The governments health advisors are in the media again today.

This time bickering over who is right regarding the nations diet and the growing obesity problem.

Dr Aseem Malhotra, a senior adviser to the National Obesity Forum, said: "The change in dietary advice to promote low fat foods is perhaps the biggest mistake in modern medical history.

We must urgently change the message to the public to reverse obesity and type 2 diabetes.  Eat fat to get slim, don't fear fat, fat is your friend."

In responce, Dr Alison Tedstone said "In the face of all the evidence, calling for people to eat more fat, cut out carbs and ignore calories is irresponsible."

So who is right?

I tend to agree with the former, we need to reduce the amount of low nutrient foods in our diets and focus on eating foods with a high nutrient count.  

Good quality meats and fats, lots of vegetables, some fruit and some starchy carbs if you require them.

Dr Tedstone also went down the standard scaremongering route suggesting eating saturated fat will lead to death via increased cholesterol.  

Poor quality fat leads to imbalances in the body which lead it to produce more cholesterol for protection.  

Good quality saturated fat is much less of a problem to health than all of the chemically enhanced hydrogenated oils and spreads that have massive marketing budgets behind them.

If you are eating fat aim for natural fats and use them at the right times, we go through these with our members.

Sweeping statements about nutrition do nothing to help the problem and just lead to more confusion.

Confusion that then makes people feel overwhelmed and not bother changing anything.

I remember saying to my Mum years ago at a market - "you need to eat fat to lose fat". 

10 minutes later she was eating a pack of fresh donuts from a vender telling me I said she needed to eat some fat to lose it :)

If you are confused by the current information and want some help with your diet and exercise programme, we start a fresh 4 week block of Achieve Bootcamp next Monday.  

We help our members transition to a diet that they can follow for the rest of their lives.

Our focus is on health but most of our members lose over 10lbs; Phil and his nephew Danny both lost over 16lbs during their first 4 weeks.

You can sign up here - www.achievebootcamp.co.uk

Darren 'keep it simple' Checkley