Low Carb AND Low Fat?

[Bombe]

I belong to another board as well as 3FC and it's specifically a low carb board. I really like it however it seems that pretty much everyone there is doing Low Carb and High Fat. For their menu items they'll list sausage and eggs with cream cheese or bunless burgers with bacon, cheese, mayo, avacado, the whole shebang.

I'm trying to follow the P90X diet, which basically boils down to a low carb, low fat, high protein diet. I keep reading that if you're going low carb your fats need to increase higher to "compensate."

Opinions? Experiences? Advice?

[kaplods]

I don't know how drastically P90X restricts carbs and fats, but combining extremely low-carb, with extremely low-fat, can be uncomfortable, unhealthy, and even dangerous (google "rabbit starvation" or "protein poisoning"). It's been reported that people sicken and die quicker on such a diet than they would on no food at all.

(In theory, at least), if you're going to cut carbs to an extremely low level, you have to add at least moderate levels of fat. To some degree, the lower carb/fat you go, the more water you should drink (but that too can be overdone).

Moderately low-carb and moderately low-fat may be healthiest (South Beach and many ancestor/paleo diets are examples of this).

I think really experimentation is all most of us are left with. Write down everything you eat and experience. If you experience negative effects like severe headaches or dizziness, listen to your body and adjust your diet until you find what helps.

[Bombe]

P90x doesn't restrict carbs to the level of Atkins induction. Although it doesn't give you a specific number of carbs to shoot for (it gives you number of "servings" and gives examples of what a serving would be) it seems to average out to around 40-50g carbs (for the first month and it increases after that).

Thanks for the input!

[elisaannh]

All the latest research on low carb advocate:

low carb, moderate protein and high fat

Just mentioning that you might want to do some research into it before deciding.

[mkroyer]

low carb AND low fat = recipe for hormonal disaster