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From:	snickers (cache-dtc-ac08.proxy.aol.com)
Subject:	a theory
Date:	January 6, 2006 at 3:31 am PST

In Reply to: Re: I do, too posted by J.A. on January 5, 2006 at 9:51 pm:

I think it's important to eat large amounts of veggies because they're more nutrient dense not to mention less calorie-dense than grains and starchy vegetables.

After I posted yesterday I realized something. The people McDougall observed at the sugar plantation in Hawaii probably got a lot more exercise than the average American does. Therefore, they needed more calories.

The people that were studied during The China Study got a lot more exercise than the average American does. In one article I read it was stated that the people who got the least exercise, the ones they had to call "sedentary", typically the elderly or infirm, walked or biked 2-10 miles daily.

The Seven Countries Study, done in the 1950s and 1960s and responsible for the popularity of The Mediterranean Diet, showed that the men on the Greek Island of Crete had less incidence of heart disease than men in the U.S., Japan, Finland, Italy, Spain as well as other countries. They were also of a healthy weight. Those men reportedly got 50-60% of their daily calories from bread and olive oil. They also walked behind a plow or did other forms of manual labor all day.

Most recently, the Amish have been noted to be slim even though their diet most resembles the SAD diet (in fact, it might even be sadder than SAD). Both men and women walk an average of 7-10 miles daily. Every day.

So, if you're going to live like the Asians at the sugar plantation in Hawaii, the rural Chinese, the men on the island of Crete, or the American Amish, it's okay to eat platesful of rice, potatoes, corn, bread, pasta or other starchy vegetables and grains. You need the calories to get through the work of your day.

I'm not sure about the Amish, but most of those people also ate goodly quantities of vegetables in addition to the grains/starches. But if their diets had been vegetable-based, they wouldn't have consumed enough calories to support their needs. They needed the extra calories from the grains/starches.

If you're going to live like most Americans, you need less of the more calorie dense foods, and more of the less calorie dense, more nutrient-dense foods.

Most of us, even those who exercise an hour or more daily, don't burn off anything near the number of calories those other peoples do/did.

There have been times in my life when the amount of exercise I got during the course of daily living came close to that of the people mentioned above. At those times I never had a problem with my weight. I could eat anything and not gain weight. However, since the circumstances of my life, including work, have changed, I can't eat like that anymore. Well, I can, but I won't maintain a healthy weight!

Yesterday I happened to read a blog about various diets and someone commented that it's not so much about how or what you eat, it's about how much you exercise (in terms of weight loss and maintenance). I think he's right. In fact, I'm proof of it.

Now eating for health...that's another story.

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