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.

The wheat is a different matter. Imho it's just indigestible nowadays! I had to cut it out for bit to get my gut ok, now I can eat it in smaller amounts. I think it's the process and bleaching. I know quite a few people who had to limit it. Not for weight purposes

This is why I do fasting (16/8). It works brilliantly for me! People say fasting only works because you eat less calories but that's simply not the only reason - it's a lot to do with insulin as you say.
I personally can't do low carb. I've tried it and both times I felt miserable and was horribly constipated (that's despite me eating loads of veg and chia seeds etc.). I have the type of digestive system that needs lots of wholegrain carbs to keep regular.

That's interesting. I guess we're all different, because the one thing that virtually put the brakes on my digestive system and bunged me up massively was 16/8 fasting. Never again! Whereas low-carbing didn't have that effect at all.

I'm just here to watch the bun fight.

But also just want to respond to a comment ages ago. Measuring insulin IS easy. I can order an insulin Elisa kit from most science companies and run one in the lab. Just as I have on studies in diabetics in the past. Along with a whole host of other hormones that are vital in glucose regulation. Have you ever given though to DPP4 or your incretins? Anyway most doctors are interested in glucose because it doesn't really matter how much insulin you are producing as long as it's in control of your glucose levels and your pancreas is coping. Glucose is what causes the damage.

My cousin is super pissed off she hasn't lost weight as a result of going vegan. It's amazing to me how much people believe in "magic" foods.

I didn't go gluten and dairy free for weight-loss purposes, but because I was having awful gastro symptoms (which gradually improved and eventually totally stopped when I quit gluten and dairy). The reason I'm surprised I haven't lost more weight is not because I think gluten and dairy themselves make you fat, but because most of the more indulgent and less healthy things I loved to eat contained dairy, gluten or both. I've found some substitutes but I eat them far less because they aren't as nice!

I think people did eat less wheat years ago, and it wasn’t so processed.

Yes, people ate quite a bit of bread, but there weren’t breakfast cereals, for example, and people didn’t eat the copious quantities of pasta they do now. Meals were generally meat, veg and potatoes.

Crucially, wheat-containing foods weren’t ultra processed like they are now, including 90% of bread (seriously, go to a supermarket and try to by sliced bread that’s not UP). If we cut those and breakfast cereals out I think we’d see a huge difference.

And yes to the constant grazing.

Why do people feel the need to eat All. The. Time?

Depends what kind of vegan food she's eating.

A lot of it tends to be highly processed and high fat, inc. palm oil, high carb and a bit nutritionally void.

Old style vegan, ie cooking your own wholefood meals from scratch because there's FA in the supermarket to suit you, is healthy and probably will lead to weight loss in the long term, because you'll be jettisoning so much junk. No cakes, biscuits, desserts, cheese, chocolate., replacing them with wholegrains, vegetables, fruit, nuts. The problem nowadays is that the food industry has developed vegan alternatives to all those things and is flogging them aggressively, often to young people.

Cousin said the worst thing about being vegan is the hours of chopping & preparing food. She isn't a British vegan, she doesn't eat that way to protect animals. She wanted vegan lifestyle for political reasons, in a fury about Trump. Also hoped it might help her husband's T2Diabetes, but eating vegan didn't seem to do that, either. So I think she is (was) pretty committed to less processed, whole grains & lots of veg as the food lifestyle.

tbf since Biden got in WhiteHouse cousin has probably stopped being vegan. 4 long years, though.

Look up low carb long distance runners & weight lifters. Footballers & climbers. There are plenty of them

OP who are are you referring to? Normal people? Insulin resistant Type 2's? Type 1's?

Most of the Type 1's I know find it hard to keep their BG's stable. Some struggle to keep their weight stable too.

@FistFullOfRegrets I tried it. Went from a 1.22 half marathon to about 1.40. It might work for them but not for me. I guess everyone is different

@AntlerRose all calories are not created equally. That's often overlooked.

Placemarking

I think that the way you talk about insulin and low carb makes you sound like a convert to a cult, rather than medical advice

Am never super impressed when people preach medical advice without being an actual trained medic

Everyone can read stuff on the internet

My religion, cult, whatever (am not pretending to be a doctor) is that carbs are fine, just cut back on sugar.

To say your way is THE way is very cult-ish

Me and my family are slim on high carb diets

No insulin issues, no diabetes

Personally I think the demonisation of foods like rice, brown bread and potatoes is unwarranted

I’d be really interested in finding out more about that. Do you have links to any resources?

Especially on Mumsnet.

There’s a strong ‘calorie deficit whatever you eat will make you lose weight’ here.

@sashh

& a new phone!!

I looked Into getting a libre, but my iphone6 is 'too old' apparently.

Anyone else as well

I've had T2 for years. I had a virus that attacked my liver, fucked my metabolism & I ended up with T2. I was 7stone wet at the time. Because my liver was bad, I was young, they/we/I tried a variety of things to fix it. A good while after I was diagnosed with T2. I then put on a lot of weight. T2 diagnosis FIRST, weight gain AFTER.

I don't take any medication, I control it with diet & exercise. Diet being low carb, but I'm also vegetarian & don't eat eggs (& hate cooking). Low carb is the only thing that keeps my blood sugars controlled without medication.

HOWEVER, it's very very limiting in regards to socialising & I'm fed up with the same food week in, week out.and NOT losing weight.

Add in carbs and my blood sugar zooms up.

Bernstein, Taub & Fung really helped me get my diabetes under control.

However, I'm SO desperate to have a way of eating that doesn't make me a pain in the arse to socialise Leith, I'm open to suggestions.

T2
vegetarian
no eggs
over 50
over weight

unable to weight train, HIT, etc due to consequences of life changing accident (2 years ago) knees that are fucked & age/weight/physical limitations.

,

I highly recommend you read The Obesity Code by Dr Jason Fung who will break this down so any fool (me) can fully understand it. You will then have all the peer-reviewed studies to back up the information and the data. The OP is right. She doesn't have to be an expert but she, as we all can, learn from the experts in this field.

We should be taught this in school. The government have been so fixated on 'eat less, move more', when historical studies, show this is a flawed failed model. Calories in vs calories out without controlling insulin, through food choices are useless. That's why so many people fail on their diets, as much as they try.

Calories in vs calories out without controlling insulin, through food choices are useless

It's not useless to majority of the world....

You and your family being slim on a high carb diet isn't proof that high carbs is good for everyone, you are giving out dietary advice that would be damaging for anyone with insulin resistance or diabetes.

Most dietary advice I've come across doesn't demonise rice, brown bread and potato's, it just recommends limiting their amounts so they only make up a small proportion of the overall diet.

If I ate for example 1200 calories a day of purely white bread I would lose weight, but I would feel terrible and experience reactive hypoglycemia and have to eat more calories to correct the low blood sugar.

Would my body react the same if I had been born elsewhere in the world and not grown up on a diet of ultra processed carbs and hidden sugars? Perhaps not. Its actually irrelevant to my current reality and that of a huge percentage of people in this country struggling to control their weight.

@Eeksteek

• "Your gut microbiome plays a HUGE part in the blood sugar response one has to a particular carb. As soon as people can map their gut microbes they may have an indication as to what foods (carbs) affect their blood sugar a lot and those that don't."

I’d be really interested in finding out more about that. Do you have links

I was very interested in finding out more about my gut microbes so did the Zoe Project Heath Study, wore a continuous glucose monitor for a fortnight, plus a fecal and blood sample.

Surprise, surprise, my results indicate that sugar and starchy carbs spike my blood sugar. So low carb it is for me.

I knew that from observation, but it was reassuring to have the independent, objective confirmation.

joinzoe.com/learn

We are talking weightloss not feeling here though.

As discussed before you can lose eating maccies. Will you feel great though? No.
For weightloss it is calories for people without medical issues. If I eat 800 cal, as in that diet, I would bet my trousers I would lose same like on low carb 800. Because it's the calories which cause weightloss in ordinary person.

How you feel on a diet is going to have an effect on the sustainability of it though, hence why in the majority of cases simple calorie deficit diets do not work in the long term, or you fall off the wagon and binge.

Reducing refined carbs & sugar is simply a way of adjusting what you eat to help control insulin and appetite. Even someone with no metabolic issues will have a bigger sugar spike after eating for example a bowl of honey nut cornflakes vs wholemeal toast with some eggs.

I don't know why you seem to be arguing against advice that can help people successfully lose weight?

If I ate for example 1200 calories a day of purely white bread I would lose weight, but I would feel terrible and experience reactive hypoglycemia and have to eat more calories to correct the low blood sugar

if you are not diabetic and taking exogenous insulin you don’t need to eat calories to “correct blood sugar”.

if your blood sugar drops cells will release glucose to maintain homeostasis.

you may feel like you need to eat, but there won’t be any serious consequences.

prior to the fasting/low carb/insulin theory we had the idea that if you ate little and often your insulin levels remain steady and don’t spike.

it’s just a new twist on an old idea.