Research
I have been researching obesity, weight loss, eating disorders, dieting and everything to do with these topics since suffering anorexia as a teenager and then bulimia. I was fortunate enough to be the first pupil from my school to graduate from Cambridge University and I can remember sitting in my room at Corpus Christi College, overlooking the inspirational Kings Chapel, and asking myself the million dollar question – why can’t I stop eating? When I want more than anything in the world to be slim…I believe that my unique contribution to research into obesity is to have answered this question – to have come across and researched three very common medical conditions, which cause insatiable food cravings, and to apply this knowledge to understand why we can’t stick to ‘traditional’ diets (eating less). The killer discovery was that traditional diets cause these three conditions and so, trying to eat less, turns you into a food addict – directly and indirectly, as my books explain.
The topic I am primarily researching at the moment is the key question – is a calorie a calorie? Is the bunsen burner experiment, which we all did in school, a true reflection of how the body uses energy? Is energy from a carb the same as enery from protein or fat? Has thermodynamics been misapplied to the subject of dieting? Why does a Type I diabetic lose 20lbs in 10 days when their body stops producing insulin? Why do low carb diets appear to be more effective than low calorie diets? If anyone else is working in similar areas, I would love to hear from you… (research@theharcombediet.com)
On these research pages, I have listed a number of medical journal articles and put links on for articles that are freely available on the web. I have also listed some articles that can be bought through libraries, or direct from the journal (e.g. the famous Kekwick & Pawan 1956 article can be bought, on line, through The Lancet). I can help you with how I got hold of them, if you are trying to do the same. www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov is one of the best sites for journal hunting!
For anyone interested in dieting and weight loss, I hope that all of you will find something interesting in these pages. I have listed the books I most recommend for each of the medical conditions and you may well find some of the obesity articles as interesting as I have done.
One of the postings has to be the Newburgh & Johnson 1930 article, which is generally credited as being the start of the calorie theory. I refer to this on P33 of “Stop Counting Calories & Start Losing Weight”. I spent a week in Feb 2008, with a fellow researcher, dissecting this article line by line, trying to understand how this article led to such conviction that counting calories is the answer to weight loss. Have a look yourself and see if you think an experiment done on one person (the main content of the article) justifies what we have gone on to take as gospel ever since.
More listings to follow – Zoe
