Statistics

The Eatbadly Plate (I think they call it the Eatwell Plate) comprises the following proportions:

RECOMMENDED PROPORTION PRIMARY MACRO-NUTRIENT
33% Starchy Foods (bread, pasta, potatoes, rice etc) Carbohydrate
33% Fruit & Vegetables Carbohydrate
15% Milk & Dairy Foods Fat/Protein
12% Meat, fish, eggs & pulses (non-dairy protein) Can be Carb/protein or fat/protein
8%  Foods high in fat & sugar Refined Carbohydrates and fats
101% Due to rounding

SO,
1) If we follow the advice of the “Eatwell Plate”, it will guide us to a minimum of 66% carbs (likely 74% minimum, as the foods high in fat and sugar are likely to be carbs). The maximum carbs we could get would be everything other than the dairy category i.e. 85%.

2) The government advice is to eat between 66% and 85% carbohydrate in our diet and there is irrefutable evidence that a diet high in carbohydrate is less effective for weight loss (by a margin) than diets low in carbohydrate.

3) At an obesity conference in June 2009, I asked a dietician (who put this Eatwell plate in her presentation) where the proportions came from and she didn’t know. She invited anyone in the audience (doctors, dieticians and obesity experts) to answer the question and no one came forward with an answer.

The composition of an average male is:

43% Muscle
14% Fat
14% Bone & Marrow
12% Internal Organs
9% Connective Tissue
8% Blood
100% Total

Regarding water, water is in everything from fat to blood, so the average male is approximately 60% water. This is one reason why I find the water vs. fat debate so interesting. People regularly email me asking if they will lose fat or water on The Harcombe Diet and the answer is both! Yes, an obese person may have a water content nearer to 40-50% and they may end up with a water content of 50-60% when they reach normal weight, but that still means that water is being lost in almost an equal proportion to fat, as weight is being lost.

Keeping the maths simple, a 200lb person who loses 100lb, doesn’t lose 100lb of fat and turn into a puddle! 1lb is 1lb when it comes to weight, getting on the scales, how your clothes fit and so on.