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!

‘There's plenty if easy ways to boost fibre intake whilst low carbing. For example, oat bran. Because the fibre content is so high the effective carbohydrate (which you can metabolise) is low. Makes up into a very good porridge.‘

That would be a really easy swap because I eat porridge for breakfast. So basically I would just swap porridge oats for oat bran, which would increase protein and fibre but reduce carbs?

Very, there were 4 mins between your post and mine. I hadn’t read your fibre post when I was typing!

The crux of the matter with low carb is what you ‘believe’ about insulin

If you believe that constantly raised insulin causes weight gain (and many other health issues, e,g. T2 diabetes) then you will at the very least watch the amount of carbs you eat and when you eat them

Pick up any rudimentary textbook and you can find out about insulin and it’s role in weight and health

I posted about fibre earlier on in the thread @Stripesgalore. But no worries.

Yes, you could use oat bran instead of porridge, lower your carbs and boost fibre intake. It makes up like an instant porridge, quite finely milled.

Basically the low carb diet I did 20 years ago now said you could take away the fibre content from the total carb content to get effective carb content (effective meaning you can metabolise them). It was only the effective carbs you limited not the fibre.

For those of you ridiculing those who are challenging the NHS/Doctors/Dieticians, don't forget that doctors used to recommend smoking.

The same thing is being done with carbs as was done with tobacco. The funding for the studies comes from those with a vested interest. The results are skewed in the favour of the product they want to sell. What they want to sell is refined carbs, because they're addictive, so they can make more money. This is why you never see big ad campaigns for broccoli or mince. They're not addictive, and they're more expensive to produce, so they have a lower profit margin.

We go for foods with roughly 1-2 ratio of fat to carb: the same ratio as breast milk. That's what you'll find if you examine pretty much all of your food labels on addictive foods... ice cream, crisps, chocolate, pizza etc And that's why carbs are bad for us - when we eat them, we're biologically aiming at being adult sized bouncing babies, chubby cheeks and pudgy arms included.

There is no essential carb for the human body. We can get everything we need from protein and fat.

Have a look at Zoe Harcombe on YouTube. She's hugely qualified in the field and spends her life studying studies and analysing data. She has yet to find any study which categorically shows a human need for carbs. She's far from alone amongst experts.

Dr Zoe Harcombe
Dr David Unwin
Prof Tim Noakes
Dr Paul Mason
Gary Taubes
Stephen Phinney
Ivor Cummins
Dave Feldman
Dr Eric Westman
Prof Grant Schofield
Gary Fung

All of these medics / scientists have researched low carb thoroughly. Some posters seem to dismiss anything on YouTube but lots of their lectures can be found on YouTube or Podcasts

Tim Noakes spouted about how much we needed carbs for years, and had to turn everything he'd said on its head once he learned the truth. What a guy, to admit he'd been talking nonsense for years. Must've taken some guts.

Zoe Harcombe was a vegetarian who REALLY didn't want the truth to be 'meat', but, again, had to go back on all she believed when she analysed all the studies.

You're right, @hamstersarse, there's a lot of very interesting lectures available on YouTube.

Low carb diets have had a lot of press and popularity in recent years - Blood Sugar diet, Tom Kerridge...

I find the low carb regime easier to stick to than most diets I've done, and can lose around 2kg a week in the first few weeks. Just dropping rice/pasta/bread & potatoes and replacing with green veg or cauliflower is really simple - most days I have 8-10 portions of fruit/veg.
Saying no to all the cakes and biscuits is harder

Low carbing is definitely a good regime to follow when you are older. I don't miss pasta, rice or bread at all.
Someone recommended Tim Spector's book The Diet Myth which is very enlightening about all diets. The conclusion - limiting sugar (carbs) eating a Mediterranean type diet with occasional red meat, plus practicing fasting, is best.

Plus let’s remember that in Italy the portion sizes for spaghetti are not the vast bowl we have here. It’s a small portion. If we ate one small portion of carbs per day they’d be no issue. The problem is the large bowl of cereal in the morning, the sandwich, filled roll, sausage roll or lord knows what at lunch, the pasta/rice/chips at dinner and the myriad of snacks and sugary drinks in between. It’s honestly not surprising many people are overweight.

I think there's also a misconception about calorie consumption with low carb diets, ie, if you're low carb, hi fat, high/med protein, you don't need to worry about how many calories you consume.

It's not that carbs put fat on you and fat and protein don't (although there is a link; insulin released when we eat carbs prevents the burning of body fat), it's more that if you lower carbs, you get less hungry, so you're much less likely to accidentally consume too much.

If you need 2000kcal per day, though, and eat 4000kcal per day of protein and fat, you will still gain weight.

Yes you will still gain weight at that extreme but the way in which the body transforms fat and protein compared to sugar is differently, takes longer and more energy is required so a calorie of fat/protein is not necessarily equal to a calorie of sugar. I eat loads of almonds which are, on paper, very calorific, but in fact the energy required to digest them and the final amount rejected by the body means that there is up to 30% fewer calories than stated on the packet.

@hamstersarse Autophagy is incredible. It comes after approximately 17 hours of fasting (hence the 18/6 fasting regime). It literally means "to consume yourself" and happens after prolonged absistence of food.

What does this do to muscle mass? I've been dealing with a range of post-viral issues since a probable Covid infection in March. Between enforced bedrest for months, because any exercise caused a relapse, and subacute thyroiditis (and honestly some comfort eating) I put on about 9kg and lost a good deal of muscle. In the last couple of months I've lost the vast majority of the excess weight and rebuilt most of my muscle. But I ideally want to lose a small amount more fat while continuing to rebuild muscle.

What effect would fasting have on my muscle? I've taken the opportunity of needing to rebuild, to lengthen and strengthen my muscles in a wider range of motion. So I'm working out a lot with strength, flexibility and active flexibility in addition to my normal hobby. I'm wary of not eating enough protein and undoing the work I'm doing on my muscles.

CICO has been proven to be mostly rubbish. Jason Fung has done a lot of work in this area in relation to fasting.

(I say, as I hit my second 40+ hour fast this week; and no, it’s not the same as starving myself).

@alittleprivacy fasting is an excellent way to lose fat and retain lean muscle mass. I’ve heard it discussed lots of time. I’ll see if I can find a link to the info.

www.dietdoctor.com/does-fasting-burn-muscle
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27569118/

It's not rubbish, @Writersblock2 It's still the case that if you consistently eat more calories than you need, you will gain weight. Otherwise, where do you think the energy that you consume goes? The human body is designed with a safety net against starvation, which is body fat. It's actually a very healthy and efficient system, designed for a feast/famine lifestyle.

The difference with low carb diets is that we eliminate the addiction to food, which is why it's often said that low-carbers don't need to worry about calorie restriction. It's not because you can't get fat on low carb food; you can. It's just that you don't want to eat as much.

There is a hormonal factor for sure, but it doesn't mean that low carbers can just drink double cream by the gallon and rack up twice their required calories a day with impunity. CICO still need to balance. It's just that the calculations have been too simplified over recent years, and there are other factors to consider.

I will say though that fasting in a fat adapted state is a million times easier than fasting whilst still eating excess carbs in your eating window. So for anyone wanting to try fasting it will always be less painful when you’re low carb alongside it.

@alittleprivacy You have a time window between the start of autophagy and the start of muscle mass deterioration. Have a look at Jason Fung on YouTube.

[quote alittleprivacy]**@hamstersarse* Autophagy is incredible. It comes after approximately 17 hours of fasting (hence the 18/6 fasting regime). It literally means "to consume yourself" and happens after prolonged absistence of food.*

What does this do to muscle mass? I've been dealing with a range of post-viral issues since a probable Covid infection in March. Between enforced bedrest for months, because any exercise caused a relapse, and subacute thyroiditis (and honestly some comfort eating) I put on about 9kg and lost a good deal of muscle. In the last couple of months I've lost the vast majority of the excess weight and rebuilt most of my muscle. But I ideally want to lose a small amount more fat while continuing to rebuild muscle.

What effect would fasting have on my muscle? I've taken the opportunity of needing to rebuild, to lengthen and strengthen my muscles in a wider range of motion. So I'm working out a lot with strength, flexibility and active flexibility in addition to my normal hobby. I'm wary of not eating enough protein and undoing the work I'm doing on my muscles.[/quote]
I can only speak from my personal experience here as I do not know the research.

I started low carb/high fat and fasting at 9.7 stone with 32% body fat

I am now just under 9 stone and have 22% body fat

I do not do any weights - my exercise is cycling.

It seems to change the composition of your body. All my weight has come off from my waist. From what I understand it is the visceral fat that is used up first when directing your body into fat burning mode (through fasting or keto)

I should address your question about muscle mass - that has gone up almost in a mirror image of my body fat mass graph (going down)

I have no explanation for this as like I say, I do not do weights - I cycle.

@Eckhart I think the issue is just the fact that ‘calorie’ is this arbitrary term that people cling to and many academics are trying to do away with the CICO model and instead get people to think in terms of ‘energy’ not calorie.

Our bodies deal with the calories from a pop tart in a very different way to energy from a steak or energy from broccoli. So whilst we can’t discount ‘energy’ in completely, we also shouldn't be sitting around trying to lose weight eating a variety of biscuits up until 1200 calories is reached (or whatever MFP tells you is correct). It’s just massively more complex and individual than that.

Personally my weight has now stuck at 10 stone 12 for around three weeks now. My DP is still losing weight weekly even though we’re on the same regime but I’m eating significantly less. As a woman my body feels I need my fat more than him. I can reproduce (I can’t lol), but my hormones think I can and they’re going to make is as difficult as possible for me to get as lean as I want. I know that to lose this final half stone I’m going to have to fast for longer, plus I’m going to have to do more exercise and add in strength training. Those things will get me to goal. That’s because I’m fighting my hormones, my DP is being helped by his hormones.

@Eckhart I’m not saying you can just go to town and eat whatever. But generally, on something like keto, overall calories matter way less than most people realise. It’s also very hard to eat a huge amount (competitively) if you are fat adapted.

@hamstersarse how are you measuring your body fat?

@Eckhart

I think there's also a misconception about calorie consumption with low carb diets, ie, if you're low carb, hi fat, high/med protein, you don't need to worry about how many calories you consume.

It's not that carbs put fat on you and fat and protein don't (although there is a link; insulin released when we eat carbs prevents the burning of body fat), it's more that if you lower carbs, you get less hungry, so you're much less likely to accidentally consume too much.

If you need 2000kcal per day, though, and eat 4000kcal per day of protein and fat, you will still gain weight.

I eat more calories now than when I did when I was 'My Fitness Pal'ing' and calorie counting, yet have lost weight (as above) and literally don't worry about calories anymore. The relief is enormous not to have to worry about calories. THAT was restrictive in my world.