To think too few people understand the role of insulin with regards to weight loss?

[Redterror]

So I am an advocate of low carb but I know plenty of people who have used slimming world, or weight watchers or any other diet to lose weight. I have seen though people being really negative regards low carb diets and I don't get it.

When you understand how your body deals with different nutrients it because clear that all diets need to lower insulin. How you do this is up to you but ultimately all weight loss diets do it.

When insulin is elevated then you can't burn much fat and instead rely on mostly burning sugar from your diet. If you want to burn mostly fat from your fat cells your insulin needs to be lowered.

People say eat less move more without understanding that for someone who is insulin resistant this is really hard. The body cells stop responding to insulin so stop taking up sugar from the blood. This effectively means the cells feel like they are 'starving' as they can't get enough sugar and this drives hunger signals. It also makes the person feel lethargic and lacking in energy, so exercise is harder.

You can reduce insulin levels by fasting, reducing carbs in the diet, reducing consumption of refined carbohydrates, cutting calories etc but the key is your insulin.

that makes no sense. How does fibre not raising blood glucose mean the o/p is right? can you explain please.

Because constant high levels of insulin in the blood are bad for us (apart from the fact they are an indication of a high sugar diet). Insulin prevents fat burning and constant high levels will likely make cells insulin resistant which means they will not take up sugar from the blood and it will stay there wreaking the damage seen in people with uncontrolled diabetes. Plus the spike in insulin in response to a fast rise in blood sugar will likely lead to an energy slump and the urge to eat more (probably carbs). Fibre is a type of carb that doesn't raise blood sugar and therefore doesn't raise insulin release levels.

I have read the whole report and even some of the links. I think that low (ish) carb diets are more successful long term than low calorie diets because they are more sustainable. Even the Mediterranean diet is considered relatively low carb and millions live on that all their lives.

The poster above who says they'd rather have a mince pie than a chicken and veg, theoretically they might have the same number of calories but you'd probably fancy another mince pie soon afterwards whereas you'll feel full for longer with the chicken meal. Psychology and hormones pay a huge role in appetite and weight control.

Because constant high levels of insulin in the blood are bad for us (apart from the fact they are an indication of a high sugar diet). Insulin prevents fat burning and constant high levels will likely make cells insulin resistant which means they will not take up sugar from the blood and it will stay there wreaking the damage seen in people with uncontrolled diabetes. Plus the spike in insulin in response to a fast rise in blood sugar will likely lead to an energy slump and the urge to eat more (probably carbs). Fibre is a type of carb that doesn't raise blood sugar and therefore doesn't raise insulin release levels

I understand all this. However from a diabetes pov it makes no difference long term which diet you follow.

however the point about fibre was not relevant to the blood sugar issue. The point was that excluding this fibre (from bread/grains etc) as part of a low carb diet can be detrimental to health as it can increase risk of bowel cancer.

But you don't have to exclude fibre from a low carb diet. That's the point. A no carb diet may exclude fibre (eg Atkins) but I don't think many would suggest that that is a good idea long term.

@MrsTuxedo
@UglyModernWindows
Once eating low carb my 39 inch waist just melted away ...whilst you were doing Fast800... anyone eating 800 calories would lose inches.

You went and searched my posting history? Was this meant to be some kind of gotcha for you? Yes I did Fast800, very successfully. But the whole point is that it is a low carb diet, modelling a mediterranean diet. It's not eat any old crap as long as it is 800cal per day. That would just keep you hungry as your elevated insulin would block your body's ability to burn your stored fat. You don't need to believe in it but changing my eating habits has truly transformed my life and health. I haven't calorie counted for well over 18 months now but my weight and waistline has stayed stable since the initial loss.

I wonder what Fad diet means to everyone? If eating whole foods like quality protein, good fats (olive, coconut and avocado), various vegetables, some berries, some fruit, some nuts, full fat greek yog, dark chocolate etc, cooking from scratch is considered a faddy diet then I don't know what to say. I'll carry on my way as it makes me feel good and happy. I would choose chicken and vege over a mince pie at any given day. Once you are over the sugar rollercoaster, these "treats"@UglyModernWindows just don't taste

Thank you @MatchaTea , some reading for me to do.

In the meantime i will continue following my way of eating though, holding steady at a bmi of 22.3 on my unlimited cheese diet 😊

But that is fascinating. I found the insulin idea very compelling and I still think it's clear the body has some mechanism for controlling weight by itself.

Oh bugger, I have tagged myself somehow at the end of my post 😳I wish there was an edit button! 👹

I’ve never had much success losing weight. Recently diagnosed type 2. With diet and medication (metformin) have lost nearly 4 stone. What you say makes sense to me.

I think the low carb diets are far superior in every way however they’re not for me. I can’t sustain them. I’ve tried so many times and I’m a little sad I can’t sustain them.

I follow a low fat (ish) diet. Slimming world principles mainly but I do add some good fats. Not the most elite way to eat but I can sustain it. I also go to the gym 4 times a week for HIIT sessions and I walk well over 5 miles a day.

The weight is coming off slowly but after a bit once my body gets out of the insulin resistance/fat mode I think it will come off quicker. The key for me is what I can do to keep consistency, not necessarily what’s best on paper.

@Dalaidramailama

a diet that is not for you, because you can’t sustain it, is no way “superior” to anything! As it’s not sustainable, and therefore it’s a rubbish diet.

sounds like you are on the right track

if low carb was sustainable and easy, everyone would be slim

i sometimes find the low carb advocates almost cult like in their zeal, leaving normal people like you feel sad (as you say)

half my office low/no carbs, have been, for years and years. They are not slimmer than those who don’t. They just get a bit shaky and dodgy breath from around 2pm

they always cave in at some point and then blame themselves (“the diet is good, I am just weak”)

Low-carb may be easier for some people to lose weight on, but is not a "superior" diet by any means if you are interested in health and longevity. All the blue zones populations, for instance, eat high-carb diets, not UPF-carbs, but starchy tubers, vegetables, and grains. The modified Mediterranean diet is considered a very healthy diet, and it is again replete with (whole) grains.

@SimonaRazowska

Thanks, yes I am only just beginning to realise this. It’s what works for you and what is sustainable/more enjoyable. This is the first time I have ever been consistent and I am losing weight at 1-2 pounds a week max.

I can keep this up.

@SimonaRazowska they must be very low carb then.

The plan I follow is lowish carb (mostly avoiding bread but I eat rice, potato, oats etc) but fat and protein is unrestricted and carbs are something to be a bit careful about.

I have never had more energy or felt healthier. My hip pain cleared up. When I was in my 20s I did martial arts in the evenings and really struggled to get through the warm up, now I do martial arts in the evenings and don't even feel tired.

It wasn't a gotcha @UglyModernWindows but you see, the key point of this discussion is the role of insulin. Now most people doing low carb, do a lot of other things, they do intermittent fasting, they cook from scratch, they count calories, so to make the insulin argument a valid argument it would be carb and carb only that mattered. Isolated from anything else.
It is a tiny bit misleading to claim that your waist melted away and only disclosing the low carbing and not the fasting and calorie counting. 800 calories is a very low calorie diet according to the NHS and also known as semi-starvation / crash diet.

I've only changed my diet and started on metformin.

As I said it is low carb, not no carb but my carbs come from fruit and veg but I do eat fats, good and bad, things like pork scratchings.

People never used to be so fat. Things that have changed in the last fifty years during which I’ve been an adult:
portion sizes are three times as big
people snack constantly instead of having 3 meals a day plus elevenses which would be one or two biscuits and a cup of tea
fizzy drinks everywhere, sugary or sugar-free are equally bad
Buying massive cups of milky coffee with added syrup flavours
people thinking a whole pizza per person is normal
Buying frequent takeaways

Very low carb (Very Fast 800) diet worked for me short term, but long term I'm never not going to eat pasta, rice and potatoes, and I piled the weight back on as it made me go a bit mad for carbs once I started having them again, and more disturbingly, alcohol.

WW, and making friends with the potato again, is working much better for me, I don't feel deprived, it's much more realistic to fit in with family life and I can do this long term. It's about everything in balance/moderation for me which means more like 100-150g carbs a day not <60g.

It's not entirely what people eat, most people just eat too much and are not aware that they are eating.

Constantly snacking is not necessary.

I think it is an Anglo-Saxon issue (UK, Australia, USA) , other cultures have no problem with carbs and don't give a shit about them. Insulin is something diabetics inject themselves with, and of no concern for non-diabetic for most of the world .

This post on French women is quite accurate leoncechenal.com/what-french-women-eat-in-a-day/ , the difference is that I eat a chocolate eclair from a French patisserie, instead of the Godzilla-sized industrial croissant sold in Australia. My lovely DH drives 25 minutes every Sunday to buy me one.

The more people talk , or better said, obsess about carbs, the fatter they are.
Babies here learn to snack before they can talk or walk. Weaning babies on baby crisps, melty puffs, flavoured rice cakes. Pure junk food for babies. And I believe it is the same in UK.

Sugar free fizzy drinks contain like 4 calories they're not causing obesity. If every morbidly obese person who drinks full fat pop swapped to the diet versions they may well start to lose some weight from that alone.

The only people I know who drink sugared fizzy drinks are a healthy weight. The ones who drink lots of sugar free are all obese to morbidly obese. It is known that for a percentage of people, artificial sweeteners increase the number of calories consumed and have a negative effect on blood sugar /insulin levels.

That may very well be the case in your circle but they're not fat because of diet Coke, they're probably chasing down a few doughnuts with it. No one is obese from consuming artifical sweetners which contain little to no calories.

I do wish people would stop assuming that overweight people eat too many donuts.

www.nytimes.com/2022/10/18/magazine/anorexia-obesity-eating-disorder.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Artificial sweeteners increase food cravings in a large percentage of people. Far better to see fizzy drinks as a treat than consume one or two cans a day and think “it’s zero calories therefore it’s okay’.

As food cravings are common in obese people surely avoiding sweeteners should be recommended to that cohort.

@MavisChunch29

No one on this Earth would ever convince me to fall out with the potatoe. My grandmother lived through the Irish famine thanks to potatoes. Her and her sisters lived well into their 90s eating potatoes every day of their lives, even after the famine was over. Their diets were wholesome and home cooked. They did eat cake every day, also bacon with cabbage/potatoes and had a whisky at night.

@PBSam

I have an obese friend who is addicted to the full sugar stuff and can lose a stone by swapping to Diet Coke so I agree it’s really not making people fat.