One: you watched the video in the OP and still don't get it.
Two: you didn't watch the video in the OP and are asking me to summarize it, which I already did.
So which is it? Because I have explained the same thing multiple times to different people, and you're the only one still strawmanning me (I never said burning more calories than you take in will make you comatose, either learn to read or gtfo).
Three: I read the summary you posted (the video wouldn't load, and I'm not going to Buy The Book for the sake of an internet debate), and still don't quite understand why too many carbs is bad, and we don't need to worry about caloric intake at all if we follow the magic low-carb rules. It sounds to me as if you (and geckhan) saying that if you consume precious few carbs, then you never need to watch your diet again because either A) you will never ever have the urge to eat more than exactly how many calories you need to maintain your weight, or you can actually consume an arbitrarily large number of fat calories and your body will just pass them straight through and will refuse to store any of it as fat.
A) is clearly bullshit, because I know a lot of people on low-carb diets who eat a crazy amount of fat - like, thousands of calories per day - and are not healthy or losing weight. It is extremely easy to down a couple thousand calories of fat in a single sitting if you fry everything and cover it in cheese and cream. So am I to believe that this sort of behavior isn't actually happening? Or are they clearly cheating on their diet when I'm not looking because otherwise they would be super trim and fit?
Basically, the automagical part of this diet where will power and moderation are completely unnecessary doesn't seem to mesh well with what I see.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
A) is clearly bullshit, because I know a lot of people on low-carb diets who eat a crazy amount of fat - like, thousands of calories per day - and are not healthy or losing weight. It is extremely easy to down a couple thousand calories of fat in a single sitting if you fry everything and cover it in cheese and cream. So am I to believe that this sort of behavior isn't actually happening? Or are they clearly cheating on their diet when I'm not looking because otherwise they would be super trim and fit?
If theyre eating anything fried they are definitely cheating. and cheese can be no good (if its american)
Three: I read the summary you posted (the video wouldn't load, and I'm not going to Buy The Book for the sake of an internet debate), and still don't quite understand why too many carbs is bad, and we don't need to worry about caloric intake at all if we follow the magic low-carb rules. It sounds to me as if you (and geckhan) saying that if you consume precious few carbs, then you never need to watch your diet again because either A) you will never ever have the urge to eat more than exactly how many calories you need to maintain your weight, or you can actually consume an arbitrarily large number of fat calories and your body will just pass them straight through and will refuse to store any of it as fat.
A) is clearly bullshit, because I know a lot of people on low-carb diets who eat a crazy amount of fat - like, thousands of calories per day - and are not healthy or losing weight. It is extremely easy to down a couple thousand calories of fat in a single sitting if you fry everything and cover it in cheese and cream. So am I to believe that this sort of behavior isn't actually happening? Or are they clearly cheating on their diet when I'm not looking because otherwise they would be super trim and fit?
Basically, the automagical part of this diet where will power and moderation are completely unnecessary doesn't seem to mesh well with what I see.
For the anecdotal evidence you are citing, it's hard to say without knowing what they are eating exactly. Most fried foods have lots of carbs in them, and so does most cheese types in the US. But, regardless of carbs, if you are eating say 5k calories but burning only 2.5k then you won't lose weight, and might even gain some. It may not even be healthy (I mean, too much of anything is bad after a certain threshold). What we are saying however is that, if carbs are kept low (between 10 and 40g a day) then it becomes literally impossible for your body to store more than a minimal amount.
Put another way, the amount of excess calories your body is able to store on a low-carb diet is much, much lower than the amount of excess calories it can store on a high-carb diet, because of the massive difference in insulin levels in the blood. This is why it is a lot harder to gain weight on a low carb diet and easier to lose weight. And I don't know if I can put it any more simply, honestly.
It is also why I am telling you to get your blood insulin level checked next time you go to your doctor.
So basically, on a low-carb diet, if you eat a ridiculous number of calories, your body ignores them and you just poop it out?
Also, fried != deep-fried. If you throw a hamburger patty into a pool of oil and cook it on the stove, that is "frying", and has no carbs.
(Also-also, my blood insulin levels have been checked recently and are fine.)
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
So basically, on a low-carb diet, if you eat a ridiculous number of calories, your body ignores them and you just poop it out?
Maybe geckahn can comment on this more authoritatively, but I think the ones it doesn't burn due to metabolic up-regulation, it would have to excrete them in the stool, yes. I... I imagine it would smell pretty foul.
I just don't know from personal experience. I've eaten up to 3700 calories on this diet and haven't had that problem. I was really really hyper on those days though, and I workout, so I don't know.
So basically, on a low-carb diet, if you eat a ridiculous number of calories, your body ignores them and you just poop it out?
Also, fried != deep-fried. If you throw a hamburger patty into a pool of oil and cook it on the stove, that is "frying", and has no carbs.
(Also-also, my blood insulin levels have been checked recently and are fine.)
I'm not totally sure, but maybe at some hypothetical point of fat intake you would probably stop digesting some of the fat, which would result in some pretty gross poos.
But that would be very hard to do. You would have to be force fed. It's just not possible to eat that much when you're on low carb. You become satiated quickly and dont get really hungry for like 12 hours after a good meal.
So basically, on a low-carb diet, if you eat a ridiculous number of calories, your body ignores them and you just poop it out?
Also, fried != deep-fried. If you throw a hamburger patty into a pool of oil and cook it on the stove, that is "frying", and has no carbs.
(Also-also, my blood insulin levels have been checked recently and are fine.)
I'm not totally sure, but maybe at some hypothetical point of fat intake you would probably stop digesting some of the fat, which would result in some pretty gross poos.
But that would be very hard to do. You would have to be force fed. It's just not possible to eat that much when you're on low carb. You become satiated quickly and dont get really hungry for like 12 hours after a good meal.
Yeah... this is all anecdote, but I got back from the gym the other day, drank a 300 calorie protein shake and passed out on my bed while reading a book. I woke up 11 hours later and wasn't hungry at all. It was really surprising.
Compared to low-fat/high-carb diets that i used to be on in the past, where ravenous hunger would be the primary reason for me to get out of bed in the mornings after 6-7 hours of sleep.
You claim that the calorie in< calorie out= weight loss formula is faulty.
Your argument stems from the fact that both are mutable, and given a constant change in the calorie intake your body would naturally adjust to this change and thus reach a stasis and not lose weight.
My response was to point out that yes you are correct, in a closed system where the calories out (and thus, energy use) is mediated solely by the body's natural homeostatic systems.
How does your argument hold up in the event that the individual in question is actually doing enough work to burn more calories than they are consuming?
I can only speak with regards to weightlifting, as that's the area I have experience in. Maybe it applies to other things too.
Taubes' argument with regards to exercise, which has some merit but I don't really agree with, is thatthat exercise isn't actually that effective for weight loss because it makes people hungry and they consume more calories as a result to make up for the ones they burned. I think this is correct to a certain extent. We all know that physical activity makes us hungry. If you go for a run or a bike ride, afterwards you will want to eat and drink to replenish the stuff your body used up. If a friend invites you for dinner and says there will be shitloads of food so you better bring your appetite with you, then you'll most likely workout that day in order to be as hungry as possible before going to their place.
The reason I disagree with his overall condemnation (or at least discouragement) of exercise however is that exercise (cardio somewhat, but weightlifting especially) has been shown to have other health benefits, so in the end, if you look at the net result, I think it's definitely positive, i.e. you should exercise.
Now, with regards to the specific question you asked, what if the individual is actually doing enough work to burn more calories than they are consuming? Well, like I said, they will be hungry afterward. But they can certainly resist eating, which is what a lot of people do. There are two problems with that however. The first is that they will be feeling extremely tired and miserable for several hours, until they actually eat something. The second is that, your muscles are in a catabolic state right after an exercise, and the only way to stop that is to consume easily-digestable proteins and *some* carbs (the amount and type necessary depends on several factors which I won't get into here). If you don't do that, then you won't gain any muscles, and a lot of the long-term health benefits of exercise will be nullified.
To summarize, yes it is possible to do enough work in order to facilitate weight loss, but it is very difficult to avoid overcompensating for the work done without eating and at the same time eat enough to make sure you are gaining some muscle.
From this, it sounds like what the body is really craving is protein and a fast source of carbs to keep blood glucose up while the body is liquidating its stores, rather than simply craving a large number of calories. That's probably why trail mix includes nuts (protein), dried fruit (carbs), and candy (carbs, high glycemic index).
Also, the reason why people recommend complex cereals that release sugar more slowly is that it's been shown to work.
So basically, on a low-carb diet, if you eat a ridiculous number of calories, your body ignores them and you just poop it out?
Also, fried != deep-fried. If you throw a hamburger patty into a pool of oil and cook it on the stove, that is "frying", and has no carbs.
(Also-also, my blood insulin levels have been checked recently and are fine.)
I'm not totally sure, but maybe at some hypothetical point of fat intake you would probably stop digesting some of the fat, which would result in some pretty gross poos.
But that would be very hard to do. You would have to be force fed. It's just not possible to eat that much when you're on low carb. You become satiated quickly and dont get really hungry for like 12 hours after a good meal.
Yeah... this is all anecdote, but I got back from the gym the other day, drank a 300 calorie protein shake and passed out on my bed while reading a book. I woke up 11 hours later and wasn't hungry at all. It was really surprising.
Compared to low-fat/high-carb diets that i used to be on in the past, where ravenous hunger would be the primary reason for me to get out of bed in the mornings after 6-7 hours of sleep.
This is normal. If I have to skip a meal for whatever reason then no big deal, i dont get hungry. I'll just eat more at the next meal.
Also, the reason why people recommend complex cereals that release sugar more slowly is that it's been shown to work.
Duh? Yes, low GI is better than high GI. But it is still not ideal. It would have been more interesting if they compared high GI with low GI, and then low GI with low-carb or no-carb. It's actually very plausible that heart disease and cancer risks would have fallen even further.
We still haven't seemed to have cleared up the Asian paradox yet, given that the Taube quote posted in relation to it can be summed up as "I don't know".
It's a combination of eating much less calories in general (daily average seems to be around 1400 calories) and the fact that they have been eating rice for much longer time period than Westerners have been eating refined carbs and sugars so maybe they have had more time to adapt to it. If there is a paradox to solve, then it will be solved with more studies.
However, he also said that as Japan is starting to switch from brown rice to white rice, their obesity is increasing as well.
This clearly demonstrates your point that the number of calories doesn't matter. Clearly.
Honestly, if any of what you're claiming is true, wouldn't anybody who went on a low-fat/high-carb gain weight rapidly? That doesn't really parse with all the data showing that people who go on such a diet do lose weight, although not always quickly or for very long after they reintroduce fats.
We still haven't seemed to have cleared up the Asian paradox yet, given that the Taube quote posted in relation to it can be summed up as "I don't know".
It's a combination of eating much less calories in general (daily average seems to be around 1400 calories) and the fact that they have been eating rice for much longer time period than Westerners have been eating refined carbs and sugars so maybe they have had more time to adapt to it. If there is a paradox to solve, then it will be solved with more studies.
However, he also said that as Japan is starting to switch from brown rice to white rice, their obesity is increasing as well.
This clearly demonstrates your point that the number of calories doesn't matter. Clearly.
Honestly, if any of what you're claiming is true, wouldn't anybody who went on a low-fat/high-carb gain weight rapidly? That doesn't really parse with all the data showing that people who go on such a diet do lose weight, although not always quickly or for very long after they reintroduce fats.
We have already covered the fact that it is possible to lose weight on low-fat/high-carb diets as long as:
a) calories are also severely restricted
b) body isn't already insulin sensitive
Low carb diets are more successful because you don't have to restrict calories that much while on them (although still do to some extent) and you can completely ignore insulin sensitivity since it's a non-factor in the near-absence of carbs.
We still haven't seemed to have cleared up the Asian paradox yet, given that the Taube quote posted in relation to it can be summed up as "I don't know".
It's a combination of eating much less calories in general (daily average seems to be around 1400 calories) and the fact that they have been eating rice for much longer time period than Westerners have been eating refined carbs and sugars so maybe they have had more time to adapt to it. If there is a paradox to solve, then it will be solved with more studies.
However, he also said that as Japan is starting to switch from brown rice to white rice, their obesity is increasing as well.
This clearly demonstrates your point that the number of calories doesn't matter. Clearly.
Honestly, if any of what you're claiming is true, wouldn't anybody who went on a low-fat/high-carb gain weight rapidly? That doesn't really parse with all the data showing that people who go on such a diet do lose weight, although not always quickly or for very long after they reintroduce fats.
We have already covered the fact that it is possible to lose weight on low-fat/high-carb diets as long as:
a) calories are also severely restricted
b) body isn't already insulin sensitive
Low carb diets are more successful because you don't have to restrict calories that much while on them (although still do to some extent) and you can completely ignore insulin sensitivity since it's a non-factor in the near-absence of carbs.
You also said that the body will adjust to any caloric adjustment.
We still haven't seemed to have cleared up the Asian paradox yet, given that the Taube quote posted in relation to it can be summed up as "I don't know".
It's a combination of eating much less calories in general (daily average seems to be around 1400 calories) and the fact that they have been eating rice for much longer time period than Westerners have been eating refined carbs and sugars so maybe they have had more time to adapt to it. If there is a paradox to solve, then it will be solved with more studies.
However, he also said that as Japan is starting to switch from brown rice to white rice, their obesity is increasing as well.
This clearly demonstrates your point that the number of calories doesn't matter. Clearly.
Honestly, if any of what you're claiming is true, wouldn't anybody who went on a low-fat/high-carb gain weight rapidly? That doesn't really parse with all the data showing that people who go on such a diet do lose weight, although not always quickly or for very long after they reintroduce fats.
We have already covered the fact that it is possible to lose weight on low-fat/high-carb diets as long as:
a) calories are also severely restricted
b) body isn't already insulin sensitive
Low carb diets are more successful because you don't have to restrict calories that much while on them (although still do to some extent) and you can completely ignore insulin sensitivity since it's a non-factor in the near-absence of carbs.
You also said that the body will adjust to any caloric adjustment.
I believe geckahn explained this pretty well somewhere on this page or the last one. We're going in circles.
We still haven't seemed to have cleared up the Asian paradox yet, given that the Taube quote posted in relation to it can be summed up as "I don't know".
It's a combination of eating much less calories in general (daily average seems to be around 1400 calories) and the fact that they have been eating rice for much longer time period than Westerners have been eating refined carbs and sugars so maybe they have had more time to adapt to it. If there is a paradox to solve, then it will be solved with more studies.
However, he also said that as Japan is starting to switch from brown rice to white rice, their obesity is increasing as well.
This clearly demonstrates your point that the number of calories doesn't matter. Clearly.
Honestly, if any of what you're claiming is true, wouldn't anybody who went on a low-fat/high-carb gain weight rapidly? That doesn't really parse with all the data showing that people who go on such a diet do lose weight, although not always quickly or for very long after they reintroduce fats.
We have already covered the fact that it is possible to lose weight on low-fat/high-carb diets as long as:
a) calories are also severely restricted
b) body isn't already insulin sensitive
Low carb diets are more successful because you don't have to restrict calories that much while on them (although still do to some extent) and you can completely ignore insulin sensitivity since it's a non-factor in the near-absence of carbs.
You also said that the body will adjust to any caloric adjustment.
thats where point b) there comes in. Although he meant insulin resistance, not sensitive.
If your cells have good insulin sensitivity, insulin is taken up by the cells quickly and fat can leave your adipose tissue. If you are insulin resistant at all (a level of resistance FAR lower then the diabetic standard) then you will not lose fat, because insulin will remain in circulation longer, telling the adipose tissue not to release fatty acids.
Really what the difference between a skinny and a fat person comes down to (given identical diets) is how quickly they become insulin resistant. The faster that happens, the earlier in life you develop obesity.
Scalfin, you seem to be looking at everything in terms of absolutes then throwing out every bit of evidence that you don't like by virtue of a single ridiculous comparison. We aren't talking about what diets work. We're talking about what diets work BEST.
A high or normal carb diet with restricted calories will: Plateau sooner, make the dieter feel tired, make the dieter feel hungry, take a decent amount of muscle with the fat, and scales poorly; i.e. the lower you cut the less efficient said cut is.
It's just not as good. Yes, you will lose weight. Yes, you will be healthier than you were pre-diet. But that's not anywhere near the same thing as being as good as a low-carb diet.
Scalfin, you seem to be looking at everything in terms of absolutes then throwing out every bit of evidence that you don't like by virtue of a single ridiculous comparison. We aren't talking about what diets work. We're talking about what diets work BEST.
A high or normal carb diet with restricted calories will: Plateau sooner, make the dieter feel tired, make the dieter feel hungry, take a decent amount of muscle with the fat, and scales poorly; i.e. the lower you cut the less efficient said cut is.
It's just not as good. Yes, you will lose weight. Yes, you will be healthier than you were pre-diet. But that's not anywhere near the same thing as being as good as a low-carb diet.
I was saying that model being proposed predicts that low-fat diets not work at all.
Scalfin, you seem to be looking at everything in terms of absolutes then throwing out every bit of evidence that you don't like by virtue of a single ridiculous comparison. We aren't talking about what diets work. We're talking about what diets work BEST.
A high or normal carb diet with restricted calories will: Plateau sooner, make the dieter feel tired, make the dieter feel hungry, take a decent amount of muscle with the fat, and scales poorly; i.e. the lower you cut the less efficient said cut is.
It's just not as good. Yes, you will lose weight. Yes, you will be healthier than you were pre-diet. But that's not anywhere near the same thing as being as good as a low-carb diet.
I was saying that model being proposed predicts that low-fat diets not work at all.
and i gave you the answer as to why they will work in some people.
Scalfin, you seem to be looking at everything in terms of absolutes then throwing out every bit of evidence that you don't like by virtue of a single ridiculous comparison. We aren't talking about what diets work. We're talking about what diets work BEST.
A high or normal carb diet with restricted calories will: Plateau sooner, make the dieter feel tired, make the dieter feel hungry, take a decent amount of muscle with the fat, and scales poorly; i.e. the lower you cut the less efficient said cut is.
It's just not as good. Yes, you will lose weight. Yes, you will be healthier than you were pre-diet. But that's not anywhere near the same thing as being as good as a low-carb diet.
I was saying that model being proposed predicts that low-fat diets not work at all.
They work. If they don't, then it can be explained by insulin resistance, which a LOT of people in the USA have.
Scalfin, you seem to be looking at everything in terms of absolutes then throwing out every bit of evidence that you don't like by virtue of a single ridiculous comparison. We aren't talking about what diets work. We're talking about what diets work BEST.
A high or normal carb diet with restricted calories will: Plateau sooner, make the dieter feel tired, make the dieter feel hungry, take a decent amount of muscle with the fat, and scales poorly; i.e. the lower you cut the less efficient said cut is.
It's just not as good. Yes, you will lose weight. Yes, you will be healthier than you were pre-diet. But that's not anywhere near the same thing as being as good as a low-carb diet.
What about the people on low-fat, normal-carb diets who don't always feel hungry, don't always feel tired, and actually have toned muscles? Do they not really exist, or what?
For all the claims of us non-low-carb adherents being absolutist and narrow-minded, it seems you're the one claiming that anything other than low-carb will inevitably fail, and that the people will only think they're healthy when in reality they're not.
I mean, that's sort of silly.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
So basically, on a low-carb diet, if you eat a ridiculous number of calories, your body ignores them and you just poop it out?
Also, fried != deep-fried. If you throw a hamburger patty into a pool of oil and cook it on the stove, that is "frying", and has no carbs.
(Also-also, my blood insulin levels have been checked recently and are fine.)
I'm not totally sure, but maybe at some hypothetical point of fat intake you would probably stop digesting some of the fat, which would result in some pretty gross poos.
But that would be very hard to do. You would have to be force fed. It's just not possible to eat that much when you're on low carb. You become satiated quickly and dont get really hungry for like 12 hours after a good meal.
So your body will adjust to any number of calories you take in, keeping you weight-neutral, up until some theoretical point at which you'll stop digesting it and having yucky poop. Correct?
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
So basically, on a low-carb diet, if you eat a ridiculous number of calories, your body ignores them and you just poop it out?
Also, fried != deep-fried. If you throw a hamburger patty into a pool of oil and cook it on the stove, that is "frying", and has no carbs.
(Also-also, my blood insulin levels have been checked recently and are fine.)
I'm not totally sure, but maybe at some hypothetical point of fat intake you would probably stop digesting some of the fat, which would result in some pretty gross poos.
But that would be very hard to do. You would have to be force fed. It's just not possible to eat that much when you're on low carb. You become satiated quickly and dont get really hungry for like 12 hours after a good meal.
So your body will adjust to any number of calories you take in, keeping you weight-neutral, up until some theoretical point at which you'll stop digesting it and having yucky poop. Correct?
Beyond a certain threshold, which is determined by your body's capacity for fat digestion, the excess has to be excreted.
So aspartame going to prevent this from working for me at all or no. Most the info I can find is very conflicted, and the against side seems to be chocked full of people who claim it causes cancers cause of a retarded mouse study, but that doesn't preclude them from being right that it will FUBAR the diet.
So aspartame going to prevent this from working for me at all or no. Most the info I can find is very conflicted, and the against side seems to be chocked full of people who claim it causes cancers cause of a retarded mouse study, but that doesn't preclude them from being right that it will FUBAR the diet.
Artificial sweeteners are safe. Aspartame was actually conclusively proven to be so more than 10 years ago, but the Internet being what it is, you still get some tinfoils sometimes.
Some people have a slight insulin response to it, but it won't kill you.
So basically, on a low-carb diet, if you eat a ridiculous number of calories, your body ignores them and you just poop it out?
Also, fried != deep-fried. If you throw a hamburger patty into a pool of oil and cook it on the stove, that is "frying", and has no carbs.
(Also-also, my blood insulin levels have been checked recently and are fine.)
I'm not totally sure, but maybe at some hypothetical point of fat intake you would probably stop digesting some of the fat, which would result in some pretty gross poos.
But that would be very hard to do. You would have to be force fed. It's just not possible to eat that much when you're on low carb. You become satiated quickly and dont get really hungry for like 12 hours after a good meal.
So your body will adjust to any number of calories you take in, keeping you weight-neutral, up until some theoretical point at which you'll stop digesting it and having yucky poop. Correct?
Beyond a certain threshold, which is determined by your body's capacity for fat digestion, the excess has to be excreted.
And on a low-carb diet, nothing you eat will ever be stored as fat, correct? Because only carbs can be stored as fat?
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
So basically, on a low-carb diet, if you eat a ridiculous number of calories, your body ignores them and you just poop it out?
Also, fried != deep-fried. If you throw a hamburger patty into a pool of oil and cook it on the stove, that is "frying", and has no carbs.
(Also-also, my blood insulin levels have been checked recently and are fine.)
I'm not totally sure, but maybe at some hypothetical point of fat intake you would probably stop digesting some of the fat, which would result in some pretty gross poos.
But that would be very hard to do. You would have to be force fed. It's just not possible to eat that much when you're on low carb. You become satiated quickly and dont get really hungry for like 12 hours after a good meal.
So your body will adjust to any number of calories you take in, keeping you weight-neutral, up until some theoretical point at which you'll stop digesting it and having yucky poop. Correct?
Beyond a certain threshold, which is determined by your body's capacity for fat digestion, the excess has to be excreted.
And on a low-carb diet, nothing you eat will ever be stored as fat, correct? Because only carbs can be stored as fat?
I haven't read the thread since last night, but from what I know and remember from reading Taube's book, that's not entirely correct. Some of it may still be stored as fat, since you still have insulin on a low-carb diet (from protein as well as the limited amount of carbs you're getting) but you have much less of it, so you will store a lot less of the excess calories as fat than you would if you were on a traditional diet.
Basically, the amount of insulin that is secreted as a response to your meals determines the theoretical maximum storage ability of your body. The bigger the insulin response, the greater the percentage of those calories that can be stored as fat (if they are in excess of what the body needs).
In addition, not just carbs are stored as fat. Fat can also be stored in fat tissue. So can protein, after it is converted to glucose.
So basically, on a low-carb diet, if you eat a ridiculous number of calories, your body ignores them and you just poop it out?
Also, fried != deep-fried. If you throw a hamburger patty into a pool of oil and cook it on the stove, that is "frying", and has no carbs.
(Also-also, my blood insulin levels have been checked recently and are fine.)
I'm not totally sure, but maybe at some hypothetical point of fat intake you would probably stop digesting some of the fat, which would result in some pretty gross poos.
But that would be very hard to do. You would have to be force fed. It's just not possible to eat that much when you're on low carb. You become satiated quickly and dont get really hungry for like 12 hours after a good meal.
So your body will adjust to any number of calories you take in, keeping you weight-neutral, up until some theoretical point at which you'll stop digesting it and having yucky poop. Correct?
Beyond a certain threshold, which is determined by your body's capacity for fat digestion, the excess has to be excreted.
And on a low-carb diet, nothing you eat will ever be stored as fat, correct? Because only carbs can be stored as fat?
nope. You still store fat, just not enough to actually be obese at all. around 10% BF or a bit less usually. But that depends on the persons genetics, and on how insulin resistant they have become up to that point in their lives.
Insulin is still present, as it should be. It's only bad in the excess amounts caused by sugar and grain intake. Protein causes it to be excreted, just at much lower levels.
I'm not sure if anybody here is knowledgable about the metabolic process, but I'm give a shot at explaining things from what I've learned (which may or may not be 100% correct).
When you eat carbs, the body takes them and processes them into blood sugar. The simpler the carbs, the quicker the blood sugar gets produced (that's why you can get a sugar rush).
Complex carbohydrates, and carbs that are packaged with fiber, are digested slowly. It takes more chemical proccesses to break them down into blood sugar.
Here's where I'm a little shakey; I think fats get broken down into several things. Amino Acids, blood sugar, cholestorol, and I think others. There's "good" and "bad" cholestorol, Unsat gets mostly turned into only "good", Sat gets turned into "good" and "bad" about equally, and Trans-sat gets turned mostly into "bad".
Take that with a grain of salt, check that before taking it as fact. But it's not really the main point.
Things like Asapartme and other artifical sweeteners are of a chemical type that your body can't turn into blood sugar (or at least not easily, and maybe a few people can). They're often also called Sugar Alcohols, they don't effect your energy levels, they just kind flow around and then get filtered out.
The reason many people worry about them, is that it just puts excess nutrients in your intestines. Bacteria will feed on it (there's tons of different bacterias in your intestines) and possibly flourish. In some cases, this can lead to extra gas (most bacteria produce methane), and in other cases people can get odd imbalances and extra stress on their system.
Whether that can cause cancer or not is hard to tell. Cancer happens when the DNA of certain cells gets damaged. As of now, the highest probable causes of that are Radiation and "free radicals" (molecules that travel around and can react with DNA and damage it, or react with the things that repair DNA). The best guard against radiation is to avoid it (and wear sunblock to avoid solar radiation), and the best guard against "free radicals" are vitamins that more easily bond with them and prevent them from damaging your cells as much.
I'm not 100% about that free radicals thing, so definitely research it yourself for more accurate information. In general, you wouldn't believe the number of people who don't even know what cancer is or why it happens. The whole "we have no idea what causes cancer" isn't right; it's DNA damage. We just don't know exactly everything that can cause DNA damage (other than radiation, we solidly know that).
Something interesting I just found: A study was conducted on exercise on diets either high or low in carbohydrates, and they examined the levels of many intra-plasmic molecules, one of which was interesting. Now, I can't get at the entire paper currently (I could, were I at work), but the abstract seems to suggest that excercise actually decreases insulin levels irrespective of the amount of blood glucose present as they injected both experimental groups (low and high carb diets) with excess glucose during the exercise.
This seems to suggest to me that, again, claiming (or at least insinuating) that the "big deal" here is "evil carbs" that get stored due to the excess insulin production they upregulate can actually be managed by exercise. Meaning that the nasty insulin can be at least be dealt with WITHOUT the necessity of a low carb diet.
During exercise norepinephrine increases and insulin decreases independent of plasma glucose changes whereas receptors sensitive to glucose privation but not to acute changes in insulin levels enhance the exercise-induced secretion of glucagon, epinephrine, growth hormone and Cortisol.
There was also this interesting little tidbit from another paper:
Consumption of fat and fructose, which do not initiate insulin secretion, results in lower circulating leptin levels, a consequence which may lead to overeating and weight gain in individuals or populations consuming diets high in energy derived from these macronutrients
Which seems to directly contradict what Protein (and geckhan I think?) have been saying; that is, it is impossible to overeat and thus gain weight without eating foods that result in insulin production.
A third paper I found also describes that a calorie-restricted "Mediterranean Diet" was just as effective as a low-carbohydrate diet for weight loss.
Basically my point is this- the low carb diet can be effective. I can't argue that. But the arguments being presented mainly by Protein Shakes (that it is the ONLY healthy diet) and Geckhan (that it is the ONLY way to lose weight) haven't gotten me buying the farm yet. As someone said in the onset of this thread, to paraphrase, different diets work for different people.
What is good for one may not be good for all, and this is a much bigger issue and way more complex than a bunch of amateur nutritionists can puzzle out over the internet.
Again, I stand by my claim that the proponents of this diet are just jumping on the control of a new "scary molecule" (insulin in this case) as the ONLY method for weight loss or management; which is frankly untrue.
EDIT: even more interesting- a further study has discovered that even in the presence of high dietary carbohydrates, an increase in protein (even WITH the high dietary carbs!) results in weight loss!
We found that an increase in dietary protein content comparable with that observed in popular low-carbohydrate diets, but no reduction in dietary carbohydrate content, resulted in rapid losses of weight and body fat.
Goddamn. I ate a bunch of dried fruit at a party today, and I felt downright woozy from all the sugar.
I love me rice. I can eat bowls and bowls of it per day. Some nights, my dinner will be a giant bowl of white rice and soy sauce. So obviously, carbs aren't a problem for me.
But for some reason, I have problems with sugar, and I might have problems with white flour.
Well, the theory behind it isn't bad. Insulin prevents bodyfat from being used as an energy source.
Insulin goes down when your liver detects that your blood sugar is low.
Blood sugar goes down when you don't eat sugar.
Blood sugar is Glucose.
Carbohydrates are different types of sugars; Glucose is a type of carbohydrate.
So basically, a low-carb diet should always cause somebody to lose body fat.
A diet with more carbs just means the person has to either be more active to burn up the larger amount of glucose, or have some other factor that can reduce glucose levels without turning it into body fat.
So aspartame going to prevent this from working for me at all or no. Most the info I can find is very conflicted, and the against side seems to be chocked full of people who claim it causes cancers cause of a retarded mouse study, but that doesn't preclude them from being right that it will FUBAR the diet.
Aspartame will cause headaches and prevent weight loss from occuring (as your body thinks its sugar for the first minute or two, insulin response, and that fucks with your body). I
Eat sucralose whenever possible. There are a number of sweet beverages and gums now that use sucralose instead of aspartame. Buy a bag of it, and make your own deserts. Your sweet tooth will be satisfied, trust me, especially since you will loose your craving for sugar after the initial withdrawl.
Edit: Also, I didn't get past page 3 yet, but there is waay to much talk about calories up in this thread. They don't matter. A calorie is not a calorie is not a calorie. There is no way to be accurate while measuring them or the effects on your body. The body is not so simple as that. Energy is used in a thousand different ways, and stored for a thousand different purposes, each time different depending on what you eat. It's like if someone came up to you and asked you how many miles it was to drive across the US and you responded with "A few hours in that direction". Its technically correct, but mostly useless information.
What happened to that theory from a few years back where your blood type dictates the healthiest types of foods you should eat? Has that been completely repudiated?
Goddamn. I ate a bunch of dried fruit at a party today, and I felt downright woozy from all the sugar.
I love me rice. I can eat bowls and bowls of it per day. Some nights, my dinner will be a giant bowl of white rice and soy sauce. So obviously, carbs aren't a problem for me.
But for some reason, I have problems with sugar, and I might have problems with white flour.
Sugar gets digested easily, it's already in base form to go into your blood and be used as energy. Carbohydrates from grains are packaged with more things (fiber, starch, protein) and so have to be digested more.
It's kinda like the difference between pouring syrup and pouring hot syrup. In this example, grains are the regular syrup and fruit sugars are the hot syrup.
And of course, I must add to all of my posts the disclaimer that it is the insinuation that a high-protein, low carb diet is impossible without a meat source that is one of my problems with this diet; the other having been already stated many times.
Posts
Three: I read the summary you posted (the video wouldn't load, and I'm not going to Buy The Book for the sake of an internet debate), and still don't quite understand why too many carbs is bad, and we don't need to worry about caloric intake at all if we follow the magic low-carb rules. It sounds to me as if you (and geckhan) saying that if you consume precious few carbs, then you never need to watch your diet again because either A) you will never ever have the urge to eat more than exactly how many calories you need to maintain your weight, or
A) is clearly bullshit, because I know a lot of people on low-carb diets who eat a crazy amount of fat - like, thousands of calories per day - and are not healthy or losing weight. It is extremely easy to down a couple thousand calories of fat in a single sitting if you fry everything and cover it in cheese and cream. So am I to believe that this sort of behavior isn't actually happening? Or are they clearly cheating on their diet when I'm not looking because otherwise they would be super trim and fit?
Basically, the automagical part of this diet where will power and moderation are completely unnecessary doesn't seem to mesh well with what I see.
If theyre eating anything fried they are definitely cheating. and cheese can be no good (if its american)
Try this one.
For the anecdotal evidence you are citing, it's hard to say without knowing what they are eating exactly. Most fried foods have lots of carbs in them, and so does most cheese types in the US. But, regardless of carbs, if you are eating say 5k calories but burning only 2.5k then you won't lose weight, and might even gain some. It may not even be healthy (I mean, too much of anything is bad after a certain threshold). What we are saying however is that, if carbs are kept low (between 10 and 40g a day) then it becomes literally impossible for your body to store more than a minimal amount.
Put another way, the amount of excess calories your body is able to store on a low-carb diet is much, much lower than the amount of excess calories it can store on a high-carb diet, because of the massive difference in insulin levels in the blood. This is why it is a lot harder to gain weight on a low carb diet and easier to lose weight. And I don't know if I can put it any more simply, honestly.
It is also why I am telling you to get your blood insulin level checked next time you go to your doctor.
Also, fried != deep-fried. If you throw a hamburger patty into a pool of oil and cook it on the stove, that is "frying", and has no carbs.
(Also-also, my blood insulin levels have been checked recently and are fine.)
Maybe geckahn can comment on this more authoritatively, but I think the ones it doesn't burn due to metabolic up-regulation, it would have to excrete them in the stool, yes. I... I imagine it would smell pretty foul.
I just don't know from personal experience. I've eaten up to 3700 calories on this diet and haven't had that problem. I was really really hyper on those days though, and I workout, so I don't know.
I'm not totally sure, but maybe at some hypothetical point of fat intake you would probably stop digesting some of the fat, which would result in some pretty gross poos.
But that would be very hard to do. You would have to be force fed. It's just not possible to eat that much when you're on low carb. You become satiated quickly and dont get really hungry for like 12 hours after a good meal.
Yeah... this is all anecdote, but I got back from the gym the other day, drank a 300 calorie protein shake and passed out on my bed while reading a book. I woke up 11 hours later and wasn't hungry at all. It was really surprising.
Compared to low-fat/high-carb diets that i used to be on in the past, where ravenous hunger would be the primary reason for me to get out of bed in the mornings after 6-7 hours of sleep.
From this, it sounds like what the body is really craving is protein and a fast source of carbs to keep blood glucose up while the body is liquidating its stores, rather than simply craving a large number of calories. That's probably why trail mix includes nuts (protein), dried fruit (carbs), and candy (carbs, high glycemic index).
Also, the reason why people recommend complex cereals that release sugar more slowly is that it's been shown to work.
This is normal. If I have to skip a meal for whatever reason then no big deal, i dont get hungry. I'll just eat more at the next meal.
Duh? Yes, low GI is better than high GI. But it is still not ideal. It would have been more interesting if they compared high GI with low GI, and then low GI with low-carb or no-carb. It's actually very plausible that heart disease and cancer risks would have fallen even further.
This clearly demonstrates your point that the number of calories doesn't matter. Clearly.
Honestly, if any of what you're claiming is true, wouldn't anybody who went on a low-fat/high-carb gain weight rapidly? That doesn't really parse with all the data showing that people who go on such a diet do lose weight, although not always quickly or for very long after they reintroduce fats.
We have already covered the fact that it is possible to lose weight on low-fat/high-carb diets as long as:
a) calories are also severely restricted
b) body isn't already insulin sensitive
Low carb diets are more successful because you don't have to restrict calories that much while on them (although still do to some extent) and you can completely ignore insulin sensitivity since it's a non-factor in the near-absence of carbs.
You also said that the body will adjust to any caloric adjustment.
I believe geckahn explained this pretty well somewhere on this page or the last one. We're going in circles.
thats where point b) there comes in. Although he meant insulin resistance, not sensitive.
If your cells have good insulin sensitivity, insulin is taken up by the cells quickly and fat can leave your adipose tissue. If you are insulin resistant at all (a level of resistance FAR lower then the diabetic standard) then you will not lose fat, because insulin will remain in circulation longer, telling the adipose tissue not to release fatty acids.
Really what the difference between a skinny and a fat person comes down to (given identical diets) is how quickly they become insulin resistant. The faster that happens, the earlier in life you develop obesity.
A high or normal carb diet with restricted calories will: Plateau sooner, make the dieter feel tired, make the dieter feel hungry, take a decent amount of muscle with the fat, and scales poorly; i.e. the lower you cut the less efficient said cut is.
It's just not as good. Yes, you will lose weight. Yes, you will be healthier than you were pre-diet. But that's not anywhere near the same thing as being as good as a low-carb diet.
I was saying that model being proposed predicts that low-fat diets not work at all.
and i gave you the answer as to why they will work in some people.
They work. If they don't, then it can be explained by insulin resistance, which a LOT of people in the USA have.
What about the people on low-fat, normal-carb diets who don't always feel hungry, don't always feel tired, and actually have toned muscles? Do they not really exist, or what?
For all the claims of us non-low-carb adherents being absolutist and narrow-minded, it seems you're the one claiming that anything other than low-carb will inevitably fail, and that the people will only think they're healthy when in reality they're not.
I mean, that's sort of silly.
So your body will adjust to any number of calories you take in, keeping you weight-neutral, up until some theoretical point at which you'll stop digesting it and having yucky poop. Correct?
Beyond a certain threshold, which is determined by your body's capacity for fat digestion, the excess has to be excreted.
Artificial sweeteners are safe. Aspartame was actually conclusively proven to be so more than 10 years ago, but the Internet being what it is, you still get some tinfoils sometimes.
Some people have a slight insulin response to it, but it won't kill you.
And on a low-carb diet, nothing you eat will ever be stored as fat, correct? Because only carbs can be stored as fat?
I haven't read the thread since last night, but from what I know and remember from reading Taube's book, that's not entirely correct. Some of it may still be stored as fat, since you still have insulin on a low-carb diet (from protein as well as the limited amount of carbs you're getting) but you have much less of it, so you will store a lot less of the excess calories as fat than you would if you were on a traditional diet.
Basically, the amount of insulin that is secreted as a response to your meals determines the theoretical maximum storage ability of your body. The bigger the insulin response, the greater the percentage of those calories that can be stored as fat (if they are in excess of what the body needs).
In addition, not just carbs are stored as fat. Fat can also be stored in fat tissue. So can protein, after it is converted to glucose.
nope. You still store fat, just not enough to actually be obese at all. around 10% BF or a bit less usually. But that depends on the persons genetics, and on how insulin resistant they have become up to that point in their lives.
Insulin is still present, as it should be. It's only bad in the excess amounts caused by sugar and grain intake. Protein causes it to be excreted, just at much lower levels.
When you eat carbs, the body takes them and processes them into blood sugar. The simpler the carbs, the quicker the blood sugar gets produced (that's why you can get a sugar rush).
Complex carbohydrates, and carbs that are packaged with fiber, are digested slowly. It takes more chemical proccesses to break them down into blood sugar.
Here's where I'm a little shakey; I think fats get broken down into several things. Amino Acids, blood sugar, cholestorol, and I think others. There's "good" and "bad" cholestorol, Unsat gets mostly turned into only "good", Sat gets turned into "good" and "bad" about equally, and Trans-sat gets turned mostly into "bad".
Take that with a grain of salt, check that before taking it as fact. But it's not really the main point.
Things like Asapartme and other artifical sweeteners are of a chemical type that your body can't turn into blood sugar (or at least not easily, and maybe a few people can). They're often also called Sugar Alcohols, they don't effect your energy levels, they just kind flow around and then get filtered out.
The reason many people worry about them, is that it just puts excess nutrients in your intestines. Bacteria will feed on it (there's tons of different bacterias in your intestines) and possibly flourish. In some cases, this can lead to extra gas (most bacteria produce methane), and in other cases people can get odd imbalances and extra stress on their system.
Whether that can cause cancer or not is hard to tell. Cancer happens when the DNA of certain cells gets damaged. As of now, the highest probable causes of that are Radiation and "free radicals" (molecules that travel around and can react with DNA and damage it, or react with the things that repair DNA). The best guard against radiation is to avoid it (and wear sunblock to avoid solar radiation), and the best guard against "free radicals" are vitamins that more easily bond with them and prevent them from damaging your cells as much.
I'm not 100% about that free radicals thing, so definitely research it yourself for more accurate information. In general, you wouldn't believe the number of people who don't even know what cancer is or why it happens. The whole "we have no idea what causes cancer" isn't right; it's DNA damage. We just don't know exactly everything that can cause DNA damage (other than radiation, we solidly know that).
This seems to suggest to me that, again, claiming (or at least insinuating) that the "big deal" here is "evil carbs" that get stored due to the excess insulin production they upregulate can actually be managed by exercise. Meaning that the nasty insulin can be at least be dealt with WITHOUT the necessity of a low carb diet.
Paper is here
Which seems to directly contradict what Protein (and geckhan I think?) have been saying; that is, it is impossible to overeat and thus gain weight without eating foods that result in insulin production.
I think the problem is that at a certain point, you can't exercise enough to overcome the excess insulin.
Basically my point is this- the low carb diet can be effective. I can't argue that. But the arguments being presented mainly by Protein Shakes (that it is the ONLY healthy diet) and Geckhan (that it is the ONLY way to lose weight) haven't gotten me buying the farm yet. As someone said in the onset of this thread, to paraphrase, different diets work for different people.
What is good for one may not be good for all, and this is a much bigger issue and way more complex than a bunch of amateur nutritionists can puzzle out over the internet.
Again, I stand by my claim that the proponents of this diet are just jumping on the control of a new "scary molecule" (insulin in this case) as the ONLY method for weight loss or management; which is frankly untrue.
EDIT: even more interesting- a further study has discovered that even in the presence of high dietary carbohydrates, an increase in protein (even WITH the high dietary carbs!) results in weight loss!
I love me rice. I can eat bowls and bowls of it per day. Some nights, my dinner will be a giant bowl of white rice and soy sauce. So obviously, carbs aren't a problem for me.
But for some reason, I have problems with sugar, and I might have problems with white flour.
Insulin goes down when your liver detects that your blood sugar is low.
Blood sugar goes down when you don't eat sugar.
Blood sugar is Glucose.
Carbohydrates are different types of sugars; Glucose is a type of carbohydrate.
So basically, a low-carb diet should always cause somebody to lose body fat.
A diet with more carbs just means the person has to either be more active to burn up the larger amount of glucose, or have some other factor that can reduce glucose levels without turning it into body fat.
Aspartame will cause headaches and prevent weight loss from occuring (as your body thinks its sugar for the first minute or two, insulin response, and that fucks with your body). I
Eat sucralose whenever possible. There are a number of sweet beverages and gums now that use sucralose instead of aspartame. Buy a bag of it, and make your own deserts. Your sweet tooth will be satisfied, trust me, especially since you will loose your craving for sugar after the initial withdrawl.
Edit: Also, I didn't get past page 3 yet, but there is waay to much talk about calories up in this thread. They don't matter. A calorie is not a calorie is not a calorie. There is no way to be accurate while measuring them or the effects on your body. The body is not so simple as that. Energy is used in a thousand different ways, and stored for a thousand different purposes, each time different depending on what you eat. It's like if someone came up to you and asked you how many miles it was to drive across the US and you responded with "A few hours in that direction". Its technically correct, but mostly useless information.
Sugar gets digested easily, it's already in base form to go into your blood and be used as energy. Carbohydrates from grains are packaged with more things (fiber, starch, protein) and so have to be digested more.
It's kinda like the difference between pouring syrup and pouring hot syrup. In this example, grains are the regular syrup and fruit sugars are the hot syrup.