Sleight-Of-Fat

Sleight-Of-Fat

The high-protein/low-carbohydrate diets advocated by Atkins and Scarsdale have perfected a technique for which I have coined a phrase. They use what I call a "sleight-of-fat."

The English Dr. Harvey got the low-carbohydrate ball rolling by cutting out sweet and starchy foods, restricting his Victorian clientele to high-protein and fat intake. But it was up to his modern successors, like the Atkins and Scarsdale diets, to claim that the high-protein/low- carbohydrate fare breaks down the body's fat stores faster than normal.

When that happens, according to our high priests of protein, fragments of carbon are released. In the Atkins diet these fragments are called FMH, Fat Mobilizing Hormone. We shall stick to the scientific name, "ketone , bodies," which are basically nothing more than poorly burned fatty acids. The resulting condition—the metabol­ized or partially burned fat fragments—is the "ketosis" we touched upon earlier.

According to the Scarsdale, Dr. Atkins and similar diets, ketone production means that excess fat is being pulled out of your fat reserves. The ketones, according to Scarsdale, transform your body into a "fat-burning machine." But it would be far more accurate to say that the ketones turn the body into a sprinkling system.

The ketones stimulate urinary losses, and this is what I meant by my somewhat facetious "sleight-of-fat." The "miracle" of fast weight reduction promised by the low- carbohydrate/high-protein diets is nothing more than a change in water balance. Moreover, the water-loss occurs primarily in the diet's initial 8-10 day period. After that the "sprinkling system" sputters to a halt, while the fat largely remains where it has always been.