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

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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.

We could do an experiment. For anyone considering low carb, it would mean committing to about 10 days lchf -

While eating normally, try noting down how often you feel hungry through the day over 3 days and what times you eat.
-on day 3 try not eating breakfast until hungry and see how long the gap was between last food on an evening.

Then try the same thing after 5-7 days on lchf - it takes me about 3 days to adjust.
No counting calories for either one.

Then after another 3 days, go back to eating as before and note any differences

For the experiment it may be necessary to notice when it's emotional eating vs snacking because of hunger.

Try not to worry about weight loss with each one, it's simply about noticing the differences in how you feel.

@Buzzinwithbez, I am well up for the LCHF experiment. But I don't want to be billy no mates. Anyone else?
Would I have to roughly count carbs? How low is low enough?

Except I'm not a huge fan of lots of animal flesh. I like tofu. Is that low carb enough? How low carb are we talking?

If you wanted to do a genuine experiment you'd have to do it for longer than 10 days, as it can take a while to become fat-adapted. I'd have thought at least 2 weeks, if not a month.

ah come on, this is like Gina Ford She Who Must Not Be Named. Puritanical religion a bit? Anyway, I'm up for being a guinea pig in a 10 day experiment, but only if there are a few other volunteers. The keen folk can extend it to 1 month. I'm having a lazy sofa day right now so being honest with myself, I won't find self-discipline without a group atmosphere of chivvying ourselves along.

I am thinking low carb is really a cat food diet. The cat sleeps all day so maybe I aspire to have his lifestyle after all.

There are low carb bootcamp threads past and current running on Mumsnet.
I started by reading some of those those last autumn and just going for it. The first part gives the general idea. There are recipes and ideas throughout.

I would think tofu would be fine, tempeh is lovely.

You are so right @Dalaidramailama The humble potato has had some bad PR from nutrition "experts" recently. I remember 15 years ago or so first hearing about high GI when someone told me I shouldn't have a jacket potato for lunch as it's high GI and won't keep you going/cause a blood sugar dip later. I've always found potatoes satisfying and have never noticed an energy dip or more sweet cravings after eating them. In fact quite the reverse.

Plus all the fibre in the skin. Great for me as I don't eat much bread and don't eat cereals at all.

But I bet you don't have just a potato. Most people put something on the potato or have something with it like salad, that brings the GI of the meal down.

It doesn’t sound like they’re doing it very well.

What many people don’t realise is that if you eat low-carb (I don’t think anyone would agree that no-carb is good for you) then you absolutely have to increase your protein.

Otherwise you will be shaky and hungry.

I had a friend who went low-carb when I did 8 years ago, except she didn’t increase her protein and ate hardly anything. Needless to say she is now overweight again.

Babies here learn to snack before they can talk or walk.

THIS! The obesity crisis is only going to get worse.

@lljkk

The Low Carb Boot Camp threads are full of low carb knowledge and experience. The founder BIWI haas a programme which does not require counting carbs but does require sticking to ten simple rules.

The first two weeks are particularly strict, to break the connection with sugar and stretch. Thereafter there can be some flexibility depending on my much weight is to be lost

You would be very welcome. I'll try a link but with post this meanwhile.

@lljkk

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/lowcarbbootcamp/4656980-pre-christmas-bootcamp-2022-week-1?reply=1209490522*

The first post always contains a link to the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness which includes the ten key 'Bootcamp Rules'

There is usually a new thread each week started late Sunday / early Monday. The link above it the the current weeks thread, due to change later today or early tomorrow.

The older threads all provide useful background, any posts on the current thread are most likely to be answered.

Hope you enjoy low carbing as much as I do.

I have had to be on a personal version of 'low FODMAP and watch the sugars' plan for over a year now (auto immune stuff, very tedious).

Anyway I got into new habits, which I'm hoping will be of long term benefit, like really increasing the protein I eat and always eating some salad or pickles with a carb.

I eat a lot of beetroot ... and tomatoes.

Anyway, it's been about replacing bad habits with good habits for me.

Just posted on another thread but I think it is relevant here as well :

Unless one has diabetes , low carb diets can actually increase risk of diabetes.

Conclusions: A score representing a low-carbohydrate diet high in animal protein and fat was positively associated with the risk of T2D in men. Low-carbohydrate diets should obtain protein and fat from foods other than red and processed meat
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21310828/

Conclusion: Our findings suggest that a higher adherence to LCD, mostly with higher intakes of protein and fat from animal-source foods, can increase the incidence of diabetes; however, a plant-based low-carbohydrate dietary pattern is not significantly associated with risk of type 2 diabetes.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33042230/

Conclusions: Diets high in animal protein are associated with an increased diabetes risk. Our findings also suggest a similar association for total protein itself instead of only animal sources. Consumption of energy from protein at the expense of energy from either carbohydrates or fat may similarly increase diabetes risk. This finding indicates that accounting for protein content in dietary recommendations for diabetes prevention may be useful
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19825820/

And worse, if you eat high animal protein you increase your risk of gestational diabetes.

Diets aimed to lose weight that encourage restriction of carbohydrates and elevated consumption of animal protein intensify insulin resistance increasing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Accordingly, pre-pregnancy intake of meat (processed and unprocessed) has been strongly associated with a higher risk of gestational diabetes whereas greater pre-pregnancy vegetable protein consumption is associated with a lower risk of gestational diabetes.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2405457719303146

so this something that needs to be said, because gestational diabetes raises not only risk of pre-eclampsia but if left untreated also premature birth and stillbirth .

As @MadelineUsher said, low carb is not a superior way of dieting . It carries health risk which most are not aware of or worse dismiss attacking the science.

From those quotes you have posted @gordonpym , clearly red meat is the issue, not the absence of carbs.

Plus there's low carb and there's low carb.

For most sensible people, 'low carb' really means 'low GI'. In practice, avoiding starchy white carbohydrate (e.g. pasta, bread) as the main 'filler' in their meal and replacing it with other vegetables. Perfectly healthy, more healthy in most cases as it forces you eat more veg and less junk.

Of course you get your idiots who live on bacon, eggs and cheese, I'm sure they are already well aware that's not good for them in the long term.

Isn’t this about increasing animal protein while reducing plant foods though? That’s not the case in the low-carb way of eating most are talking about here. In fact, since I reduced carbs I eat way more vegetable foods.

dietary patterns with elevated amount of animal products and low quantity of vegetable food items raise the risk of these diseases.

Sorry, that quote was from the study - first paragraph.

I went low carb, high protein when I was diagnosed a type 2 diabetic just over a year ago. I was a size 18 with most of the weight around my belly. 6 months of extremely low car of no more than 50 a day and I had lost all the extra weight and was a size 10 bottom and 12 top and still losing. When I got now to a size 8/10 I had to actually increase my carb to sablise my weight so I upped to 100 gms of carb a day. My weight is now sable at a size 8 bottoms and 10/12 top. My blood sugar is under control and I have no symptoms of diabetes.But I know should I go back to eating pasta, rice, and bread that will all change as once you become diabetic you will always be diabetic so I am just a diabetic with my blood sugar under control due to diet.

Congratulations @Proudboomer

@Proudboomer

Sounds impressive. May I ask how do you “spend” your 50-100 grams of carbs a day. For example, would it still work if you had a small slice of brown bread within the carb allowance of course? Or does the 50/100 need to come from fruit and veg etc?

@MatchaTea is there a meta-analysis somewhere?

I am not a scientist so I rely on people I trust feed me potted data. I browsed a bit but got nowhere. It seems possible to find other articles that suggest differently e.g.

academic.oup.com/jcem/article/90/9/5175/2838683

Body weight and fat free mass
The 1-wk LC/HP did not affect fat free mass, which was 50.3 ± 3.6 kg before and 49.9 ± 3.6 after the diet. Percent body fat (28.7 ± 4.7% and 28.3 ± 4.9%) and total fat mass (20.2 ± 3.0 kg and 19.7 ± 3.2 kg) were also not different before vs. after the LC/HP. However, the diet slightly, yet significantly, reduced total body weight from 70.5 ± 3.7 kg to 69.5 ± 3.6 kg (P = 0.01).

I am clearly out of my depth here and I certainly don't want to be culty! but something is going on because having struggled to control my weight my whole life I am now effortlessly slim without counting calories.

@MatchaTea apologies I have just re-read the article you shared and it doesn't say that low carb doesn't cause weight loss, it's specifically looking at falsifying a particular version of the insulin model.

I think my main conclusion is I don't really understand it!

My secondary conclusion is that the book I have been relying on actually proposes a different reason for insulin affecting weight loss than the one examined in the article, which could still be true.

I have nonetheless slightly lost faith in the book as I would like it to have talked about some of the studies you have highlighted. But the reason I was compelled by it in the first place was that it was working for me, which remains true.

Anyway thanks for your help and I have taken on board what you have said.

@Aria999 , we are not talking about the same thing"
I talk about insulin, you talk about protein.

So this discussion is about the carbohydrate insulin model of obesity which puts ALL the blame on insulin and states that by restricting carbs, insulin is low, and you lose weight independently of proteins. As you might recall, the full name of the low carb diet is Low Carb High Fat or LCHF
This insulin model has been tested and they also tested what weight was lost, was is fat or lean mass.

This study indicates that the restriction of dietary carbohydrate does contribute to body weight loss but not to body fat loss.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6224925/

The insulin model does not pass the test.

Then we go on to talk about protein. And High Proteins diet. The body has no trouble using fat and glucose. Proteins on the other hand, have to go to a transformation process. Think of it as the difference between going into Tesco and grabbing a packet of pre-sliced coconut from the fridge and having to walk to a beach, climb on a coconut tree, cut a coconut down, whack it open, and scoop some flesh. That's more or less the steps the body has to go through to be able to utilise the protein, and as result 25-30% of the calories are wasted in processing it. This is known as thermogenesis. If you eat 100 calories of chicken, in reality you are eating 70 calories. In addition to that there is more satiety from eating proteins.

Nobody has ever said that high protein diets do not make you lose weight. Every time you eat protein , your body has to go through a lot of trouble to use them.

The paper you linked is about high protein diet, not LCHF.

You also have to consider that anytime you remove a big chunk of something, carb, fat, meat, you not only reduce the category of you food you can eat, but you are also forced to cook from scratch because most ultra-processed foods have a bit of everything. And there have been plenty of studies on hunger on UPF. This one is really interesting, again by Kevin Hall who locks people for a living. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31105044/ with equal calories, fat, salt, sugar, on UPF you overeat.

Then let’s talk about palatability. Take a potato. The poor potato that receives so much hate, Boil it but don’t put anything on it. No butter, no cream , no oil. Plain pure carb. Or pasta, cook it, no butter, no oil, no cream, no cheese. Pure carbs, How much are you going to eat of them? One could argue that it is as much the fat that makes us overeat. I love avocado. But avocado with a spoon or avocado on a sourdough bread are two very different things. Add salt on top, my brain goes banana.

What I am trying to say, is that there is less appeal to overeat when a big macro is out,

One thing that is important to clarify is that there is the assumption that anyone who challenges the insulin model is labelled as a low fat advocate. This is not the case for me. I argue that the ideal diet is a normal diet. Normal carb, normal fat and more than everything else, normal protein.

Proteins accelerate several growth pathways and they are not void of risk for health.

Unless you are over the age of 65, you should be mindful of the quantity and origin of you protein . Animal proteins raise your risk of cancer. This study www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8755536/ looked at animals in a zoo. It is almost impossible to determine the natural cause of death of animals in the wild. But the zoo represents the perfect setting. And carnivore animals die of cancer more than herbivore A high-fat, low-fibre diet, a known risk factor for carcinogenesis, has also been suggested to explain the elevated cancer risk in Carnivora.

There is a difference between plant proteins and animal proteins, When eating low carb, you cut a big family of very beneficial protein. The pulses. Lentils, chickpeas, beans, … The ideal package: fibre and protein in one food.

You are on a weightloss journey. Great. Once you have reached your weight, focus on your next goal : health span and lifespan. You might want to read Luigi Fontana’s Path to Longevity. Very factual and science-based book on the human life and diet. I believe you will also enjoy “Burn” by Herman Pontzer. A mix of science and anthropology, fascinating page turning book. The author spent quite a fair time with the Hazda.

Both books will help you understand why you are losing weight now and once you understand it , you will be able to maintain without having to cut a big group of food.

Good on you, for looking at the science, and please anytime you have questions, or doubt , reach out. The human body is hugely complex and reductionism is absurd. Our biochemistry works in synergy, you can't isolate an enzyme, a protein, a gene, an hormone.

@Mad1988 thank you! That is all very interesting.

In fact I have been past the end of my weight loss journey for a while, it's a way of eating not a diet. I will check out your book recommendations.

That is bad news about animal protein and cancer. How big an effect are we talking? DH is a confirmed carnivore so whatever it is we are probably stuck with it...