myHeartyHeart.com >> Heart Disease Talk >> can low carbing be unsafe?
can low carbing be unsafe?
Question:
Hi, Please can someone advise, I’m very confused! Ive heard of the success that a lot of people seem to have with low carbing for weight loss and management. Im 5ft 5 (170 pounds) and am about 35 pounds overweight. I dont have a very sedatery lifestyle and my diet consists mainly of carbohydrate foods. Ive been on the pill and since doing so have gained weight (despite not increasing my food intake or lowering activity). Im pretty sure im not eating too many calories as i watch what i eat, but i dont understand why even after eating low fat foods and reducing calories my weight stays the same. (I doubt i eat more than 1200 a day), i get full quickly too and find i cant finish of normal sized portions that my friends manage to. Im thinking that instead of workingout excessively and losing weight (only to put it on again), id like to see if a more long term solution will be better. I have pcos. I dont know if i am insulin resistant or anything. Basically i want to know, is it safe for me to go on a low carb diet, or can it cause any harm? if i go on it for a few weeks, then start eating more carbs (but maintain exercise), will i then put on weight as a result? as it can help you lose weight by withdrawing carbs, will increasin them later on cause a gain in weight? Thanks for your advice. regards, Surinder.
Response:
I think there’s an article that offers the " pros and cons " of the various diet plans in this month’s Delicious! Maga- zine online. The article is an interview with a holisitically learned nutritionist. Here’s a link to the magazine : <A HREF="http://www.delicious-online.com/"Delicious! Magazine Online</A If this link doesn’t work, feel free to e-mail me and I’ll resend it to you. Choose the option of viewing the " Current Issue ". The link will take you to the homepage. " Truth is what stands the test of experience. " Albert Einstein 1950
Response:
I think there’s an article that offers the " pros and cons " of the various diet plans in this month’s Delicious! Maga- zine online. The article is an interview with a holisitically learned nutritionist. Here’s a link to the magazine : <A HREF="http://www.delicious-online.com/"Delicious! Magazine Online</A
You could also gain a lot of insight by reading the News Group alt.support.diet.low-carb, and asking some questions there. While most participants are following the low-carb diet because they have found it to work well, they are always helpful in answering questions in a factual rather than emotional way. -John Sangster
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi, Please can someone advise, I’m very confused! Ive heard of the success that a lot of people seem to have with low carbing for weight loss and management. Im 5ft 5 (170 pounds) and am about 35 pounds overweight. I dont have a very sedatery lifestyle and my diet consists mainly of carbohydrate foods. Ive been on the pill and since doing so have gained weight (despite not increasing my food intake or lowering activity). Im pretty sure im not eating too many calories as i watch what i eat, but i dont understand why even after eating low fat foods and reducing calories my weight stays the same. (I doubt i eat more than 1200 a day), i get full quickly too and find i cant finish of normal sized portions that my friends manage to. Im thinking that instead of workingout excessively and losing weight (only to put it on again), id like to see if a more long term solution will be better. I have pcos. I dont know if i am insulin resistant or anything.
You probably need to talk to a doctor to get some advice on what the right kind of diet is for you. A nutritionist can also be a big help. The problem with using the internet is whoever you post to can’t get all the answers he needs to get you some really great advice. That being said, let me say I think you are on the right track. If you work out and lose weight, and then it comes back, I would have to assume that you quit working out. If so, vary the routine to erase the boredom rather than quit all together. Count your calories. If you say you think you eat less than 1200, then take the time to be sure. 1200 is pretty small for 170 lbs. My wife is the same weight and height, and her doctor told her to keep it under 1500. She didn’t realize how many calories were in a coke, candy bar, etc. Keeping it below 1500, she had good success. She just hasn’t stuck with it. I don’t like eliminating carbs and replacing with protein, but your post doesn’t address that. Too many carbs is not good either, but everyone has different metabolisms. How is your vegetable and fruit intake. If that is low, add some and see what happens. And don’t forget to drink plenty of water. — Visit the sage at http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/2748
Response:
I don’t like eliminating carbs and replacing with protein, but your post doesn’t address that.
This is the classic mistake that people make who don’t know what the low-carb diet does. If anything, it eliminates (or restricts) carbohydrates and replaces them with — get this — F A T S ! ! ! ! It also allows unlimited fat and protein intake. And according to a Bellevue Hospital (NYC) study done a few decades ago, the optimal ratio of fat calories to protein calories for most rapid weight loss is about 80% fat calories to 20% protein calories, as long as carbohydrates are tightly limited. That works out to about 64% fats by weight, by the way, if I did the math right when I did the conversion a couple of years ago. (But it’s not rocket science to check, of course.) Why does this work? Because, as I said before, most very fat people have a blockage in metabolizing carbohydrate, which causes them to lay down most of their calorie intake as fat, when they are eating a lot of carbohydrate. Eliminate the carbohydrate, and BINGO<, they suddenly lose this problem… and a lot of weight, too. How can this POSSIBLY work, calories in minus calories out yada yada yada? It works because it speeds up the metabolism and puts it in "regulate the weight to a constant" mode, like normal (non-obese) peoples’ metabolism. And the diet requires you to drink a lot of water which, as you of course recall from high-school physics, has a "latent heat of evaporation". By evaporating water as necessary, the body keeps itself cool as the fat burns, and the water carries the excess heat away. But isn’t it DANGEROUS? I mean, all that fat, won’t it kill you with heart disease? Nope. Most people who go on the diet find that their triglycerides and their serum cholesterol numbers go into the "normal" zone as soon as they go on the diet, i.e. within weeks. I’d recommend having those numbers checked, on any new dietary regimen, especially one that is not well-understood by mainstream doctors. But don’t expect problems, expect solutions to your past problems. And read Atkins’s book for more hints on how to optimize your serum cholesterol levels in the unlikely event that they don’t do it automatically on this diet. How about that evil "ketosis" that your doctor may warn you about? It’s not a problem when it results from this diet, provided you are following directions and having a sufficiently high fat intake and drinking a lot of water. Read Atkins’s book for details. In fact mild ketosis is the indication that the diet is working and you are burning fat. Won’t this diet make you burn muscle tissue? Nope. Not unless you ignore what we told you and DON’T eat enough fat. Fat is necessary to make "Fat-Mobilizing Hormone". If you don’t eat enough of it, particularly if you tightly restrict it, then yes, you’ll burn muscle tissue. That is precisely the problem with the "high-protein" diet that so many people confuse with the low-carb diet. Don’t argue theory with me, try it. Go check out the alt.support.diet.low- carb group and ask questions, and learn. THAT is where the worldwide lab experiment is going on, courtesy of the Internet. And go pick up one of the several books such as Atkins’s "New Diet Revolution" or Protein Power or the Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet or whatever. And ask those nice folks in the asdlc NG all your tricky questions, ‘cuz they sure have the answers. And if you’re not particularly obese, and never have been, then probably you don’t have this particular carbohydrate metabolism problem, so you wouldn’t benefit particularly by carbohydrate restriction. -John Sangster