Does Low Carb Diet Just Mean Low Calorie Diet?
Does low carb high fat work better, or high carb low fat? Or does it not matter because carbs turn into fat anyway if not used?
Does low carb high fat work better, or high carb low fat? Or does it not matter because carbs turn into fat anyway if not used?
Low carb/high fat diet is an unrestricted calorie diet. With Atkins way of eating, there is NO portion control, NO calorie restrictions. This is how 500#+ people can lose weight even on 10,000 calories a day and not just a little weight, massive weight loss quickly. As long as you keep your carbs less than 9grams an hour (144grams per day) you shouldn’t gain weight no matter the calories since you don’t trigger insulin, the fat storage hormone.
Even high carb/low fat needs to be calorie controlled and less than 9grams of carbs for optimal health and is fine for people of normal weight.
It is true that long term low carbers end up eating a lower calorie diet, not because they’ve eliminated a lot of foods but their bodies eat what it needs of highly nutritious foods and doesn’t require the empty calorie foods. Most long term low carbers eat more (or at least as many – I bet more) green vegetables than vegetarians.
If you’re overweight, that usually means that you have a problem processing carbs properly or ingest a diet with unbalanced carbs otherwise your fat storage wouldn’t be visible.
The reason, I believe that obesity has just become an epidemic is the proliferation of processed foods, long term high carbage foods and in the low fat era removing fat and replacing it with sugar in EVERYTHING. I can not imagine all these educated people pushing sugar as a healthy food. Fat will not make a person fat.
Low blood sugar (which results from high blood sugar & equally high insulin) triggers hunger (even after eating sufficiently). Long term high insulin creates an insulin sensitivity, that can trigger insulin with just the thought of food (which is the theory behind why sugar free sodas cause weight gain). Long term carb intake damages the receptors on muscle tissue and causes Insulin resistance. Insulin then sweeps all the nutrition directly to fat cells causing muscles to scream for the nutrition they are not getting. You have these 2 biological demands for nutrition, controlling portions is just not an option. You can be full as a tick not able to eat another bite and the body is driving you to eat and not healthy foods the easily converted to glucose foods (sugar & starches) It becomes a vicious circle and you get fatter & fatter and don’t understand why. Then there is the depression when well meaning people tell you that if you’d just control it you wouldn’t be so fat & that drives some people to eat even more.
The ONLY way to break the cycle is with a low carb way of eating and not just any low carb way of eating, the Atkins way. Some people become so insulin sensitive, so insulin resistant, they can not handle moderate carb levels not even low carb levels. They must go to nearly no carb levels for a long period to allow their pancreas, adrenals, muscle receptors to heal (which could take years if ever)
Dr.Atkins was a cardiologist, low carb was a health plan easier sold as a “diet” Read any of his books for easily understandable science. Normalizing blood pressure, blood sugar, insulin, cholesterol, triglyercerides and hormone levels are all bonus features of doing a low carb way of eating. Lutz “Life without Bread” & Taubes “Good calories, Bad calories” are excellent books that dispel all the nutrition myths.