low carb diets

[auraslip]

I wrote this post in the "how to get fit thread" but thought it deserved better. I know low-carb diets make most people roll their eyes because it goes so far against the grain. I know I hated the idea when I was first exposed to it. OTOH, I know you guys are very science oriented and intelligent enough to get it, so please check this stuff out. It might save your life!

[youtube]FSeSTq-N4U4[/youtube]

Basically, if you eat less than 20 grams of carbs a day you will lose weight. If you eat less than 50 grams a day, it will be impossible to gain weight. The video touches on the science, but doesn't really delve into it. If you want some better insight check out this book.

Gary taubes is sort of a hero of mine. He will be remembered as someone that took a look around and said, "wait a minute! this is wrong!" and then set out to meticulously prove it by doing years of research on the subject.

Here is the gist of it:

One of the strangest ironies in all of dieting is that many of the problems people associate with the consumption of high fat actually is more likely to be caused by a carb-laden diet. Problems such as heart disease, obesity, diabetes, ADHD, and perhaps even cancer have all been potentially linked to originate in the Western Diet of high carb in the presence of high fat. Grains in particular have been shown to have strong links with auto-immune and inflammatory diseases like Multiple Sclerosis and Arthritis.

This quote is from the r/keto andFAQ will explain the science behind it better than I can.

I'm sure in 50 years we will look back on the whole low-fat trend and wonder how we vested interests like big agriculture, the packaged food industry, and vegetarian activist destroy our bodies.

Grains are also a huge problem, but for reasons not dependent on their carbohydrate content. Some people say grains, "are the new tobacco" for these reasons. And yeah, I'm tempted to agree although the science on gluten intolerance and anti-nutrients is very, very far from complete. Still, it's enough to make me avoid the stuff.

Now, the best part of this diet isn't the awesome food. It's that you'll feel great. After the first week I had so much energy. I don't even need my ADD meds any more. It's crazy. It's like the life hack I've been missing all my life.

Also, you don't fart on a low carb diet. So that's nice.

 

[auraslip]

Also, check out the keto sub-reddit. It's a great community with daily success stories, and tons of recipes. Like this low carb pizza made with almond flower instead of wheat:

 

[nechaus]

Low carb diets have their purpose, and you can certainly lose weight from it.

People really need to be educated in school on how to eat correctly.


I have many friend who are professional body builders, and i can tell you now, I do not like being around them 3 days b4 any competition.
Example of diet, i can type it because its so easy to do.

For the 3 days prior to a competition alot of them will do this,
Eat boiled chicken, why boiled ? to cook it and remove the sodium.
Lettuce for fibre..

This is all some of my friends have days b4 the big comp, And then the stupid part, Moments b4 the comp they will carb load, make them looking massiv and pumped. iv seen a miss universe that was ripped as hell stuff down the biggest piece of cheese cake and then go up on stage and almost pass out.



The fact of the matter is you need carbs, you needs fats, and you certainly need protein in your diet to be fully functional.
If you take carbs out, your body is going to most likely convert your muscle into energy and convert fat last.


If I stop eating carbs, the first thing i notice is that i have no energy and my muscles look weak as they are lacking glycogen.

 

[auraslip]

The fact of the matter is you need carbs, you needs fats, and you certainly need protein in your diet to be fully functional.
If you take carbs out, your body is going to most likely convert your muscle into energy and convert fat last.


If I stop eating carbs, the first thing i notice is that i have no energy and my muscles look weak as they are lacking glycogen.

Actually, carbs are the only macro-nutrients you don't need to survive. Eskimos survive all winter on seal fat.

Your body only starts cannibalizing muscles when you are starving. That's what starvation is. Fat goes first.

You get over feeling tired after a few days. This is known as the "keto-flu." It takes time for your damaged metabolize to get used to burning fat like it's supposed to.

This guy is a professional cyclist on a low carb diet. He found his V02 MAX test actually improved in most areas on a low carb diet! The only area that suffered was the super high end activity like you'd see from a sprinter.

You can learn a lot from professional body builders for sure. Super fun how the bulk up on carbs before a competition. The carbs make the retain water or something to make them look more vascular and cut.

 

[dogman dan]

I don't know about 50 grams or whatever amount. I do know amounts differ from person to person. And what they do. When I framed houses for a living, the big problem was getting the calories you'd burn in one day digested. So easy to process carbs were good.

For sure, you can stop drinking 32 oz cups of soda if you are trying to lose a few pounds.

The other problem I see many struggle with, Alcohol is a pure carb. Real alkies stop eating altogether.

 

[Kingfish]

I’m with you nechaus; I notice pretty quickly if I’m carb-low. My diet is balanced to be veg-heavy, and lean on both protein and carbs to keep the fat tire from developing. A good blend of Vegetables already contains most of what we need in the way of proteins and carbs. Cabbage, celery, eggplant, watercress, and lettuce contribute the most fiber, and we need fiber to push the crap out and keep us regular. Without regularity, toxins build up and our systems absorb too much of the wrong stuff that ends up causing health problems and obesity. If I’m overtly trying to burn fat off, the adjustments I make to the diet are:

• Cut out beer, ice cream, saturated fatty foods. I don’t drink sodas, so usually just abstaining from beer is enough.
• Eat more oranges, grapefruit, and pineapple: The acids and enzymes of these fruits are better suited to break down and metabolize body fats. I like crisp firm (cider) apples too, though I prefer them sliced as an evening dessert (last meal) with peanut butter. Some claim bananas are fatty, but I still like a banana nearly every day at breakfast.
• Cut out rich breads, muffins, and bagels.
• Cut out pasta, pizza, and potatoes. Eat rice and oatmeal instead.
• Cut out sugar, or replace sugar with honey – a natural complex that takes more energy to metabolize.
• Add flax seed to meals; good source of iron and fiber, and lowers cholesterol.
• Get out and exercise; walking, riding, yardwork. Anything that gets the body’s heart to pumping and develops sweat for at least 30 minutes a day.
• Lastly, eat less, though more frequently: Frequent small meals are better than few large ones.
• Don’t forget to drink water: Calorie-free.

With all that given, when I’m on the road going cross-country I can eat nearly anything as long as it’s earlier in the day instead of later. And although I am definitely no Adonis, just incorporating part of the list above goes very far in keeping my weight and waistline greatly reduced.

Reaching for that bran muffin… KF

 

[Njay]

I’m with you nechaus; I notice pretty quickly if I’m carb-low.

A low carb diet means reducing on carbs an increasing on fat intake.

 

[Kingfish]

I’m with you nechaus; I notice pretty quickly if I’m carb-low.

A low carb diet means reducing on carbs an increasing on fat intake.

Yes - if you take my comment out of context, it can read that way, but that's not what I said in the entirety.

Carbs are the purest form of ready energy after simple sugar. We start making sugar from carbs from the moment it enters our mouths. Beer is already converted; designed as an energy staple for farmed labor. Not too bad if I'm riding my bike scores of miles per day, but terrible if I'm loafing around. At the same time, we need a minimal amount of carbs to run the daily machine. If I'm working at home, a bagel contains enough carb to hold me until lunch or afternoon depending on how physical the day goes.

On the flipside, if I'm knee-deep in code working my pea-sized brain, two cells in the void clickin' away generating deep thoughts, well... that can make me mighty hungry for a bloody damned steak at lunch! :lol:

My body pretty much tells me what I need. Sometimes though I have to say no to beer... but then that's the brain talking.
~KF

 

[Drunkskunk]

There is some truth to this, but its not an absolute. Reducing calories will reduce weight, and most of us get those from carbs. But reducing carbs alone is only good if your diet is unbalanced and carb heavy.

What is needed is a balanced diet, with appropriate levels of carbs for your body. As americans, we probably get too manycarbs, but simply lowering carb intake isn't healthy. A balanced diet must be maintained.

 

[auraslip]

The thing ya'll are missing is that carbs mess up your metabolism and make it very hard to lose weight and to keep a healthy weight. Humans were never meant to eat them in great amounts! Think about the original hunter gathers that survived on meat, the occasional fruit, and vegetables. It's only since the advent of agriculture a few thousand years ago that we started eating carbs in any amount. And what followed was stunted growth (paleolithic people were taller than the average person up until the last century), tooth decay, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. The video talks about this, and I highly suggest ya'll watch it.

It's hard to talk about this because the food pyramid has so skewed what is "moderation" when it comes to their intake! Personally, I consider moderation to mean what my body has evolved to eat living on the African plains. And we would of never had soda or bowls of rice, and we a lot more physically active back then! But moderation is important! Many people think that low-carb and atkins means all meat all the time but it really isn't true! I eat more vegetables now than I ever did as a vegetarian! Why? because they taste good and they're filling and you need something to replace the carbs.

But the biggest problem most people have is the energy thing. It's been beaten into their head so many times that they "need" carbs for energy, but it's absolutely not true. Sure, you WILL feel tired for the first few days on a ketogenic diet, but it's only because your broken metabolism is not used to burning fat for energy. When I mowed lawns, I actually found a low carb diet easier to maintain because I had constant energy all day. I couldn't stop every four hours to carb up because it was inconvenient. And on a high carb diet you'll feel tired after four hours of work because all the carbs you ate for breakfast will be used up or converted to fat which your body will have a hard time burning. A hard time burning because your metabolism is messed up and your cells are insulin resistant!

It's really not as simple as reducing calories. It's been proven that on a diet of equal calories a low-carb diet will show greater weight loss than any other. Which means the metabolism of the people on the low carb diet will have to be stronger and faster. Which means more energy. Which means you're more productive and you feel better.

And another thing. SATURATED FATS ARE THE BEST TYPE OF FATS. They absolutely do not cause heart disease. Check this link which is a meta study of 21 other studies on the subject which show exactly the same thing. Which is awesome because butter is awesome.

The only thing I don't like about this diet is the no beer clause

 

[dogman dan]

Though I have no science to back it up, I do tend to agree about the saturated fat. To clarify, just because you substituted canola oil for crisco, it's not a licence to eat a pound of french fries or a deep fried twinkie.

So a moderate portion of fat that is present in a good steak is not so bad for you. The fat in the steak is where a lot of vitamins reside. Other things reside there too though, so you don't want to choose the very most fatty cut of beef every meal. The key thing is tailoring your portion size to what you are doing. The steak can be huge tonight, if you just pedaled up a few thousand vertical feet with no motor, carried plywood all day, etc.

Carbs from veggies are good. Carbs from grains are good. But again, no licence to be a pig with either if you aren't burning them off. Supersize fast food meal with 32 ounce coke better be follwed by some slave labor or even more fat burning sport. Best I ever did was windsurfing in 40 mph wind on 50 degree water. 3-4 hours of that, and you'd be 5 pounds lighter. Carb loading before that was lifesaving, preventing dying of hypothermia out there despite a 5 mm drysuit. If I was going to do that again the next day, I'd eat an entire bag of oreos for breakfast to try to get my liver full for another afternoon in the storm.

 

[Drunkskunk]

I agree with Dogman, except I would have carb loaded with beer.

auraslip, you're right in that a low carb diet will drop weight faster than just a low calorie diet of equil calorie content, But thats only healthy if your carb intake was too high. Fastest isn't the same as best, and the best way to lose weight is to maintain a healthy balanced diet, and just reduce the amount of food/callories consumed. So lowering your carbs to a healthy level is going to be the best way.

You have to remember that as hunter gatherers, we did get plenty of carbs. Fruits, Berries, Nuts are all high in carbs and were staples of pre-agrarian man's diet. Cutting all carbs isn't the answer, but reducing them to a healthy level certianly is. Thats one small part of maintaining a healthy diet.

I agree with fats as well. Fats are healthy, and we evolved to get part of our nutrition that way. We didn't evolve to eat fried chicken and french fries for every meal, and there's nothing healthy about the levels of fat most Americans eat, but a healthy diet includes some Saturated Fats.

 

[nechaus]

The fact.

You do need carbs, well you need forms of glucose to function
Your body needs energy, if it does not have that energy it will use glycogen, ATP, ADP, ect.. from muscle first
Your Muscle always get used first as its a rich source of nutrients, ( doesnt need to do crazy process to get the energy it needs)
Your body goes into ketosis to use fat, i cant remember the exact process but you sometimes get smelly breath, almost like alcohol smell

Eating more or less carbs, isnt gonna do much to your metabolism.
Maybe a good question for you, what is your metabolism ?

I have to agree, you need to burn more energy then what you take in... but you want to do this while keeping muscle mass.
If you have a very active lifestyle its rather easy to over train and your body goes into a catabolic state.

 

[nechaus]

I noticed with Low Carb Beers

its about 3 grams for a low carb beer and 5 - 7 grams for a normal beer.

Not much difference. seems more like a marketing plot





You fast every day when you go to sleep and then wake up.
Thats where break - fast (breakfast) got its name lol

breakfast is so important if your trying to lose weight... dont let your body thinking its ever going into famine mode for long periods of time.
Regular small meals are the best to keep the weight off.