What exactly does "low carb" mean?
 

I've noticed that most of you are on a high protein/low carb diet, and I wanted to know exactly what that means. I'm on a mostly vegan diet, and I don't pay much attention to nutrient ratios, but on a typical day at least 60% of my calories come from carbs and only about 10% come from protein. I've done my homework, and 10% seems to be a sufficient amount of protein from a health standpoint, although from a weightloss standpoint there are a million different theories. So far my diet is going alright, I'm losing about 1 lb/week and I'm not having trouble staying on plan. However, I would like to be losing weight more quickly, so I've tried to add more protein, but I can't seem to get it out of the 10-12% range without adding tons of meat/dairy/soy.

I was wondering what benefit low-carb dieters think they get from their way of eating. Why is it better to eat high protein foods than, for instance, fruits and starchy vegetables? Or by "low carb" do you just mean "low in processed carbs, like bread, pasta, and sweets"?

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but here's my reasoning. I have a very hard time losing weight while eating a diet high in carbs- even really good carbs like brown rice, quinoa, etc. I can maintain weight loss on a high carb diet- and I eat primarily vegan when I'm maintaining- but I have found I really have difficulty losing weight unless I cut all grains, fruit, and starchy foods like potatoes out of my diet (I do not cut out leafy greens, zuchini, onions, mushrooms, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, etc- those are allowed as much as I want). I can usually lose 3 lbs a week when following a diet like this. It's very difficult for me to maintain that strict a diet, however, and so I've been doing it twice a year for a month at a time. I'm actually just now going into a one month low carb cycle with a goal of losing 15 lbs. At that point, I will likely go back into maintenance mode for a while and do another cycle this fall. There is an actual definition for my metabolic type which my doctor explained to me and I have since forgotten but essentially it's a recognized metabolic issue for some people to have difficulty losing weight unless they cut carbs.

I just finished reading a book talking about carbs and weight loss (I literally mean that, I put my e-reader down about 3 minutes ago) I found it really informational. It's not a diet book, it goes more depth, explaining things from a scientific view, which I really appreciated. It's called Why We Get Fat (and what to do about it) by Gary Taubes if you are interested in it.

If not I was also just about to watch a video that the author talked about in the book that contains a lot of the same information http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eREuZEdMAVo. I haven't seen it yet, so I can't tell how good it is, but at over an hour long I'm assuming it'll provide lots of information lol.