I just finished watching an amazing 90-minute video that is best summarized thusly:
How a diet rich in fructose makes us fat, poisons us slowly, and wastes billions of dollars on health care for self-inflicted chronic diseases, and what you can do about it *NOW*.
The full video is an amazing presentation by a talented presenter. It is worth watching the full thing *especially* if you struggle with obesity or don't understand how the body metabolizes food. It is a 90-minute video, so if you don't have time to watch it all, at least read my summary below the embedded video.
Here's a brief summary of the salient points:
1) Consumption of fructose, sucrose (which is a glucose-fructose disaccharide), or alcohol (ethanol is metabolized by the same pathway as fructose) should be extremely limited. That includes HFCS and most fruit juices.
Why? Because the way your body metabolizes fructose, eating a lot of it results in insulin resistance (type II diabetes), hypertension (high blood pressure), high triglycerides, high LDL cholesterol (the bad kind), and weight gain due to inability to self-regulate hunger. The combination of these effects is known as Metabolic Syndrome.
There are *two* notable exception to this fructose prohibition: 1) it's ok to eat as long as it's in *fruit* because there's not much of it and it comes with lots of fiber, which makes it even more OK, and 2) if you're in the middle of (or have just completed) some seriously epic exercise and your are glycogen-depleted, fructose actually helps you restore glycogen much faster than regular carbs. See: Gatorade.
2) Do eat "food" as Michael Pollan would say. The closer to it coming out of the ground, the better. Google "paleolithic diet".
3) His research shows that you can begin reversing Type-2 Diabetes in a short number of weeks by eating an appropriate diet.
4) His research shows that the #1 factor causing most diets to fail is cheating on fructose consumption (even worse than cheating on exercise!).
4) Exercise is good for you, but *not* primarily due to calorie burning. It barely burns any calories relative to food intake. It's good for you because it reduces stress and helps your body maintain a "fast metabolism" on an ongoing basis.
5) Fructose is a major part of our food supply due to politics. It will take a while before the corruption that propagates the problem is broker. Thus, don't trust the government on this one.
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