Meant to answer this earlier, but didn't have the time, because I had a rant in mind ...
DubCoffman62;1927490; said:
It sounds like you follow the Atkins diet.
No, not Atkins. Atkins was an obesity researcher whose diet was a crash course intervention to save the lives of Type II diabetics who were too obese to even begin basic exercise. Atkins
was right, but his methods were first too extreme and strict for the general population, then later too loose when the diet exploded in the 90s (along with South Beach, the Zone, and others) and food manufacturers looked to cash in by making low carb frankenfoods, which is just junk food with fewer carbs, all of which misses the point of doing the alternative: Eating natures' whole foods.
I generally try to follow a paleo (or primal, evolutionary, archevore, or whatever) diet. Eat animals, plants, nuts, and in-season fruit. Drink water. That's it.
DubCoffman62;1927490; said:
I wouldn't exactly compare oatmeal to lucky charms, at least it has protein and fiber.
Lucky Charms has protein and fiber too. In fact, its main ingredient is oats. ... And it has marshmallows! :tongue2:
The most important thing is don't eat the monocot grass seeds (corn, soy, wheat, oats, &c).
That stuff is bird seed, and I mean that literally! Birds are the only animals on the planet that have the internal structure to digest monocot grass seed. Homo sapiens do not, and cannot, no matter how big the industrial machines we build to grind this stuff down to dust and engineer it into other things.
This is why when you eat golden, whole kernels of corn, it comes out the other end still looking like golden, whole kernels of corn. That is corn's evolutionary mechanism to survive and advance -- the seed not only survives digestion, but now it returns to the soil wrapped in fertilizer! Mother Nature
was a genius!
This is also why when you eat a big bowl of "healthy fiber" (sticks and twigs) your body looks to expel it as quickly as possible. Hence, classic SNL jokes like "Super Colon Blow." Wheat and oats give most people diarrhea. Over time, they give people diseases like IBS and "leaky gut," whose symptoms largely mimic those of celiacs and gluten insensitive people, which is to say some people are more tolerant of poison than others, but it doesn't mean it's not poisonous to all of us, some of us just got lucky enough to inherit genes that require we injest a bigger dose to knock us cold. Incidentally, the diarrhea we get when we eat that big bowl of Super Colon Blow in the morning, or perhaps the morning after a late-night beer bender (which is all corn & wheat) should be a clue about how unhealthy the stuff actually is. We eat foods that cause us to exhibit symptoms that otherwise only manifest when we're sick or poisoned, yet presume it's completely natural because the government has convinced us that our health depends on stuff we didn't eat for over 99% of our evolutionary existence.
Eating "healthy fiber" in the form of wheat, oats, corn, and soy is about as good for your digestive system as scrubbing it out with detergent and a wire brush.
Picture this: You're a 'wild' human, - a caveman or a hunter-gatherer, - and you come across oats. Are you going to eat this?
In its natural state it is not filling, it makes your mouth dry, and it has no distinct flavor or sweetness that anybody would find appealing. Oh, and it also makes you sick.
And even putting all that aside, there's the other issue that oatmeal scores between a 58 (regular) to a 66 (instant) on the
glycemic index. Table sugar (sucrose) is a 65. So, based on the brand you buy, there's a good chance what you're eating spikes your blood sugar faster than sugar. Expressed as glycemic index and glycemic load - how what you eat affects your metabolism, your insulin, and whether you are burning or storing fat - a bowl of oatmeal is virtually identical to a 12 oz can of Coke.
