This subject freaks people out, vegetarians especially.
A huge part of identity for some people is based on the knowledge that they're living on a healthy plant-based diet. It turns out that said diet is less healthy than subsisting on bacon grease.
This causes cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance causes knee-jerk downvotes.
Citations? How about the study spelled out in the article?
The reddit thread, you mean? Are we calling those articles now?
The vegetarian thing does not folow. Just because keto/atkins/paleo works, doesn't mean anything else works. Nothing is better than the low calorie diet.
It might be a good idea to link to the FAQ instead of the subreddit. It has an overview of the chemistry behind the diet -- for example, the use of urinalysis test strips.
You can have saturated fats on a plant diet: coconut and palm oil, for example. (These are even used in infant formula, incidentally).
There are animals that eat plants rather than other animals: they are called herbivores. Herbivores somehow develop muscles.
We can't eat exactly like herbivores. Herbivores eat grass and leaves in huge quantities and have the digestive system for it: they can get enough protein and overall calories that way.
Still, we can achieve a given number of calories and a desired fraction of them from protein and fat, using vegetable sources.
One thing I find the pro keto movement frequently forgets is, regardless of the efficacy of the diet, there are a lot of people who simply don't tolerate that much fat very well.
> “To my knowledge, this is one of the first long-term trials that’s given these diets without calorie restrictions,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, who was not involved in the new study. “It shows that in a free-living setting, cutting your carbs helps you lose weight without focusing on calories. And that’s really important because someone can change what they eat more easily than trying to cut down on their calories.”
It doesn't actually control for calories so basically the study shows us that a diet that's low in carbs can help people eat fewer calories while still feeling full. That's important, but nothing we don't already know.
The health benefits are completely confounded by the lack of caloric control and control for weight loss: losing weight simply makes people less disease prone no matter the contents of the diet.
How would you structure a study on human test subjects that would reproducably limit calories without it being illegal? ( locking them in a cell, etc.)
How would you structure a study on human test subjects that would keep their weight constant over long periods without it being illegal?
The lack of caloric control is key to this study - any diet which restricts caloric intake, long term, will be self-defeating. Allowing people to eat as much as they want, but simply choosing from a particular food group, is one key to long term success.
Another big part of this - an apparently non-biased researcher (presumably they don't run a food supplement business) - has suggested that eating fats of all things does not necessarily lead towards heart disease.
I think that's going to be a wake up call.
It also, in my mind, emphasizes that the bulk of "Nutritionists" for the last 50 years have been a bunch of cargo-cult practicing members of the mob - and it makes you wonder what other so-called-scientific disciplines are behaving in a like manner.
> The lack of caloric control is key to this study - any diet which restricts caloric intake, long term, will be self-defeating. Allowing people to eat as much as they want, but simply choosing from a particular food group, is one key to long term success.
Sure, I guess to me whether or not high fat diets have higher satiety is just not interesting - it's a settled issue and it's obvious to me.
> Another big part of this - an apparently non-biased researcher (presumably they don't run a food supplement business) - has suggested that eating fats of all things does not necessarily lead towards heart disease.
Right, but with similar weight it suggested eating less calories helps prevent heart disease. This study doesn't answer the question of whether or not diet composition affected heart disease.
> It also, in my mind, emphasizes that the bulk of "Nutritionists" for the last 50 years have been a bunch of cargo-cult practicing members of the mob - and it makes you wonder what other so-called-scientific disciplines are behaving in a like manner.
Let's not get dramatic. Don't forget that people are significantly less active than they were 50 years ago, and that just because low carb diets happen to be in fashion right now doesn't mean they are right for everyone. That being said, I agree, the diet/nutrition industry is a joke, and most people could do a lot worse than cut carbs out of their diet.
What annoys me, is how certain the vast majority of nutritionists were, despite the lack of clear scientific trials, that dietary fat would lead to heart disease.
Seriously - how difficult would it have been to do a couple-hundred person trial for a year or so to get some confirmation? And yet, billions of dollars (10s of billions?) of policy and dietary guidance were based on this poorly supported theory.
Yeah but think about the data they had. They didn't have massive fast food and snack food industries that were primarily carb based, and so people who overate overate fats much more frequently than they do now.
The certainty you dislike is the same certainty I react against with the low carb movement.
We are only certain of two things:
1) Having less fat on your body is healthier (to an extent) and will help prevent things like heart disease, diabetes etc.
2) If you have too much fat lowering caloric consumption will make you burn it.
Anything else is speculation.
> Seriously - how difficult would it have been to do a couple-hundred person trial for a year or so to get some confirmation? And yet, billions of dollars (10s of billions?) of policy and dietary guidance were based on this poorly supported theory.
Really difficult, actually. And doing it without pissing off a major industry is impossible.
It also, in my mind, emphasizes that the bulk of "Nutritionists" for the last 50 years have been a bunch of cargo-cult practicing members of the mob - and it makes you wonder what other so-called-scientific disciplines are behaving in a like manner.
Global warming, climate change, or whatever name is being used this week to try and match reality.
I'm not assuming that. I'm pointing out that the major weakness in the study is that we can't know the impact calories had here either way, leaving dietary composition to be potentially a major confounder. It's a massive, gaping flaw in the study.
Sorry if I came off as a jerk, it wasn't my intent. This topic is well discussed on HN so I figured it was appropriate to expect something more cutting edge. When it comes to nutrition there are a few "key questions" people are debating right now. Whether or not a high fat diet provides high satiety is a well studied, uncontroversial subject.
To bad it's environmentally unsustainable. There's no way our ecosystem can survive all of us eating eggs, tuna, and chicken all day. We need to consume less animal products not more. Low carb is fine for a few wealthy people who want to lose weight but it's not a responsible solution to the public health problem.
What about a low-junk food diet? No cqlorie restrictions but no refined carbs? I don't think we need ti discourage people from eating whole grains and beans.
Low carb doesn't necessarily mean more animal products. It can mean that you replace the carbs with nuts and veggies, so that you are getting more of your calories from protein and healthy fats.
Nuts are hardly our saviors. Most nuts are expensive & environmentally unfriendly. Which is not to say you shouldn't eat some nuts, but they can hardly step in as a global staple.
100 calories of nuts or broccoli costs a whole lot more than 100 calories of bread or rice, and this is reflective of the greater agricultural demands of pretty much everything else versus bread and rice.
Even rice is a substantial improvement in glycemic index over refined wheat and sugars. If it does turn out that empty carbs are a major public health problem, there are incremental improvements that can be made all over the world regardless of poverty.
Yep, and there will never be a world where we all eat the same thing. Let the poor eat wheat.
Paleo is pretty affordable at the lower-middle class, if you're willing to put the effort in and cook. My biggest hurdle is how easy unhealthy stuff is.
Eggs are probably "mostly fine" to be honest. Most homes could easily raise their own chickens and have a nearly unlimited supply.
As a prepper and a homesteader (amateur/beginner), I realize that low carb and high fat/meat isn't really feasible when SHTF, and I mostly stock lentils, pintos, rice, wheat, quinoa, and a few other standard staples. They stay good, when properly sealed for like 25 years (quinoa only 8 years or so though...). No meat known to man (or at least myself) does that. Also, even doing basic homesteading, you tend to eat more veggies and much less meat.
In the meantime, I admit that I eat plenty of meat, and could probably raise a cow or some pigs, or at the very least do the rabbit thing, but it's a lot of work and planning, and it's just easier to get your meat from a can in an emergency situation.
Edit: I prep for emergencies, FWIW, not health. Calories and nutrition are the major requirements.
Your definition of environmental sustainability implicitly assumes a fixed, or arbitrarily bounded, population size in steady state. Whatever set of foods we choose to feed the population with, it is always possible (and historically has been inevitable) for the population to outgrow the available supply.
Sustainability only makes sense relative to a particular population size, and so something is only unsustainable in the absolute sense if the population needed to produce it exceeds the population which can survive upon it. This is not the case with the food types you refer to, and the producer/consumer ratio is precisely the thing that we develop new technologies to reduce.
If anything, I see it is better for us to engage in inefficient land use, because it provides spare capacity which can be used to mitigate prolonged disasters; a view strongly influenced by the book "The Collapse of Complex Societies", by Joseph Tainter.
i had no idea that acres of monoculture crops that erode the topsoil and destroy the land and don't let anything else live on them was sustainable, thanks for clarifying.
start eating animal organs - liver, kidney, tongue, brain, throat, face meat, bone marrow - see how much food is actually in an animal.
One important note is that they probably mean "low NET carb", in other words, the grams of carbs left after you subtract them from the grams of fiber (since fiber isn't absorbed).
You can do a keto diet and still be vegetarian. Don't know about vegans. But anyway, cheese, nuts, avacados, cooking with olive oil and butter. More here: http://www.reddit.com/r/vegetarianketo
- Participants assigned to
the low-carbohydrate diet were instructed to maintain an
intake of digestible carbohydrate (total carbohydrate minus
total fiber) of less than 40 g/d.
- The reduction in body weight
was significantly greater in the low-carbohydrate group
(mean difference in change at 12 months, 3.5 kg; P=0.002)
- those on the low-carbohydrate
diet had significantly greater proportional reductions in fat
mass (mean difference in change at 12 months, 1.5%
P=0.011)
- those on the low-carbohydrate diet had significantly greater proportional increases in lean mass (mean difference in change at 12 months, 1.7%; P=0.003)
- Compared with a low-fat diet, a low-carbohydrate diet resulted in greater improvements in body composition, HDL cholesterol level, ratio of total– HDL cholesterol, triglyceride level, CRP level, and estimated 10-year CHD risk
- Dietitians were not blinded to the study hypothesis(!!). To avoid potential differences in dietary counseling due to this, we used specific and detailed scripts for all counseling sessions and trained staff to deliver the scripts without deviation.
- The proportion of participants with detectable urinary ketone levels was significantly higher in the low-carbohydrate group than in the low-fat group at 3, 6, and 12 months (data not shown)
For anyone who has access to the paper (http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1900694) and is skilled in reading medical research papers, I would love to know if they account for snacking. When I briefly tried a low-carb diet (just out of curiosity, not to lose weight as I'm already quite healthy) I found that I was unable to snack because almost all snack foods are loaded with carbs. I can only eat so much beef jerky before I get sick of it, and couldn't find any snack food that fit the diet that was also appealing.
On my normal omnivorous diet I snack when I feel hungry, usually opting for trail mix, toast (from bread I bake), or a piece of fruit (sometimes chips, but not often). Since none of my available snacks were acceptable on the diet I just opted for drinking coffee and a big glass of water when I felt a little hungry between meals. As a result, I ended up losing a few pounds over a few weeks.
I'm curious if the same thing happened with the participants on the low carb diet. Did they lose weight and become healthier because none of their snacks fit the diet, so they ended up not snacking?
True, nuts were a good choice. Unfortunately the cashews and almonds supplied at my office were all unsalted and I couldn't be bothered to buy my own for the brief trial.
When I temporarily went off keto, one of the first things I did was to buy one of those huge containers of salted mixed nuts from Costco. I gorged on the entire thing for three days and my mouth hated me for the next week. I thought I had suddenly come down with bad toothaches. Nope, I just burned all the skin off my upper mouth and gums from excess salt consumption.
You might like sunflower seeds. Salted and husked - $3 a bag and they last a long time. THey have fibre and good fat, taste good but not so good that you over eat.
Its weird that this pops up on HN because I have been trying a low carb diet for the last 2.5 weeks (with quite a bit of success). I have run into the same issue as you in regards to snacking. The best snack I found was flavored almonds. They are about 4 carbs an ounce and come in a bunch of flavors (coconut is my favorite).
I have had a huge sweet tooth my whole life but I find the thing that I crave the most is fruit (I know fruit is sweet but not like ice-cream and candy). I've always ate a ton of apples and now that I can't I am craving them like crazy. Also, no bread is really hard, especially since good whole wheat bread seems so healthy and is so satisfying, and it limits your options for most meals like pizza and sandwiches.
I hear a lot of knee-jerk reactions about the diet saying how it must be awesome to just eat steak, chicken, etc. all the time, but it gets real old real fast. Without bread/buns, bbq source, and common high carb toppings, it become really repetitive. Cheeseburgers are amazing but they are a hell of a lot less appealing with no bun, onions, tomato, or ketchup.
All this being said I do not see keto or whatever you want to call it as a long term diet/lifestyle for me. I have been convinced that I used to eat way too many carbs, but I think I just need to balance my meals more and do some portion control. Eating no more than like 20 carbs a day is really hard and for me it affects the quality of my life too much. But, I totally understand that there are people out there where this diet is basically the only thing that works for them, so I think it's awesome that more people are at least trying it.
"Keto" and "paleo / low carb" are different. Keto goes to the extreme, allowing almost zero carbs, to induce ketosis in your body. Paleo is more "no grain, no dairy, no legume", but fruits are still allowed and encouraged for providing natural, sweet-tooth-satisfying carbs.
> Cheeseburgers are amazing but they are a hell of a lot less appealing with no bun, onions, tomato, or ketchup
This is true, but honestly the only one of those you really need to cut out is the bun. The onions and tomato add up to 2-3g of carbs, and the ketchup is another 4g, so the whole burger in a lettuce wrap would be 6-7g of carbs, not at all bad for a meal! For reference, I use myfitnesspal to keep track of my food consumption and to research carb/calorie counts.
> Eating no more than like 20 carbs a day is really hard and for me it affects the quality of my life too much
Would 50g be more sustainable? Or 100g? From what I've seen, the 20g limit is mostly an introductory phase. 50g is still a huge reduction from what most people consume on a daily basis.
Agreed. The 20g limit is not sustainable long-term. Even 50g can be hard or impossible (from a health perspective) for some people to sustain. Diets are not really all-or-nothing -- check out marksdailyapple.com for a more flexible approach to low-ish carb eating.
Playing with carb intake can be very educational: while low-carb diets benefit a lot of people, different folks have different needs. Your athletic pursuits, sex, pregnancy status, thyroid health, etc, are all really important to consider.
"I hear a lot of knee-jerk reactions about the diet saying how it must be awesome to just eat steak, chicken, etc. all the time, but it gets real old real fast."
One thing to consider is that while your old diet is obviously bad when you look at it through the low-carb lens, it is also subtly bad as well, because your entire cuisine was bent around carbs replacing fats, and baking, sugars, bread, dough, sugars, potatos, sugars, etc etc etc. If you're going to successfully do low-carb over the long term it's important to also make sure that one does not simply try to eat "old diet - carbs" every day, but that one explores the culinary options that are available to you when you no longer fear fat. Go down your oils aisle and start trying them out. If you haven't been using your spice rack, start trying them out. (Well, first throw away your several-years-old spices and buy new ones, then start trying them out.) Start cooking ethnic foods from ethnicities that didn't go low-fat. Start making your own salad dressings.
(Basic recipe: Spoon a dollop of mayonnaise into a bowl. Pour in some vinegar and mix thoroughly. Pour in an oil and mix thoroughly. Insert ingredients to taste. There's ways around that first step, but this makes experimentation fast (my grandparent's generation call mayo "salad dressing" for a reason), and you can use this to bootstrap up to your own opinions. Your first couple may suck, and I'm leaving the recipe underspecified sort of on purpose, but you'll dial in fast.)
When eating out you may often end up eating "old diet - carbs", such as a bun-free hamburger, but for what you cook yourself it's important to go discover the really quite wide world of cooking options that America just sort of silently turned away from in the past 50 years. There's a lot of flavor and variety in the fats, but it takes some time to explore them, because you're darned near starting from scratch.
And to be honest, there are simply some things in the carb world for which there is no replacement. For instance, I'm well aware of the pains of missing gluten since I've got (proper) Celiac, and there's really no substitute for such a metaphorically and literally flexible protein, for instance. But fats have their own thing to offer that carbs don't.
There's an old book called "Life without bread" that was a pre-Atkins low carb diet written by a German Doctor named Wolfgang Lutz. He claimed that, after much trial and error, 72 grams (about 6 slices of bread) was the cutoff, and further restriction didn't particularly help patients in any measurable way.
People often recommend nuts and jerky, but I don't find them to be satisfying and I'm hungry again fairly soon. For my daily snack at work, I really like Chocolate Brownie Quest Nutrition Bars. They are high in fiber, and if you eat one with some water it keeps me going for 3-4 more hours. I've tried a lot of alternatives, and these are the best I've found: http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Nutrition-Protein-Chocolate-Brow...
I've did low carb a few years ago to lose some weight and I'm on it again now to burn off the effects of free startup food over the summer. Here's what I've found as far as snacking is concerned:
Jerky: a standby but actually it often has more carbs than you'd think -- one 3oz package usually has 12-15g of carbs, which is around 3/4ths of my ideal consumption for a day.
Nuts: almonds are the best, but others work too.
Cheese: cheese sticks make a great on-the-go snack, you can find them in a lot of gas stations. I also will do cured meats + cheese when I want an easy dinner, though it's a tad expensive.
Pork Rinds: good for when you're craving something like chips. I sometimes dip them in salsa.
Veggies: some low-carb folks have success snacking on celery and carrots, but I have difficulty at times.
But, to be honest, a lot of my problems with eating in the past involved snacking. I eat when I feel like eating, rather than when I'm actually hungry, and so my eating habits become tied to emotions rather than biological needs. And once I start eating sweets, I don't stop until I feel sick. Having fewer options makes it easier to abstain, as you said. However, did you actually feel hungry/need to snack often when you were eating low carb? I rarely feel hunger between meals like I did when I was eating carbs regularly.
My goal with low carb is to get my habits back to the point where I no longer eat because I'm bored or because it's in front of me. I'm also cutting out artificial sweeteners this time around to try and reduce my sweet tooth (last time I drank tons and tons of diet soda, but I'm finding that seltzer/club soda is an acceptable substitute) (I also heard that sweet tastes produce an insulin response regardless of actual sugar content).
I've made two concerted attempts at diet adjustment via low-carb diets. The first time, I made it about 3 months and was done in by my inability to fight the snacking urge. I couldn't sleep at night because I was so consumed by wanting to munch on something crunchy.
I'm about 2 months into round 2 now, a few years later, and snacking hasn't been much of an issue at all. The difference: The first time, I was also working out for about 90 minutes a day while this time I'm doing no exercise beyond a good bit of walking around town each day.
When I do need a snack, my go-tos are cold cuts (turkey or ham) and dill pickles, which I find I can eat by the jarful without much impact on my diet.
I'm sure that's part of it, but I've had great success with no-carb diets (ketogenic) and I guarantee I eat more calories than most people do, even with snacks.
When you take the carbs out, your body starts using body fat for energy. It's great, really.
I'm currently on a keto diet and have lost like 60 pounds.
For my snacks I eat pepperoni, beef sticks, almonds(so many different flavored versions. smokehouse jalapeno is my favorite), cheeses, pork rinds, sugar free jello(cut with HWC), and this chocolate pudding/mousse I make.
This is about what I do:
1/4-1/2 cup heavy whipping cream, 2 tbsp cocoa, half a scoop of chocolate whey.
Then just whip it until it gets the texture you want. Barely whip for pudding, whip alot for a more mousse like texture. Sometime I'll freeze it in cubes and they taste like fudge pops.
One of my favorite snacks these days is guacamole spread on rice cakes. It's not zero-carb, obviously, but the carb level doesn't seem excessive to me.
Guacamole is better on chips, but if I have chips around I'll eat too many of them. On the other hand if I try to eat the guacamole by itself, without any sort of crispy substrate, it's just unappetizing.
It'd be nice to have this squared with research in vegetarianism (high-carb, low-fat) which long term studies indicate has a number of health benefits [1]
My own take, which I've mentioned before, is that the the starting point is so bad (refined carbohydrates) that you can pretty much walk in any direction and get positive results. That is, what people are eating doesn't matter nearly as much as what people aren't. Or, more specifically, any diet will make people pay attention to what they're eating, and that's the real win.
Pretty much. You could probably come up with a diet that says you're not allowed to eat anything starting with a letter in the first half of the alphabet, and anyone who stuck to it would lose weight, because all of a sudden they'd be thinking carefully about what they ate rather than eating whatever took their fancy at any given moment.
Sticking to these diets is the hardest thing. I spent a few months on a paleo diet and got a bunch healthier, but it was really hard to find things to eat, and pretty expensive as well. I don't think dietary changes are worth it unless you can reasonably stick to them for the rest of your life, and anything that says "no X ever again" is likely to fall into that category.
Alcohol was a real pain to cut out, although it's been some years now.
I've tried many times to cut out chocolate, and managed for up to 6 months at a time before coming crashing down. A few months ago I switched to "mindful eating", which says I can eat chocolate whenever I want, and life has been better.
And becoming a bit snobby about chocolate helps as well. Single plantation chocolate is delicious (and for obvious reasons dark) and their prices make you want to eat less of it anyway ;)
Sure. Bread. It's so convenient and easy, and it shows up in 90% of the things that you might be able to get for breakfast and lunch at the average food joint.
The study they are discussing set up test subject with two different diets. One low in fat, one low in carbs. Low in carbs had far better outcomes. I agree that cutting anything will implicitly cut calories, it seems low carb really is superior.
They didn't test low fat. It was just carb restricted versus 30% fat (not low fat). Feeding was ad libitum, so it just confirms what we already knew: fewer food choices leads to spontaneous calorie restriction.
If it just told us that "fewer food choices lead to spontaneous calorie restriction", then both groups should have roughly equal results. They didn't. Any putative explanation of the results really needs to, well, explain the results. Not explain results other than the ones obtained.
Well, they did have roughly equal results if you look at the study. Both groups went from obese to slightly less obese. That said I don't follow your reasoning about equivalence. One diet was low carb. The other allowed for quite a bit of both fat and carbohydrate. Can't you see the difference?
The one group had to watch their fat intake and the other group had to watch their carb intake. It isn't exact equivalence but you are incorrect to say that only one group was restricted.
And you are also incorrect that both groups had equal results. There was an 8 pound weight loss difference on average. Did you even read the article?
The degree of squinting you're applying to call the results "equal" is not scientifically useful.
In fact I'd suggest you consider this a clue... you're clearly explaining away, rather than explaining. "Explaining away" is in a way the most fundamentally unscientific operation there is... the fact that you're joined by a number of people who call themselves "scientists" even so doesn't change that.
(No joke. The fundamental breakthrough of science philosophy is that instead of asking the cognitively-natural "How can I prove I am correct?", science teaches us to ask "How can I prove I am wrong?" Everything else is just elaborations on that theme. "Explaining away" is one of the easiest ways to do the first, and is thus one of the easiest unscientific things to do. The fact that we've managed to train a great number of people who fancy themselves scientists but think their job is more about the first than the second is an indictment of our society, not an excuse to follow those people.)
This is different that what we have been told which is to reduce fat and eat more whole grains and vegetables. You are saying that we just need to restrict our food choices.
Refined carbohydrates are not a problem. Sugar, potatoes, properly prepared white flour, and white rice are excellent food choices. In fact they are superior choices to foods like whole grains and beans, which tend to have allergens and antinutrients like phytic acid and trypsin inhibitors.
Anyway, any apparent epidemiological advantages to avoiding animal products in the industrialized world come down to two things. 1) The meat is mostly garbage; you have to consider only grass fed. 2) People are eating large amounts of muscle meat to the exclusion of the organ meats and connective tissue. This results in a chronic excess of tryptophan and a major deficiency of glycine. Iron overload is also a problem with eating too much muscle meat. A diet of steaks and chicken breasts without eating the rest of the animals is totally unnatural.
Dairy doesn't have these problems of low quality meat and too much muscle meat. Vegetarian with high dairy intake is an excellent nutritional choice.
Sugar, potatoes, properly prepared white flour, and white rice are excellent food choices.
All mentioned, except probably potatoes, have very low nutrient density (also called "empty calories"). That alone makes them horrible food choices, even not considering the effects on metabolism.
Potatoes are ok though, I was surprised to find out that they contain complete protein. There were also some studies that recorded benefits from "potato diet".
Sugar and white rice are on that list and you single out potatoes?
Nutritiondata.self.com has a "completeness score" of 57/100 for potatoes, but only 27/100 for white rice (long grain), and a 0/100 for sugar (which is nothing but empty calories). FWIW, wheat flour is listed as 33/100 so potatoes are the top of the whole list.
Edit: for comparison, Kale (raw) has a "completeness score" of 85/100 and Spinach (cooked) has a 93/100.
You're giving out excellent advice and I have no idea why you're being down-voted. It seems to me that some folks can't stand to lose their scapegoat, which currently happens to be sugar/fructose, as saturated fat was in the 80s.
As for the empty calories counter argument, sometimes you just need energy/heat and simple sugars are a wonderful source. The average healthy person is eating between 2500 and 3000 calories a day. So even if you're eating half of them as junk you're still leaving enough room for nutrient dense foods.
This is just my own personal observation, but all the vegetarians I know try to stay away from high carb diets, and specifically do not eat a lot of pasta or grains. Some do consume far too much fruit (often in the form of guzzling fruit juice), thinking that fructose is fine in any quantity so long as it's "natural sugar."
I just always assumed a carb heavy vegetarian diet is entirely contradictory to the health benefits a vegetarian is often seeking from their diet.
My observation is the complete opposite. Vegetarians I know eat tons of starchy foods. And the pursuit of vegetarianism is mostly avoidance of meat, mainly red.
Maybe this is a west vs east thing (I'm in the east), but all the vegetarians I know eat a high-carb diet: vegetables, legumes, fruits and grains. What do you see as contradictory to "health benefits" from a diet with those staples? And, genuinely, what are the vegetarians you know eating?
Many (most?) vegetarians do so primarily for ethical or economic reasons: environmental, animal rights, food cost. Or religious reasons. Adding more dietary restrictions, like low-carb or low-sugar, would make the diet more expensive and onerous.
Case study of one, but I've been a (lacto-ovo) vegetarian for roughly eight years now. I do eat a lot of pasta and cheese (because I find it delicious). I've always had a high metabolism, and I actually have trouble gaining weight. I've always been under the impression that there is not one universal diet for everybody. Instead, people should choose something that works for them. This is what works for me, and I'm pretty dang happy with it, so I've stuck with it.
The benefits of vegetarianism are probably a lot more modest than you think, if at all.
Your study shows 1) no difference for everything except ischemic heart disease, 2) that fish eaters fare best and 3) fails to account for the lousier other food likely eaten by meat eaters.
>any diet will make people pay attention to what they're eating, and that's the real win
Except for a fruitarian diet, which is usually very high in fructose. Look at what that diet did to Steve Jobs. While he was still alive, way before it was revealed he had pancreatic cancer, I heard a story where he turned orange, which can only be jaundice, a sign of a failing pancreas. The pancreas metabolizes fructose and it can't be good to abuse it by overloading your body with high fructose.
I believe the health benefits of vegetarianism are largely attributable to lifestyle choices that vegetarians are more likely to make than omnivores. They're less likely to drink, smoke, more likely to exercise, the list goes on.
Visiting Buenos Aires, I noticed the patrons at a vegetarian restaurant were fatter than usual in that famously meat-centric city. (I went there three times.) This is just an anecdote, I know.
I agree that a good vegetarian diet's probably much healthier than a standard American one.
The idea is plausible and there is some early research on this, but there's definitely not a consensus. I personally try to fill this void with intermittent protein fasting on a diet that is otherwise composed of meats, fruits, and vegetables.
I hope you're right. Low-carb (meat-based as practiced by most) is amplifying climate change and world food shortages. Not to mention the needless gigascale animal suffering.
i've been on a ketogenic diet for about 3 months now. i've lost around 20 pounds (5'10, 220 starting -> 200 current -> 180 goal) and will probably lose another 20 before reaching my 'ideal' weight. it works. whether it works because i naturally eat less, or because there's something magical going on w/ my hormones, it doesn't matter because i can simply remove carbs and eat until i'm full every single time. eating well is a huge, huge motivating factor for me to succeed in life.
for other people it's not an issue at all. they can simply just eat 1500 calories a day with a bunch of carbs and also lose weight. I CAN'T. i need to ingest 2500-3000 calories a day or else i will just be constantly hungry and unable to function without thinking about food. i'm in my 30s now - i know this about myself. i've counted the calories for months on end, using MFP.
the hardest part is not talking about it, because if you tell people you 'eat more fat' when they ask you what your new diet is, they'll think you're being sarcastic and rude.
i've only told my closest friends, people who i respect intellectually and who can handle an actual discussion about how things like the endocrine system works and
and i've told a bunch of strangers on the internet of course.
Yup, and apparently everyone has a degree in nutrition and go on to tell you that what you're doing is wrong and what they think you should do is right.
They didn't test a low fat diet in the study. 30% of calories from fat is not low fat. Also, it appears they used low saturated fat (<7%) and high PUFA. That's pretty much backwards as it's well known that PUFAs have antimetabolic effects.
All these experiments ever confirm (over and over) is that plenty of protein is helpful in the context of a reduced calorie diet, and that restricting food choices results in spontaneous calorie reduction. Protein has very high satiety and thermic effect. As for low fat or low carb it doesn't matter much. It's just that carbs and fat go great together and it's very difficult to overeat without the combination. A plain stick of butter and a large bowl of plain white rice are equally difficult to overeat on, whereas ice cream with its combined hit of sugar and fat is easy to gorge on.
In addition to the heart benefits listed in the report, I've read reports which conclude that a low-carb diet is also very beneficial for regulating blood sugar levels (and reducing diabetes risk).
However, I think it might have been interesting to read more about the risks of a low-carb diet. For instance, some studies have shown that low-carb diets can reduce testosterone levels in men and I've also read that it could hurt short-term cognitive skills.
It is also unclear if the study involved (mostly) refined carbohydrates or complex carbohydrates. Obviously, the effect of complex carbohydrates is very different.
There are a number of studies regarding low-carb diets but most of them tend to focus on a subset of the results that one might see from a low-carb diet. So a smart strategy would be to read many of these reports and then decide what makes sense (though it isn't going to be easy for a layperson to read a wide range of different reports and draw the best conclusion on what is good for them)
I know this is just anecdotal coincidence (and not really that interesting to most people other than myself) but today when I weighed myself I had my ideal body weight for the first time in my life. This is after following a low carb diet for six months and losing 50 pounds... so throw another vote in the "yes, low carb seems to be effective" bucket. The findings in this article are certainly music to my ears.
I've lost about 130 since last September and I took a 2 month period off from a low carb diet to see whether I could maintain my weight. Am now 30 pounds from my goal weight and I weigh less than I did after my freshman year of college (which was over a decade ago). I don't see carbs as necessarily the enemy, but it's a bit disheartening when you start paying attention to nutrition labels and see all the foods with added sugar. I tend to avoid the middle aisles of grocery stores, but even the outer aisles have products full of hidden sugars.
Same here, except I'm not at my ideal weight yet. Since starting a low-carb and fairly lean meat diet, I've lost 20 lbs in three months (200 -> 180, and hoping to get back to my pre-grad school weight of 160). I feel awesome, and I intend to keep up with this in the long-term.
The diet is basically to eat lean protein sources (scallops, salmon, round or loin steaks, chicken without skin, whey protein shakes (brand dependent), etc.) with broccoli, spinach, or another high fiber low carb green vegetable with every meal (4-6 meals per day). Assuming I haven't had any "cheat meals," the last meal of every 3rd day on this diet is a sweet potato/yam as a kind of carb refeed. I've really enjoyed the diet and I feel much better. I based it off of this source (but I used a somewhat lower calorie calculation than they suggest, since the diet is for bodybuilders): http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/docs/2007/gameover_vol2.pdf
At work I have a Quest Nutrition protein bar as a snack, which satisfies the fiber and protein requirements.
Before this, I followed a "healthy" Mediterranean diet for 2 years and failed to lose any weight even with exercise, but at least I didn't gain any either.
Why are you going for lean meats? Most low carbers encourage consumption of fattier meats, to encourage production of ketones. Unless you're trying to limit your omega 6 intake, I don't see how it would be beneficial to eat lean meats on a low carb diet as a lower fat diet would limit your body fat mobilization and encourage muscle wasting through gluconeogenesis. But if it's going well for you, power on. I however, have lost body fat and maintained lean body mass by eating lots of fatty meats, pork rinds, cheeses, butter and avocado. I was never obese however, maybe a bit skinny fat with a bit of a beer belly. People need to change their thinking about saturated fats and fats in general (except trans-fats from seed oils, those are always bad).
Ditto on the lean meats. I switched to a low-carb, high protein/non-lean meat diet and lost 13 lbs in the first month, with no additional exercise. My diet was largely carbs - cereal, toast, breads in the a.m., sandwiches, crackers, bread and ice cream, so eliminating all of that was a fundamental change to my diet. I've never looked back.
You talking about a keto diet which is high protein, high fat, limiting the carbs to under 50g or less, depending on your size. High protein, Low carb, does not reduce the carbs to such a level that it puts you in a keto state. Half a cup of mixed veg has around 12g carbs, so eating a cup at every meal with your protein will not put you in a keto state but will keep you at a low carb level. This is where most bodybuilders stay or go for 40/40/20 ration with 20 being fats.
I'm on an extreme version of keto (come stop by /r/keto on reddit!), where I consume under 20g/sugar a day (the rest is fat and vegetable protein). I'm losing ~2-2.5lbs/week, and have never felt better.
I'm 31, and spent the majority of my early 20s at startups wolfing down Mountain dew. Was up to almost 200 lbs for being 5' 6", and now I'm down to 165, and headed towards 150.
Exercise is critical as well. I run 3-5 miles every other day, with a 10 mile on Saturday or Sunday.
I had a bit of a freak metabolism growing up, and never worried about anything I ate, I simply couldn't gain weight. I lived on nothing but carbs. Until about 25, and my metabolism slowed, I gained 20 pounds; then again around 30, another 20 pounds. So I ended up at 197 pounds (I'm 6'2"), and the 200 number starring at me convinced me once and for all that my carb heavy days were permanently over.
So I slashed the carbs and sugar out of my diet, lost about 30 pounds in four months, with some minimal weight lifting thrown in every other day to boost muscle and amplify my body's resting burn rate some. Used a 1500 calorie diet roughly. I give about 90% of the credit to eliminating specifically pizza, pasta, and most sugar (particularly anything sugar heavy, soda, snacks, etc) from my diet. So long as I stayed away from those things, I found I could eat a lot of what I wanted.
197lbs for a 6'2" person doesn't sound that terrible, honestly. I would think you look better than without the 70 pounds you gained. That height at ~130lbs just sounds deadly thin.
consist of eggs for breakfast, tuna salad for lunch, and some kind of protein for dinner — like red meat, chicken, fish, pork or tofu — along with vegetables
I've been eating this way for almost two years now. Though correlation may not be causation, I attribute the ease of weight maintenance and the lower levels of fatigue I experience since then to the diet.
This is very interesting to me! I had quite an argument / discussion about this only 2 days ago with my father. He calls it the "Slow Carb" diet and tried to get me to go on it. I had a look around and found that this is the invention of just 1 man with seemingly not much backing evidence out there. My argument was how can I follow the diet of 1 man, even if it is effective (anecdotally)? I think I used an argument that if I came out with a "water and beans diet" it would probably be effective but without supporting evidence how safe would it be long term?
I still stand by this, in the sense that I would love to see if there is more "proof" out there, even anecdotal is good if in sufficient quantity.
Oh, I don't think Tim Ferris' diet is anything special, it's just one of many ketogenic/paleo diets that probably all work about the same. I just liked his version because his grocery list & preparation steps are practical for my own routine. Additionally, I have a hunch the focus on eating similar meals over and over again is a valuable psychological trick to help you keep your portions modest (because it forces your brain to focus more on the sustenance aspect of food, not the enjoyment element)
Interesting. I barely eat any breads -- eggs for breakfast, meat and greens for lunch, and generally a meat/vegetable combo for dinner -- while working out 2-3 times a week, and I have a tough time not gaining weight.
Anecdotes are basically pointless. What we need is cheap individualized nutrition.
I've lost about 65 lbs in about the same timeframe once, but by going with a mostly carb diet (& a lot of exercise). The trick for me was just eating less overall and doing a lot of exercise...that seems to be the most consistent solution for weight loss I've found from personal experience.
The slow carb thing is fine (better than atkins, keto, high fat, etc) but still probably overly restrictive. I think what remains easier and possibly better for almost everyone is 1) eat in moderation, 2) avoid processed foods and 3) be minimally active (ie, 10 miles of walking per week).
For me, a very-low-carb diet clears up my acne within four weeks of starting the diet. It comes back again within a week of ending the diet. (I also find low-carb very hard to stick to.)
I noticed the same sort of thing (many years ago when I was a student), going from processed foods to cooking fresh. I mainly did it to save money (a bag of potatoes was cheap), but noticed less colds and acne as a side effect.
I try to eat low carb too, and feel better when I do. I've also lost a lot of weight.
One thing I dislike about eating low carb, or paleo for that matter, is that it is not possible to measure it (other than weight, of course). It is based on randomly eating food (as long as it is low carb), and hoping you'll lose weight.
There is something you can do, though. It's measurable and it works. Bodybuilders use it, powerlifters use it, athletic fitness competitors use it, etc.
It's called counting calories. I've done it, and it worked great. It's a hassle, though! You basically have to weigh everything you eat, and it's a big disadvantage. However, by using this, you can keep track, count and graph everything you get into your body, and map it up to your weight and fat percentage.
I found that losing weight using a low-carb diet was pretty easy. After the adjustement period of about two weeks you suddenly start feeling much less hungry and the portions you eat become smaller. You are essentially losing weight without feeling hungry at all which is terrific. The only problem is that a very strict low-carb diet can be a bit monotonous with the type of foods you are "allowed" to eat and can be hard to follow if you don't have the time or patience to actually cook food for yourself.
FYI, I highly recommend becoming a connoisseur of cold brew coffee- It's pretty tasty even without cream/sugar. It was the first zero-calorie coffee drink I could find that could replace my addiction to caramel lattes...
I've been doing low carb on and off for a few years now, and have actually found it fine for athletics. The most striking example is that I ran a tough mudder (20km run through mountainous obstacle course; takes 4-5 hours) on nothing but a big portion of bacon I'd eaten that morning. I still felt full of energy at the end. I'd brought a bunch of snacks with me to be safe, but never ended up needing them. By comparison, I've done some other endurance stuff while not on low carb and there's no way I could have gone that long without refueling.
First, congrats to all the commenters who have lost weight. I know it's not as simple as "make better food choices" so it's awesome to read so many people who have found success in weight loss.
I follow a diet similar to low-carb, moderate fat and protein, and I'm still concerned about not getting enough plants, and fiber. While the low-carb diet encourages consumption of veggies, I find it tough to make sure I get enough veggies (not fruit), in a day.
> I find it tough to make sure I get enough veggies (not fruit), in a day.
When most people think veggies they think "lettuce", which makes it hard to eat a lot. Try these recipes:
Broccoli (steam cooked, with olive oil and fried garlic), avocado (salad or with honey + lemon), eggplant (roasted in slices) and Chinese cabbage (it's crunchy and great to eat raw as salad).
I just finished reading The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz, an extensively-referenced account of the history of nutrition research over the past century. It was really interesting to see the weakness of the evidence against fat, and how our general fear of fat came about anyway.
Admittedly with little research I tried out a low-carb (more like no-carb) diet (of my own invention). I ate pretty much only meat and green leafy vegetables. I was ravenous all throughout. I remember eating large amounts of meat and still feeling like I was starving.
It was hard to concentrate on pre-exam days because I was so hungry.
That's an interesting result. I seem to see one or the other result in people that try it. Either they feel extremely full from high protein diets, or the exact opposite.
I would cook two chicken breasts for dinner (400x calories, 80x g protein) and it felt like I didn't want to eat for a week afterward.
Can you quantify how much meat you were eating? I did a similar diet and found that, depending on exercise level, I needed between 1 and 3 lbs of red meat per day. I suspect most people who are hungry on a meat and greens diet are accustomed to eating much, much, smaller portions of meat, hence why they are so hungry, but it would be interesting to find counter examples.
No, I know what rabbit starvation is. 2 lbs of meat is only 1600 - 2400 calories. Vegetables have very few calories in general. Eating 3 lbs of meat per day is not crazy if you are lifting weights or heavily exercising.
>Admittedly with little research I tried out a low-carb (more like no-carb) diet (of my own invention)
Not trying to be snarky, but I suspect this is where your problem was.
One of the most commonly reported side effects of typical low-carb diets is appetite suppression. Better focus after the first couple of weeks is pretty common as well.
I will note that while I think low carb diets work, I'm also firmly of the belief that, in terms of weight loss, they're still caloric deficit diets at the core. It's just there are a few other things going on metabolically -- including the appetite suppression -- that tend to make them easier for a lot of people.
Weight loss is psychological, so if you feel like shit the diet is not good at all and not working for you. If you can’t keep your motivation up all the rest is completely worthless.
What I did and still successfully do is calorie restriction (that made me feel crappy for about a month or so, but now I don’t feel crappy most of the time) combined with lots of experimenting around and cooking of different foods to see what makes me feel happy and full.
(Non deep-fried) potatoes, salad, white meat (turkey, chicken) and (garlic) butter do it for me personally. Meals with those ingredients will make me feel full. Sometimes I still go for pasta and pizza (my favourite foods), but my desire to feel full automatically seems to override that by now. Maybe pasta and pizza is something I will go for once a week or, but no more.
Maybe it’s different for you. Just try different things. Also, it takes some time to get used to a new diet, especially if you eat less calories. It took a month or so for me. Maybe also try being active? I found that being active – going on a long walk, driving the bike – gets completely rid of my hunger for some weird reason.
In the end I’m just guessing – but dieting is all about how you feel. That’s the most important thing. You have to stay motivated, otherwise it just doesn’t work. So keep that in mind.
To be honest, it wasn't a weight loss thing. I was just curious. But you know, grad school doesn't really let you survive on 1.5 kg of meat a day (plus other food).
Thanks for the advice, though. I've gone and gained a lot of weight post-university and it'll help. All that activity disappeared and I kept eating the same. That's got to change.
It's because you weren't eating any fats. On a low-carb diet, your body uses fat as its energy source. If you don't eat any fat, your body will not willingly consume your body fat.
Excess protein you eat is effectively broken down into carbohydrates as well—so everything was working against you.
This is no secret. There will be endless mostly uninformed debate but the idea that less carbs - less stored fat - its not counter-intuitive.
I wouldn't doubt keeping the blood sugar levels from spiking (especially processed carbs) plays a big part. Weight watchers giving you credit for fiber always wondered about that.
After we got acquired in June I hired a nutritionist to help me get onto a low-carb diet. I'm down about 42 lbs so far and it hasn't been hard at all. The trickiest part is the questions, comments and eye-rolling when I take the bun off my burger or whatnot.
The other thing I've noticed is how different my moods are when I'm "sugar-free". Routine tasks that typically bore me to tears become much more manageable and I'm able to just sit and think for longer. YMMV
Yeah, I certainly don't miss that "hey a sugar donut would be awesome right now" feeling I used to get when trying to get work done, now that I'm off carbs.
That is the main reason I restrict carbs. I have tried a variety of low carb diets, starting with Tim Ferris' slow carb, (because I was starting to get a little puffy around the middle) then an atkins style, then a strict paleo a la Robb Wolf, then, intermittent fasting with mostly only meat-and-greens.
Regardless of the specific diet, my energy levels and moods are so much more consistent with reduced carbs, I continue to restrict carbs regardless of other hypothetical benefits.
I recommend Lyle MacDonald, http://www.bodyrecomposition.com he's quite scientific to his approach, plenty of material can be found on youtube and on those 'sites' you know of ;)
The Zone diet works pretty well which call for a balanced diet with smaller portions, lots of veggies, way less meat. It advocates grazing, as oppose to 3 meals a day. After all we're not farmers of days past anymore, so we should adapt to modern life eating patterns.
Carbs(aka glucose) is a poisonous substance and as soon as your body detects the glucose it releases insulin. The Insulin lowers blood glucose levels by forcing the glucose to move into your fat cells as fat(through a long chain reaction).
So carbs essentially become fat.
If you don't eat carbs your body doesn't release insulin so you can't store anything as fat. In fact once you truly go very low carb your body releases whatever hormone is the opposite of Insulin which allows fat to be released from your fat cells and used as energy.
The low carb diet makes sense to me because of the basic biology that I know. (I am not an expert and these are just my thoughts).
You're thinking of ketones, which are what trigger your body to burn fat for energy. (Another perk of ketosis is being able to go long stretches between meals without getting hungry.)
It should be noted that the first time moving to a low-carb, high fat diet, it's mildly traumatic and unpleasant. It takes 1-2 weeks of low energy and constant hunger before the body switches to ketosis mode. (This is sometimes called the "carb flu".)
No, these are not equal. Carbs covers all carbohydrates, including starches, cellulose etc. Glucose is a simple carbohydrate - what all carbs are broken down to by the digestive system, if they can be broken (cellulose, i.e., can not be digested by humans). So glucose indeed may raise insulin significantly, while more complex carbs by a lesser and slower degree.
If you don't eat carbs your body doesn't release insulin so you can't store anything as fat.
This is completely wrong at least on two counts. First, proteins also raise insulin significantly, just as much as carbohydrates. Second, you certainly can store fat as fat on a low carb diet, and you will, if you keep overeating.
I lost 80 pounds doing low carb in a year and a half after 3-4 years of trying various diets after graduating high school at 320 pounds (being 6'4). Calorie counting "works" but you're constantly having to make willpower checks every day. Low fat left me ravenously hungry /all/ the time. Whenever I need to lose weight I just go on a ketogenic diet for a few months and it reliably drops the pounds very quickly, and I am also far less hungry throughout the day making it MUCH easier to stay on track.
The MOST difficult part of the diet is just how much every "healthy" food is set up for low-fat rather than low-carb - if you want to stay under 40g carbs per day about 90% of the grocery store is off limits, they fill EVERYTHING with sugar or corn, especially the "healthy low-fat" foods which usually trade fat for more carbs. I'm very glad that this study came out, hopefully we will start to see more foods with low carbs in stores and restaurants.
I'm wondering how you would fare eating whole foods without additives? The grocery store is actually pretty chock full of such foods. Stay away from boxes and trays.
I remain amazed at how much contradictory information we receive about diet.
My sense is the following would benefit pretty much everyone: eat in moderation, mostly unprocessed food, and be modestly active (ie, walk at least 10 miles per week).
There is lot of contradictory information, because there are food industries funding research whose results are favorable for their products. It is no longer science. Rather it's assertion of beliefs.
You just asserted your own beliefs. Wouldn't you rather want to know the truth about good nutrition? You need science to do that.
This article (and the Tim Ferriss article in the Top comment here) both cite Atkin's High Protein, Low Carb diet. I am not sure I can believe that though.
It is well known that most of the people in the west consume way more proteins that is required by their body, even those that don't exercise.
Excessive protein ingestion causes kidney failure, hypertension and heart attacks.
Some believe (and allege) that Dr Atkins himself died of his own Atkins Diet. Here are some quotes from news articles and mybuster sites from when he was alive / had just died.
"It is known Robert Atkins did indeed weather a heart attack during his lifetime. In April 2002, the diet guru issued a statement saying he was recovering from cardiac arrest related to a heart infection he had suffered from "for a few years." He said it was "in no way related to diet."
However, revelations in February 2004 from the city medical examiner's report let slip the information that Atkins had suffered a heart attack, congestive heart failure, and hypertension, before his death. "
One more note: What about Vegetarians and Lacto-vegetarians?
Our diet typically tends to be little high in carbs mainly white rice.
What kind of protein sources can we substitute lean meat like chicken, for? Tofu and lentils don't cut it, you have to consume vast amounts to get sufficient protein equivalent.
Anyone with useful advice, experience, please share!
> It is well known that most of the people in the west consume way more proteins that is required by their body
If prehistoric humans didn't get their calories from protein, how do you suggest they got them? Certainly not from sugars (found mainly in modern cultivated fruits) or starches (found mainly in modern cultivated grains).
I'm not saying your "too much protein" thesis is wrong (I don't have enough of an understanding of nutritional history and anthropology) but can you give some better supporting documentation?
Atkins isn't high protein. We already know high protein diets kill people.
Just actually read the snopes article you linked to before repeating the same bullshit that people actually believe. Atkins, the guy who saved thousands of lives of his patients, reversing their diabetes and obesity, died of ________ and was a _______ weight when he was admitted to the hospital.
(1) slipping on ice and going into a coma from a head injury
(2) healthy
hypertension? what do you think 60 pounds of bloating is going to do to your body, dumbass?
I've started Tim Ferriss diet on May/2013 and went strictly on it (no supplements, aka, PAGG) up to September/13 when I reached my goal (97->82kg). I did a body check-up (mostly on blood and urine tests) on November/13 and everything was fine. I never came back on milk+bread on breakfast and I got used to go low-fat 6 days a week. I'm not so strict on Tim's diet anymore but I'm still low-fat-oriented. I'm turning 40 this month. So far, this diet worked greatly for me. BTW: I got to know about Tim's book here in HN.
I must recall that the low-carb diet from Tim is focused on food with low glycemic index. The idea is to avoid the conversion of the carbs you eat into fat stored in your body.
247 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 246 ms ] threadLow-fat, high-carb flat-out kills people.
http://reddit.com/r/keto
A huge part of identity for some people is based on the knowledge that they're living on a healthy plant-based diet. It turns out that said diet is less healthy than subsisting on bacon grease.
This causes cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance causes knee-jerk downvotes.
Citations? How about the study spelled out in the article?
The vegetarian thing does not folow. Just because keto/atkins/paleo works, doesn't mean anything else works. Nothing is better than the low calorie diet.
I offer up the reddit link for anyone interested in the mechanics of HFLC.
http://www.reddit.com/r/keto/wiki/faq
There are animals that eat plants rather than other animals: they are called herbivores. Herbivores somehow develop muscles.
We can't eat exactly like herbivores. Herbivores eat grass and leaves in huge quantities and have the digestive system for it: they can get enough protein and overall calories that way.
Still, we can achieve a given number of calories and a desired fraction of them from protein and fat, using vegetable sources.
Here's a citation against your assertion.
http://www.jfponline.com/fileadmin/qhi/jfp/pdfs/6307/JFP_063...
> “To my knowledge, this is one of the first long-term trials that’s given these diets without calorie restrictions,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, who was not involved in the new study. “It shows that in a free-living setting, cutting your carbs helps you lose weight without focusing on calories. And that’s really important because someone can change what they eat more easily than trying to cut down on their calories.”
It doesn't actually control for calories so basically the study shows us that a diet that's low in carbs can help people eat fewer calories while still feeling full. That's important, but nothing we don't already know.
The health benefits are completely confounded by the lack of caloric control and control for weight loss: losing weight simply makes people less disease prone no matter the contents of the diet.
There is a lot of people who debate this point, having a study back it up is useful.
How would you structure a study on human test subjects that would keep their weight constant over long periods without it being illegal?
Another big part of this - an apparently non-biased researcher (presumably they don't run a food supplement business) - has suggested that eating fats of all things does not necessarily lead towards heart disease.
I think that's going to be a wake up call.
It also, in my mind, emphasizes that the bulk of "Nutritionists" for the last 50 years have been a bunch of cargo-cult practicing members of the mob - and it makes you wonder what other so-called-scientific disciplines are behaving in a like manner.
Sure, I guess to me whether or not high fat diets have higher satiety is just not interesting - it's a settled issue and it's obvious to me.
> Another big part of this - an apparently non-biased researcher (presumably they don't run a food supplement business) - has suggested that eating fats of all things does not necessarily lead towards heart disease.
Right, but with similar weight it suggested eating less calories helps prevent heart disease. This study doesn't answer the question of whether or not diet composition affected heart disease.
> It also, in my mind, emphasizes that the bulk of "Nutritionists" for the last 50 years have been a bunch of cargo-cult practicing members of the mob - and it makes you wonder what other so-called-scientific disciplines are behaving in a like manner.
Let's not get dramatic. Don't forget that people are significantly less active than they were 50 years ago, and that just because low carb diets happen to be in fashion right now doesn't mean they are right for everyone. That being said, I agree, the diet/nutrition industry is a joke, and most people could do a lot worse than cut carbs out of their diet.
Seriously - how difficult would it have been to do a couple-hundred person trial for a year or so to get some confirmation? And yet, billions of dollars (10s of billions?) of policy and dietary guidance were based on this poorly supported theory.
The certainty you dislike is the same certainty I react against with the low carb movement.
We are only certain of two things:
1) Having less fat on your body is healthier (to an extent) and will help prevent things like heart disease, diabetes etc.
2) If you have too much fat lowering caloric consumption will make you burn it.
Anything else is speculation.
> Seriously - how difficult would it have been to do a couple-hundred person trial for a year or so to get some confirmation? And yet, billions of dollars (10s of billions?) of policy and dietary guidance were based on this poorly supported theory.
Really difficult, actually. And doing it without pissing off a major industry is impossible.
Global warming, climate change, or whatever name is being used this week to try and match reality.
What about a low-junk food diet? No cqlorie restrictions but no refined carbs? I don't think we need ti discourage people from eating whole grains and beans.
Paleo is pretty affordable at the lower-middle class, if you're willing to put the effort in and cook. My biggest hurdle is how easy unhealthy stuff is.
As a prepper and a homesteader (amateur/beginner), I realize that low carb and high fat/meat isn't really feasible when SHTF, and I mostly stock lentils, pintos, rice, wheat, quinoa, and a few other standard staples. They stay good, when properly sealed for like 25 years (quinoa only 8 years or so though...). No meat known to man (or at least myself) does that. Also, even doing basic homesteading, you tend to eat more veggies and much less meat.
In the meantime, I admit that I eat plenty of meat, and could probably raise a cow or some pigs, or at the very least do the rabbit thing, but it's a lot of work and planning, and it's just easier to get your meat from a can in an emergency situation.
Edit: I prep for emergencies, FWIW, not health. Calories and nutrition are the major requirements.
But they don't, and the industry is massive.
Sustainability only makes sense relative to a particular population size, and so something is only unsustainable in the absolute sense if the population needed to produce it exceeds the population which can survive upon it. This is not the case with the food types you refer to, and the producer/consumer ratio is precisely the thing that we develop new technologies to reduce.
If anything, I see it is better for us to engage in inefficient land use, because it provides spare capacity which can be used to mitigate prolonged disasters; a view strongly influenced by the book "The Collapse of Complex Societies", by Joseph Tainter.
start eating animal organs - liver, kidney, tongue, brain, throat, face meat, bone marrow - see how much food is actually in an animal.
Anyone have access that can upload it to Scribd or similar?
Some noteworthy excerpts:
- Participants assigned to the low-carbohydrate diet were instructed to maintain an intake of digestible carbohydrate (total carbohydrate minus total fiber) of less than 40 g/d.
- The reduction in body weight was significantly greater in the low-carbohydrate group (mean difference in change at 12 months, 3.5 kg; P=0.002)
- those on the low-carbohydrate diet had significantly greater proportional reductions in fat mass (mean difference in change at 12 months, 1.5% P=0.011)
- those on the low-carbohydrate diet had significantly greater proportional increases in lean mass (mean difference in change at 12 months, 1.7%; P=0.003)
- Compared with a low-fat diet, a low-carbohydrate diet resulted in greater improvements in body composition, HDL cholesterol level, ratio of total– HDL cholesterol, triglyceride level, CRP level, and estimated 10-year CHD risk
- Dietitians were not blinded to the study hypothesis(!!). To avoid potential differences in dietary counseling due to this, we used specific and detailed scripts for all counseling sessions and trained staff to deliver the scripts without deviation.
- The proportion of participants with detectable urinary ketone levels was significantly higher in the low-carbohydrate group than in the low-fat group at 3, 6, and 12 months (data not shown)
On my normal omnivorous diet I snack when I feel hungry, usually opting for trail mix, toast (from bread I bake), or a piece of fruit (sometimes chips, but not often). Since none of my available snacks were acceptable on the diet I just opted for drinking coffee and a big glass of water when I felt a little hungry between meals. As a result, I ended up losing a few pounds over a few weeks.
I'm curious if the same thing happened with the participants on the low carb diet. Did they lose weight and become healthier because none of their snacks fit the diet, so they ended up not snacking?
They have an acceptable amount of carbs in them and make you feel full enough to make it to the next meal.
The biggest issue is the expense, I spend about $20-30 a fortnight on nuts alone.
Fat bombs are just a general term for hight-fat snacks, which are completely acceptable on a keto diet. The high fat content also increases satiety.
http://dietketo.com/keto-food/fat-bombs/
I have had a huge sweet tooth my whole life but I find the thing that I crave the most is fruit (I know fruit is sweet but not like ice-cream and candy). I've always ate a ton of apples and now that I can't I am craving them like crazy. Also, no bread is really hard, especially since good whole wheat bread seems so healthy and is so satisfying, and it limits your options for most meals like pizza and sandwiches.
I hear a lot of knee-jerk reactions about the diet saying how it must be awesome to just eat steak, chicken, etc. all the time, but it gets real old real fast. Without bread/buns, bbq source, and common high carb toppings, it become really repetitive. Cheeseburgers are amazing but they are a hell of a lot less appealing with no bun, onions, tomato, or ketchup.
All this being said I do not see keto or whatever you want to call it as a long term diet/lifestyle for me. I have been convinced that I used to eat way too many carbs, but I think I just need to balance my meals more and do some portion control. Eating no more than like 20 carbs a day is really hard and for me it affects the quality of my life too much. But, I totally understand that there are people out there where this diet is basically the only thing that works for them, so I think it's awesome that more people are at least trying it.
This is true, but honestly the only one of those you really need to cut out is the bun. The onions and tomato add up to 2-3g of carbs, and the ketchup is another 4g, so the whole burger in a lettuce wrap would be 6-7g of carbs, not at all bad for a meal! For reference, I use myfitnesspal to keep track of my food consumption and to research carb/calorie counts.
> Eating no more than like 20 carbs a day is really hard and for me it affects the quality of my life too much
Would 50g be more sustainable? Or 100g? From what I've seen, the 20g limit is mostly an introductory phase. 50g is still a huge reduction from what most people consume on a daily basis.
Protein means they wrap it in lettuce instead of a bun.
You can also go the double double but I'm not a big fan of the cheese...
That seems excessive, and somewhat unbalanced.
Playing with carb intake can be very educational: while low-carb diets benefit a lot of people, different folks have different needs. Your athletic pursuits, sex, pregnancy status, thyroid health, etc, are all really important to consider.
One thing to consider is that while your old diet is obviously bad when you look at it through the low-carb lens, it is also subtly bad as well, because your entire cuisine was bent around carbs replacing fats, and baking, sugars, bread, dough, sugars, potatos, sugars, etc etc etc. If you're going to successfully do low-carb over the long term it's important to also make sure that one does not simply try to eat "old diet - carbs" every day, but that one explores the culinary options that are available to you when you no longer fear fat. Go down your oils aisle and start trying them out. If you haven't been using your spice rack, start trying them out. (Well, first throw away your several-years-old spices and buy new ones, then start trying them out.) Start cooking ethnic foods from ethnicities that didn't go low-fat. Start making your own salad dressings.
(Basic recipe: Spoon a dollop of mayonnaise into a bowl. Pour in some vinegar and mix thoroughly. Pour in an oil and mix thoroughly. Insert ingredients to taste. There's ways around that first step, but this makes experimentation fast (my grandparent's generation call mayo "salad dressing" for a reason), and you can use this to bootstrap up to your own opinions. Your first couple may suck, and I'm leaving the recipe underspecified sort of on purpose, but you'll dial in fast.)
When eating out you may often end up eating "old diet - carbs", such as a bun-free hamburger, but for what you cook yourself it's important to go discover the really quite wide world of cooking options that America just sort of silently turned away from in the past 50 years. There's a lot of flavor and variety in the fats, but it takes some time to explore them, because you're darned near starting from scratch.
And to be honest, there are simply some things in the carb world for which there is no replacement. For instance, I'm well aware of the pains of missing gluten since I've got (proper) Celiac, and there's really no substitute for such a metaphorically and literally flexible protein, for instance. But fats have their own thing to offer that carbs don't.
There's an old book called "Life without bread" that was a pre-Atkins low carb diet written by a German Doctor named Wolfgang Lutz. He claimed that, after much trial and error, 72 grams (about 6 slices of bread) was the cutoff, and further restriction didn't particularly help patients in any measurable way.
Leben Ohne Brot (Life Without Bread) http://www.amazon.com/Life-Without-Bread-Low-Carbohydrate-Di...
Jerky: a standby but actually it often has more carbs than you'd think -- one 3oz package usually has 12-15g of carbs, which is around 3/4ths of my ideal consumption for a day.
Nuts: almonds are the best, but others work too.
Cheese: cheese sticks make a great on-the-go snack, you can find them in a lot of gas stations. I also will do cured meats + cheese when I want an easy dinner, though it's a tad expensive.
Pork Rinds: good for when you're craving something like chips. I sometimes dip them in salsa.
Veggies: some low-carb folks have success snacking on celery and carrots, but I have difficulty at times.
But, to be honest, a lot of my problems with eating in the past involved snacking. I eat when I feel like eating, rather than when I'm actually hungry, and so my eating habits become tied to emotions rather than biological needs. And once I start eating sweets, I don't stop until I feel sick. Having fewer options makes it easier to abstain, as you said. However, did you actually feel hungry/need to snack often when you were eating low carb? I rarely feel hunger between meals like I did when I was eating carbs regularly.
My goal with low carb is to get my habits back to the point where I no longer eat because I'm bored or because it's in front of me. I'm also cutting out artificial sweeteners this time around to try and reduce my sweet tooth (last time I drank tons and tons of diet soda, but I'm finding that seltzer/club soda is an acceptable substitute) (I also heard that sweet tastes produce an insulin response regardless of actual sugar content).
I'm about 2 months into round 2 now, a few years later, and snacking hasn't been much of an issue at all. The difference: The first time, I was also working out for about 90 minutes a day while this time I'm doing no exercise beyond a good bit of walking around town each day.
When I do need a snack, my go-tos are cold cuts (turkey or ham) and dill pickles, which I find I can eat by the jarful without much impact on my diet.
When you take the carbs out, your body starts using body fat for energy. It's great, really.
For my snacks I eat pepperoni, beef sticks, almonds(so many different flavored versions. smokehouse jalapeno is my favorite), cheeses, pork rinds, sugar free jello(cut with HWC), and this chocolate pudding/mousse I make.
Then just whip it until it gets the texture you want. Barely whip for pudding, whip alot for a more mousse like texture. Sometime I'll freeze it in cubes and they taste like fudge pops.
Guacamole is better on chips, but if I have chips around I'll eat too many of them. On the other hand if I try to eat the guacamole by itself, without any sort of crispy substrate, it's just unappetizing.
My own take, which I've mentioned before, is that the the starting point is so bad (refined carbohydrates) that you can pretty much walk in any direction and get positive results. That is, what people are eating doesn't matter nearly as much as what people aren't. Or, more specifically, any diet will make people pay attention to what they're eating, and that's the real win.
[1] http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/70/3/516s.full
Sticking to these diets is the hardest thing. I spent a few months on a paleo diet and got a bunch healthier, but it was really hard to find things to eat, and pretty expensive as well. I don't think dietary changes are worth it unless you can reasonably stick to them for the rest of your life, and anything that says "no X ever again" is likely to fall into that category.
Curious if you could name one food that was particularly difficult to cut out.
I've tried many times to cut out chocolate, and managed for up to 6 months at a time before coming crashing down. A few months ago I switched to "mindful eating", which says I can eat chocolate whenever I want, and life has been better.
And you are also incorrect that both groups had equal results. There was an 8 pound weight loss difference on average. Did you even read the article?
In fact I'd suggest you consider this a clue... you're clearly explaining away, rather than explaining. "Explaining away" is in a way the most fundamentally unscientific operation there is... the fact that you're joined by a number of people who call themselves "scientists" even so doesn't change that.
(No joke. The fundamental breakthrough of science philosophy is that instead of asking the cognitively-natural "How can I prove I am correct?", science teaches us to ask "How can I prove I am wrong?" Everything else is just elaborations on that theme. "Explaining away" is one of the easiest ways to do the first, and is thus one of the easiest unscientific things to do. The fact that we've managed to train a great number of people who fancy themselves scientists but think their job is more about the first than the second is an indictment of our society, not an excuse to follow those people.)
Anyway, any apparent epidemiological advantages to avoiding animal products in the industrialized world come down to two things. 1) The meat is mostly garbage; you have to consider only grass fed. 2) People are eating large amounts of muscle meat to the exclusion of the organ meats and connective tissue. This results in a chronic excess of tryptophan and a major deficiency of glycine. Iron overload is also a problem with eating too much muscle meat. A diet of steaks and chicken breasts without eating the rest of the animals is totally unnatural.
Dairy doesn't have these problems of low quality meat and too much muscle meat. Vegetarian with high dairy intake is an excellent nutritional choice.
All mentioned, except probably potatoes, have very low nutrient density (also called "empty calories"). That alone makes them horrible food choices, even not considering the effects on metabolism.
Potatoes are ok though, I was surprised to find out that they contain complete protein. There were also some studies that recorded benefits from "potato diet".
Nutritiondata.self.com has a "completeness score" of 57/100 for potatoes, but only 27/100 for white rice (long grain), and a 0/100 for sugar (which is nothing but empty calories). FWIW, wheat flour is listed as 33/100 so potatoes are the top of the whole list.
Edit: for comparison, Kale (raw) has a "completeness score" of 85/100 and Spinach (cooked) has a 93/100.
Yes, sorry - I singled out potatoes as a decent food, while the others are truly horrible.
As for the empty calories counter argument, sometimes you just need energy/heat and simple sugars are a wonderful source. The average healthy person is eating between 2500 and 3000 calories a day. So even if you're eating half of them as junk you're still leaving enough room for nutrient dense foods.
I have a question: if I cook chicken, meat etc. with "bone-in", do I get the benefits of bone-broth, glycine, etc.?
Plenty of vegetarians stay away from pastas, grains, and other refined carbohydrates.
Yes fruits and dairy are also sources of sugars, but linking vegetarianism to high-carb, is like linking low-carb to risk for heart disease.
Vegetarians who do gain wait, are likely substituting high fat animal products for refined carbs like pasta, grains, starches, etc.
I just always assumed a carb heavy vegetarian diet is entirely contradictory to the health benefits a vegetarian is often seeking from their diet.
Your study shows 1) no difference for everything except ischemic heart disease, 2) that fish eaters fare best and 3) fails to account for the lousier other food likely eaten by meat eaters.
Except for a fruitarian diet, which is usually very high in fructose. Look at what that diet did to Steve Jobs. While he was still alive, way before it was revealed he had pancreatic cancer, I heard a story where he turned orange, which can only be jaundice, a sign of a failing pancreas. The pancreas metabolizes fructose and it can't be good to abuse it by overloading your body with high fructose.
You turn yellow from jaundice.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15824171
I agree that a good vegetarian diet's probably much healthier than a standard American one.
Autophagy may be an important cellular cleanup process that never happens with three square meals a day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy#Autophagy_and_caloric...
The idea is plausible and there is some early research on this, but there's definitely not a consensus. I personally try to fill this void with intermittent protein fasting on a diet that is otherwise composed of meats, fruits, and vegetables.
for other people it's not an issue at all. they can simply just eat 1500 calories a day with a bunch of carbs and also lose weight. I CAN'T. i need to ingest 2500-3000 calories a day or else i will just be constantly hungry and unable to function without thinking about food. i'm in my 30s now - i know this about myself. i've counted the calories for months on end, using MFP.
the hardest part is not talking about it, because if you tell people you 'eat more fat' when they ask you what your new diet is, they'll think you're being sarcastic and rude.
i've only told my closest friends, people who i respect intellectually and who can handle an actual discussion about how things like the endocrine system works and
and i've told a bunch of strangers on the internet of course.
- fellow Keto guy
All these experiments ever confirm (over and over) is that plenty of protein is helpful in the context of a reduced calorie diet, and that restricting food choices results in spontaneous calorie reduction. Protein has very high satiety and thermic effect. As for low fat or low carb it doesn't matter much. It's just that carbs and fat go great together and it's very difficult to overeat without the combination. A plain stick of butter and a large bowl of plain white rice are equally difficult to overeat on, whereas ice cream with its combined hit of sugar and fat is easy to gorge on.
However, I think it might have been interesting to read more about the risks of a low-carb diet. For instance, some studies have shown that low-carb diets can reduce testosterone levels in men and I've also read that it could hurt short-term cognitive skills.
It is also unclear if the study involved (mostly) refined carbohydrates or complex carbohydrates. Obviously, the effect of complex carbohydrates is very different.
There are a number of studies regarding low-carb diets but most of them tend to focus on a subset of the results that one might see from a low-carb diet. So a smart strategy would be to read many of these reports and then decide what makes sense (though it isn't going to be easy for a layperson to read a wide range of different reports and draw the best conclusion on what is good for them)
(Here is the version I followed http://fourhourworkweek.com/2007/04/06/how-to-lose-20-lbs-of...)
The diet is basically to eat lean protein sources (scallops, salmon, round or loin steaks, chicken without skin, whey protein shakes (brand dependent), etc.) with broccoli, spinach, or another high fiber low carb green vegetable with every meal (4-6 meals per day). Assuming I haven't had any "cheat meals," the last meal of every 3rd day on this diet is a sweet potato/yam as a kind of carb refeed. I've really enjoyed the diet and I feel much better. I based it off of this source (but I used a somewhat lower calorie calculation than they suggest, since the diet is for bodybuilders): http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/docs/2007/gameover_vol2.pdf
At work I have a Quest Nutrition protein bar as a snack, which satisfies the fiber and protein requirements.
Before this, I followed a "healthy" Mediterranean diet for 2 years and failed to lose any weight even with exercise, but at least I didn't gain any either.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation
I'm 31, and spent the majority of my early 20s at startups wolfing down Mountain dew. Was up to almost 200 lbs for being 5' 6", and now I'm down to 165, and headed towards 150.
Exercise is critical as well. I run 3-5 miles every other day, with a 10 mile on Saturday or Sunday.
So I slashed the carbs and sugar out of my diet, lost about 30 pounds in four months, with some minimal weight lifting thrown in every other day to boost muscle and amplify my body's resting burn rate some. Used a 1500 calorie diet roughly. I give about 90% of the credit to eliminating specifically pizza, pasta, and most sugar (particularly anything sugar heavy, soda, snacks, etc) from my diet. So long as I stayed away from those things, I found I could eat a lot of what I wanted.
I still stand by this, in the sense that I would love to see if there is more "proof" out there, even anecdotal is good if in sufficient quantity.
Anecdotes are basically pointless. What we need is cheap individualized nutrition.
One thing I dislike about eating low carb, or paleo for that matter, is that it is not possible to measure it (other than weight, of course). It is based on randomly eating food (as long as it is low carb), and hoping you'll lose weight.
There is something you can do, though. It's measurable and it works. Bodybuilders use it, powerlifters use it, athletic fitness competitors use it, etc.
It's called counting calories. I've done it, and it worked great. It's a hassle, though! You basically have to weigh everything you eat, and it's a big disadvantage. However, by using this, you can keep track, count and graph everything you get into your body, and map it up to your weight and fat percentage.
For more information, see the /r/fitness FAQ: http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/wiki/faq#wiki_diet_details
Since off carbs I'm on a high and yes a I do a lot of caffeine, the latter doesn't lead to depressive moods and also no weight gain!
Carbs are still useful for high intensity athletes and before a high endurance workout (I'm talking fruits here and not the junk food).
I follow a diet similar to low-carb, moderate fat and protein, and I'm still concerned about not getting enough plants, and fiber. While the low-carb diet encourages consumption of veggies, I find it tough to make sure I get enough veggies (not fruit), in a day.
When most people think veggies they think "lettuce", which makes it hard to eat a lot. Try these recipes:
Broccoli (steam cooked, with olive oil and fried garlic), avocado (salad or with honey + lemon), eggplant (roasted in slices) and Chinese cabbage (it's crunchy and great to eat raw as salad).
It was hard to concentrate on pre-exam days because I was so hungry.
I would cook two chicken breasts for dinner (400x calories, 80x g protein) and it felt like I didn't want to eat for a week afterward.
Also double.. triple your vegetables.
Not trying to be snarky, but I suspect this is where your problem was.
One of the most commonly reported side effects of typical low-carb diets is appetite suppression. Better focus after the first couple of weeks is pretty common as well.
I will note that while I think low carb diets work, I'm also firmly of the belief that, in terms of weight loss, they're still caloric deficit diets at the core. It's just there are a few other things going on metabolically -- including the appetite suppression -- that tend to make them easier for a lot of people.
What I did and still successfully do is calorie restriction (that made me feel crappy for about a month or so, but now I don’t feel crappy most of the time) combined with lots of experimenting around and cooking of different foods to see what makes me feel happy and full.
(Non deep-fried) potatoes, salad, white meat (turkey, chicken) and (garlic) butter do it for me personally. Meals with those ingredients will make me feel full. Sometimes I still go for pasta and pizza (my favourite foods), but my desire to feel full automatically seems to override that by now. Maybe pasta and pizza is something I will go for once a week or, but no more.
Maybe it’s different for you. Just try different things. Also, it takes some time to get used to a new diet, especially if you eat less calories. It took a month or so for me. Maybe also try being active? I found that being active – going on a long walk, driving the bike – gets completely rid of my hunger for some weird reason.
In the end I’m just guessing – but dieting is all about how you feel. That’s the most important thing. You have to stay motivated, otherwise it just doesn’t work. So keep that in mind.
Thanks for the advice, though. I've gone and gained a lot of weight post-university and it'll help. All that activity disappeared and I kept eating the same. That's got to change.
Excess protein you eat is effectively broken down into carbohydrates as well—so everything was working against you.
> With little research
Try it again—/r/keto have an excellent FAQ.
I wouldn't doubt keeping the blood sugar levels from spiking (especially processed carbs) plays a big part. Weight watchers giving you credit for fiber always wondered about that.
The other thing I've noticed is how different my moods are when I'm "sugar-free". Routine tasks that typically bore me to tears become much more manageable and I'm able to just sit and think for longer. YMMV
Regardless of the specific diet, my energy levels and moods are so much more consistent with reduced carbs, I continue to restrict carbs regardless of other hypothetical benefits.
Pdf such has http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/the-rapid-fat-loss-handbook have helped me structure great nutrition programs.
So carbs essentially become fat.
If you don't eat carbs your body doesn't release insulin so you can't store anything as fat. In fact once you truly go very low carb your body releases whatever hormone is the opposite of Insulin which allows fat to be released from your fat cells and used as energy.
The low carb diet makes sense to me because of the basic biology that I know. (I am not an expert and these are just my thoughts).
It should be noted that the first time moving to a low-carb, high fat diet, it's mildly traumatic and unpleasant. It takes 1-2 weeks of low energy and constant hunger before the body switches to ketosis mode. (This is sometimes called the "carb flu".)
No, these are not equal. Carbs covers all carbohydrates, including starches, cellulose etc. Glucose is a simple carbohydrate - what all carbs are broken down to by the digestive system, if they can be broken (cellulose, i.e., can not be digested by humans). So glucose indeed may raise insulin significantly, while more complex carbs by a lesser and slower degree.
If you don't eat carbs your body doesn't release insulin so you can't store anything as fat.
This is completely wrong at least on two counts. First, proteins also raise insulin significantly, just as much as carbohydrates. Second, you certainly can store fat as fat on a low carb diet, and you will, if you keep overeating.
The MOST difficult part of the diet is just how much every "healthy" food is set up for low-fat rather than low-carb - if you want to stay under 40g carbs per day about 90% of the grocery store is off limits, they fill EVERYTHING with sugar or corn, especially the "healthy low-fat" foods which usually trade fat for more carbs. I'm very glad that this study came out, hopefully we will start to see more foods with low carbs in stores and restaurants.
My sense is the following would benefit pretty much everyone: eat in moderation, mostly unprocessed food, and be modestly active (ie, walk at least 10 miles per week).
You just asserted your own beliefs. Wouldn't you rather want to know the truth about good nutrition? You need science to do that.
Excessive protein ingestion causes kidney failure, hypertension and heart attacks.
Some believe (and allege) that Dr Atkins himself died of his own Atkins Diet. Here are some quotes from news articles and mybuster sites from when he was alive / had just died.
"It is known Robert Atkins did indeed weather a heart attack during his lifetime. In April 2002, the diet guru issued a statement saying he was recovering from cardiac arrest related to a heart infection he had suffered from "for a few years." He said it was "in no way related to diet."
However, revelations in February 2004 from the city medical examiner's report let slip the information that Atkins had suffered a heart attack, congestive heart failure, and hypertension, before his death. "
Sources:
1) Dr. Robert Atkins, proponent of the low-carbohydrate diet, died of a heart attack. http://www.snopes.com/medical/doctor/atkins.asp
2) Atkins diet author home after cardiac arrest: http://edition.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/diet.fitness/04/25/atkins...
One more note: What about Vegetarians and Lacto-vegetarians? Our diet typically tends to be little high in carbs mainly white rice. What kind of protein sources can we substitute lean meat like chicken, for? Tofu and lentils don't cut it, you have to consume vast amounts to get sufficient protein equivalent. Anyone with useful advice, experience, please share!
Too bad for you that there is absolutely nothing in the current medical literature that supports these ridiculous claims.
If prehistoric humans didn't get their calories from protein, how do you suggest they got them? Certainly not from sugars (found mainly in modern cultivated fruits) or starches (found mainly in modern cultivated grains).
I'm not saying your "too much protein" thesis is wrong (I don't have enough of an understanding of nutritional history and anthropology) but can you give some better supporting documentation?
Probably mostly from plants.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/07/23/hu...
Atkins isn't high protein. We already know high protein diets kill people.
Just actually read the snopes article you linked to before repeating the same bullshit that people actually believe. Atkins, the guy who saved thousands of lives of his patients, reversing their diabetes and obesity, died of ________ and was a _______ weight when he was admitted to the hospital.
(1) slipping on ice and going into a coma from a head injury (2) healthy
hypertension? what do you think 60 pounds of bloating is going to do to your body, dumbass?
> It is well known that most of the people in the west consume way more proteins that is required by their body, even those that don't exercise.
I must recall that the low-carb diet from Tim is focused on food with low glycemic index. The idea is to avoid the conversion of the carbs you eat into fat stored in your body.