Dieting Living

11/20/18 – CDC Posted Romaine Lettuce Food Safety Alert

The CDC has advised U.S. consumers not eat any romaine lettuce due to E.Coli contamination.

It has also advised retailers and restaurants not to sell or serve any romaine lettuce. The CDC has issued the advisory until it learns more about the outbreak.

The current outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 illnesses started on dates ranging from October 8, 2018 to October 31, 2018.

The Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157:H7 infected 32 people from 11 states in the U.S. The bacteria caused the hospitalization of 32 people, including one person who developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure. The CDC reported no deaths.

The same E. coli strain hospitalized 18 people in Canada. The CDC has recommended everyone avoid eating any romaine lettuce because it hasn’t been able to identify any common grower, supplier, distributor, or brand of romaine lettuce.

The CDC said the current E. coli O157:H7 outbreak is not related to the multistate outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 infections linked to romaine lettuce earlier this year.

Symptoms of E. coli Infection

Sickness from E. coli appear on average of 3-4 days after consuming the bacteria. Symptoms include severe stomach cramps, diarrhea and vomiting, and sometimes low fever.

Most cases are very mild, and most people recover within 5-7 days. Fewer people have more severe reactions according to the CDC’s E. coli’s symptoms article.

It is a good thing such a small percentage of people who have eaten romaine lettuce have gotten sick.

The CDC recommends you go to the doctor if the symptoms don’t get better within a few days.

We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time. For any issues, contact [email protected] or call 1-800-982-6034.

WEEKLY MENU PLAN (#175) – A delicious collection of dinner, side dish and dessert recipes to help you plan your weekly menu and make life easier for you!

In these menu plans, we will be sharing some of our favorite recipe ideas for you to use as you are planning out your meals for the week. Just click any of the recipe titles or pictures to get the recipe.

A little about how we plan our week and our menu plan:

Mondays are soup and salad.
Tuesdays we are bringing you delicious Mexican cuisine.
Wednesdays are a taste of Italy.
Thursdays are designed around yummy sandwiches, burgers, and wraps.
Fridays are a no cook day around here. Going out with friends and loved ones is something that we think is important. It’s your night off from cooking- enjoy!
Saturdays are an exotic food night, it’s a great night to try something new, from cooking with seafood, to trying Indian or Thai dishes.
Sundays are a traditional old fashioned all American family dinner- think meat and potatoes.

There will also always be a couple of delectable desserts to use any day you wish.
A new weekly menu plan will be posted every SUNDAY morning so be sure to check back each week!

CLICK ON THE LINKED RECIPE TITLES OR PHOTOS TO GET THE FULL RECIPE

WEEK #175

* DATE NIGHT *

CRAVING MORE? SIGN UP FOR THE DIETHOOD NEWSLETTER FOR FRESH NEW RECIPES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX!
FOLLOW DIETHOOD ON FACEBOOK, TWITTER, PINTEREST AND INSTAGRAM FOR ALL OF THE LATEST CONTENT, RECIPES AND UPDATES.

SUBSCRIBE TO GET FREE UPDATES & A FREE ECOOKBOOK!

GET AN EMAIL WHEN THERE'S A NEW RECIPE

Source: https://diethood.com/weekly-menu-plan-175/

Important preface: I love home décor and I’m really happy with where I’ve gotten my apartment, but I am by no means an expert. I’ve tried my hands at a few DIY projects, but none that required either a) a significant amount of indoor space, or b) power tools (besides using a drill to hang things). And I feel confident enough to consider myself proof that you can make your home feel like a reflection of yourself without a huge budget or awesome handyman skills.

When we moved about a year ago, I made it a point to have a plan in place for decorating before we even had our stuff packed. I knew I would keep putting it off if I didn’t get it over with in the first few weeks, and I’m so glad I did that. It’s made the space feel like home since basically the week we moved. (And yes, I share my apartment with my fiance, Peter, but I’m going to take full credit for the décor choices. Not to be too tradition-gender-roles about it, but he’s just happy it’s decorated, period.) My personal home pride and joy is in my living room, and it’s my hunter green-painted accent/gallery wall:

How to build a gallery wall on a budget — for $50 or less

A gallery wall is, in my humble opinion, one of the absolute easiest ways you can make a room feel more “finished” without taking up all that much time, money, or effort. My own living room wall is made up of several different things — family photos, prints from friends, hand-me-down décor, a flea market find, and even framed photographs and bits of saved wrapping paper. It feels very mismatched, which I like, and the fact that it doesn’t take up the whole wall is great. I can just keep adding to it as I collect things! And while I’m not 100 percent sure about the total cost of my own wall’s décor (especially considering the items on it have been collected over several years), I’m certain anyone easily could put together a striking gallery wall for 50 bucks — if not much less. With the help of a few interior design experts, here’s how you can put together your own gallery wall that looks much more expensive than it is.

1. Pick your wall

First things first: choose the wall you want to decorate. I chose a wall that I had no other ideas for, and one where a shelving unit I’d need to reach often or another more “practical” piece wouldn’t have made much sense. Your own gallery wall may also go above a big piece of furniture like mine. You can also create a smaller gallery wall as a way to spruce up an otherwise awkward small wall space.

Your chosen wall will also help dictate the direction of your gallery wall. According to creative director Beverly Solomon, “When in doubt, go minimal. The less you put on your gallery wall, the more likely you are to get it right. However, I have visited Paris apartments where the wall space is all but totally covered with art, and somehow it still works.” I’m definitely more of a maximalist than a minimalist when it comes to décor, but keeping your project on the more minimal side is definitely a good way to keep costs down.

2. Decide on a “theme” (or decide you don’t want anything resembling a theme)

According to Solomon, ask yourself a few questions before settling on a strategy for your gallery wall. “What do you want your ‘gallery’ to accomplish? Are you looking for a pleasing way to fill a wall to compliment your other décor? Do you want your gallery to project something about you and your interests?”

For me, I just wanted a collection of images that reflected things my partner and I really like, that also work well together in the space. (This means it is mostly framed images of animals and food.) But you might want something more sophisticated, or something a lot simpler. Also, unless you want to go super eclectic, make sure the items you pick coordinate somewhat well with the rest of the room. “In general, if doing black & white photos, drawings, paintings or prints, stick to black & white on that wall,” Solomon explains. “When using colorful art, make choices that work with the colors of the walls and the other décor in that room.”

And remember that you definitely don’t have to stick with “flat” images on your gallery wall. “You can use more than framed art,” says Brianna Thomas, interior design blogger with Bloom in the Black. “Add shelves, lights, flat baskets, mirrors – the sky’s the limit! Shop your house, and you might be surprised at what you can use when you consider it in a new light.” From my experience, the key is not to overthink it. If something looks good to you, it’s working! It doesn’t matter what you decide to put on your wall as long as you think the items look good together, and you like looking at them.

3. Pick your images (as little as $0)

This is the fun part. If you want a gallery wall that’s simply full of family photos, you can easily order prints of photos online — I’ve ordered dozens of photo prints in different sizes from Snapfish, and it never costs me more than a few bucks. If you want a gallery wall full of framed artwork, it’s of course going to be a bit more challenging to keep costs down. One thing you could do is pick out one more expensive piece (relatively speaking) and go with found/free items for the rest of your wall. “I’ve found beautiful oil paintings for under $20 – you just have to dig and know that you can take off an ugly frame!” says Thomas. Secondhand stores may have exactly what you’re looking for.

You can also find a lot of inexpensive prints online. “There are thousands of talented artists selling their work online, often in the form of downloadable digital art,” Thomas explains. “You can have these masterpieces printed at your local office store or online at places like Shutterfly or Amazon. My favorite sources for downloadables are Etsy and Juniper Print Shop.” Prices definitely vary (which is important to remember when you’re supporting independent artists), but I’ve been able to find super cute downloadable prints on Etsy for as little as $5.

And remember, there are plenty of things you could frame that cost you zero dollars — often already lying around your home! “I have framed amazing shopping bags, posters, photos, magazine covers, 12-inch vinyl album covers, great fabrics, gift wrap paper, etc.,” says Solomon. I’m in the same boat — I’ve personally framed pieces of gift wrap (super helpful when your mom has excellent taste in wrapping paper), postcards, birthday cards, pages from magazines, old tickets, old calendar pages, and even some pieces of fabric. If you don’t have much in the way of paper products just lying around, ask friends. I promise at least one or two of them have been holding on to one too many Bon Appétits.

Also, keep the size of your wall in mind. You may want a mix and match of small and large pieces, but make sure you have the wall space for bigger items before you start purchasing them. And I would personally steer clear of having one huge piece surrounded by a dozen teeny-tiny frames – I’m sure someone with a more discerning design eye than me could make it work, but creating balance would be a lot tougher for us normies. If you’re going to have a mix of sizes, I’d recommend having the majority of your pieces be close-ish in size to each other, around the middle of your size range. But again, go with your gut — the only important thing is that it looks good to you.

4. Pick your frames ($5-40)

I have found that it is much easier to find free items to frame than it is to find free frames. But it’s at least very easy to find inexpensive frames! When picking your frames, decide how you want them to work with the images. You can either get a bunch in the same color to create more unity, or you can mix and match them for a more “collected over time” feeling. If you do want them all to look similar, you can get a set of them for $20-30 or individual frames for a few bucks each from places like Ikea. You can also peruse your local thrift store or Goodwill, where you can often find frames for as little as $0.50. Sometimes these look a bit worn, which you might like. But if you want your thrifted frames to look more uniform, you can just buy a can of white or black (or gold, or green, etc.) spray paint and go to town.

I like to go the route of framing free or super-cheap items in more interesting frames. I’ve found most of mine, in metallics/blacks/whites/interesting patterns, from HomeGoods, ranging from $6-12. And if you find a super elaborate frame you love, feel free to hang it all by itself — no art needed if the frame itself is really beautiful!

5. Lay out your framed items & start hanging (tools: $5-10)

Now, there are a couple of ways you could go about hanging. I personally believe in just eyeballing it. Lay everything out on the ground one way, snap a photo. Mix it all up, snap another photo, and so on. Look at all the photos on your phone, decide which one is your favorite, and start hanging them up! I like to keep bigger items as “anchor” pieces more towards the middle of the wall and balance them out with smaller and medium-sized pieces on the edges. But there’s really not a right or wrong way to arrange them — some people even prefer to keep everything a uniform size, which definitely makes it easier to choose a layout.

When hanging, you can use a hammer and nails, which can cost as little as $5 on Amazon or at your local hardware store. You can even get a pack of Command strips for $10 if you’re in a rental and don’t want to make any holes in the walls. (For what it’s worth, I am a renter and my walls are now super holey. I will be here for years, so I think it’s worth it. Plus, plastering is like the only fun part of moving.)

Of course, I am not a perfectionist — I don’t care if my items are perfectly evenly spaced. But you might! If that’s you, this is a great guide to hanging a gallery wall with all the tools you need to make it look as polished and professional as possible.

Remember: it’s not permanent

Even if you used a hammer and nails to hang all your pictures, you don’t have to be stuck with your gallery wall the way it is forever. If you decide to change up your gallery wall in the future, don’t worry too much about nail holes or bits of drywall tearing away. “Keep small jars — even a little plastic pill bottle will do — of the paint color of each wall,” says Solomon. “That way, if you have to patch a small hole where you hung a frame, it will match. If you did not keep the original color, you can buy a little set of acrylic paints for under $10 and mix your own match.”

A lot of people face “analysis paralysis” when it comes to doing any kind of decorating — it’s why Peter lived in his first NYC apartment for six months before he ever hung a single thing on the walls, and why it takes some people even longer. My personal philosophy is that having some sort of décor is way better than having nothing. I don’t 100% love every single thing about my apartment, as I anxiously await the day Peter is ready to part with his hand-me-down prints of dogs playing poker. But a decorated space is much more fun to come home to — even if it’s imperfect.

Holly is the Executive Editor of TheFinancialDiet.com. Follow her on Twitter here, or send her your ideas at [email protected]thefinancialdiet.com!

Image via Unsplash

Like this story? Follow The Financial Diet on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for daily tips and inspiration, and sign up for our email newsletter here.

Source: https://thefinancialdiet.com/easy-as-hell-home-decor-how-to-make-a-gallery-wall-for-50-less/

A mum vowed to slim down for the sake of her fertility.

Charlie Petterson knew she had to lose weight if she stood a chance of getting pregnant again.

She used this as motivation to change her lifestyle – and she’s seen incredible results.

Here’s how the 18st woman shed more than 8st by tweaking her diet.

Charlie struggled with her weight since she was a teenager.

She said: “When I was in high school I was in size 16 clothes and I think that was mostly because of my diet then.

“I was brought up on lard, everything was fried in it, so I really wasn’t eating healthily at all.

“After I left school, I started work in a travel agents and the shop we were in was inside an Asda so it was just too convenient to go and grab biscuits and cakes.”

While Charlie didn’t eat large portion sizes, her habit for snacking saw her balloon to 18t 9lbs.

She admitted: “I wasn’t a binge eater and I didn’t have huge meals or takeaways, but I’d always have a pack of crisps or a chocolate bar so I was constantly snacking.

“If it was in the cupboard, I’d have to eat it.

“By the time I was 21 I’d got to a size 20 – so it was as if for every year I got older I put on another size.

“I said to myself that I didn’t want to be 22 and a size 22, but unfortunately that happened and I actually went up to a size 28 by the age of 30.”

Following Charlie’s 30th birthday, several life events encouraged her to change her lifestyle.

Her partner Nathan popped the question and the pair planned to expand their family.

As the mum battles polycystic ovary syndrome, falling pregnant is a difficulty unless her weight is under control.

So determined to shed some pounds, she signed up to her local Slimming World in Grantham.

When she walked down the aisle in June 2017, Charlie was already 5.5st lighter.

That wasn’t the only good news, as she announced her pregnancy with son Bobby in the same year.

After shedding an impressive 8st, the mum set up her own Slimming World group in Seaford.

She urges her group, as well as her family, to eat healthy home-cooked meals and cut back on treats.

Charlie said: “I tell my members they don’t have to stop having anything they love, it just has to be within reason, so sometimes that means having two gins instead of four, or one slice instead of the whole cake!

“Being a consultant one of the first things I did was look at my venue and at my chairs.

“I wanted to make sure all my members were going to be comfortable sitting where they sit because I don’t want anyone to feel how I felt.”

Several months ago, in this weekly roundup, I commented about the book “Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life”, and said: 

“I’ve just finished reading an advance copy of this book, written by my friend and former podcast guest, Max Lugavere. At first, I figured it would be another “eggs, walnut and fish make you smarter” type of book, but instead, this manuscript took a deep, deep dive into specific genes that affect intelligence and how to pair them with food, mouthwatering recipes for everything from liver to avocado-salmon bowls, and some very good, step-by-step tips for optimizing your personal environment to enhance your cognition. It is a must read, with many pages folded over in my own copy.”

Max, a former podcast guest in the episode “The Surprising Facts About What Bread Does To Your Brain (And What You Can Do About It)” also created the documentary “Bread Head“. In the film, he explores the impact of our diets and lifestyles on brain health. In addition to being a filmmaker, health and science journalist and author, Max is also the host of the podcast, The Genius Life. Lugavere has contributed to Medscape, Vice, Fast Company, CNN, and the Daily Beast, and appears regularly as a health and nutrition expert on the Dr. Oz Show, the Rachael Ray Show, and The Doctors.

During our discussion, you’ll discover:

-Why a decrease in walking speed and pattern, and forgetfulness of kitchen recipes in Max’s mother inspired his latest book…10:30

-Why Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease drugs are so damaging…15:45

-The little-known but serious risks of MDMA and ecstasy…18:30

It was Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, who first said, “All disease begins in the gut”. What he meant was that our gut is intrinsically linked to our immune system. In fact, more than 70 percent of our immune system is IN our gut!

This may be hard to imagine, but the walls of your entire gastrointestinal system are home to organisms known as microbiota, or gut flora. We have larger number of bacteria in our gut than anywhere else in the body. You have about 1.5kg of bacteria in your body!

Many of these cells that make up your immune system. Scientists now know that gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT) is the main type of tissue lining the gut, representing almost 70% of the entire immune system. It’s also known that about 80% of our white blood cells (which are our main immune cells) live in this tissue.

Where Do Gut Bacteria Come From?

Your gut bacteria begin to develop immediately after you’re born, thanks to both the birth process and the breast milk you receive from your mother. Of course, these bacteria change as we grow and develop. The health of your gut bacteria is influenced by everything you face in daily life – diet, age, gender, stress, your environment – and everything you touch or smell.

Scientists have now found that our gut bacteria paint a very accurate picture of your overall health and wellbeing. Many of the digestive problems you have are often linked to much more serious conditions affecting the gut. This can include food allergies, behavioral disorders, mood changes, autoimmune disease, arthritis, chronic fatigue, skin disorders and even cancer.

What Is Gut Imbalance?

When our gut bacteria are “in balance”, it means we have plenty of beneficial bacteria flourishing and bad bacteria is kept to a minimum. An imbalance, on the other hand, means that we have an overgrowth of bad bacteria, which is threatening the ability of beneficial bacteria to do their work. This is also referred to as ‘dysbiosis’.

Candida overgrowth is one of the most common examples of gut dysbiosis. Candida albicans is a yeast that lives naturally in the gut, where it is usually kept under control by good bacteria. However, in the case of bacterial imbalance, the candida yeast grows and spreads throughout the body, causing all sorts of havoc.

How Does Gut Imbalance Affect Your Immune System?

Your gut has a million jobs to perform every day in order to keep your body healthy. These include digesting the food you eat, absorbing nutrients from that food, fighting off pathogenic bacteria, flushing out toxins, and producing vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids. Your immune system can’t function without the work your gut bacteria does in detoxifying and nourishing your body.

Studies have shown that the bacteria in our gut interact with our immune system cells. This interaction has developed as our diets and lifestyles have evolved over time. The bacteria have the tricky job of both fighting off harmful pathogens and creating the right conditions for healthy organisms. We need our immune system to recognize and kill the pathogens that make us ill, while at the same time allowing beneficial bacteria to flourish so they too can do their job.

But when pathogens and yeast get out of control, they throw everything out of balance. It’s much more difficult for the immune system to function properly because the good bacteria are weakened by the powerful pathogens.

One of the worst offenders to your immune system is the Candida albicans yeast. Candida is especially damaging to the valuable immune system cells lining the walls of your gut. The yeast can invade the immune cells, disrupting their normal activity and preventing them from fighting the harmful invaders that make you sick.

The first signs of gut imbalance caused by Candida overgrowth can be digestive symptoms such as indigestion, constipation or diarrhea. If untreated, these problems can progress into serious conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, gastroenteritis, or even inflammatory bowel disease. Other disorders linked to gut dysbiosis include arthritis, asthma, autism, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, mood disorders, fatty liver disease and even Alzheimer’s.

How Can You Re-Balance Your Gut Bacteria?

One of the most important factors in gut health is diet – after all, you are what you eat! Everything that enters your gastrointestinal tract will have an impact on your gut bacteria. Along with diet are some important supplements such as probiotics and lifestyle changes.

Diet

If you eat wholesome, natural foods such as fruit, vegetables, nuts and lean protein, you’ll reap the benefits of a healthy gut. But if you regularly eat foods that are high in sugar and saturated fat, or you take a lot of medications, your gut bacteria will be weakened – and so will your immune system.

These foods destroy the good bacteria in the gut by feeding the bad bacteria. Candida in particular thrives on sugar, and quickly grows out of control when there’s a constant supply of sugar to the gut.

Medicines such as antibiotics and other drugs can also disrupt the balance of gut bacteria. Although medication is necessary at certain times, it’s important to restore the balance by following up with a healthy diet. Probiotic supplements and fermented foods also help to counter the damage.

Probiotics

Taking probiotics is one of the most effective ways to restore the healthy balance of gut bacteria needed for a strong immune system. Certain strains of probiotics not only help to counteract bad gut bacteria, but “re-plant” the beneficial bacteria needed for good health. Clinical studies have also shown that taking probiotics can help decrease hyperpermeability of the gut lining, which is necessary to prevent pathogenic bacteria passing through the barrier.

Probiotic supplements can be taken either in capsules or freeze-dried powder form. Be sure to read the manufacturer’s label carefully to see if the supplements are sufficiently high in numbers to have a therapeutic effect. Products that have a “guaranteed potency” are generally the best option.

Fermented foods are also an excellent source of probiotics. An added bonus is that they also contain prebiotics, the ‘food’ that healthy bacteria need to grow and develop. Fermented foods include both dairy and vegetables, such as yoghurt, kefir, miso, sauerkraut and kimchi.

Balanced Bacteria Mean A Healthy Immune System

Good health begins with a good balance of healthy bacteria. Our bodies can only function properly if the right fuel is being produced by our gut – and the right fuel is only produced if our gut bacteria is in good shape! Our gastrointestinal tract is so much more than just a place for our food to go – it’s also the place where most of our immune system does its work.

The next time you’re tempted by a packet of biscuits or a bottle of soda (or both!) think of what it will do to those precious immune system cells. Are those sugary treats worth getting sick?

For more tips on restoring the balance to your gut flora (and improving your immune system!) check out the Ultimate Candida Diet plan.

April McIntosh always had a complicated relationship with food. She struggled with her weight growing up and regularly indulged in fatty, sugary meals to deal with her emotions. April always wanted to lose weight, and she made an effort to be active, but she just couldn’t get her diet on track.

That all changed about a year ago, when April and her husband, Chris, discovered the high-fat, low-carb keto diet—and lost a collective 235 pounds.

RELATED: 9 Easy Keto Desserts to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth

Last November, the number staring back at April on the scale was 330 pounds, and for Chris it was 316. April tells Health the Virginia couple’s diet consisted of processed, less-than-healthy foods like mac and cheese, frozen chicken nuggets, and instant mashed potatoes. “Stuff that really had no nutritional value,” she says.

Chris is a mechanic, a job that calls for long, stressful hours, he says. His food choices reflected this. If he was making lunch to take to work, he would throw together “whatever was quick,” he tells Health. At the end of the workday, he indulged to take the edge off. “Eating was my coping mechanism,” he says.

Slowly but surely, April began to realize that her weight was holding her back. One moment that stands out to her was when she was at an amusement park with her 8-year-old brother. He was dying to ride a rollercoaster with his big sister, but April was panicked about it, she recalls.

RELATED: 13 Keto Fat Bomb Recipes That Are Super Easy to Make

“While we were in line, I was thinking ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be able to fit or if it’s going to be dangerous because I’m so much larger than him and the bar isn’t going to close properly to keep him safe,’” April says. When it was their turn to get on the ride, April’s fears came true. Her hips couldn’t fit in the seat, and she had to tell her little brother she couldn’t ride with him.

April wishes that would have been the final straw to force her to commit to losing weight. But that breaking-point moment finally happened a few months later, when she and Chris were at an awards dinner. She dressed up for it, and she felt like she looked incredible. But when she saw the photos from the night, the woman she saw on the screen didn’t look anything like the way she felt. “It was mind-blowing to me that I got to a point where I didn’t even recognize myself,” she says.

At that moment, April was done sitting back and watching her health spiral out of control. She had been following keto success stories on social media, and though she was skeptical about giving up foods like pasta, she knew something had to change.

So on the last day of November 2017, April made the switch to keto. She admits the first few days were hard, especially because of the hunger. But after about a week, she noticed healthy changes. “I had more energy, I didn’t feel bloated all the time, and I was really excited,” she says.

Chris, on the other hand, wasn’t convinced keto was for him. He stuck to his usual meal choices while he watched April give the high-fat, low-carb keto lifestyle a go. Chris didn’t think he could give up foods like bread and potatoes, which had been staples of his diet for his entire life.

It took him about a month of watching April’s progress to join her on her weight-loss journey. As soon as he got on board, he knew he made the right choice. “You won’t believe the places you lose weight,” he says—explaining that he wears rubber gloves to work, and in a short period of time, he dropped a glove size.

RELATED: 7 Dangers of Going Keto

April and Chris agree that those early signs of success motivated them to stick to it. They replaced their usual frozen chicken nuggets with steak, cheese, broccoli, and bacon, and they made sure they were getting exercise in ways that worked for them. April says she likes to walk a mile or two on her lunch break to get her body moving, and Chris works on his feet all day and does active house chores like splitting wood.

Now, a year later, April has lost 135 pounds and weighs in at 195. Chris has lost 100 pounds and clocks in at 216.

Both are more confident about the way they look, and they love that they no longer worry that their weight is holding them back from pursuing activities and hobbies. But April believes that the most rewarding part for her is her newfound freedom from food.

“I don’t feel like food controls me anymore,” she says. “When I put something in my mouth, it’s because I know what I’m doing, it’s intentional. I’m not just eating to eat.”

To get our top stories delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Healthy Living newsletter

It’s probably the most contentious question in the dieting wars: How much do carbs really matter when it comes to weight loss?

On one side are a cadre of respected researchers; the journalist Gary Taubes; and Atkins, Zone, and keto diet devotees who passionately argue that if we could just pry ourselves away from the pasta, bagels, and cookies, our weight struggles would be over.

On the other side are equally reputable researchers and nutritionists who haven’t bought into the low-carb claims. They instead argue that most studies show low-carb diets aren’t better than any other diet when it comes to keeping weight off.

It’s a rich and lively debate. And on Thursday morning, Dr. Oz jumped into the fray, appearing on the Today show to highlight a new study showing that cutting carbs can help people “lose weight, not feel discomfort while doing it, and sustain it,” he said.

The study, led by researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital, appears in the journal BMJ and is arguably one of the most rigorous diet studies ever done. While it didn’t show exactly what Dr. Oz suggested, it is an important bit of evidence in this debate — and yet another reminder of the incredible difficulty of proving anything when it comes to nutrition.

The carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis

For the study, which cost $12 million to complete, researchers wanted to look at whether maintaining weight loss over 20 weeks would be easier on a low-carb, moderate-carb, or high-carb diet. But the question they were really testing is whether the kind of calories we eat, not just how many calories, matters when it comes to our body weight.

Some diet and nutrition researchers argue it’s the amount that matters, and if we focus on cutting overall calories, we’ll drop the pounds. Others believe calorie quality matters hugely.

The main scientific model in that latter camp is the ”carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis,” which Taubes, Harvard professor David Ludwig (an author on the new paper), University of California San Francisco’s Robert Lustig, and others have extensively promoted. It suggests that a diet heavy in carbohydrates (especially refined grains and sugars) leads to weight gain because of a specific mechanism: Carbs drive up insulin in the body, causing the body to hold on to fat and suppress calorie burn.

According to this hypothesis, to lose weight and keep it off, you need to reduce the number of carb calories you eat and replace them with fat calories. This is supposed to drive down insulin levels, ratchet up calorie burn, and help fat melt away.

The new paper is the best test of that hypothesis in “free-living” participants — people who aren’t confined to a hospital ward or metabolic chamber for the purposes of a study.

The new low-carb study, explained

The researchers, from Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and other universities, recruited 234 people and first had them try to lose about 12 percent of their body weight over nine to 10 weeks.

They did this because we know that most people can lose weight on any kind of diet — but the hard part is keeping that weight off. And the researchers wanted to tease out whether a low-carb diet that might help people with that difficult second step by, as the carbohydrate-insulin model suggests, by having them burn extra calories.

Of the 234 people who started the study, 164 achieved the target weight loss — meaning they were ready to enter the next and most important step in the trial.

The remaining 164 study participants were then randomly assigned to high-carb (60 percent), moderate-carb (40 percent), and low-carb (20 percent) diets and followed for 20 weeks, during which time they were fed every snack and meal. Their diets were also carefully calibrated to make sure they were maintaining their new body weight.

At the 20-week point, the effects were quite remarkable: The fewer carbs a person ate, the more calories they burned — and, the logic goes, the easier it’d be to keep their weight off. So people on the low-carb diet burned more than 200 extra calories each day, while people on the moderate-carb diet burned about an extra 100 calories per day, and people on the high-carb diet didn’t burn any extra calories.

“This feeding study, as the longest and largest to date, provides support for the carbohydrate-insulin model and makes a credible case that all calories are not metabolically alike,” said one of the study authors, Harvard’s Ludwig. “These findings raise the possibility that a focus on carbohydrate restriction may work better for long-term weight loss maintenance than calorie restriction.”

Are these results applicable to most people?

Stanford researcher Christopher Gardner, who was not involved in the research, told me he thought it was an “elegant study,” with results worth paying attention to. “It shows how in the long run [a low-carb diet] can promote or inhibit the maintenance of that weight loss.”

But Gardner also noted that the findings may not yet be applicable to most people.

In most diet studies, where people aren’t fed every calorie by researchers, the low-carb diet performs about the same as other diets when it comes to weight loss. In other words, when you just ask people to stick to a low-carb diet for weight loss, they lose about the same amount of weight as people following higher-carb diets. This isn’t a knock on the study, but on the fact that researchers don’t yet know how to get people to follow any diet over the long term, unless they’re feeding them.

“If you prove a mechanism works but you can’t get people to do it,” Gardner added, “it won’t help.”

Importantly, other well-controlled tests of the low-carb insulin hypothesis, where people are put in metabolic chambers, have failed to show low-carb diets lead to a dramatic increase in calorie burn and weight loss.

But there are problems with those studies, too: They mainly looked at weight loss (not weight maintenance) and they weren’t run for as long as this new one. So it’s possible that extra calorie burn only really kicks in after 10 weeks, which is what the new study found.

Another methodological question about the new study

Other researchers deeply invested in the low-carb diet debate raised another question about the new research. It’s pretty nerdy, but interesting, so bear with me.

Kevin Hall, an obesity researcher at the National Institutes of Health who has studied low-carb diets, pointed out that the researchers used a technique called doubly labeled water to measure calorie burn before and throughout the study. This involves giving study participants a sample of water that contains (or is “labeled with”) forms of the elements deuterium and oxygen-18. Since they’re not normally found in the body, researchers can determine a person’s metabolic rate — how much energy they’re burning each day — by tracking how quickly they’re expelled through urine sampling.

Doubly labeled water is the gold-standard way of measuring energy expenditure in “free-living” subjects, i.e., people who aren’t in a metabolic chamber. But there’s a problem with the way it was used in this paper, Hall said.

When people have just lost weight, or their diets are shifting, doubly labeled water is less reliable. In their original study protocol — or statement of intent before the study was done — the researchers addressed that: They said they would use the measure taken before the run-in weight-loss phase as their baseline. People would be weight stable then, and Hall said, “That’s where doubly labeled water has been validated.”

But the researchers changed that endpoint because of an error, and instead made their baseline the beginning of the diet randomization — a change they disclosed in the study, to their credit.

The change, however, “introduced noise into that measurement,” Hall said. Because people had already lost weight and their diets were changing, doubly labeled water might be a less reliable way to estimate energy expenditure. “And they don’t report in the study what their data would look like if they used the pre-weight loss measurement.”

Hall took the pre-weight loss measurements, which were reported in the study, and ran the numbers himself for a presentation at the recent Obesity Week conference. He found the effect of calorie burn on the low-carb diet would have been much smaller had they used that measure as their baseline: fewer than 100 extra calories per day difference between the low-carb and high-carb diet groups, an effect that may not be statistically significant.

“It’s a tour de force [of science],” added Sam Klein, a metabolism and obesity researcher at Washington University in St. Louis. But he shared Hall’s concerns, and felt the study came up with results that seem inconsistent with what we know about energy expenditure — likely because of the methodological issue Hall raised. “Using this pre-weight loss baseline as the point of comparison shrinks the effect size,” Klein summed up.

Ludwig said these critiques were based on a misunderstanding, and that because this is a weight-loss maintenance study, using the pre-weight loss number as the baseline “would have been in conflict with that aim and introduced new forms of bias.”

“It’s fair for any scientist to raise questions, reanalyze data, and challenge interpretations,” Ludwig added. “In the interest of maximum transparency, we posted the full data set and statistical code so that anyone can conduct additional analyses.”

So should dieters stop eating pasta?

So back to the main question here: Should you avoid pasta if you want to maintain weight loss?

If you’re confused now, you’re right to be. Debates about diet have gotten fierce and nitpicky. We all come to them with our biases, there are many vested interests at play, and it’s hard to know what to believe. Nutrition studies — which are virtually impossible to do in ways that lead to bulletproof conclusions — also make easy targets: They’re easy to critique and interpret in different ways.

Outside of this new study, I haven’t found the evidence for the low-carb diet compelling. But maybe I am too biased by my love of pasta, bread, and cake — and personal experiences failing to restrict my carb intake — to fully embrace low-carb living. (In fact, my losing weight over the long term coincided with eating more carbs than ever before.)

In my years of reporting on diet and obesity, though, I know one thing to be true: The same diets can have drastically different results for different people, and people can’t keep weight off if they’re on a diet that feels impossible.

So the best diet, as people much wiser than me have already stated, is probably the one you can stick to. If that looks like a low-carb diet, great. Maybe you can reap extra energy-burn rewards, assuming the results of the study hold up. The researchers themselves called for more studies, and replication will be particularly important given their results seem to diverge with the rest of the evidence base.

Either way, Gardner said, “I have never seen anyone disagree on less added sugar and less refined grain. That’s an enormous part of the American diet. And you can’t go wrong eating a diet that’s lower in those nutrient-poor carbs.”