To be confused about carb heavy diet?

[GreenestValley]

Just reading a thread on here about weight loss and diet. Many posters commenting that the Op in that thread has a very carb heavy diet.

I feel quite confused about it as I always thought carbs were an important part of a balanced diet and a source of energy. Obviously not too much white bread, white pasta etc, but from a personal perspective I have to have a fairly carb based diet or else I get hungry and end up snacking. And I’ve always had a normal weight.
I was also under the impression that the “low carb” diets of the early 2000s eg Atkins etc that were very popular, were kind of debunked now.
Am I missing something? Do carbs affect some people differently to others? Would welcome a bit of de mystifying here if anyone has expertise just for my own understanding!

And low carb meals don't have to look particularly weird. Tonight I'll be having beef chilli topped with cheese with salad and a small amount of pearl barley. And afterwards I'll have coffee with milk and cream plus a couple of dark chocolate almonds if I want.

I make sure the portions of everything fit my desired macros and these type of meals sustain my exercise and I'm losing the small bit of surplus body fat I want to lose. Not actually got much more to lose now. I've lost 3 stone over the last 2 years, gone from size 16 to a size 10 and now I'm focusing on getting my body fat to 26 percent. (29 percent fat last time I measured).

Oh and I do enjoy my food. We have plenty of lovely different chocolate in the house and I have a small amount just about everyday with my coffee without feeling the need to binge. We discuss as a family the meals we are going to have, different curries, traditional British stews, homemade soups, salads, homemade spelt bread with things like nettle in it.

A lot of people are trying to train their bodies to run on fats but it's a long process and can cause kidney damage, horrendous breath and mental breakdown.

What on earth do you think fat is there for? It is designed to for us to use some of time. We are not designed to eat constantly! We can store energy as glycogen and fat. Both these stores are designed to be utilised when we need them.

I think part of the problem here is people's different definitions of low carb/heavy carb. When I knew I needed to lose weight I cut out processed sugar and found that just change completely altered my relationship with my appetite. As a consequence I discovered that I had less desire to eat simple carbs. I now eat a portion of what we typically consider carbs, like potatoes or rice, every day with my main meal. I will also often have bread/oats with one other meal, sometimes two. I eat all the fruit and veg I feel like. This is not low-Carb but it is extremely low carb compared to how I used to eat and how most people I know eat.

I'm now an extremely active, athletically fit person and 1-2.5 portions of starchy carbs is more than enough for my needs. But a few years ago, I ate far, far more carbs and was largely sedentary. Now I'm fit and strong but I prioritise protein when I'm hungry. It's far more filling and it feeds my muscles far more than carbs do.

Excellent posts @hamstersarse. Are you hanging out on any of the weight loss threads? I could do with you as inspiration for my final very slow 7lbs that really wants to stay on my thighs and backside.

I completely agree that most people convince themselves that they’re diet is fine and think they can eat the same way their whole lives without running into trouble. Then peri menopause and menopause come along and suddenly they’re 21lbs heavier and wondering what the hell happened.

It is no coincidence that on a low carb diet that tackles your insulin the first thing that shrinks is your waistline. Normally women say their boobs disappear, not with this WOE. It’s wonderful!

A qualified dietician would never recommend a carb free diet. You do need them along with protein and fats. It’s called a balanced diet for a reason.

A qualified dietician would never recommend a carb free diet

But low carb is not a carb free diet. People are just altering the proportions of each food group slightly and away from proportions that made them gain too much weight. And don't think many would argue carrying too much body fat around is good for your health!

@ChasingRainbows19

A qualified dietician would never recommend a carb free diet. You do need them along with protein and fats. It’s called a balanced diet for a reason.

You cannot really go carb free. Unless you go full carnivore. Veg have some carbs in, dairy has some carbs in

Any dietician who tells you that you need to eat 55% carb diet (NHS stuff) really hasn't done their research and you will find any weightloss incredibly difficult. I agree balance is important, but currently the scales are generally weighted heavily towards an unnecessary load of carbohydrate which doesn't do your health any favours in the long-run.

@justanotherneighinparadise

Excellent posts *@hamstersarse*. Are you hanging out on any of the weight loss threads? I could do with you as inspiration for my final very slow 7lbs that really wants to stay on my thighs and backside.

I completely agree that most people convince themselves that they’re diet is fine and think they can eat the same way their whole lives without running into trouble. Then peri menopause and menopause come along and suddenly they’re 21lbs heavier and wondering what the hell happened.

It is no coincidence that on a low carb diet that tackles your insulin the first thing that shrinks is your waistline. Normally women say their boobs disappear, not with this WOE. It’s wonderful!

I occasionally hang out there but the narrative is so calorie lead that it is difficult to sound reasonable when you try and point out the problem with calorie counting only as a way to lose weight

Eat less move more is the mantra

@MrsxRocky

Our brain and body runs on glucose. A lot of people are trying to train their bodies to run on fats but it's a long process and can cause kidney damage, horrendous breath and mental breakdown. Any diet that restricts a healthy food group such as complex carbs which are full of minerals and vitamins is an eating disorder. Faddy diets do my head in. Just eat clean and healthy majority of time with a few naughty days and get up off your arse and enjoy life 🙄.

That is such bad advice.

What do you actually think ketosis is?

Really interestingly a ketogenic diet is shown to help with one of the most difficult to treat mental health disorders. I’m not sure why @MrsxRocky decided it can cause mental health breakdown alongside bad breath 🤭

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/advancing-psychiatry/201904/chronic-schizophrenia-put-remission-without-medication%3famp

Mental breakdown by running your body on fat?

I really don't know where to start with this, but I'll try:

• There is growing evidence that a lot of the mental health issues we experience may be due to inflammation. Inflammation of the brain causing it to disfunction. What causes inflammation? Many things such as stress, but mainly food, or more accurately a high carbohydrate diet which causes constantly raised glucose levels. Many people find their anxiety and depression clears up once they cut out their high processed carbohydrate diet.

• Dementia and Alzheimer is, amongst some leading researchers, being termed Type 3 diabetes. Again, this is due to chronic inflammation in the brain from constantly high blood sugar over a lifetime.

I know we all like to take our chances, but speak to anyone who has done low carb properly ( i.e. more than a few weeks so they actually become fat adapted and 'off the sugar rushes') and you will universally hear about the mental clarity that comes, but you have to ask yourself if the carb rush is worth it in the long-run

‘I think it’s a pretty uncontentious fact that we are all getting fat (most of us anyway) because of the huge amounts of sugar and processed carbs that we are eating - a diet which is nothing like the diet humans had at any other point in the history of humankind. People talk about the junk they might have eaten growing up in the 1970s - but it was still not in such huge quantities as today.‘

A low carb diet as described on here is also nothing at all like any other diet ever eaten in the history of mankind.

A qualified dietician would never recommend a carb free diet.

Neither is anyone on this thread. Vegetables have carbs in. Even milk has carbs in. Most people here are advocating cutting down on carbs, not eating zero carbs. Lots of people eat lower carb and still have sweet potatoes, pulses etc.

A low carb diet as described on here is also nothing at all like any other diet ever eaten in the history of mankind

No one on here is advocating anything other than cutting out ultra processed carbohydrate heavy food and ensuring that you do not eat excessive carbohydrate in general because of the impact of insulin on our bodies.

Our ancestors did not have constantly raised insulin levels, that is a fact that you cannot dispute. You can achieve lower insulin levels by fasting or reducing your carbs - take your pick but if you don't there will be health issues or obesity lined up for you. Constantly raised insulin makes you fat and unhealthy.

There may be all kinds of benefits to a low carb diet, although the failure to explain where adequate fibre would come from (given the small amounts in most veg) is putting me off.

That doesn’t make it like an ancestral diet. You are just swapping one highly un-natural diet for another.

If someone was advocating a diet of fish and heritage veg they had grown themselves along with honey, that might be ancestral.

But eating meat from modern farmed animals along with all our highly sweetened fruit and veg is not.

A low carb diet as described on here is also nothing at all like any other diet ever eaten in the history of mankind

Who said it was? In any case low carb diets are described in a multitude of different ways by different posters on here. A Western high-carb diet is also not like other diets eaten during the history of mankind. The aim of eating a lower carb diet is to avoid certain harmful aspects of a typical modern Western diet, not to replicate a historical diet. Is it maybe Paleo you're thinking of?

I also think most of obesity is down to social and psychological issues. Threads discussing how people put on weight make that clear. It isn’t carbs making you crave food; not being able to handle periods of feeling hungry and then binge eating is a psychological problem.

I am vegetarian and I eat plenty of carbs including pasta, bread, potatoes, pizza, rice and even cake! I’m in my 40s, slim and my bloods (just recently checked) are perfect.

I think everyone is different and that finding the right balance for you and homemade as much as possible is best. I made a tray of apple and cinnamon muffins yesterday, they are lovely but half the size of what you get at the shop ready made.

‘Who said it was?‘

It has been mentioned on this thread. None of the diets available to us are like ancestral diets.

Teallris, I am the same. I’ve had my over 40 health check and have absolutely nothing wrong with me - blood all fine.

I put weight on recently due to having no money for food and having to eat from the free staff canteen - which is both high fat and high carb. As soon as the government increased benefits under lockdown and I had money for food the weight dropped back off.

And I like feeling hungry. It’s a good feeling to have.

There are also many health benefits to a vegetarian diet, but I am not going to propose that it would suit everyone just because I feel great on it.

@Stripesgalore I agree and I think the reason diets that restrict specific foods work for some people is that they enforce a structure on meals and eating. It’s also true that most people who attempt any form of diet low carb or otherwise fail.

[quote TealIris]@Stripesgalore I agree and I think the reason diets that restrict specific foods work for some people is that they enforce a structure on meals and eating. It’s also true that most people who attempt any form of diet low carb or otherwise fail.[/quote]
It depends on their motivation. If the only motivation is weight loss I completely agree. If however it’s a lifestyle choice with health at the forefront then no, there’s no going back for me. I’ve managed to put fatigue and anxiety into remission and somehow also sorted out a five year battle with gingivitis that my hygienist couldn’t improve. I like my teeth too much to fall into high carbs again.

It has been mentioned on this thread. None of the diets available to us are like ancestral diets.

Yes, but you seem to be trying to imply that saying 'humans didn't used to eat a very carb-heavy diet full of processed grains, but now they do, and it's not very good for them' actually means "We can and should copy an exact ancestral diet".

It isn’t carbs making you crave food; not being able to handle periods of feeling hungry and then binge eating is a psychological problem.

The two things aren't mutually exclusive. The carb rush/insulin issue combined with the social and psychological issues around food are a powerful combo.

I see people talking about cutout food groups and this is were the problem lies. The food industry and adverts have done a great job in convincing us what is a food group. Coupled with the lack of nutrition in todays bread and the increase in sugar etc, bread shouldn't be consumed as it used to be.

I eat low processed carbs and have stopped snacking on fruit. Because I eat chickpeas and lentils, my carbs are sometimes moderate. They are the carbs, that are a proper food group, along with vegetables/fruit. Not bread, cereals, half a plate of pasta/rice. Poor people who do a lot need cheap carbs, most of us don't.

The evidence is there that we need to stop eating processed/white carbs. For my age group 50+ the best diet is low/moderate carbs. The anti-inflammatory stuff quoted is evidence based, reviewed and agreed on.

@Stripesgalore, flax seeds, chia and eating seasonally, so switching to blackberies, raspberries, coconut ect. Many people on high carb diets don't get enough fibre. It's fine to take psyllium husk on a low carb eating plan.