The improvements in my energy level, stamina and weight loss since going low carb are phenomenal. That being said, the "carb flu" I went through was hellacious. I was foggy, irritable and tired for a good week. But when that week was over, I felt fantastic.

I think a lot of the reason people give up on low carb or paleo is because they think the withdrawal symptoms are permanent or the sign of a health problem. In reality, it's a detox,similar to quitting drinking or drugs. Your body is fighting for something it THINKS it needs.

I agree, I think doing zero carb is not healthy for your body as glucose is your brains number one source of energy! I try sticking to only whole grain and complex carbs such as oatmeal, brown rice, and veggies.
Very interesting article though, thanks for sharing that one!

No reputable low-carb plan is zero carb, but as long as a person is eating plenty of lowish carb veggies and fruits (in which most of the carbs are coming from fiber, and the fewest carbs are coming from sugar and simple starches), there's no real need for grains and high sugar fruits...

For hundreds of thousands of years (if not millions), humans did well on virtually no grains and very little sugar (fruits were seasonal and very low in sugar. Virtually all modern fruits are many times sweeter than what would have been available even 400 years ago).

However, for about fifteen thousand years, we've bred the fiber out of our food and bred sugar and simple starches into it. Grains also have "antinutrients" that leach nutrients from the body, so if you eat grains, you actually have to compensate with other foods or supplements that you wouldn't need if you eliminated the grains.

I was skeptical when I read about all of this in the low-carb books (after all they have a not-so-hidden agenda in persuading the reader to their viewpoint). However, when I started researching autoimmune disease when I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease attacking my joints, respiratory tract and skin). I was shocked to read much of this same research, and even the book authors who believed giving up grains was impractical, they still argued that those with autoimmune disease should at least try a diet very low in carbohydrates, most especially grains.

I was still skeptical, but thought it was worth giving a shot. I'm far from perfect, but even from just drastically decreasing grain and sugar intake my autoimmune disease symptoms are almost non-existent (flaring only when I "cheat" and eat significant amounts of grain or sugar - wheat being the most likely to trigger a symptom flare).

Now, it could all me coincidence in my case, but the research out there is pretty convincing.

Most people probably don't have to give up all fruits and grains, but most people also probably should eat far less than they do.

I'm very interested to see the research that this article is based on...

I have good success with low carb. For me, I've learned that three things alone have a huge impact:
-No wheat
-No sugar
-No processed foods

If I do only those 3 things, I lose weight. Right now I'm doing Primal Blueprint (a variant of Paleo) and it's more strict than that, but those are the 3 biggest helps.

I just wanted to point out, doesn't protein have a thermogenic effect? I thought I heard that every gram of carb burns off 1 calorie to digest, but protien is 4 calories per gram.

So if you eat 100 g of carbs in a day and 40gs of protein (ignore everything else) you burn off 161 calories digesting the food.

But if you eat 30gs of carbs and 100gs of protein (ignore everything else) you burn off 430 calories digesting the food.

So low carbing tips your food consumption more toward protein.

I don't think it is 4 calories per gram because there are 4 calories IN a gram of protein but I have heard that you burn about 10% more digesting protein than carbs.