More support for low carb

[audreyh1]

Can someone tell me how an alcoholic drink have only 1 carb and yet have 150 calories? I've never understood that?

If the 3 macronutrients are fat, protein and carbs, does that mean fat and protein make up the 146 remaining calories?

Alcohol (which is not one of the other macronutrients) has calories.

 

[jowi]

I think you paint with too broad a brush here. I do tend to believe that lowish carb eating is good, higher protein is probably OK (but it is possible to eat too much protein) and that refined grains don't provide any nutritional benefits. I do avoid eating refined grains but I'm not extreme about it. That is, I don't think that occasional refined grains are all that harmful for most people.

I agree. I think there is some truth to most diets. My philosophy is, for some reason, extremely hard to follow for some. Many people need their diet to be strict and religion like to be able to follow it. I prefer just to not eat too much, eat what I like in *moderation*, exercise and keep my weight down. It's pretty simple and nothing people like to write books about.

 

[sengsational]

I tried low carb...felt like I was gonna die. I'm a carbo guy. I can eat lots of bread etc and lose weight as long as I stay away from beer (damn) and fatty junk foods. I just don't follow my plan......

If you every try again, go ahead and get the New Atkins book and follow it to the letter, including the increased salt when you're doing very low carbs.

Can someone tell me how an alcoholic drink have only 1 carb and yet have 150 calories? I've never understood that?

If the 3 macronutrients are fat, protein and carbs, does that mean fat and protein make up the 146 remaining calories?

Ethanol has about 7 calories per gram and is consumed by the body preferentially ahead of 'the big 3'. I do not agree that ethanol is not essential to life

 

[donheff]

I agree. I think there is some truth to most diets. My philosophy is, for some reason, extremely hard to follow for some. Many people need their diet to be strict and religion like to be able to follow it. I prefer just to not eat too much, eat what I like in *moderation*, exercise and keep my weight down. It's pretty simple and nothing people like to write books about.

The central issue is probably your point that some people find this extremely hard to follow. Many of us slowly gained weight as we aged and found it very difficult to control if we tried to limit fats and count calories. Holding back the waistline creep required constant vigilance which was next to impossible. Extensive exercise had no impact on weight (although still valuable for other reasons). The advantage of flipping the dietary guidance on it's back by cutting carbs was that many of us found that we can completely stop focusing on how much we eat. The calories take care of themselves when the macro nutrients are right. Or, probably more accurately, the calories take care of themselves for those of us who are fortunate enough to flourish on this dietary approach. Not all do.

 

[Dawg52]

I tried low carb...felt like I was gonna die. I'm a carbo guy. I can eat lots of bread etc and lose weight as long as I stay away from beer (damn) and fatty junk foods. I just don't follow my plan......

Thats out of the question.

 

[Ready]

Not only is it still "going on" but it is no longer reasonable to describe it as a fad. Sweden officially adopted LCHF as it's recommended dietary regime. It is of course possible that they got it wrong, just like many of us argue that the US got it wrong with low fat. But it seems arbitrary to dismiss as a fad or fringe a health guideline adopted by a first world country after careful study.

Our country is in denial. We keep pushing whole grains and low fat foods, and we keep getting fatter. The FDA doesn't want to admit it was just wrong. And our rate of being overweight or obese is now approaching 70%. It's just plain embarrassing that a country as productive and intelligent as the United States can't figure out how to control it's weight, and in spite of all the bad advice we've been given by the FDA, they just keep saying the same things over and over...and we keep getting fatter.

 

[Ready]

I don't think that whole grain bread is empty calories. I eat sandwiches sometimes (a few times a week maybe) and I eat them on whole grain bread. I don't think that is the end of the world.

In the same sense that eating a few candy bars a week is not the end of the world, yes I would agree with you. However, I believe that a sandwich is truly one of the least healthy foods we can eat, and we sure eat a lot of them in this country. Eating bread can spike your insulin levels even more than eating a candy bar. And most of the foods we put in the sandwich are highly salted, cured, and loaded with nitrites.

However, with all that being said, if the foods you are eating are making you feel good, and are keeping you at the appropriate weight for optimum health, then don't listen to any of this stuff! Just keep doing what you're doing if it's working, because that matters more than any of this theoretical stuff!

 

[braumeister]

if the foods you are eating are making you feel good, and are keeping you at the appropriate weight for optimum health, then don't listen to any of this stuff! Just keep doing what you're doing if it's working, because that matters more than any of this theoretical stuff!

Exactly!
It works both ways, too. My doctor is mystified at my great blood test numbers and stable weight, since he disagrees with my LCHF diet. Every year he says the same thing: "I don't understand it, but just keep doing what you're doing."

 

[sengsational]

Thats out of the question.

I know. Beer is what makes life worth livin'! But I found a way. I follow a roughly 60%, 35%, 5% diet (calories from fat, protien, carbohydrate) six days a week and one night a week I eat whatever I want and have awesome beer with my food (plain old American pilsners are so not worth the carbs).

 

[Elbata]

Our country is in denial. We keep pushing whole grains and low fat foods, and we keep getting fatter. The FDA doesn't want to admit it was just wrong. And our rate of being overweight or obese is now approaching 70%. It's just plain embarrassing that a country as productive and intelligent as the United States can't figure out how to control it's weight, and in spite of all the bad advice we've been given by the FDA, they just keep saying the same things over and over...and we keep getting fatter.

Every board and just about everyone I read touts a low carb diet. Yesterday at the mall's food court, it was filled with people. I was watching which fast food places were most busy and a vegan place in which no one, and I mean no one even went to look at their offerings.

So it seems to me, low carb has been growing in popularity for quite some time. purveyors of these diets Though the purveyors themselves appear to have problems with obesity.

 

[Chuckanut]

if the foods you are eating are making you feel good, and are keeping you at the appropriate weight for optimum health, then don't listen to any of this stuff! Just keep doing what you're doing if it's working, because that matters more than any of this theoretical stuff!

+1

 

[eridanus]

Not only is it still "going on" but it is no longer reasonable to describe it as a fad. Sweden officially adopted LCHF as it's recommended dietary regime. It is of course possible that they got it wrong, just like many of us argue that the US got it wrong with low fat. But it seems arbitrary to dismiss as a fad or fringe a health guideline adopted by a first world country after careful study.

Can you find a better source for that claim? A Swedish scientific committee released a thorough meta-study but nothing that I found (besides on low-carb advocate sites) indicates that it's "officially adopted" as their recommended dietary regime.

Also, from the study (Google translation),

"In the long term there are no differences in the effect on weight loss between counsel on strict and moderate carbohydrate diet, low-fat diets, högproteinkost, Mediterranean diet, diet focuses on low glycemic load diet or a high proportion of monounsaturated fats."

"There is no basis for assessing whether even advice, eg, low carbohydrate diet and a Mediterranean diet is effective in preventing weight gain after weight loss."

"The evidence is also insufficient to assess the effect on mortality, morbidity or weight loss in obese individuals by studying the following foods: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, potatoes, soy products, meat and meat products."

"In the short term (six months) is advice on strict or moderate carbohydrate diet more effective for weight loss than advice on low-fat diets." (So, yes, it's better for short-term weight loss compared to old school low-fat-diets.)

From a 2010 (meta?) study by the same committee:

"There are no studies of sufficient quality to be able to assess the long-term effects in people with diabetes of more extreme low carbohydrate, high fat intake, such as so-called LCHF diet." (1)

They also didn't come to a conclusion regarding saturated fat, though it wasn't in the summary and I can't get a translation of the entire thing.

I called it a fad because it appears that the Mediterranean diet is just as effective as low-carb. Low-carb is just the diet du jour. That's fine, and it appears to have healthy benefits, but it's not the end-all be-all. The real benefit to low-carb (and Med. and högproteinkost and...) is deliberately making choices about eating and avoiding processed foods. E.g., avoid the Standard American Diet (or Standard Swedish Diet, in this case).



(1) SBU. Cuisine in diabetes. A systematic review. Stockholm: Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care (SBU), in 2010. SBU Report No. 201. ISBN 978-91-85413-37-9.

 

[donheff]

Can you find a better source for that claim? A Swedish scientific committee released a thorough meta-study but nothing that I found (besides on low-carb advocate sites) indicates that it's "officially adopted" as their recommended dietary regime.

Quickly Googling the topic I suspect you may be correct. My bad.

I called it a fad because it appears that the Mediterranean diet is just as effective as low-carb.

I don't see why the existence of two effective approaches would make one a fad. Couldn't you just turn your statement around and say studies have show the LCHF diet to be as effective as the Mediterranean diet for weight loss thus the Med diet is just a fad? I don't see why either construction makes sense.

 

[RAE]

On the other hand, this article about the "heart surgeon" above was linked in the comments:

A Skeptical Look at Dwight Lundell, M.D.

The website you linked to above, "Quackwatch", was founded and is funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Of course they are going to do whatever they can to try to discredit anyone who puts out information that could affect their profits (and believe me, selling statin drugs is enormously profitable). In my mind, Dr. Stephen Barrett of "Quackwatch" is the real quack.

 

[eridanus]

I don't see why the existence of two effective approaches would make one a fad. Couldn't you just turn your statement around and say studies have show the LCHF diet to be as effective as the Mediterranean diet for weight loss thus the Med diet is just a fad? I don't see why either construction makes sense.

Yes, both would be a fad. Or neither.

It was a poor choice of words.

 

[RAE]

animal fats just seem like they would be harder on the body than fats from avocados and olive oil. I can't say I have any scientific evidence of that, but just my own hypothesis.

A lot of people believe as you do, because it is drilled into our heads over and over by the mainstream media. I used to believe it myself. But when I started digging into the science behind this claim, it became clear that it really doesn't exist. Again, here is what Chris Kresser has to say about this in one of his articles on heart disease and diet:

"If you’re wondering whether saturated fat may contribute to heart disease in some way that isn’t related to cholesterol, a large meta-analysis of prospective studies involving close to 350,000 participants found no association between saturated fat and heart disease. (8) A Japanese prospective study that followed 58,000 men for an average of 14 years found no association between saturated fat intake and heart disease, and an inverse association between saturated fat and stroke (i.e. those who ate more saturated fat had a lower risk of stroke). (9)"

Here is the link to the article where the above quote was pulled from, if you want to read it yourself: The Diet-Heart Myth: Cholesterol and Saturated Fat Are Not the Enemy

 

[RetiredAndFree]

It seems like people are looking for a magic pill, or diet, rather than simply understanding that at the end of the day it's calories in, minus calories out. The issue I see with controlling non-complex carbs has more to do with preventing my blood sugar from spiking than anything else. If I eat in a manner that keeps my blood sugar steady, I'm much less likely to binge eat.

But my bigger question, at the risk of sounding annoying, is how many people that are struggling with their weight include daily, or almost daily, vigorous exercise in their lives?

It's not good genes or good luck that keeps my husband and I thin. It's a combination of watching our calories and getting off our fannies on a daily basis. Like today - we just came back from a 40 mile bike ride, which equates to about 1200 calories burned.

 

[Ready]

I strongly believe that processed carbohydrates are highly addictive, and I find it very clear that when I give them up and go on an Atkins style diet of almost all proteins and fats, I lose the cravings for cookies, cake, crackers, and flour based products. And while in theory I'm allowed to eat all of the protein and fat I choose, I find that just a small amount fills me up so much that I just naturally stop eating when I'm full. When I'm eating a diet that includes wheat and grain based products, it seems like no matter how much I eat, I still have a craving for sweets and salty crunchy things. I know that I'm not hungry, yet I'm still craving these snacks. The addiction is quite compelling in my experience.

While I don't wish to debate all of the various studies out there, as I'm sure that there are plenty out there to support just about any hypothesis, I suggest that anyone who has a desire to lose weight and hasn't tried a low carbohydrate diet simply try it for a week and see for themselves. If it doesn't work, then you know it's not for you.

But I bet a lot of people will be very surprised to see how easy it is to feel full and lose weight at the same time if they try it.

 

[donheff]

It seems like people are looking for a magic pill, or diet, rather than simply understanding that at the end of the day it's calories in, minus calories out...
It's not good genes or good luck that keeps my husband and I thin. It's a combination of watching our calories and getting off our fannies on a daily basis. Like today - we just came back from a 40 mile bike ride, which equates to about 1200 calories burned.

I hear this all the time and yet "watching calories" it has nothing to do with lots of people's experience with controlling weight. I was a skinny kid in HS and college. Over the last 8 years I averaged 100 miles a week on the bike and I worked out in the gym. I did not eat huge amounts of food but I ate poor food choices -- quite a bit of bread, pasta, and ta da chocolate. I also "watched" my calories and made sure to buy skim milk, diet soda, and lots of low calorie prepared foods. Nevertheless I slowly gained 35 pounds over 30 years. When I tried to lose those pounds by controlling calories (i.e. how much I ate) I was always hungry and lost nothing. But when I simply changed my macro nutrients I effortlessly lost those 35 pounds over a few months. I have stayed stay at my college weight for a year and a half now and I never count calories -- I always eat all I want but I avoid sugar, large amounts of white carbs, all highly processed foods, and all low fat foods. Do you have to do it the way I did? No, of course not. But should I change my macro nutrients back to low fat and higher carbs and count every ounce in an effort to hold the line? Why in the world would I do that?

 

[F4mandolin]

But I bet a lot of people will be very surprised to see how easy it is to feel full and lose weight at the same time if they try it.[/QUOTE]

Tried it for well less than a week. It wasn't worth it to me to feel that bad with lack of energy. Maybe if I had stuck to it for a couple of weeks it would have evened out.....just wasn't for me. But unlike a lot of people, I don't eat because I am hungry (although occasionally I am)....I eat out of habit, or because I'm sitting around.

 

[RetiredAndFree]

I hear this all the time and yet "watching calories" it has nothing to do with lots of people's experience with controlling weight. I was a skinny kid in HS and college. Over the last 8 years I averaged 100 miles a week on the bike and I worked out in the gym. I did not eat huge amounts of food but I ate poor food choices -- quite a bit of bread, pasta, and ta da chocolate. I also "watched" my calories and made sure to buy skim milk, diet soda, and lots of low calorie prepared foods. Nevertheless I slowly gained 35 pounds over 30 years. When I tried to lose those pounds by controlling calories (i.e. how much I ate) I was always hungry and lost nothing. But when I simply changed my macro nutrients I effortlessly lost those 35 pounds over a few months. I have stayed stay at my college weight for a year and a half now and I never count calories -- I always eat all I want but I avoid sugar, large amounts of white carbs, all highly processed foods, and all low fat foods. Do you have to do it the way I did? No, of course not. But should I change my macro nutrients back to low fat and higher carbs and count every ounce in an effort to hold the line? Why in the world would I do that?

With all due respect, I don't accept this. The only way to gain weight is to consume more calories than you burn, regardless of the quality, or not, of those calories. And the only way to lose weight is to do the reverse.

It would appear the way you ate back then kept your blood sugar in a constant cycle of spiking, then crashing, which would very likely lead to binge or overeating, vs the more blood sugar friendly diet you appear to be on now, that probably prevents it. And I use 'diet' as meaning a way of life, not a temporary state, because that's how it really should be approached.

 

[Chuckanut]

Everybody is different. The error many people make is that they assume what works for them works for everybody else. And if it doesn't work for the other guy it's because the other person is doing something wrong, lacks will power, or is otherwise flawed. Nonsense.

If being a Vegan works for you great! If counting calories-in-and-out plus exercise works for you great! If low-carb high-fat works for you, great!

What worked for me was a low-carb diet (good meats and fish, lots of veggies, nuts, whole milk dairy, some fruits, very little sugars and highly processed foods including whole wheat grains, GASP!) . My weight is down, my waist is down, my glucose level is down, and my blood lipids are the best they have ever been. That's just my story. Take what you want and leave the rest.

 

[RetiredAndFree]

Everybody is different. The error most people make is that they assume what works for them works for everybody else. If being a Vegan works for you great! If counting calories-in-and-out plus exercise works for you great! If low-carb high-fat works for you, great!

What worked for me was a low-carb diet (but not quite as extreme as some people). My weight is down, my waist is down, my glucose level is down, my blood lipids are the best they have ever been. That's just my story. Take what you want and leave the rest.

And still I think there is confusion . . .

I agree that there are many, many ways to approach both losing and maintaining weight, and I agree that there is no one size fits all approach.

However, to say that there is some magic combination of food that eliminates the basic equation of calories being consumed needing to be less than calories being burned over the course of a day in order to lose weight is simply incorrect.

We lose weight when we cut back on the calories we are consuming, or conversely, increase the calories we are burning. If cutting calories becomes easier by avoiding some foods, while eating other foods instead, terrific. But at the end of the day, or week, or month, less calories were consumed than were burned. There is simply no other way for weight to come off.

 

[braumeister]

With all due respect, I don't accept this. The only way to gain weight is to consume more calories than you burn, regardless of the quality, or not, of those calories. And the only way to lose weight is to do the reverse.

It's increasingly being accepted almost everywhere that a calorie is not, in fact, a calorie (in terms of how we deal with them). The way our bodies process what we eat is what makes the difference.

If you're not familiar with the work of people like Gary Taubes, do yourself a favor and look into one of his books. The most accessible is Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It: Gary Taubes (the Kindle edition, but also in paperback or hardcover)

 

[Chuckanut]

We lose weight when we cut back on the calories we are consuming. If that becomes easier by avoiding some foods, while eating other foods instead, terrific. But at the end of the day, or week, or month less calories were consumed than were burned. There is simply no other way for weight to come off.

You are right, and it's how the source of the calories affects how the calories are processed that is often the problem.

Let me give an example I heard from a professor of medicine who has done research into obesity. Mr Jones requires 2000 calories a day to be energy balanced. He eats 800 of those calories as sugar and other foods that greatly stimulate his insulin production. As a result of the insulin surge, his body stores 150 of the calories as fat very quickly. So now he only has 1850 calories to burn when he needs 2000. So he eats more to make up the difference. Sure, he could wait for his body to convert the those 150 recent fat calories to fuel, but he gets very hungry before that happens, so he eats instead. If he ate foods that did not trigger excess insulin Mr. Jones would not feel the need to eat the extra 150 calories.

There are, of course, other factors. Some foods do not trigger the chemicals that tell our brain we are satiated, so we eat more.

And, yes, this is very over simplified for the layperson.