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!

Oh, and to head off further comment, I know the NHS thinks 'low carb' is less than 150g per day. I'm considering it as less than 50g, and keto less than 20g. I think the standard diet is north of 300g.

This case study I’m afraid one case study isn’t sufficient to debunk the weight of evidence which led most relevant experts to make that conclusion. Like a few of us have said, you’ll always find something using google to prove what you think. The important thing is for those qualified to look at all the evidence, and come to science based conclusions. I don’t think I’m sufficiently qualified to debate with either NHS Dietitian’s or the BDA. I doubt anyone on this thread is.

If their advice is good, why are we now seeing more and more T2 diabetes in society?

People don’t follow it! And we also have 1/3 obese adults. If you don’t have the qualifications then you only have an amateur opinion and that’s not worth much when we are discussing serious illness. Regardless of whether you have the illness or not. NHS is not alone in their advice on this at all. Far from it.

I think refined carbs are to the diabetic what gluten is to the celiac. Poison, basically. Something you should not have. That doesn't mean that's true for everyone. Some illnesses respond strongly to something which would be poison to the general public. We don't give the mentally well Lithium, we don't prescribe ketogenic diets and anticonvulsants to people who don't have epilepsy. Diet can be medicine, medicine can be medicine, give the wrong person the wrong combination of medicine and diet and you make them worse not better

When I followed the advice, I was obese and diabetic. Following low carb, I'm neither - well, you don't stop being diabetic, but my bloods are well in normal range.

I do indeed have an amateur opinion. Why do you think that's not worth much? Should I blindly trust all the professionals? They all follow a script. Interestingly, while many have told me that what I'm doing is wrong, and - like you - asserted that everyone 'needs' carbs, there's also a few who have said 'I can't advise you this, but all my patients who have tried low carb get really good results'.

If I wanted to get my blood sugar through the roof, then I'd start the day with a couple of Weetabix or muesli, have a banana as a mid morning snack, have lunch - perhaps a baked potato - and then meat, potatoes and veg for dinner. Which is pretty much what the NHS advises me to do to manage my diabetes. 'There's nothing you can't eat', after all.

The whole world eats a high carb diet; it isn’t a Western thing.

Since going low carb the bloke’s lost 26kg, gone down 8” on his waist and has normal blood sugar levels. He’s been taken off all his diabetes meds. Is anyone really going to suggest that’s a coincidence? Seriously?

My nutritionalist had had me gently switch basing my meals around carbs to basing them around protein and fat and switched my thinking that potatoes, pasta and rice were carbs to vegetables are carbs too. Too many years of slimming world green days meant I based my meals around carbs, was more afraid of an avocado than a Mars bar and it wasn't good for my energy levels or my weight.

I'm inclined to think that my nutritionalist knows what she's talking about, and I certainly feel a lot better eating the way she suggests. I'm not keto or Atkins, but I base my meals around protein, some fat and (preferably green) veg. I have potatoes rice or pasta maybe 3 times a week. I'm so much fuller without energy dips when I eat this way.

Carbs are hard to do without in the winter. Complex carbs are fine in moderation. Moderation!

@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!

The thing is carbs cant really be stored as carbs.

So if you're eating more than your burning in the next few hours it will get turned to fat. It has mo where else to go, it cant be peed out like excess protien etc

theres a bit more timing involved so for most it's easier just to lower them and replace with something like protien that will keep you feeling full and excess will just be wasted instead of stored

@evilkitten

I'm all for questioning the NHS. If their advice is good, why are we now seeing more and more T2 diabetes in society?

I'm T2 diabetic myself. As well as lurking here, I lurk on the diabetic forums. On them, there are effectively two camps. There's those following the NHS advice, eating 'in moderation', and having treats. They're the ones with high HbA1c, injecting increasing amounts of insulin and not losing weight. And there are those who are sceptical about the advice given, are following low carb diets. They're the ones with now normal HbA1c and no longer on medication. Now I'm sure this can be argued as oversimplistic etc., but it's a fairly stark divide.

There may be longer term problems with low carb, but I don't see that these can be much worse than going blind and losing limbs. And given that my cholesterol ratios have also improved dramatically, I'm feeling positive about my cardiac health too.

Low carb isn't for everyone, but the NHS diet advice for diabetes is poor, and increasingly recognised as such. I also expect it to change in the next five years or so - it just takes a long time to turn round the supertanker.

BTW, I have no relevant qualifications whatsoever.

Because people dont followthe advice.

Complications of diabeties are the number 1 NHS expense nearly all of them could be avoided with proper diet control

People litteraly eat till they go blind or a foot falls off and then keep eating still

Unless we start sectioning fat people theres not much the NHS can do but keep treating the complications

Don’t the type of carbs matter? White bread and pasta are quite different from brown rice. The body has a different glycemic response. I have a diabetic relative and he can keep his blood sugar levels in check even if he eats small amounts of whole grain bread, but he can’t go near white bread, sugar or pasta.

@turnitonagain - people who eat low carb for health or weightloss tend to use their carb 'allowance' for vegetables, salad, mushrooms, berries, nuts etc. Their carb allowance wouldn't go far if used on processed carbs, plus they are trying to avoid spiking blood sugar and cravings.
To the posters defending NHS advice to diabetics, and saying the reason why T2 is so prevalent is because people don't stick to it, that's a good point. Processed/refined carbs make you hungry in comparison to low carb. That little bit of lemon meringue pie you are allowed to eat in moderation leads you to wanting more of the same.
Only having a little, can leave you with cravings and feeling deprived. Whereas it is possible to eat to satiety eating low carb or intermittent fasting and not feel hunger, cravings or deprived.

People litteraly eat till they go blind or a foot falls off and then keep eating still

@Elsewyre why do you think that is? Honestly, why do you think so many people are eating until a foot falls off? Do you think they’re mentally ill? Because that sounds like a crazy thing to do doesn’t it? Do you think they’re just greedy and gluttonous and have no willpower?

Whole swathes of people are now just sloth-like, greedy, fat individuals who want to spend their day eating until their limbs are ulcerated, but interestingly their grandparents and grandparents weren’t like that. Perhaps their parents were, which would fit in rather beautifully with the time line of carb heavy processed foods making their way onto their shelves enmasse.

We know how to fatten up livestock. We use grain. We take the animal off it’s natural diet and we supplement it with an obesogenic diet. They’ve done exactly the same with us. They’ve taken us away from our natural diet, fattened is up with grains and then called us greedy and weak because many of us can’t break away from the addictive nature of these foods. They package them to be convenient, they add ingredients so they are super palatable and moreish, then they advice moderation in eating the poison so we don’t get fat and have issues with ulcerated limbs.

High carb, meaning high sugar diet is now being linked with diabetes, high cholesterol and atherosclerosis of the arteries.

You need good fats, a relatively low carb diet.

Atkins was just people eating a load of bad fats.

@MillyMollyFarmer

This case study I’m afraid one case study isn’t sufficient to debunk the weight of evidence which led most relevant experts to make that conclusion. Like a few of us have said, you’ll always find something using google to prove what you think. The important thing is for those qualified to look at all the evidence, and come to science based conclusions. I don’t think I’m sufficiently qualified to debate with either NHS Dietitian’s or the BDA. I doubt anyone on this thread is.

The data is coming out right now. It’s being collected, it’s being published. The old dinosaurs are starting to get very rattled as they don’t like the paradigm shift.

@MillyMollyFarmer

Depends on the pasta crunchy. Whole grain foods exist!

Yes, but the NHS guidance does not specify that, why you make the greatest part of your plate carbohydrates like 'pasta', it should be wholegrain pasta. Nothing in the NHS guidance is preventing you thinking you're doing the right thing by eating large quantities of white pasta every day.

My dad has had a quadruple bypass and was t2 diabetic. His heart Dr told him that when you eat food high in sugar it makes the inside of the arteries rough. Then when you eat fat, instead of sliding through, it gets stuck to the roughness, leading to blocked arteries. When post mortems have been done on people, doctors see the fat clogging the arteries and so have blamed high fat diets as the reason those people died. But the real problem is the sugar. Processed carbs are sugar to your body and the combination of fat/sugar in processed carbs is addictive. Which is why you have people eating them even though they are going blind etc.

My dad has reversed his T2 diabetes since he changed his diet to low carb. He eats veg (but not very much root veg), fish, eggs, meat, all of which he enjoys. He isn't hungry and he's now healthier (according to his blood tests). He's maintained this woe for years now and I'm certain it's extended his life expectancy.

I'm overweight and have started low carb eating. I'm not as hungry, have fewer cravings, am losing weight and my skin and hair are looking good.
I don't think anyone is going to be harmed by not eating processed carbs.

@Carycy

High carb, meaning high sugar diet is now being linked with diabetes, high cholesterol and atherosclerosis of the arteries.

You need good fats, a relatively low carb diet.

Atkins was just people eating a load of bad fats.

You've clearly never read Atkins then

You can make your starch more resistant by freezing it. So you can freeze the bread, cook and freeze the rice. Least then your making a crappy food slightly less crappy.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1756464614003739

@turnitonagain

Don’t the type of carbs matter? White bread and pasta are quite different from brown rice. The body has a different glycemic response. I have a diabetic relative and he can keep his blood sugar levels in check even if he eats small amounts of whole grain bread, but he can’t go near white bread, sugar or pasta.

Of course they do, but not according to the NHS. Their healthy plate doesn't specify that the largest component of your plate should be wholegrain or vegetable carb sources, it's possible to follow their guidance and eat lots of processed carbs.

There are a few good documentaries low carb Vs low fat. Fat fiction on Amazon prime and the magic pill which I think is on you tube.

Yes we have been told by our government that we must have low fat diets. America led the way on this. Can't remember what it said but maybe in the 50s the American government told people that fat was bad and they needed to eat low fat to be healthy. Since then the weight problem in America has spiralled.... lots of studies were carried out to prove that fat was bad but they couldn't prove this with their studies.

Low carb works not just because you cut pasta, bread, potatoes out, but as you also cut out sugars too this makes a big difference. You also don't eat crisp, cakes etc. However, there are good alternative when low carbing. You can still have pizza, but you make the crust with almond flour. You can still have bread, but bread made with almond flour. You can still eat a bit of chocolate, but has to be 90% dark or no sugar choc etc. So it's not a life of misery.

Low carb works for me. I've tried low fat in the past. Tried it several times, but id never lose much weight. Maybe 1 lb a month. And that's restrictions calories, no treats, no takeaways etc. Always hungry and unsatisfied. I knew I had to try low carb but kept trying low fat because I didn't want to give up carbs. In August after gaining a stone in lockdown (on top of all the baby weight gained from two pregnancies) I decided I had to try it. Me and husband started it together. I'm losing weight and I'm hardly hungry. I track my carbs, protein and fat and I am always in a calorie deficit. So yes cutting calories works, but eating more fat and protein is what keeps me full and able to lose weight.

Sorry for such a long post!

@justanotherneighinparadise that's what I mean - if were weren't evolved to eat meat or fish every day, perhaps a feast once a week?, then 80%, 70% of our weekly meals would involve no animal protein.?

More and more evidence is coming out that high fat, high protein and low carb diets are better for controlling blood sugars and loosing weight. The Michael Mosely diet. A lot of NHS trusts are giving this advice to patients.

I think many more people are low carb than realise it. Those who eat controlled portions of wholegrain carb sources with a really good varied diet high in protein and fat are what the NHS classes as low carb, and I bet they feel great.

It's also definitely true that once you wean yourself off processed carbs you stop craving them and can make far more rational choices about what and when to eat carbs*. I eat carbs because I choose to, not because I can't resist the craving. I enjoy small amounts of carbs every day - one day it might be mainly from a small baked potato (with lots of fat/protein - cheese, tuna mayo, egg - and salad), others I might be very low carb at lunch and have a small helping of chips with dinner. Some days it's very little - just whatever carbs are in the vegetables I've eaten.

Before I weaned myself off them I would eat carbs at breakfast (toast or cereal), carbs at lunch (more bread), and carbs for dinner (lots of pasta, potatoes etc) and I'd also find myself craving toast or crisps before bed. I was not in control!

• I sort of agree with a PP who wondered about the advice being a bit of a conspiracy. I don't think its to preserve food supplies, but I imagine there would be political fallout if the NHS revised its guidance and concluded that people need to eat a higher cost diet in order to be healthy. Carbs, especially processed ones, are very cheap but if we rearranged their pyramid so that processed carbs (white pasta, white bread, chips) were at the very top, vegetables were at the bottom, and fat and protein had bigger sections in the middle then I'm sure the minimum cost would increase. There are ways to cheapen the cost of a good diet but often these rely on buying in bulk, or batch cooking/freezing etc - and many people cannot afford to do that.