If you’re the kind who obsessively counts the number of calories you’ve eaten, searches high and low for low-fat food options, hits the gym consistently and still does not lose the tyre around the tummy, then maybe you should read The Pioppi Diet: A 21-Day Lifestyle Plan by London-based interventional cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra and filmmaker Donal O’Neill.
Here’s a summary of the duo’s advice: Stop counting calories and eat well. Stop worrying about saturated fats. Focus on mindful movement, rather than exercise. Get eight hours of good sleep. And, oh, most important: knock off all sugar and refined and processed foods. Sounds simple? Try putting it into practice. You’ll have to knock off rice, bread, pasta, potatoes and other such food. But you get to have eggs, fish, chicken, cheese, butter, veggies, nuts and milk. Cheese? Butter?
In an email interview, Dr Malhotra explains that replacing refined carbs and sugar with foods high in saturated fat such as butter, coconut oil, and cheese will not affect the cholesterol profile adversely, and can actually improve it. “HDL (or good cholesterol) increases with consumption of saturated fat. The risk calculators for cardiovascular disease don’t use total cholesterol but the total cholesterol divided by the HDL ratio.” Then he throws a bombshell: “Cholesterol as a risk factor for heart disease has been grossly exaggerated. If there’s one message we need to get out to the public, it’s to stop fearing cholesterol and instead make it your friend. It’s one of the most vital molecules for many functions in the body; without it we would die.”
If cholesterol is not the number one risk factor for heart disease, then what is? Insulin resistance, which is also the precursor to Type 2 diabetes. Though many of the trials he mentions in the book were conducted in the West, the results can be applied to India, he says, especially as “Indians are genetically more predisposed to insulin resistance. The impact from these lifestyle changes, especially cutting out, or at the very least, dramatically cutting down on sugar and processed food consumption, is even more important, and likely to be more effective. Type 2 diabetes should be described as a condition of intolerance to refined carbohydrates, to make the public health messaging clearer.”
He agrees it will be a challenge to curb the availability of junk food, but emphasises, “Many powerful vested interests, both within the food industry and pharmaceutical industry, have profited from perceptions and messages that are outdated and continue to cause considerable harm to individual and population health.” He suggests an outright ban on advertising of junk food, especially those that target children.
Try to knock off these foods for 21 days, he urges, and see how you feel. To help with that, his book offers a bunch of recipes, a week of the diet that he and O’Neill follow and a list of their top 10 foods. “Once you break the cycle of junk food addiction, it becomes much easier to sustain it.”
