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.

Low carb doesn't mean no carb.

I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in May. I've been low carb and protein for breakfast since then and my A1C went from 69 to 59 in a month, I'm waiting for a result from the one I had last week.

My fasting glucose is down from 14 to <8 most days with occasional drops to 6 or 6.5.

I have lost 10 kg.

As for no crunch, well I like pork scratchings and crispy parmesan crisps so I get my crunch from there and also from the carbs I do eat eg I can have 3 frozen croquette potatoes.

I do agree though that our bodies are all different.

I used a free trial of a libre 2 glucose monitor and tracked the levels, I found out that bananas spike my blood sugar.

If anyone is trying to lose weight the Libra 2 costs £50 for 2 weeks(no I don't work for them) and is an easy way to track your blood sugar / response to food and exercise.

Exercise lowers blood glucose.

I agree, sugar is the enemy.

I love the way any talk of 'carbs' ends up in a carby bun fight! Why are people so weird about it?! I guess we are all desperate to kind 'the magic key' to maintaining a healthy weight.

I can't speak for everyone but for me it was guilt, shame and fear. I would have defended my refined carb, processed food diet to the hilt. An entire lifestyle and mindset change felt impossible.

I agree OP. Just to add that I thought SW also works by using food combining ie you don't eat carbs and protein with the same meal, similar to food combining like the Harcombe diet.

Neither 🙂

Just offering nuance to a conversation that started so black and white (which things rarely are).

I do wonder how many people in countries like Vietnam and Singapore and tens of others are tracking their blood glucose... You know with them having so low obesity rates, they obviously cracked it

Probably because for the majority of certainly very overweight people, doing that would cause your energy levels to crash, which would likely result in binge eating sugar.

I think when the original post is almost evangelical in espousing low carb it gets backs up, because for a lot of people weight loss isn't just about what they eat, psychological barriers play a role too. Preachy OPs like this one push buttons. Plus the calorie deficit caused by cutting down/out carbs is of course a factor in weight loss, but LC fans will argue otherwise until they're blue in the face.

Yes - reasonably low carb worked for me in terms of overall weight loss (4 stones in 1 year) and I think trashy carbs and refined sugar can certainly be discarded to great benefit (I still like fruit, legumes and nuts though, and I love porridge). But I am still struggling with weight around my middle! I am 50 and I do think it's got something to do with insulin AND sex hormones. Testosterone hasn't helped either. Any suggestions OP?

That article is so fascinating, thanks for sharing! Really shocking that Fung tried to get that medical academic sacked for disputing his 'science'.

posts like the op bring out the evangelical low/no carb people.

that kind of diet is neither healthy, nor sustainable on a personal level, nor sustainable for the planet.

reduce refined carbs. reduce refined fats. if you do that you should be able to sustain yourself very healthily.

Weight Watchers and Slimming World DON’T WORK.

If they did you wouldn’t have people returning time after time when they’ve put the weight back on.

You’re 100% right, OP.

People aren't weird about it @florengreen
But when the title to the thread is preaching that 'people don't know enough about insulin' and the OP talks about 'lowering insulin levels' then yes, it's annoying as she's the one who doesn't understand it.

Where is the know it all op anyway??

*Weight Watchers and Slimming World DON’T WORK.

If they did you wouldn’t have people returning time after time when they’ve put the weight back on*

they do. Where people put the weight back on is when they go back to old habits.

same with low carb. If you go back to your old eating patterns you’ll put the weight back on.

same with any “diet”.

They do work, you've just got to keep on the eating plan, obviously if you go back to your old habits you will gain again.

Definitely find low carb boring here. I am doing it, but hating it. I'm not cutting out all carbs, but restricting them to a small treat, as well as also regularly having dairy, some startchier veg like squash, and berries. But pretty much no bread, rice, pasta, cereals, potatoes, cakes, biscuits, crisps, most fruit, juice. I dislike eggs and lentils. So just have veg, cheese, yoghurt, meat, nuts, and it's boring, expensive, and never gives me satisfying feel of having something nice.

I'm doing it for blood sugar reasons, having had a too high reading on blood tests a few times. I did it before, pretty strictly for many months, and got the blood sugar down, but never stopped cravings, and then gradually relapsed. I've lost a bit of weight this time, but it makes me miserable, always missing the stuff I've cut out, and it's so depressing to think that I'll have to do it permanently!

So I expect it's true for me, that keeping insulin resistance at bay is the only way I will avoid type 2 diabetes in the end, and the only way to lose weight, but god I hate it. I'd rather cut out all other calories and have a tiny amount of what I liked! Might work for weight loss for me, but won't help the blood sugar.

I wonder if doing low-carb for a while, enough to lose some weight, will actually reset the insulin response so that I could have more carbs without elevating the blood glucose levels, or whether low carb is just avoiding causing the issue rather than actually treating/resetting the insulin response in any way.

That’s what I mean. They’re not sustainable.

Changing your way of eating permanently to avoid UPFs, excess sugar and refine carbs is the only thing that works. It’s not that restrictive so it works.

Changing your way of eating permanently to avoid UPFs, excess sugar and refine carbs is the only thing that works. It’s not that restrictive so it works

that’s not low carb though. So how does o/p’s insulin theory fit in to that?

Interesting post op. Following.

I think it's bullshit I've gone from 18 stone 1lb to 10 stone. I don't naturally have a sweet tooth anyway but I have sugar in my coffee , full sugar fruit juices. I just don't eat as much.

I just don't want to cut out an entire food group. It's really not practical.
I do avoid eating between meals during the week so I avoid having constant spikes and drops in blood sugar I suppose.

It is low carb - it’s reducing refined carbs and sugar right down 🤔

"avoid UPFs, excess sugar and refine carbs is the only thing that works. It’s not that restrictive so it works."

I'd find that much more restrictive than simply cutting or maintaining calories.

People say “move more eat less” because people can massively over complicated weight loss when really weight loss is 99% common sense.

Does anyone really think foods like: sugar, white carbs, high saturated fat foods and stereotypical “junk” food like cakes and chips fall into the : eat as much as you like categories? We all know what should be treats and what we should eat more of to feel full.

you can start naming diets and saying what mechanism it works by, low carb, high protein reduce appetite for example which makes it easier to eat less calories but it’s not some secret mumbo jumbo. If you ate your daily allocated calories of white bread and spoonfuls of sugar you’d feel like shit and be healthy but you’d still lose weight.