I'm down 8 stone on a low carb, then ketogenic, now carnivore diet so don't assume eating fat makes you fat.
Edit to add quite a few people here have gallbladder problems through not eating enough fat rather than avoiding it.. have a look around...
That's a brilliant result!
No, I hadn't necessarily made that assumption about fat. Or at least, not in isolation. I've certainly heard more about sugar making people fat (especially those prone to diabetes 2). Concerns about fatty liver, etc. Most nutritionists seem to maintain that the mix of sugar plus fat is what messes most 'normal' people up (in terms of weight gain).
Interestingly, though, my experience was that not eating fat also loses fat/weight. Mine was unintentional. Only due to illness. But around 18 lbs (which put me in an underweight bracket then - I started to look scrawny). No exercise! - too ill at that point to manage any. I had also previously had the experience of less carbs causing weight loss, as in I decided to give up wheat at one stage. Again a bit 'faddy' (back then) - although I know that for people with coeliac disease it is absolutely essential and not at all the same as people who are worried, for example, about a bit of bloating. It really doesn't suit some people. I have a friend who removed gluten from her diet and it sorted a lot of health problems for her. I guess we're all individuals in that way. So I'm not knocking it at all. Just saying that when I was wheat free I was following a fad diet thing. But I lost some weight - and I think it's because, if you cut out wheat you automatically start cutting down the amount of bread, biscuits, cakes, cerreals, other baked goods, pastry, pasta - and so forth - that you might have been eating quite a bit of before. But excuse me for digressing
I totally get what you mentioned about people having gallbladder issues through not eating enough fat. As it happens, I researched that sort of information, back during the gallbladder illness, because I got very interested in how to manage gallbladder illness (I'd had the problem growing for about 10 years without realising it was going to get to a really serious stage - and by the time it did, I was bored as heck having to lie in bed most of the day, and not being able to eat a lot! Thank goodness for the internet!!)
That's one of the issues I was thinking of regarding exclusion diets (and fasting) - that people often don't know of the long term repercussions. We can't do, always, because nutritional science hasn't caught up. We are still evolving as humans! (IMO).
When I was younger and was concerned about body image, I cut out dairy for quite a while. And prior to that had a very low fat diet at one point (from choice, not illness, in that case - years earlier). I was part of that era of young women who were obsessed with looking thin and who would panic at every stage of life where possible weight gain would emerge! I think some of those diet extremes might have contributed to gallbladder problems, but I'd have had no idea about that as a youngster. I don't even think people were talking about such things back then, very openly - I found all the information on diets from books, simply because I read a lot and had an interest in health and cooking. Those were the days of Victoria Principal and Jane Fonda peddling their latest diet book or exercise video so we could all look stick thin (!) It was later revealed that Fonda was bulimic (oops). Much later, of course...
However, I discovered that there are other things that can contribute to GB disease, too - eg taking the pill and/or HRT. On the subject of diet alone, though, I wonder if the 5-2 diet that was so popular in recent years was really that safe. I suggested to a friend, who still had a gallbladder, to steer clear of the 5-2, based on my own experience, but that fell on deaf ears! It was quite a fad with a lot of people, for a while.
Thank you very much for your thoughts and suggestions. All good stuff!
Diana
