happens with most things, the diet world has divided itself up into distinct “camps”, each of which is convinced that their singular approach to eating or fat loss is optimal.  This is nonsense, of course, as best can only be defined relative to the context.  Realizing that, it’s valuable to compare the diets in terms of their pros and cons for different contexts.  And that is what I intend to do.

Introduction to Diets

If you read a lot of diet literature, it seems that there are an endless number of dietary approaches in existence.   However, once you start looking at them in more general, terms you find that this really isn’t the case.    There are only three primary macronutrients that can be adjusted in a diet: protein, carbohydrates and fat.   Within any fixed calorie intake, any time you adjust one, you must adjust another.

And regardless of any other aspect of the diet, how it advocates spacing or timing those meals, what foods are or aren’t allowed, etc.… Keep Reading