Quote:
Originally Posted by abetterme
sontaikle: Right! Well, I think in the past while being really commited to calorie counting I was eating carbs and losing weight still. I guess I always had this idea in my head that they were bad and wondered if it would slow down weight loss. I'll do what kaplods suggested and experiment and see where that takes me. I think it should be ok. I also really love whole grains and would be sad to not eat them anymore.
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There's quite a bit of scientific debate over how essential carbohydrates are, and the percentage needed (and the kind needed). Grains are actually relatively new to the human diet, and most grains contain "antinutrients" (they actually strip some nutrients from the body, which is why bread often is fortified with some of those nutrients).
That doesn't mean you can never eat grains, or that grains (or any other carb for that matter) are "bad."
I've been dieting for 41 of my 46 years, and tried low-carb diets in my teens and twenties. The diets I tried were extremely low-carb (Atkins induction "low"), and I felt so terrible on them (and it wasn't temporary "carb flu" because it lasted far longer than two weeks and got worse instead of better) that I condemned all low-carb diets as unhealthy.
So, when my doctor suggested I try "low-carb" for my insulin resistance (he said some new research had found that insulin resistant folks generally lost weight more reliably with low-carb) - I was skeptical. I wouldn't have taken him seriously at all, if he hadn't warned, "but don't go too low," though he admitted he didn't know what would be too low.
So I started experimenting, and discovered that I lose weight and feel much better, with far less hunger when I'm extremely careful with carbohydrates.
That doesn't mean I think carbohydrates are "bad," it just means that if I eat too much carbohydrate (even the high-fiber, whole-food carbs of fruit and grains) I feel lousy, am rabidly hungry, and have more flares of my health issues (I would have never made the connection between pain and autoimmune diseases and my diet - but in researching my health issues, I read in several fibromyalgia, arthritis, and autoimmune disease books that many people with these disorders find relief in a low-carb, low-GI, or low-grain diet).
I try to make paleo-friendly food choices for the most part (the paleo diets are often recommended for folks with fibro, insulin resistance, autoimmune diseases, and/or chronic pain issues).
I still do eat grains and dairy, but in very controlled quantities, and I work to avoid the foods I know aggravate my health issues (like wheat).
Not everyone has these issues of course, and so they're going to be able to eat more of these foods than I can (for weight loss, and for health).
But I have to say that I regret that I was so very biased against low-carb diets. If I had given them more of a chance thirty years ago, I may never have gotten so obese, or had so many of my health issues. Just the hunger difference has been amazing.
I had to find my own best "carb zone," which is significantly higher than Atkins induction low-carb, but is far less than in the SAD (standard American diet).
Most low-carb diets are not zero-carb diets. In fact, most (even Atkins) are not truly low-carb diets so much as controlled-carb diets. Even Atkins doesn't forbid grains, it just recommends adding carbohydrate foods back into the diet gradually and in a specific order. You're supposed to add back the carbs in small increments until you stop losing, then you backtrack a bit to find the best carb level for your goals (weight loss or weight maintenance).
Many people miss this step and then criticize Atkins for "banning grains" when the diet doesn't really do that.
Many other diets considered low-carb also are criticised for practices the diets don't actually endorse.
I would encourage you (or anyone) with weight or health issues to try a variety of eating styles (keeping calories consistent so you can compare one diet to another more easily). I like exchange plans because they make it even easier to compare one diet to another. Whenever I try a new eating style I "translate" it into an exchange plan (usually starting with about 1800 calories).
If I hadn't done this, I may never have made the carb-hunger connection. I learned that I was hungrier on 3,000 calories of high-carbs than on 1,000 calories of extremely low-carb (not that I'm advocating either. In fact, the extremely low-carb has unpleasant side effects for me such as severe headaches and a tendency to faint).
You may find that you do best (not only with weight loss, but also in how you feel) on an extremely high-carb diet. Or perhaps an extremely low-carb one.
It's more likely that you'll do best somewhere in the middle, but where in the middle will take some experimenting to discover.