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.
I finally had time to read the whole thread (:?) and I see that you have once again succeeded in strawmanning.
Protein Shakes, from what I understand, is not saying that it's the ONLY healthy diet. He is saying that it is the healthiest. Which is correct. The link between excess insulin and diabetes is very well established. Hyperinsulinemia is a pre-diabetes stage, and is a result of your cells becoming more and more resistant to insulin. The best way to prevent it is to make sure you don't eat stuff that raises your insulin significantly. Avoid sugars and refined carbs, and minimize complex carbs as much as you can (you don't have to completely avoid them in my opinion, but don't treat them as "okay" simply because they are digested slowly), because your body doesn't need them to operate.
Geckhan, to my knowledge (again, I read the thread but maybe I missed it) never said that it is the ONLY way to lose weight. In fact both of them have stated at various points that it IS possible to lose weight on calorie-restricted diets, but it's still hard (and outright impossible if the person has high insulin resistance). With a low-carb diet, you don't have to restrict your calories as much, and you don't have to worry about weight gain as much. In other words, as long as you stick to it, you will have an easier time managing your weight overall.
The thread is mostly lacking citations, however we have the clinical experience of two medical doctors and the results of thousands of their patients as supporting evidence (according to the book's Amazon reviews and description - I haven't read it). We also have the incredible body of evidence in Taube's book. In addition, every claim they make has its foundations in medical textbooks. They are just looking at the subject from a different angle, and reaching different, more effective results.
So, Arch, I don't know what you're still trying to do. You have challenged pretty much every claim in this thread, which is good, but at one point maybe you should actually pick up the books mentioned and read them, since you seem genuinely curious about the topic (judging from your interest in this thread and the questions you have asked so far). That's what I did when geckahn mentioned it in the H/A thread and I haven't regretted it one bit.
Besides that, the topic has been quite beaten to death and everyone is going in circles now. :?
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
Dude no. Not everyone has an insulin response to aspartame, and those who do have a very slight one. This doesn't mean it will "prevent weight loss from occurring". Don't be ridiculous.
But due to other factors, Aspartame is apparently a bad idea. Sucralose looks completely fine though (aka Splenda).
Edit:
I find it hilarious that the guy named Perpetual is the one to point out we're going in circles. Even though I completely agree ;p
On the whole subject matter, I personally try to stick to complex carbs for some of my calories. Especially in the morning and after I exercise. But that is specifically because I'm weightlifting and building strength, and don't want my muscle catabolized. Eating carbs in the morning breaks your fast and keeps your glucose levels up a bit for your day energy. Carbs after a workout is for replenishing glycogen. Those are the best times for eating carbs, because your body can use them fully instead of them ending up as excess glucose.
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.
Yeah, maybe.
See, here's the thing. 99% of the time, I only drink water. The only juice I'll drink is carrot juice, but that's expensive, so I usually won't bother. I rarely eat desert, because desert is a luxury item in my budget.
So on the rare occasion where I eat a cinnabon or something, "Holy shit, sugar rush." Pretty much all fruit juice is way too sweet for me. I haven't had a soft drink in over a decade.
Don't get me wrong, I still use sugar a lot. I'm Asian, and balancing flavors is a big part of our culinary lifestyle. I find that a little sugar goes great with a lot of meat dishes. But what I won't do is drink the equivalent of 1 tablespoon of sugar per ounce of beverage. Even if you drink diet shit, you're still killing your taste buds. And that's assuming that the synthetic sweeteners have no side effects whatsoever.
Anyway, I don't really do the low carb thing. At the same time, I think that most Americans eat way more sugar than they actually need to, simply out of habit.
I totally agree on the American diet ;p Historically, the cuisine is based from families that were farmers or industrial workers. For them, lots of sugar is good because they're burning energy out the wazoo. Currently, the majority of Americans are in sedentary jobs and don't burn many calories, but are still eating the same kinds of things.
And on the low-carb thing, I'd say the way to catergorize it is that it's the easiest diet to lose weight with. For Americans especially, most people that eat too many calories do so because they eat too many carbohydrates. Sadly, many of the same people don't even realize that carbohydrates aren't just bread.
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.
I finally had time to read the whole thread (:?) and I see that you have once again succeeded in strawmanning.
Protein Shakes, from what I understand, is not saying that it's the ONLY healthy diet. He is saying that it is the healthiest. Which is correct. The link between excess insulin and diabetes is very well established. Hyperinsulinemia is a pre-diabetes stage, and is a result of your cells becoming more and more resistant to insulin. The best way to prevent it is to make sure you don't eat stuff that raises your insulin significantly. Avoid sugars and refined carbs, and minimize complex carbs as much as you can (you don't have to completely avoid them in my opinion, but don't treat them as "okay" simply because they are digested slowly), because your body doesn't need them to operate.
Geckhan, to my knowledge (again, I read the thread but maybe I missed it) never said that it is the ONLY way to lose weight. In fact both of them have stated at various points that it IS possible to lose weight on calorie-restricted diets, but it's still hard (and outright impossible if the person has high insulin resistance). With a low-carb diet, you don't have to restrict your calories as much, and you don't have to worry about weight gain as much. In other words, as long as you stick to it, you will have an easier time managing your weight overall.
The thread is mostly lacking citations, however we have the clinical experience of two medical doctors and the results of thousands of their patients as supporting evidence (according to the book's Amazon reviews and description - I haven't read it). We also have the incredible body of evidence in Taube's book. In addition, every claim they make has its foundations in medical textbooks. They are just looking at the subject from a different angle, and reaching different, more effective results.
So, Arch, I don't know what you're still trying to do. You have challenged pretty much every claim in this thread, which is good, but at one point maybe you should actually pick up the books mentioned and read them, since you seem genuinely curious about the topic (judging from your interest in this thread and the questions you have asked so far). That's what I did when geckahn mentioned it in the H/A thread and I haven't regretted it one bit.
Besides that, the topic has been quite beaten to death and everyone is going in circles now. :?
I dunno, I think that right now many people are rooting for Mediterranean
also high fiber and other whole grain foods are broken down in the colon into FFAs, which colon cells use for localized nutriment and general health
the problem here is, and this is a problem with all diets, is
which is the number one reason why many diets don't work, and possibly another why people are advocating calorie restriction rather than carb restriction. If the diet works for you, fine, but if you've been on it for a while and the cravings are getting pretty bad and inconvenient, then it's just not practical to maintain the diet for the rest of your life. The best diet is one that can be adhered to. That's pretty much the biggest rational argument against the atkins diet that there is.
And it may not be true for everybody, but if it's true for you, then it's not the diet you were meant to use.
Paladin on
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
With atkins, at least in my experience, cravings are nonexistant.
Once you break your body of its dependency on sugar for fuel, it no longer desires it. In fact, you begin to avoid it at all costs, because of the weird uncomfortable feeling you get after eating it. I cannot count the number of times I have refused food on Atkins and not batted an eyelash.
I dont want bread. I don't want sugar. Do those things taste good? My memory says yes, and thats why we attempt to emulate old foods with other ingredients, but we don't need to have that almond flour cake with sugar free icing or those carbalose pancakes. But we remember that they taste good and want to try them again without the consequence of not loosing weight for up to two weeks.
On Semi-Starvation diets (which I tired before I stumbled across low carb) it was all I could do not to say yes to every offer of tempting food. Why? You are hungry. All the time. Your body tells you to eat, and so you give in after awhile, usually by binging.
On Low carb the only time of day you actually feel hungry is breakfast. The rest of the time your body is either content or giving you subtle signs that it needs food. You are never really ravenous, unless you are being dumb and skip a meal.
I dunno, I think that right now many people are rooting for Mediterranean
I'm not really convinced. The Mediterranean diet has been popularized as a result of the famous Seven Countries Study, and follow up studies such as this one. But it's pretty suspect in my opinion, because there are quite a few countries that follow that sort of diet and yet have high rates of obesity and CHD.
Basically the entire reasoning behind the popularity of the diet goes like this
1. look at those cretans living for so long, i wonder why
2. oh maybe it's their diet
3. *does a randomized study, sees some positive results, ignores all the other countries following the same diet without those results*
4. yeah, it must be the diet
also high fiber and other whole grain foods are broken down in the colon into FFAs, which colon cells use for localized nutriment and general health
You don't need to get your fiber from grains.
the problem here is, and this is a problem with all diets, is
which is the number one reason why many diets don't work, and possibly another why people are advocating calorie restriction rather than carb restriction.
I disagree somewhat. "Dieting" in general doesn't work, because it implies that you are embarking on it only temporarily. In order to see permanent results, it has to be followed by some lifestyle changes. This holds true for all diets regardless of what is being restricted.
If the diet works for you, fine, but if you've been on it for a while and the cravings are getting pretty bad and inconvenient, then it's just not practical to maintain the diet for the rest of your life.
The only time I've had real cravings were during the first week or two. After that it all went away. I now see my coworkers eating chocolates and it makes me queasy.
The best diet is one that can be adhered to. That's pretty much the biggest rational argument against the atkins diet that there is.
I disagree. Sticking to an ineffective diet won't do you any good. It has to be a combination of effectiveness and ease of sticking to, but like I said, as long as you don't change your lifestyle around your diet, you won't stick to it no matter what that diet is.
For the low-carb diet, the biggest lifestyle change I had to go through was to stop eating out and start cooking my own food. Big deal? Not really. It was hard at first, but after a while I really started to enjoy it. I also saved a ton of money in the process (every meal I cook saves me between 2 to 5 dollars in opportunity cost, compared to eating out). I also had to pay more attention to carb contents in the things I regularly buy, and maybe switch them out for lower-carb or no-carb stuff. With Google this was also pretty easy.
Finally let me go out on a limb and say this: Atkins is not the only low-carb diet out there. There are plenty ways to be on a low-carb diet. It doesn't have to say "Atkins" on it. You can totally make one up on your own - just keep the overall carbs under 40g per day and you'll be totally fine. It isn't as difficult as people believe, unless you're like, totally dependent on pizza, coke, bread, cake, cookies, and beer. In which case you'll find ANY kind of diet super hard to stick to because you're probably insulin resistant already.
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
edited May 2010
I found out that I can get away with eating out once a week if I have a 'cheat meal'. Basically, on a cheat meal, I eat everything in sight, dirty or clean, high or low in carbs.
Though, I had to sever nearly all alcohol consumption. For some reason, alcohol just completely wrecks my shit up and literally sets me back a month in terms of diet.
Depends on the kind of alcohol. Beer is generally bad because of its carb content, but you can have one or two a week. Whiskey and wine are fine, but should still be consumed in moderation.
This holds true for any diet by the way. There's a reason we have the term "beer belly".
Been on a low-carb diet for about three months now. I've lost 34 lbs.
My biggest resolutions were no more potatoes or potato by-products and no more plain bread.
The only exceptions for the bread things are tortillas every once in a while as part of a wrap from the deli or chick-fil-a. I've actually been keeping track of my weight loss and setting my goals on Wii-Fit.
I actually had to drill a new hole in my belt yesterday because my pants were falling off of me when I walked.
I can honestly say that I have made a pact with myself and may never eat a potato again.
With atkins, at least in my experience, cravings are nonexistant.
Once you break your body of its dependency on sugar for fuel, it no longer desires it. In fact, you begin to avoid it at all costs, because of the weird uncomfortable feeling you get after eating it. I cannot count the number of times I have refused food on Atkins and not batted an eyelash.
I dont want bread. I don't want sugar. Do those things taste good? My memory says yes, and thats why we attempt to emulate old foods with other ingredients, but we don't need to have that almond flour cake with sugar free icing or those carbalose pancakes. But we remember that they taste good and want to try them again without the consequence of not loosing weight for up to two weeks.
On Semi-Starvation diets (which I tired before I stumbled across low carb) it was all I could do not to say yes to every offer of tempting food. Why? You are hungry. All the time. Your body tells you to eat, and so you give in after awhile, usually by binging.
On Low carb the only time of day you actually feel hungry is breakfast. The rest of the time your body is either content or giving you subtle signs that it needs food. You are never really ravenous, unless you are being dumb and skip a meal.
That's more than 1lb per day. Amazing. What was your starting weight?
It's been 4 months. Cause I thought that sounded off too. Since my daughter has been born time has been a blur.
My starting weight was 330, I am now down to ~295. This is the first time I've been under 300lbs. since high-school.
I am 6'5" and a very large man despite my weight. My Dr. said my target weight range should be in the 260-280 range. My first goal is to hit that 280 mark, then reset my goals to hit the 260 or even less.
First thing a lot of people need to throw out is the BMI. According a BMI calculation I should weigh under 200lbs.
I would look like I was dying or had cancer if I weighed that much. My father (who I am built and almost look exactly like) got down to around 220-200 when his Thyroid went kaflooey on him and everyone (even himself) thought he was going to die because he looked so skinny/horrible.
That's more than 1lb per day. Amazing. What was your starting weight?
It's been 4 months. Cause I thought that sounded off too. Since my daughter has been born time has been a blur.
My starting weight was 330, I am now down to ~295. This is the first time I've been under 300lbs. since high-school.
I am 6'5" and a very large man despite my weight. My Dr. said my target weight range should be in the 260-280 range. My first goal is to hit that 280 mark, then reset my goals to hit the 260 or even less.
First thing a lot of people need to throw out is the BMI. According a BMI calculation I should weigh under 200lbs.
I would look like I was dying or had cancer if I weighed that much. My father (who I am built and almost look exactly like) got down to around 220-200 when his Thyroid went kaflooey on him and everyone (even himself) thought he was going to die because he looked so skinny/horrible.
how much muscle do you have
Paladin on
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I found out that I can get away with eating out once a week if I have a 'cheat meal'. Basically, on a cheat meal, I eat everything in sight, dirty or clean, high or low in carbs.
Though, I had to sever nearly all alcohol consumption. For some reason, alcohol just completely wrecks my shit up and literally sets me back a month in terms of diet.
I'm totally down with cheat meals. go crazy once a week or two.
and yeah, with alcohol stick to wine and liquor w/o sugary mixers.
No, not calories from fat. Overall calorie intake needs to be below a certain level. What makes low-carb diets superior is that you never actually have to worry about or try to guess what that level is, because fats and proteins keep you full for longer amounts of time, and you never feel the sort of ravenous hunger that is typically associated with low-fat/high-carb diets and you don't have to be constantly self-conscious about what you're eating. In the absence of excess insulin to confuse the hell out of your body, your body can regulate itself much more effectively in this regard.
I would just like to add, anecdotally, that this has been exactly my experience when doing low-carb dieting. Each time, once my body adjusted, after a few days to two weeks, suddenly hunger became a vastly different experience for me. When I'm not on it, I would get suddenly ravenous and irritable at certain times, even when I'd had enough calories that day or hadn't been particularly active, and there isn't a logical reason why my body should be acting like I'm starving to death. And I often couldn't be satisfied until I'd jolted myself with a large meal that included a lot of carbs, or had a big dessert or something. After adjusting to low-carb, hunger and energy became a much more steady and gradual process, such that when meal times arrived, I'd feel a subtle need to replenish my source of energy, a feeling that was only vaguely unpleasant, and that would just gradually increase if I didn't eat. This hunger was also much more directly attributable to activity, where I'd barely feel the need to eat when I was sedentary and would get much hungrier if I'd been active. And the amount I would eat would also affect it more directly, so that I could make myself less hungry to any degree I desired based on the amount I ate, instead of needing a huge carby meal before I could stop the crazy hunger.
I just can't stick to it because of all the yummy and convenient stuff around me all the time.
On the talk of low carb diets, anyone have any good recipes for basically anything. Breakfast, take to work lunch, dinner?
My breakfast consists of one of the following:
1. Protein shake (surprise?): almond or peanut butter, a little heavy cream, protein powder, cinnamon, splenda, ice
2. Bacon and eggs, with half an avocado
Lunch is free at my company, and it is catered from various restaurants. But it always includes some types of meat, and usually green leafy veggies.
Dinner is usually chicken, steak, or pork, combined with more veggies that are steamed or cooked on olive oil/butter/lard
I also snack on various nuts throughout the day.
If you're really interested in recipes, go to the Something Awful forums, then the Watch and Weight sub-forum, and there's a low carb thread there. It's OP contains a TONNNN of recipes and links.
Been on a low-carb diet for about three months now. I've lost 34 lbs.
My biggest resolutions were no more potatoes or potato by-products and no more plain bread.
The only exceptions for the bread things are tortillas every once in a while as part of a wrap from the deli or chick-fil-a. I've actually been keeping track of my weight loss and setting my goals on Wii-Fit.
I actually had to drill a new hole in my belt yesterday because my pants were falling off of me when I walked.
I can honestly say that I have made a pact with myself and may never eat a potato again.
I have about the same weight loss rate as you do.
~ 60 pounds in 6 months.
My starting weight was lower, though. 250lbs. I am now hovering consistently around 185. I am being a little more careless in my meal choices though, such as: eating Sugar Free Ice Cream and Yogurt (that have fruit in them) , having the occasional breaded meat if I go out to eat somewhere, eating as much cheese as I want, eating whatever nuts I want in whatever quantity (including higher carb nuts like cashews, stll staying away from peanuts though), and having the odd aspartame beverage and gum.
I have never counted carbs like some of the die hards do, but I have no doubt that I am probably approaching 60-80g per day (3-4 times what induction calls for, which you only stay in for the first two weeks for the uninformed)
All of these things contribute to my weight stabilizing at 185 . I am in better shape than I have been in since I was a skinny little 10 year old, though, and have gone from a size 40 to a size 34.
I have alot of muscle mass, so from here on out I will probably focus more on toning and less on the actual weight loss. I gain mass like a motherfucker if I actually work out, so I'll probably start doing that ( I barely excersized while loosing that much weight, btw, not that I reccomend that. I'm just a lazybones).
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
edited May 2010
If you snack on nuts and cheese it's hard to imagine still running a calorie deficit. I know, I know, they're more filling, but can they be that much more filling? I have trouble imagining, for instance, that a slice of buttered toast can be more filling that two slices of toast, even though they have roughly equivalent amounts of calories and half of the former's come from fat.
If you snack on nuts and cheese it's hard to imagine still running a calorie deficit. I know, I know, they're more filling, but can they be that much more filling? I have trouble imagining, for instance, that a slice of buttered toast can be more filling that two slices of toast, even though they have roughly equivalent amounts of calories and half of the former's come from fat.
It depends on how much you have adapted to the diet. After a week or so your body becomes accustomed to not expecting carbs and relying on fat for energy. When that happens, one or two servings of nuts will last you a couple of hours or maybe even longer.
If you snack on nuts and cheese it's hard to imagine still running a calorie deficit. I know, I know, they're more filling, but can they be that much more filling? I have trouble imagining, for instance, that a slice of buttered toast can be more filling that two slices of toast, even though they have roughly equivalent amounts of calories and half of the former's come from fat.
A lot of the research I did last night states that (at least in the short term) high fat/high protein diets stimulate the release of Leptin, which is a molecule that functions to promote feelings of satiation.
However, an issue I am now concerned about is (ironically) the sister problem to one of the main theses of this thread: that insulin sensitivity can lead to obesity
My concern is that LEPTIN sensitivity can ALSO lead to obesity, which can be promoted by increasing amounts of Leptin production due to eating high fat/high protein
High fat/ High protein both increases Leptin production and suppresses Ghrelin production (another important hunger/satiation hormone).
In any case, the whole "lots of cheese and nuts" thing leading to my weight stabilizing is not because I am pigging out on them per say, I can pig out on the right foods and be fine, no matter how many calories I consume.
Cheese and certain nuts contain moderate levels of carbohydrates, so eating excessive amounts can raise the gram count of carbs one eats during the day, which may or may not lead to exceeding your personal number of carbs required to maintain weight loss.
In any case, the two big ones for me as far as weight stabilization goes is the fruit and the aspartame. Aspartame can lead to hitting a wall in certain people (I am one of those) and consuming fruit is something that definitely can lead to hitting a wall, since its sugar. You aren't supposed to have fruit until you are satisfied with your weight. You wont gain weight while eating fruit on Atkins, but you wont loose any either.
If you snack on nuts and cheese it's hard to imagine still running a calorie deficit. I know, I know, they're more filling, but can they be that much more filling? I have trouble imagining, for instance, that a slice of buttered toast can be more filling that two slices of toast, even though they have roughly equivalent amounts of calories and half of the former's come from fat.
A lot of the research I did last night states that (at least in the short term) high fat/high protein diets stimulate the release of Leptin, which is a molecule that functions to promote feelings of satiation.
However, an issue I am now concerned about is (ironically) the sister problem to one of the main theses of this thread: that insulin sensitivity can lead to obesity
My concern is that LEPTIN sensitivity can ALSO lead to obesity, which can be promoted by increasing amounts of Leptin production due to eating high fat/high protein
In short, our knowledge of the extent of and mechanisms underlying human leptin resistance is fragmentary at best. It should be noted that studies of leptin resistance in obese humans would require experimental administration of high doses of the hormone, and would necessitate both FDA and sponsor approval. Needless to say, such studies would be both risky and costly.
This system is more sensitive to starvation than to overfeeding.[8] That is, leptin levels do not rise extensively after overfeeding.
This is unlike insulin, of which your body can secrete too much in response to too much carbs. So I think the risk of leptin resistance is a lot less, although that's just speculation.
If you snack on nuts and cheese it's hard to imagine still running a calorie deficit. I know, I know, they're more filling, but can they be that much more filling? I have trouble imagining, for instance, that a slice of buttered toast can be more filling that two slices of toast, even though they have roughly equivalent amounts of calories and half of the former's come from fat.
A lot of the research I did last night states that (at least in the short term) high fat/high protein diets stimulate the release of Leptin, which is a molecule that functions to promote feelings of satiation.
However, an issue I am now concerned about is (ironically) the sister problem to one of the main theses of this thread: that insulin sensitivity can lead to obesity
My concern is that LEPTIN sensitivity can ALSO lead to obesity, which can be promoted by increasing amounts of Leptin production due to eating high fat/high protein
Leptin resistance is definitely a factor in obesity. It however is not caused by eating a high fat/protein diet. Never has shown to be, and that doesnt really make any sense frankly.
What it has shown to be caused by is a diet full of lectins, which are dietary proteins in grains (most notably wheat germ agglutin). Lectins bind to leptin receptors, eventually leading to leptin resistance.
That's pretty interesting about grains geckahn. I guess one more reason to avoid them.
It's also one of the reasons why some carb heavy sources (sweet potatoes, yams) are significantly better than others. Although with the caveat that people who have developed strong insulin resistance may not handle those that well either.
Here's an entry on sweet potatoes from a great blogger i read:
We can measure the nutrient and toxin content of a food, and debate the health effects of each of its constituents until we're out of breath. But in the end, we still won't have a very accurate prediction of the health effects of that food. The question we need to answer is this one: has this food sustained healthy traditional cultures?
I'm currently reading a great book edited by Drs. Hugh Trowell and Denis Burkitt, titled Western Diseases: Their Emergence and Prevention. It's a compilation of chapters describing the diet and health of traditional populations around the world as they modernize.
The book contains a chapter on Papua New Guinea highlanders. Here's a description of their diet:
A diet survey was undertaken involving 90 subjects, in which all food consumed by each individual was weighed over a period of seven consecutive days. Sweet potato supplied over 90 percent of their total food intake, while non-tuberous vegetables accounted for less than 5 percent of the food consumed and the intake of meat was negligible... Extensive herds of pigs are maintained and, during exchange ceremonies, large amounts of pork are consumed.
They ate no salt. Their calories were almost entirely supplied by sweet potatoes, with occasional feasts on pork.
How was their health? Like many non-industrial societies, they had a high infant/child mortality rate, such that 43 percent of children died before growing old enough to marry. Surprisingly, protein deficiency was rare. No obvious malnutrition was observed in this population, although iodine-deficiency cretinism occurs in some highlands populations:
Young adults were well built and physically fit and had normal levels of haemoglobin and serum albumin. Further, adult females showed no evidence of malnutrition in spite of the demands by repeated cycles of pregnancy and lactation. On the basis of American standards (Society of Actuaries, 1959), both sexes were close to 100 percent standard weight in their twenties.
The Harvard Pack Test carried out on 152 consecutive subjects demonstrated a high level of physical fitness which was maintained well into middle-age. Use of a bicycle ergometer gave an estimated maximum oxygen uptake of 45.2 ml per kilogram per minute and thus confirmed the high level of cardiopulmonary fitness in this group.
Body weight decreased with age, which is typical of many non-industrial cultures and reflects declining muscle mass but continued leanness.
There was no evidence of coronary heart disease or diabetes. Average blood pressure was on the high side, but did not increase with age. Investigators administered 100 gram glucose tolerance tests and only 3.8 percent of the population had glucose readings above 160 mg/dL, compared to 21 percent of Americans. A study of 7,512 Papuans from several regions with minimal European contact indicated a diabetes prevalence of 0.1 percent, a strikingly low rate. For comparison, in 2007, 10.7 percent of American adults had diabetes (1).
I'm not claiming it's optimal to eat nothing but sweet potatoes. But this is the strongest evidence we're going to come by that sweet potatoes can be eaten in quantity as part of a healthy diet. However, I wish I knew more about the varieties this group ate. Sweet potatoes aren't necessarily sweet. Caribbean 'boniato' sweet potatoes are dry, starchy and off-white. In the US, I prefer the yellow sweet potatoes to the orange variety of sweet potato labeled 'yams', because the former are starchier and less sweet. If I could get my hands on locally grown boniatos here, I'd eat those, but boniatos are decidedly tropical.
Instead, I eat potatoes, but I'm reluctant to recommend them whole-heartedly because I don't know enough about the traditional cultures that consumed them. I believe there are some low-CHD, low-obesity African populations that eat potatoes as part of a starch-based diet, but I haven't looked into it closely enough to make any broad statements. Potatoes have some nutritional advantages over sweet potatoes (higher protein content, better amino acid profile), but also some disadvantages (lower fiber, lower in most micronutrients, toxic glycoalkaloids).
Apparently, one of the main problems with calorie-restricted low-fat, high carb diets is that the protein intake is often marginal in them (because the best sources of protein come with animal fats, and also because overall calories are restricted). This means that up to 50% of weight lost can be muscle weight. This lowers your metabolism and makes it more difficult to lose wieght without reducing overall calorie intake even more.
Apparently, one of the main problems with calorie-restricted low-fat, high carb diets is that the protein intake is often marginal in them (because the best sources of protein come with animal fats, and also because overall calories are restricted). This means that up to 50% of weight lost can be muscle weight. This lowers your metabolism and makes it more difficult to lose wieght without reducing overall calorie intake even more.
I guess it depends on how well you do the diet. Technically, if you keep your sugar stores relatively substantial, your liver and muscles will be able to use them to manufacture most of the proteins the body needs to maintain muscle mass. In addition, all the meats you should be eating are low calorie anyway, unfortunately, so you should be able to squeeze them in. The biggest reason your body cannibalizes muscle, or really anything, is for glucose sparing for your nervous system cause your brain's a real picky eater and cries when it misses a meal. And then cuts itself and gives itself a lethal injection while suffocating in a sealed car full of carbon dioxide
Paladin on
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
The human body can't produce protein out of nowhere. You have to eat the amino acids that you can't produce; and the source of those amino acids are in the protein of animals and plants.
That's more than 1lb per day. Amazing. What was your starting weight?
It's been 4 months. Cause I thought that sounded off too. Since my daughter has been born time has been a blur.
My starting weight was 330, I am now down to ~295. This is the first time I've been under 300lbs. since high-school.
I am 6'5" and a very large man despite my weight. My Dr. said my target weight range should be in the 260-280 range. My first goal is to hit that 280 mark, then reset my goals to hit the 260 or even less.
First thing a lot of people need to throw out is the BMI. According a BMI calculation I should weigh under 200lbs.
I would look like I was dying or had cancer if I weighed that much. My father (who I am built and almost look exactly like) got down to around 220-200 when his Thyroid went kaflooey on him and everyone (even himself) thought he was going to die because he looked so skinny/horrible.
First of all, grats on the progress dude.
Second, weight and BMI are basically useless for determining health. What matters is body composition, and you can boil that down to basically Body Fat Percentage.
Above 30% body fat is obesity; give or take a few percent. In general, you want to be below 30% at the very least to decrease the impact of fat on your health. Aiming for below 25% is a good health goal.
Best thing to do is to find a scale that can do body fat measurement via electrical impedence; hopefully your doctor has one, and most gyms should have one.
This is from a few pages back, but someone asked (I think Eljeffe) what happens to the excess calories in the body. I posed this question on the low carb thread on the something awful forums. Here is what some of the more knowledgeable people there had to say:
What do you think a calorie is and how does it relate to the human body? If you don't know that, then you won't be able to understand the answer to the question you posed.
It's past my bedtime, so the Socratic method isn't feasible. Here's the answer:
A (food) calorie is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. The method for measuring calories is to put the food item in a calorimeter. It's a completely closed system to ensure all the energy is accounted for.
You body does not operate like this. Energy is converted from carbs, fats, and proteins in different ways. Also, if your diet is ketogenic, your liver must convert some proteins into glucose. That takes energy (fat) and resources (protein). This is the reason why the "a calorie is a calorie" theory violates the second law of thermodynamics.
But this is a very small part of the entire process. Our bodies use the energy in different ways depending on a host of conditions like hormone levels. Whether the energy that was converted from food ultimately goes into fat cells for storage or muscle cells for energy is based on a very complex symphony of feedback systems.
So...to answer your original question, calories really don't directly have much to do with the way humans metabolize food. To talk about "excess calories" is absurd since it begs the question. It's premise assumes your stomach works like a steam engine or something.
Furthermore, I provide proof in the OP that no two people handle calories the same. Watch the documentary and ask yourself where the calories went. If calories mean what most people assume them to mean, how the hell did some people gain more than others?
This idea that weight loss can be managed in a meaningful way by calculating calories is horseshit. The entire premise is false, so the question is invalid.
Yes, you shit some of it out. Some of it gets used in a way that you prefer--your body doesn't want to make fat. The belief that the body has a tendency to make you fat when not under stress and duress of some kind of commando lifestyle is one born of a diet where sugar creates that tendency--not reality. In reality the majority of your organs and muscles clamor for way more energy than a fat cell does. The only way a fat cell ends up taking precedence is when insulin drives your body to produce it. If you don't have insulin you don't make any fat at *all*.
Now given all that. What does weight really matter? Does it matter? No. It doesn't. What matters is looking good in a summer catalogue, and being strong, or having endurance, or whatever your goal has to be. Fat doesn't serve that goal, but if you happen to put on weight in your skeletal muscles or smooth muscle tissue, then you wouldn't care, would you.
So when you stop triggering the excess release of insulin, the chemical substances which are all very specific and not some abstract bullshit concept of a fuel source like electrons stored in a battery, stop being used for fat creation or maintenance, and your body gradually shakes it loose. It might do that by having an abundance of reactants in cells bounce back and forth between reactions which are normally a way to make the most of a limited amount of food, and generate a bunch of extra energy in the cell which the body will tell the brain is totally ready to be used doing something--so you'll have an urge to move around, hump, or chase something. Not necessarily in that order. Or you'll have extra fat filtered out by your kidneys, ignored by your intestines, or an aging muscle cell, close to death's door, that might have had the final curtain--and had already been replaced by a newer, younger cells, will get a second chance to show it's stuff.
Either you curb the amount you eat enough that you bring your insulin down enough to lose weight, or you change your eating patterns so that you constantly keep your carb-tank partly empty, *or* you go into ketosis, to achieve the lowest possible insulin levels on a constant basis. All effective diets are forms of insulin control at varying levels of efficiency and tolerability.
The ketogenic diet's approach is the best way to avoid the creation of fat and encourage the loss of it--it also happens to be more pleasant than most restrictive diets, and is probably the only approach for anyone who is chronically tubby (even with regular exercise and decent dietary habits).
Huh. Re: that sweet-potato research above, I saw a comment on gawker the other day noting that sweet-potato fad diets were popular with hollywood types for fast fat-cutting.
Its important to note, though, that taters ain't taters. The diets of those PNG folk would mostly have been grown on nutritionally rich, healthy soils. Food grown industrially on mechanised farms (as well as food grown on old, leached soils like the stuff we have in Aus) is often grown on soils of extremely poor quality, affecting the nutritional makeup of the food. The effects aren't large on a per gram basis, but they add up over time and across your diet. The note that some PNG highland tribes suffer from iodine deficiencies is an example of what I'm talking about - soils a long way from the sea don't have much iodine, so it doesn't wind up in food grown there, and deficiencies develop in a population dependant on that incomplete food source.
Wait if I'm reading this right, a Ketogenic diet will let me eat lots of high fat cheese? Holy shit I'm trying that, if I gain 50 pounds at least I have an excuse.
I love fine cheeses
I wonder, can I eat chinese food sans rice? Something like beef and broccoli in a brown sauce, or is that still a carb nightmare?
Wait if I'm reading this right, a Ketogenic diet will let me eat lots of high fat cheese? Holy shit I'm trying that, if I gain 50 pounds at least I have an excuse.
I love fine cheeses
I wonder, can I eat chinese food sans rice? Something like beef and broccoli in a brown sauce, or is that still a carb nightmare?
Be careful with breading and sauces. Sometimes the can use starches and syrups in their sauces and gravies that are carb loaded.
Ofcourse, watch out for the rice.
I have eaten at a few chinese buffets since getting on the diet, If you don't do it all the time and watch out for the obvious stuff It shouldn't impede your progress.
You should be looking at your general diet trend, one meal here or there isn't going to destroy your effort or do all the work.
Wait if I'm reading this right, a Ketogenic diet will let me eat lots of high fat cheese? Holy shit I'm trying that, if I gain 50 pounds at least I have an excuse.
I love fine cheeses
I wonder, can I eat chinese food sans rice? Something like beef and broccoli in a brown sauce, or is that still a carb nightmare?
Be careful with breading and sauces. Sometimes the can use starches and syrups in their sauces and gravies that are carb loaded.
Ofcourse, watch out for the rice.
I have eaten at a few chinese buffets since getting on the diet, If you don't do it all the time and watch out for the obvious stuff It shouldn't impede your progress.
You should be looking at your general diet trend, one meal here or there isn't going to destroy your effort or do all the work.
Also, diary tend to have Lactose in it, though in the case of cheese I can't really think of a type of cheese that haves more then 1g of carbs in it. But, it's common for cheese maker to use corn starch in their shredded variety to avoid stickiness, maybe it's a trivial amount and I'm just being anal but it's unneeded starch non-the-less.
Breakfast: 1/3cup of oatmeal + 1/3 cup of mixed fresh fruit + splenda (one packet)
Lunch + floating snack: Leafy green salad w/ nuts and fruit (sometimes cheese)
Assorted vegetables (cauliflower, brocolli, zuchinni etc.)
Small yoghurt (Source)
More nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts usually)
Dinner: Chicken breast, Assorted cooked or cold vegetables, sometimes a salad instead.
10-14 glasses of water/ peppermint tea
So, it's low carb, but not really high protein at all.
I've done Atkins before and then a sort of modified Dr. Bernstein, lost 60 lbs over 6 months (250lbs-190lbs)
Then I fell off the wagon hard and gained 80 lbs over about 2 years.
I was diagnosed with high blood pressure about 6 months ago (220/120 at it's worst...so yeah...) so that's removed a lot of the "easier" meat options.
I've lost about 20lbs over the last 3 months on this diet, with daily rigorous exercise. It's been hard to stay ON the diet though, and that 3 months has seen a lot of breaks.
Does this look like a sensible way to eat or would being on this diet for years do something horrible to me?
Posts
I finally had time to read the whole thread (:?) and I see that you have once again succeeded in strawmanning.
Protein Shakes, from what I understand, is not saying that it's the ONLY healthy diet. He is saying that it is the healthiest. Which is correct. The link between excess insulin and diabetes is very well established. Hyperinsulinemia is a pre-diabetes stage, and is a result of your cells becoming more and more resistant to insulin. The best way to prevent it is to make sure you don't eat stuff that raises your insulin significantly. Avoid sugars and refined carbs, and minimize complex carbs as much as you can (you don't have to completely avoid them in my opinion, but don't treat them as "okay" simply because they are digested slowly), because your body doesn't need them to operate.
Geckhan, to my knowledge (again, I read the thread but maybe I missed it) never said that it is the ONLY way to lose weight. In fact both of them have stated at various points that it IS possible to lose weight on calorie-restricted diets, but it's still hard (and outright impossible if the person has high insulin resistance). With a low-carb diet, you don't have to restrict your calories as much, and you don't have to worry about weight gain as much. In other words, as long as you stick to it, you will have an easier time managing your weight overall.
The thread is mostly lacking citations, however we have the clinical experience of two medical doctors and the results of thousands of their patients as supporting evidence (according to the book's Amazon reviews and description - I haven't read it). We also have the incredible body of evidence in Taube's book. In addition, every claim they make has its foundations in medical textbooks. They are just looking at the subject from a different angle, and reaching different, more effective results.
So, Arch, I don't know what you're still trying to do. You have challenged pretty much every claim in this thread, which is good, but at one point maybe you should actually pick up the books mentioned and read them, since you seem genuinely curious about the topic (judging from your interest in this thread and the questions you have asked so far). That's what I did when geckahn mentioned it in the H/A thread and I haven't regretted it one bit.
Besides that, the topic has been quite beaten to death and everyone is going in circles now. :?
Dude no. Not everyone has an insulin response to aspartame, and those who do have a very slight one. This doesn't mean it will "prevent weight loss from occurring". Don't be ridiculous.
Edit:
I find it hilarious that the guy named Perpetual is the one to point out we're going in circles. Even though I completely agree ;p
On the whole subject matter, I personally try to stick to complex carbs for some of my calories. Especially in the morning and after I exercise. But that is specifically because I'm weightlifting and building strength, and don't want my muscle catabolized. Eating carbs in the morning breaks your fast and keeps your glucose levels up a bit for your day energy. Carbs after a workout is for replenishing glycogen. Those are the best times for eating carbs, because your body can use them fully instead of them ending up as excess glucose.
Yeah, maybe.
See, here's the thing. 99% of the time, I only drink water. The only juice I'll drink is carrot juice, but that's expensive, so I usually won't bother. I rarely eat desert, because desert is a luxury item in my budget.
So on the rare occasion where I eat a cinnabon or something, "Holy shit, sugar rush." Pretty much all fruit juice is way too sweet for me. I haven't had a soft drink in over a decade.
Don't get me wrong, I still use sugar a lot. I'm Asian, and balancing flavors is a big part of our culinary lifestyle. I find that a little sugar goes great with a lot of meat dishes. But what I won't do is drink the equivalent of 1 tablespoon of sugar per ounce of beverage. Even if you drink diet shit, you're still killing your taste buds. And that's assuming that the synthetic sweeteners have no side effects whatsoever.
Anyway, I don't really do the low carb thing. At the same time, I think that most Americans eat way more sugar than they actually need to, simply out of habit.
And on the low-carb thing, I'd say the way to catergorize it is that it's the easiest diet to lose weight with. For Americans especially, most people that eat too many calories do so because they eat too many carbohydrates. Sadly, many of the same people don't even realize that carbohydrates aren't just bread.
I dunno, I think that right now many people are rooting for Mediterranean
also high fiber and other whole grain foods are broken down in the colon into FFAs, which colon cells use for localized nutriment and general health
the problem here is, and this is a problem with all diets, is
which is the number one reason why many diets don't work, and possibly another why people are advocating calorie restriction rather than carb restriction. If the diet works for you, fine, but if you've been on it for a while and the cravings are getting pretty bad and inconvenient, then it's just not practical to maintain the diet for the rest of your life. The best diet is one that can be adhered to. That's pretty much the biggest rational argument against the atkins diet that there is.
And it may not be true for everybody, but if it's true for you, then it's not the diet you were meant to use.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Once you break your body of its dependency on sugar for fuel, it no longer desires it. In fact, you begin to avoid it at all costs, because of the weird uncomfortable feeling you get after eating it. I cannot count the number of times I have refused food on Atkins and not batted an eyelash.
I dont want bread. I don't want sugar. Do those things taste good? My memory says yes, and thats why we attempt to emulate old foods with other ingredients, but we don't need to have that almond flour cake with sugar free icing or those carbalose pancakes. But we remember that they taste good and want to try them again without the consequence of not loosing weight for up to two weeks.
On Semi-Starvation diets (which I tired before I stumbled across low carb) it was all I could do not to say yes to every offer of tempting food. Why? You are hungry. All the time. Your body tells you to eat, and so you give in after awhile, usually by binging.
On Low carb the only time of day you actually feel hungry is breakfast. The rest of the time your body is either content or giving you subtle signs that it needs food. You are never really ravenous, unless you are being dumb and skip a meal.
I'm not really convinced. The Mediterranean diet has been popularized as a result of the famous Seven Countries Study, and follow up studies such as this one. But it's pretty suspect in my opinion, because there are quite a few countries that follow that sort of diet and yet have high rates of obesity and CHD.
Basically the entire reasoning behind the popularity of the diet goes like this
1. look at those cretans living for so long, i wonder why
2. oh maybe it's their diet
3. *does a randomized study, sees some positive results, ignores all the other countries following the same diet without those results*
4. yeah, it must be the diet
You don't need to get your fiber from grains.
I disagree somewhat. "Dieting" in general doesn't work, because it implies that you are embarking on it only temporarily. In order to see permanent results, it has to be followed by some lifestyle changes. This holds true for all diets regardless of what is being restricted.
The only time I've had real cravings were during the first week or two. After that it all went away. I now see my coworkers eating chocolates and it makes me queasy.
I disagree. Sticking to an ineffective diet won't do you any good. It has to be a combination of effectiveness and ease of sticking to, but like I said, as long as you don't change your lifestyle around your diet, you won't stick to it no matter what that diet is.
For the low-carb diet, the biggest lifestyle change I had to go through was to stop eating out and start cooking my own food. Big deal? Not really. It was hard at first, but after a while I really started to enjoy it. I also saved a ton of money in the process (every meal I cook saves me between 2 to 5 dollars in opportunity cost, compared to eating out). I also had to pay more attention to carb contents in the things I regularly buy, and maybe switch them out for lower-carb or no-carb stuff. With Google this was also pretty easy.
Finally let me go out on a limb and say this: Atkins is not the only low-carb diet out there. There are plenty ways to be on a low-carb diet. It doesn't have to say "Atkins" on it. You can totally make one up on your own - just keep the overall carbs under 40g per day and you'll be totally fine. It isn't as difficult as people believe, unless you're like, totally dependent on pizza, coke, bread, cake, cookies, and beer. In which case you'll find ANY kind of diet super hard to stick to because you're probably insulin resistant already.
Though, I had to sever nearly all alcohol consumption. For some reason, alcohol just completely wrecks my shit up and literally sets me back a month in terms of diet.
This holds true for any diet by the way. There's a reason we have the term "beer belly".
My biggest resolutions were no more potatoes or potato by-products and no more plain bread.
The only exceptions for the bread things are tortillas every once in a while as part of a wrap from the deli or chick-fil-a. I've actually been keeping track of my weight loss and setting my goals on Wii-Fit.
I actually had to drill a new hole in my belt yesterday because my pants were falling off of me when I walked.
I can honestly say that I have made a pact with myself and may never eat a potato again.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
It's been 4 months. Cause I thought that sounded off too. Since my daughter has been born time has been a blur.
My starting weight was 330, I am now down to ~295. This is the first time I've been under 300lbs. since high-school.
I am 6'5" and a very large man despite my weight. My Dr. said my target weight range should be in the 260-280 range. My first goal is to hit that 280 mark, then reset my goals to hit the 260 or even less.
First thing a lot of people need to throw out is the BMI. According a BMI calculation I should weigh under 200lbs.
I would look like I was dying or had cancer if I weighed that much. My father (who I am built and almost look exactly like) got down to around 220-200 when his Thyroid went kaflooey on him and everyone (even himself) thought he was going to die because he looked so skinny/horrible.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
how much muscle do you have
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I'm totally down with cheat meals. go crazy once a week or two.
and yeah, with alcohol stick to wine and liquor w/o sugary mixers.
I just can't stick to it because of all the yummy and convenient stuff around me all the time.
My breakfast consists of one of the following:
1. Protein shake (surprise?): almond or peanut butter, a little heavy cream, protein powder, cinnamon, splenda, ice
2. Bacon and eggs, with half an avocado
Lunch is free at my company, and it is catered from various restaurants. But it always includes some types of meat, and usually green leafy veggies.
Dinner is usually chicken, steak, or pork, combined with more veggies that are steamed or cooked on olive oil/butter/lard
I also snack on various nuts throughout the day.
If you're really interested in recipes, go to the Something Awful forums, then the Watch and Weight sub-forum, and there's a low carb thread there. It's OP contains a TONNNN of recipes and links.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
I have about the same weight loss rate as you do.
~ 60 pounds in 6 months.
My starting weight was lower, though. 250lbs. I am now hovering consistently around 185. I am being a little more careless in my meal choices though, such as: eating Sugar Free Ice Cream and Yogurt (that have fruit in them) , having the occasional breaded meat if I go out to eat somewhere, eating as much cheese as I want, eating whatever nuts I want in whatever quantity (including higher carb nuts like cashews, stll staying away from peanuts though), and having the odd aspartame beverage and gum.
I have never counted carbs like some of the die hards do, but I have no doubt that I am probably approaching 60-80g per day (3-4 times what induction calls for, which you only stay in for the first two weeks for the uninformed)
All of these things contribute to my weight stabilizing at 185 . I am in better shape than I have been in since I was a skinny little 10 year old, though, and have gone from a size 40 to a size 34.
I have alot of muscle mass, so from here on out I will probably focus more on toning and less on the actual weight loss. I gain mass like a motherfucker if I actually work out, so I'll probably start doing that ( I barely excersized while loosing that much weight, btw, not that I reccomend that. I'm just a lazybones).
It depends on how much you have adapted to the diet. After a week or so your body becomes accustomed to not expecting carbs and relying on fat for energy. When that happens, one or two servings of nuts will last you a couple of hours or maybe even longer.
A lot of the research I did last night states that (at least in the short term) high fat/high protein diets stimulate the release of Leptin, which is a molecule that functions to promote feelings of satiation.
However, an issue I am now concerned about is (ironically) the sister problem to one of the main theses of this thread: that insulin sensitivity can lead to obesity
My concern is that LEPTIN sensitivity can ALSO lead to obesity, which can be promoted by increasing amounts of Leptin production due to eating high fat/high protein
In any case, the whole "lots of cheese and nuts" thing leading to my weight stabilizing is not because I am pigging out on them per say, I can pig out on the right foods and be fine, no matter how many calories I consume.
Cheese and certain nuts contain moderate levels of carbohydrates, so eating excessive amounts can raise the gram count of carbs one eats during the day, which may or may not lead to exceeding your personal number of carbs required to maintain weight loss.
In any case, the two big ones for me as far as weight stabilization goes is the fruit and the aspartame. Aspartame can lead to hitting a wall in certain people (I am one of those) and consuming fruit is something that definitely can lead to hitting a wall, since its sugar. You aren't supposed to have fruit until you are satisfied with your weight. You wont gain weight while eating fruit on Atkins, but you wont loose any either.
You mean leptin resistance, I assume.
No one has an answer.
http://ajpregu.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/295/5/R1365
But...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptin#Function
This is unlike insulin, of which your body can secrete too much in response to too much carbs. So I think the risk of leptin resistance is a lot less, although that's just speculation.
Leptin resistance is definitely a factor in obesity. It however is not caused by eating a high fat/protein diet. Never has shown to be, and that doesnt really make any sense frankly.
What it has shown to be caused by is a diet full of lectins, which are dietary proteins in grains (most notably wheat germ agglutin). Lectins bind to leptin receptors, eventually leading to leptin resistance.
It's also one of the reasons why some carb heavy sources (sweet potatoes, yams) are significantly better than others. Although with the caveat that people who have developed strong insulin resistance may not handle those that well either.
Here's an entry on sweet potatoes from a great blogger i read:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/05/sweet-potatoes.html
I guess it depends on how well you do the diet. Technically, if you keep your sugar stores relatively substantial, your liver and muscles will be able to use them to manufacture most of the proteins the body needs to maintain muscle mass. In addition, all the meats you should be eating are low calorie anyway, unfortunately, so you should be able to squeeze them in. The biggest reason your body cannibalizes muscle, or really anything, is for glucose sparing for your nervous system cause your brain's a real picky eater and cries when it misses a meal. And then cuts itself and gives itself a lethal injection while suffocating in a sealed car full of carbon dioxide
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
First of all, grats on the progress dude.
Second, weight and BMI are basically useless for determining health. What matters is body composition, and you can boil that down to basically Body Fat Percentage.
Above 30% body fat is obesity; give or take a few percent. In general, you want to be below 30% at the very least to decrease the impact of fat on your health. Aiming for below 25% is a good health goal.
Best thing to do is to find a scale that can do body fat measurement via electrical impedence; hopefully your doctor has one, and most gyms should have one.
Here is the OP he's talking about. It's VERY informative, with plenty of links.
Another answer:
Its important to note, though, that taters ain't taters. The diets of those PNG folk would mostly have been grown on nutritionally rich, healthy soils. Food grown industrially on mechanised farms (as well as food grown on old, leached soils like the stuff we have in Aus) is often grown on soils of extremely poor quality, affecting the nutritional makeup of the food. The effects aren't large on a per gram basis, but they add up over time and across your diet. The note that some PNG highland tribes suffer from iodine deficiencies is an example of what I'm talking about - soils a long way from the sea don't have much iodine, so it doesn't wind up in food grown there, and deficiencies develop in a population dependant on that incomplete food source.
I love fine cheeses
I wonder, can I eat chinese food sans rice? Something like beef and broccoli in a brown sauce, or is that still a carb nightmare?
Be careful with breading and sauces. Sometimes the can use starches and syrups in their sauces and gravies that are carb loaded.
Ofcourse, watch out for the rice.
I have eaten at a few chinese buffets since getting on the diet, If you don't do it all the time and watch out for the obvious stuff It shouldn't impede your progress.
You should be looking at your general diet trend, one meal here or there isn't going to destroy your effort or do all the work.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Also, diary tend to have Lactose in it, though in the case of cheese I can't really think of a type of cheese that haves more then 1g of carbs in it. But, it's common for cheese maker to use corn starch in their shredded variety to avoid stickiness, maybe it's a trivial amount and I'm just being anal but it's unneeded starch non-the-less.
Breakfast: 1/3cup of oatmeal + 1/3 cup of mixed fresh fruit + splenda (one packet)
Lunch + floating snack: Leafy green salad w/ nuts and fruit (sometimes cheese)
Assorted vegetables (cauliflower, brocolli, zuchinni etc.)
Small yoghurt (Source)
More nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts usually)
Dinner: Chicken breast, Assorted cooked or cold vegetables, sometimes a salad instead.
10-14 glasses of water/ peppermint tea
So, it's low carb, but not really high protein at all.
I've done Atkins before and then a sort of modified Dr. Bernstein, lost 60 lbs over 6 months (250lbs-190lbs)
Then I fell off the wagon hard and gained 80 lbs over about 2 years.
I was diagnosed with high blood pressure about 6 months ago (220/120 at it's worst...so yeah...) so that's removed a lot of the "easier" meat options.
I've lost about 20lbs over the last 3 months on this diet, with daily rigorous exercise. It's been hard to stay ON the diet though, and that 3 months has seen a lot of breaks.
Does this look like a sensible way to eat or would being on this diet for years do something horrible to me?