Eug goes on a HIGH carb diet. - I am not a supporter of low carb diets.

[Marshallj]

Originally posted by: Eug
That is a common misconception. People on diets when asked to assess caloric intake themselves have consistently been shown in studies to inaccurately assess whether caloric intake has increased or decreased.

When using strict methods governed my nutritionists to measure caloric intake, those who gained weight consistently had higher caloric intakes than needed, and those who lose weight consistently had lower caloric intake than needed.

Furthermore, people who cut out certain calories and don't lose weight have similarly been shown to have NOT changed caloric intake. For this reason it's not surprising that "diet" low-cal foods don't inherently cause a person to lose weight. They may simply eat more.

You are wrong about this. You have already admitted that you did not fully read the Atkins book, so you are not qualified to talk about it. I have.

There is NO limit to how much you can eat on the Atkins diet. How much you eat is not that important compared to WHAT you eat. You do not need to limit your serving size on the Atkins diet. My caloric intake was definitely higher, and I lost weight.

BTW, I'd be interested to read these studies. Care to post a link and show the source?

 

[Looney]

I asert that it's easier to fall off the horse with the atkins diet because of how restrictive it is.

No way... the reason why it's NOT a fad diet and has been around for over 10 years, is because people CAN stay on it, and do. If anything, i think this is the least restrictive diet. You'll NEVER go hungry... and after you've lost the weight you want, you go on a maintenance phase that increases your carb intake. Some variations of the lowcarb diet have you eating low carbs for the week, then you get a day of 2 of cheat days inwhich you can eat whatever you want... icecream, pasta, etc. Body For Life and ketogenic fall into this.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Marshallj

Originally posted by: Eug
There is no magic to these diets. The bottom line is that caloric input < output. Furthermore, will and determination is always helped with a set out regimen, whether it'd be Atkins or a more traditional diet. Perhaps that is part of the "magic" that some people experience with some diets.

BTW, I should also point out that a "high" carb diet does not necessarily mean higher than the average population's carb intake.

Indeed, many people with "high" carb diets eat LESS carbs than the average person with the same amount of activity. Yet that same average person may have what they think is a "moderate" carb diet by virtue of the fact as a proportion of total overall calories, the carbs aren't as high a percentage because the average diet has too much fat.

Carbs are not the issue, calories are. It's just that with a reduced caloric intake, most physicians and nutritionists feal that a well-balanced diet that would be the most healthy would require a proportionally relatively high carbohydrate intake.

This is plain WRONG.

Take a look at the caloric value of fat, protein, and carbohydrate. Those who have a high fat/high protein diet will have a HIGHER caloric intake than someone with a low fat/protein, high carb diet.

I frequently see people spout this incorrect "fact", because it falls in line with what they were taught about gaining and losing weight. But the issue is not as simple as that. Some foods you eat are not fully digested, and much of it passes through you. Sugar will be processed very quickly and totally absorbed, while a large percentage of corn will pass right through your system. So it would be incorrect to count the total calories from sugar and corn and compare them, since one will be totally absorbed and the other will not. Also, some foods take a lot of energy to digest, and while they may be high in calories, many calories may be expended just trying to digest them. A more accurate value of food should be used, where it takes the net caloric value (after contained vs. energy spent digesting).

Also, some people are insulin sensitive, while others are insulin insensitive. Both these types of people will benefit from different diets. One will benefit from a high protein/fat diet, while the other will benefit from a high carb diet.

It goes much deeper than the simplistic "calorie in/calorie out" view which some people think is the case. It is not that simple.

It's true that there is more to it than calories in and calories out - however I normally stick to that alone because it is far and away the most important thing. One can play with their body such that a fat gram is worth only 7 calories instead of 9 (when in ketosis). One could also take in so many calories in one sitting that they have dumping syndrome and crap out much of it before it can be digested. However, I firmly believe that most people try and get too scientific with this and figure out so precisely what's going on in their body that they don't see the forest for the trees. The true backbone of most successful diet plans will be built solidly on a foundation of reduced calories whether they are reduced through calorie intake or the difference between in and out is changed by increasing excercise.

 

[Marshallj]

Originally posted by: Moralpanic

I asert that it's easier to fall off the horse with the atkins diet because of how restrictive it is.

No way... the reason why it's NOT a fad diet and has been around for over 10 years, is because people CAN stay on it, and do. If anything, i think this is the least restrictive diet. You'll NEVER go hungry... and after you've lost the weight you want, you go on a maintenance phase that increases your carb intake. Some variations of the lowcarb diet have you eating low carbs for the week, then you get a day of 2 of cheat days inwhich you can eat whatever you want... icecream, pasta, etc. Body For Life and ketogenic fall into this.

Yeah, I'm beginning to think that this Eug guy has not read the book, hasn't understood it, or has no idea what he's talking about. When I was on the diet I certainly did not feel very restricted, and I never "Fell off the horse".

 

[Saltin]

The few people I know who were/are on the Atkins diet actually lost thier weight too fast. They end up looking emaciated with lots of extra skin everywhere.

The pounds come off so quickly with Atkins that you don't have time to replace all the lost fat with what it should be replaced with....muscle.

Muscle is the key to keeping weight off. More muscle = higher metabolism = less fat stored.
A pound of muscle consumes from 100-150 calories per day just to maintain itself.

Losing weight isnt as important as losing fat,being in shape and building strength. Regular exercise and a sensable diet is all you need.

That's why diets like Atkins are so popular. Most people don't want to exercise. They want to control thier weight solely through diet.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Marshallj

Originally posted by: Eug
There is no magic to these diets. The bottom line is that caloric input < output. Furthermore, will and determination is always helped with a set out regimen, whether it'd be Atkins or a more traditional diet. Perhaps that is part of the "magic" that some people experience with some diets.

BTW, I should also point out that a "high" carb diet does not necessarily mean higher than the average population's carb intake.

Indeed, many people with "high" carb diets eat LESS carbs than the average person with the same amount of activity. Yet that same average person may have what they think is a "moderate" carb diet by virtue of the fact as a proportion of total overall calories, the carbs aren't as high a percentage because the average diet has too much fat.

Carbs are not the issue, calories are. It's just that with a reduced caloric intake, most physicians and nutritionists feal that a well-balanced diet that would be the most healthy would require a proportionally relatively high carbohydrate intake.

This is plain WRONG.

Take a look at the caloric value of fat, protein, and carbohydrate. Those who have a high fat/high protein diet will have a HIGHER caloric intake than someone with a low fat/protein, high carb diet.

I frequently see people spout this incorrect "fact", because it falls in line with what they were taught about gaining and losing weight. But the issue is not as simple as that. Some foods you eat are not fully digested, and much of it passes through you. Sugar will be processed very quickly and totally absorbed, while a large percentage of corn will pass right through your system. So it would be incorrect to count the total calories from sugar and corn and compare them, since one will be totally absorbed and the other will not. Also, some foods take a lot of energy to digest, and while they may be high in calories, many calories may be expended just trying to digest them. A more accurate value of food should be used, where it takes the net caloric value (after contained vs. energy spent digesting).

Also, some people are insulin sensitive, while others are insulin insensitive. Both these types of people will benefit from different diets. One will benefit from a high protein/fat diet, while the other will benefit from a high carb diet.

It goes much deeper than the simplistic "calorie in/calorie out" view which some people think is the case. It is not that simple.

I edited my message after you quoted it, but the gist of it is the same. My edited version is there.

Anyways, while I agree that it's not as simple as in vs. out, to a large extent this is true. If you were to believe studies from the early 1900s vs studies now, the carb intake now is about the SAME for the absolute value. However, the fat and protein intake now has increased dramatically, partially because of the high availability of meat and dairy products now. And of course, on average, the population is much more obese now, despite the lack of change in the intake of carbs.

Also, I should point out that people with a high fat and protein intake generally have much slower gastrointestinal motility. With slow GI motility it's potentially easier to absorb much more of the dietary fat.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

The important thing to remember about the Atkins "diet" is that it is not a diet at all... it is a lifestyle change.

It basically teaches you to avoid refined carbs - for the rest of your life. It is really easy to do this, and with the cheat days - maintenance is really easy.

Everybody interested in keeping weight off is on some sort of regimen or another. Weight will come back if you fall off any regimen.

The Atkins diet works for me, and is incredibly easy to follow. I feel better on it, and when combined with simple aerobic exercise the weight loss is dramatic.

 

[Looney]

The few people I know who were/are on the Atkins diet actually lost thier weight too fast. They end up looking emaciated with lots of extra skin everywhere.

The pounds come off so quickly with Atkins that you don't have time to replace all the lost fat with what it should be replaced with....muscle.

Um, were they working out? You need to work out for muscles you know.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Originally posted by: Marshallj

Originally posted by: Moralpanic

I asert that it's easier to fall off the horse with the atkins diet because of how restrictive it is.

No way... the reason why it's NOT a fad diet and has been around for over 10 years, is because people CAN stay on it, and do. If anything, i think this is the least restrictive diet. You'll NEVER go hungry... and after you've lost the weight you want, you go on a maintenance phase that increases your carb intake. Some variations of the lowcarb diet have you eating low carbs for the week, then you get a day of 2 of cheat days inwhich you can eat whatever you want... icecream, pasta, etc. Body For Life and ketogenic fall into this.

Yeah, I'm beginning to think that this Eug guy has not read the book, hasn't understood it, or has no idea what he's talking about. When I was on the diet I certainly did not feel very restricted, and I never "Fell off the horse".

I fell off the horse last June while preparing for the bar... it was too hard to cook while studying 12 hours a day. I am slowly getting back on, and I already feel better I'll lose 100 lbs, or die trying.

 

[Marshallj]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
It's true that there is more to it than calories in and calories out - however I normally stick to that alone because it is far and away the most important thing. One can play with their body such that a fat gram is worth only 7 calories instead of 9 (when in ketosis). One could also take in so many calories in one sitting that they have dumping syndrome and crap out much of it before it can be digested. However, I firmly believe that most people try and get too scientific with this and figure out so precisely what's going on in their body that they don't see the forest for the trees. The true backbone of most successful diet plans will be built solidly on a foundation of reduced calories whether they are reduced through calorie intake or the difference between in and out is changed by increasing excercise.

Yeah, I've mentioned that simple sugars are absorbed the fastest and will make you fat in no time if you don't exercize a lot. They're the worst thing to eat if you're trying to lose weight. Some people will mention that that they think that they don't eat too many simple sugars, but they just don't know that they are eating them.

Herein lies what I see as the main problem today- If you look at the ingredient list of almost any food nowadays, you'll see that one of the first things listed (highest amount used) is sugar. I used to never look at the ingredient list before I went on the Atkins diet because I wasn't watching my carb intake. But after getting in the habit of looking at the ingredient list of everything, I quickly realized that in modern America, sugar is artificially added to just about everything.

I've had discussions with people that were from Europe, and one thing they mentioned is how sweet everything over here is. They even mentioned how their German chocolate wouldn't be too popular in America because it isn't sweet enough compared to American chocolate. American manufacturers seem to believe that Americans want everything to be sweet- their bread, their chocolate, their cereal, their peanut butter, their crackers, etc.

So while a food does not necessarily HAVE TO be high in sugar, there's a very good chance that it is because it has been added by the manufacturer. It's everywhere, and it's hard to find foods here that don't have much sugar added.

I think that is one of the main causes of obesity in the US- the adding of sugar to everything.

 

[Marshallj]

Originally posted by: Saltin

The pounds come off so quickly with Atkins that you don't have time to replace all the lost fat with what it should be replaced with....muscle.

Muscle is the key to keeping weight off. More muscle = higher metabolism = less fat stored.
A pound of muscle consumes from 100-150 calories per day just to maintain itself.

Losing weight isnt as important as losing fat,being in shape and building strength. Regular exercise and a sensable diet is all you need.

That's why diets like Atkins are so popular. Most people don't want to exercise. They want to control thier weight solely through diet.

No matter what diet you are on, you will have a VERY hard time building muscle while you are losing weight. If you are losing fat, you will be losing muscle too- it's almost unavoidable.

That's why bodybuilders go through build and cut phases... because you're not going to do both at once. You are either gaining muscle (and some fat along with it), or you are losing fat (and some muscle along with it). If you read any good fitness article, you'll see that you're not going to build muscle WHILE losing fat.

 

[Eug]

There is NO limit to how much you can eat on the Atkins diet. How much you eat is not that important compared to WHAT you eat. You do not need to limit your serving size on the Atkins diet. My caloric intake was definitely higher, and I lost weight.

BTW, I'd be interested to read these studies. Care to post a link and show the source?

Efficacy and safety of low-carbohydrate diets: a systematic review.
Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, Stanford University School of Medicine
Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"Among the published studies, participant weight loss while using low-carbohydrate diets was principally associated with decreased caloric intake and increased diet duration but not with reduced carbohydrate content."

Herein lies what I see as the main problem today- If you look at the ingredient list of almost any food nowadays, you'll see that one of the first things listed (highest amount used) is sugar. I used to never look at the ingredient list before I went on the Atkins diet because I wasn't watching my carb intake. But after getting in the habit of looking at the ingredient list of everything, I quickly realized that in modern America, sugar is artificially added to just about everything.

Yep. And a lot of those high carb foods also have high fat too. But more importantly, they are simply high calorie, and people simply eat too much of them.

I personally generally try to cook food myself, but much of that is simply because it usually tastes better. Or I'll go to a restaurant that makes food well with good quality ingredients, but they tend to be pricey. I tend to avoid fast food burger joints, etc.

 

[Marshallj]

Originally posted by: Eug

There is NO limit to how much you can eat on the Atkins diet. How much you eat is not that important compared to WHAT you eat. You do not need to limit your serving size on the Atkins diet. My caloric intake was definitely higher, and I lost weight.

BTW, I'd be interested to read these studies. Care to post a link and show the source?

Efficacy and safety of low-carbohydrate diets: a systematic review. (Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, Stanford University School of Medicine)

"Among the published studies, participant weight loss while using low-carbohydrate diets was principally associated with decreased caloric intake and increased diet duration but not with reduced carbohydrate content."

That didn't really have enough infomation for me to make any conclusions.

But from the very first line: "Low-carbohydrate diets have been popularized without detailed evidence of their efficacy or safety", it seemed like they started the study with a slant against this type of diet, instead of being completely objective.

 

[Eug]

That didn't really have enough infomation for me to make any conclusions.

But from the very first line: "Low-carbohydrate diets have been popularized without detailed evidence of their efficacy or safety", it seemed like they started the study with a slant against this type of diet, instead of being completely objective.

It's always good to question the validity of any study, and to view any research with a critical eye.

However, I believe the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research to be a more reliable body and source of information than say a diet website trying to generate hits.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: Eug

There is NO limit to how much you can eat on the Atkins diet. How much you eat is not that important compared to WHAT you eat. You do not need to limit your serving size on the Atkins diet. My caloric intake was definitely higher, and I lost weight.

BTW, I'd be interested to read these studies. Care to post a link and show the source?

Efficacy and safety of low-carbohydrate diets: a systematic review.
Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, Stanford University School of Medicine
Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"Among the published studies, participant weight loss while using low-carbohydrate diets was principally associated with decreased caloric intake and increased diet duration but not with reduced carbohydrate content."

Hmm if you would read the entire studies and not just the conclusion, they were comparing 60 g/d with 20 g/d of carbohydrates a day... 60 g/d is still consider a low carbohydrate diet when the average 'normal' diet is about 200 g/d.

So what this study was comparing was low carb at 60 g/d with low carbing at 20 g/d a day... you do lose more weight at 20 g/d a day, because you're in ketosis... but Atkins has always said that even on the 'maintenance' diet, you'll continue to lose weight if you're obese, just not as fast. And i can partially understand that you do lower your calories on the diet... at least after awhile. Because you're just not as hungry. You don't have the insulin spikes that you did when you were eating high amounts of carbs. Sometimes i'll go through the entire day not eating because i don't remember to.... which isn't what i want since i am trying to pack on muscles.

 

[Looney]

Anyways, most people don't understand the low carb diet... and can't come up with an argument as to why it's unhealthy. "All that cholesterol can't be good for you"... but there has been research that blood cholesterol levels DO lower while on the diet. "It can't be good for the heart"... why not? Because the fat will clog the arteries? What they don't understand is that when you're eating low carbs, fat has a different role in the body. When you eat carbs, you get an insulin response, that causes the body to use sugar as a source for fuel, and to store the fat for emergencies... but on low carbing, fat isn't stored, but used as an energy instead.

Whatever diet works for you, then use it. Just as different people prefer different exercises, different people are going to prefer different systems. If you think low carbing is just a fad, then you're IGNORANT. It's been around for 10+ years, and there's no sign of it diminishing... if anything, it's getting more popular. BFL, CKD, ketogenic, paleolethic diet, low carbing, protein power, etc, etc.

 

[Eug]

Hmm if you would read the entire studies and not just the conclusion, they were comparing 60 g/d with 20 g/d of carbohydrates a day... 60 g/d is still consider a low carbohydrate diet when the average 'normal' diet is about 200 g/d.

That is not correct.

This was a meta-analysis of 3268 patients, with carbohydrate per day values ranging from VERY low all the way up to 900 g/day.

663 of those patients (20%) were on diets of less than 60 g/d. In turn, of those 663 patients, 71 of them were at a very low 20 g/d.

Generally when you consider something as statistically significant, one likes to have a p value < 0.05. Here are the p values for the study for weight loss:

Longer diet duration - 0.002
Calorie restriction - 0.03
Carbohydrate level - 0.9.

ie. There is a strong association between weight loss vs. diet duration and/or calorie restriction, but there is no direct independent statistically significant association between carb level and weight loss.

The bottom line is if you want to lose weight you have to eat less calories, and doing it for a longer period helps.

 

[elzmaddy]

Nurtition wise, I wouldn't really know. Weight loss in itself is not complicated. Carb (and thus, calorie) reducation was the main thing I used. I found losing weight is really easy. I was so successful that my friends started being concerned about me .. Went from like 175 to 135 in a couple of months I think it was? (I'm 5'9"). People that I didn't even know would tell me that I lost a lot of weight. I just wanted to lose a little, but I overshot my goal by a lot. Now I look more normal, and I am much more liberal with eating habits.

 

[Looney]

This was a meta-analysis of 3268 patients, with carbohydrate per day values ranging from VERY low all the way up to 900 g/day.

663 of those patients (20%) were on diets of less than 60 g/d. In turn, of those 663 patients, 71 of them were at a very low 20 g/d.

I know it was a meta-study, but the abstract didn't say anything about the high carb subjects... so we don't know if they even lost weight on it. This was comparing the 60g/d with the 20g/d subjects, unless you're seeing something that i'm not.

Efficacy and safety of low-carbohydrate diets: a systematic review

They were only looking at low-carbohydrate diets, not comparing low carb from a high carb diet.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Moralpanic

This was a meta-analysis of 3268 patients, with carbohydrate per day values ranging from VERY low all the way up to 900 g/day.

663 of those patients (20%) were on diets of less than 60 g/d. In turn, of those 663 patients, 71 of them were at a very low 20 g/d.

I know it was a meta-study, but the abstract didn't say anything about the high carb subjects... so we don't know if they even lost weight on it. This was comparing the 60g/d with the 20g/d subjects, unless you're seeing something that i'm not.

Efficacy and safety of low-carbohydrate diets: a systematic review

They were only looking at low-carbohydrate diets, not comparing low carb from a high carb diet.

Everything I quoted is directly from the abstract. Only about 20% of the patients were on diets of 60 g/d or less. The rest were above 60 g/d.

The conclusion was that having 60 g/d or less carbs did not inherently contribute to weight loss. It's the overall calories that matters.

They also said they couldn't comment on 20 g/d or less carbs - I suspect this is probably because there weren't enough patients in the group to give a meaningful result one way or another.

----

All this talk is making me hungry. I'm gonna go out for some (light) Korean food tonite I think...

 

[Looney]

The conclusion was that having 60 g/d or less carbs did not inherently contribute to weight loss. And they said they couldn't comment on 20 g/d or less carbs. I suspect this is probably because there weren't enough patients in the group to reach statistical significance.

You're reading that study completely wrong. They were ONLY looking at low carb diets... 60g/d and 20g/d. 60g/d DID cause weight lost, and did 20g/d... but there was no difference from 60g/d from 20g/d, aside from caloric deficit.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Moralpanic

The conclusion was that having 60 g/d or less carbs did not inherently contribute to weight loss. And they said they couldn't comment on 20 g/d or less carbs. I suspect this is probably because there weren't enough patients in the group to reach statistical significance.

You're reading that study completely wrong. They were ONLY looking at low carb diets... 60g/d and 20g/d. 60g/d DID cause weight lost, and did 20g/d... but there was no difference from 60g/d from 20g/d, aside from caloric deficit.

From here:

The researchers' meta-analysis found that people on diets of 60 or fewer grams of carbohydrates a day (a threshold used in some of the popular low-carbohydrate diets) did lose weight. But the weight loss was associated with restriction of caloric intake and longer diet duration, not with reduced carbohydrate intake. It also found that the greatest weight loss occurred among those participants on diets with the highest baseline weight and lowest caloric content.

"The greatest predictors of weight loss appear to be caloric intake and diet duration," she said. "The findings suggest that if you want to lose weight, you should eat fewer calories and do so over a long time period."

The researchers found no significant adverse effects on cholesterol, glucose, insulin and blood-pressure levels among participants on the diets. But, Bravata stressed, the adverse effects may not have shown up within the short period of the studies. She also said losing weight typically leads to an improvement in some of these levels, so this could have had an impact on the numbers.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: Eug

Originally posted by: Moralpanic

The conclusion was that having 60 g/d or less carbs did not inherently contribute to weight loss. And they said they couldn't comment on 20 g/d or less carbs. I suspect this is probably because there weren't enough patients in the group to reach statistical significance.

You're reading that study completely wrong. They were ONLY looking at low carb diets... 60g/d and 20g/d. 60g/d DID cause weight lost, and did 20g/d... but there was no difference from 60g/d from 20g/d, aside from caloric deficit.

From here:

The researchers' meta-analysis found that people on diets of 60 or fewer grams of carbohydrates a day (a threshold used in some of the popular low-carbohydrate diets) did lose weight. But the weight loss was associated with restriction of caloric intake and longer diet duration, not with reduced carbohydrate intake. It also found that the greatest weight loss occurred among those participants on diets with the highest baseline weight and lowest caloric content.

"The greatest predictors of weight loss appear to be caloric intake and diet duration," she said. "The findings suggest that if you want to lose weight, you should eat fewer calories and do so over a long time period."

The researchers found no significant adverse effects on cholesterol, glucose, insulin and blood-pressure levels among participants on the diets. But, Bravata stressed, the adverse effects may not have shown up within the short period of the studies. She also said losing weight typically leads to an improvement in some of these levels, so this could have had an impact on the numbers.

That does make sense... at lower carb intake, you don't get the insulin spikes you do with a high carb diet, so you're not as hungry... so you don't eat as much. So yes, you will lose weight... just what i said in my earlier posts. But i think what the study missed, was that the reason why 20g/d would be more effective would be because you enter what's known as ketosis, where the body actively burns fat for fuel rather than carbs.

Of course if you're going to be eating 60g/d, you're not going to be in ketosis, so the only weight loss you can have is caloric deficit, like any other diets. But once you're in ketosis, which requires 20g/d or less, different systems do kick in.

 

[Rudee]

Originally posted by: Moralpanic
High protein/low carb diet has been around for at least 10 years (that's how long i've been aware of it)... so i hardly think it's a fad, especially considering that almost all new diets that come out these days are based upon this (body for life, CKD, ketogenic, etc).

Actually, low carb diets have been around since the late 60's. Even during the 70's when Arnold was competing, he would reduce his carbs to under 100gms per day prior to the Mr. Olympia contest.

 

[Rudee]

Originally posted by: Saltin
Muscle is the key to keeping weight off. More muscle = higher metabolism = less fat stored.
A pound of muscle consumes from 100-150 calories per day just to maintain itself.

Losing weight isnt as important as losing fat,being in shape and building strength. Regular exercise and a sensable diet is all you need.

That's why diets like Atkins are so popular. Most people don't want to exercise. They want to control thier weight solely through diet.

I'll agree with that.