ExRx.net

So here I was again on the net, trying to find articles to support low-carb as the "quick fix" for cutting a bit of adipose, admittedly guilty of cherry picking in pubmed articles, when I found this series...

http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319
http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=459
http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=536

I couldn't ignore it, there's so much data.... it rips apart insulin being the culprit, shows how protein spikes insulin just as much as carbs, how people on dairy products don't gain weight, etc etc.. really an interesting (if frustrating) read if you have the time

Now i'm kind of pissed off... I wanted to be right, low-carb made so much sense, and it worked for me, its just really annoying to see another 360 in the nutrition world... now its back to low-calories.

I only had time to skim through the articles, but I'm surely going to read them properly later. I just wanted to say these ones seem more like taking on GCBC rather than the low-carbing (BTW, on the point of dairy, I always kept eating it as a dependable source of proteins and good stuff, I thought only strict paleos were against it?)

If you agree with me, then what you're saying is if someone manages to shoot down Taubes, the entire low-carb thing goes belly up. But I don't think this is the case. I'm probably going to sound like a broken record now but there are many who don't subscribe to Taubes' views, yet they are using low-carb in some form or another.

Low-carb to me really is an umbrella term and one that even some low-carbers don't like being put under. You have low-carbers who think every single little gram of CHO counts, and those who say carbs from vegetables shouldn't be counted at all. There are some who think you shouldn't be eating fruit at all. There are low-carbers who only are such on rest days. Then there's the whole "crusade" against grains, but what about starches? And dairy. My point being, there are lot of approaches to low-carbing out there - and that's without even without discussing what the whole "high-this" and "low-that" means to different people.

My personal view is that if you take look at the caloric intake of an average person who is not exercising, the budget - in terms of macronutrients - does not allow too many carbs after the basic need for protein (and the fat that goes along with it in most cases) is satisfied.

Protein intake is the weak point of most "mainstream" diets anyway, so low-carb appears as logically unavoidable under the constraints we're working under.

For people who are exercising, energy needs are higher but the protein need is increased too, so to a certain extent, the two effects cancel themselves out. However, if a certain threshold in activity level is overcome, the need for carbs is increased.

For instance, it seems athletes at the pro level are burning so much energy that if they were not consuming massive amounts of carbs, it would be otherwise impossible for them to ensure optimal performance throughout their training sessions. But who, in their right mind, would apply a pro diet to a couch potato? well if you look at the macro partitioning as recommended by many (not all) low-carb opposers, the diet would only contain enough proteins if one were to consume an astronomic amount of calories each day.

Finally, on the matter of low calorie being hip again. I don't think it's ever gone away. It's always been here, but most people can't really be bothered to do calorie counting, ever, which is what you need to do at some point, unless you have someone doing it for you or you have a pretty good grasp of what you need to eat and can guesstimate your diet "on the fly", something you can get good at if you do calorie counting, i.e. we're back to square one.

For those who follow what's often called a "lifestyle" approach, low-carb is, among other things, an indirect way to achieve calorie restriction.

_________________
I don't know where the blind could lead the sightless
but I'd still like to witness

Mark, good answer. It is more an attack on Taubes than low-carb. A cursory glance shows that some of his data supports low-carb and some doesn't. In my opinion, the best way to build muscle and lose fat is to cycle carbs, fat and calories over a cycle while maintaining adequate protein throughout. No "all or nothing" diet has ever worked as well, whether it's low carb, high carb, low fat, high fat. The cycle length may change, and I've seen daily cylcles, alternate day cycles, weekly cycles or longer bulking/cutting cycles that all work. Low carb is perfectly suited for those cutting cycles, you just can't go forever on it.

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Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

Stuward, can you give me an overview of your carb cycling approach or link to some references? I'm intigued and dont know where to start looking!

teafan, I'm preparing to leave for a trip right now. The easiest cycle is to eat more carbs on your workout days and then go to a low carb day following. Overall you need to be in a slight calorie deficit. Keep your protein high throughout and you should build muscle and lose fat at the same time. There are posts about the "Anabolic Diet" here somewhere. It's an e-book. You can also read "The TNT Diet". It's probably in your library.

_________________
Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

teafan, I'm at work now and I have a few minutes. We have a sticky on the subject from a few years ago here: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4179

Since then there have been some new developments.

Nutrient timing has been studied. There was a study we discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=7859

Intermitant Fasting is becoming popular. This varies depending on who's program you follow but you may want to read "The Warrior Diet", Eat, Stop Eat", Leangains, etc. All depend on carb/calorie restriction followed by unrestricted eating later.

"The Anabolic Diet" is a traditional low carb during the week with a refeed on the weekends. It's primarily aimed at body builders. It's easy to fing an copy of the e-book with a little googling. The authour has an updated version, now called "Metabolic Diet" on his website here: http://www.metabolicdiet.com/maurodipasquale.htm

This should get you started. In my opinion, everyone here, or at least those that are making progress, does cycling of some type. Whether they call it refeeds, fasting, bulking/cutting, etc, it's all cycling. It's built into our genetic code that we need periods of feasting and famine. We didn't evolve to have a constant flow of blood sugar this is what stimulates over eating and obeisity.

_________________
Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

Starting with link 1.
An important quote from "myth" 1.

"However, in healthy people, insulin only goes up in response to meals"

Healthy people are not the problem. So this doesn't really support what they are trying prove.

2 "MYTH: Carbohydrate Drives Insulin, Which Drives Fat Storage

FACT: Your Body Can Synthesize and Store Fat Even When Insulin Is Low"
This is a non-sequitur. Your body being able to store some fat with low insulin says nothing about the quantity of this storage, nor does it say anything about whether or not the "myth" is false.

3 "MYTH: Insulin Makes You Hungry

FACT: Insulin Suppresses Appetite"

This is a blatant straw man. Nobody says insulin makes you hungry. It's the crash that follows the spike, as well as the resistance to insulin function that is the problem. If someone is hungry despite high insulin levels, that's a sign of a medical problem.

4 "MYTH: Carbohydrate Is Singularly Responsible for Driving Insulin

FACT: Protein Is a Potent Stimulator of Insulin Too"

What do you know, another straw man. The answer is kind of confusing, why single out protein? Eating a very large meal stimulates insulin. Carbs just produce more. This is obvious. Food stimulates insulin. If it didn't you would die without carbs. duh.

Then they go on to conclude there is nothing wrong with insulin. That's true in the healthy people they are talking about. Which is by DEFINITION. Of course there is nothing wrong with their insulin, if there was they wouldn't be healthy now would they? That's like saying heart attacks are not a problem, because they don't happen to healthy people. All this stuff about insulin only matters to people with some problem in their insulin function, which are by definition NOT healthy people in that way.

That's too many logical fallacies for me to even bother with the other links.

By the way, I do bulk with a diet somewhat high in carbs.

Is it?

http://www.mendosa.com/insulin_index.htm



But then again we use the same argument when we are told that too much protein will hurt your kidneys :) BTW when he says "healthy" he means "not diabetic", which says nothing about insulin sensitivity of the average couch potato.

_________________
I don't know where the blind could lead the sightless
but I'd still like to witness

Ironman I think you have way too closed of a mind on the whole carb/insulin thing.

I could have used you Ironman, during dinner last night. I got into a heated debate about nutritional health with a doctor (not a medical doctor but she has a Phd and said she took some medical courses).

to be fair, in the second link
http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=459

the last point addresses Healthy vs diabetic people...

But who were they testing? There is a big difference between diabetic and normal insulin function. With kidneys it's much more straight forward. It's a matter of yes you have it or no you don't, in regard to protein. Besides that my point was that in healthy people, they don't really have to watch their carbs that much. Some people don't seem to have much of a problem with it.

By the way, "this is obvious" refers to food in general stimulating insulin. The next sentence you left out of that quote says just that if you go back to the original message.

Based on what? How exactly am I closed minded? Wouldn't I dismiss it out of hand if that was the case?

If you look at that post you might notice that my entire problem with the study was about logical fallacies. I can't be certain if it was stupidity or deliberate deception, but it doesn't logically follow.

Suppose I say "if you eat nothing but ice cream, you will be fat and unhealthy." "Therefore only low carb is the one true diet." You would object to that wouldn't you? It's a straw man argument, and a non-sequitur. I made it very obviously so, for ease of understanding. They are generally more subtle though.

Have you even read any books on the subject? Like maybe "Good Calorie Bad Calorie", or even better "Why We Get Fat"? Try a book like that which goes over studies, and explains what all we learned from them. Things like that contain some pretty good evidence, all neatly compiled in one place. But even with a lot of evidence on one side, and very little on the other, I still look at studies that are presented to me. I do this despite the fact that I have seen literally hundreds of studies over the years, and they've mostly been crap.

Then of course there is my own undocumented empirical evidence, of countless people that I have gotten to lose weight with those methods, when they were having very little luck otherwise. So yes, I'm very skeptical. But no, I do not dismiss anything out of hand, FFS I explained it in detail. All that despite having read hundreds of crap studies of a VERY similar nature over the course of several years.

You know what is close minded? Dismissing someone's argument out of hand by accusing them of being close minded. That's called an "ad hominem" by the way.