Metabolic adaptation?
 

Hi everyone,

I've been browsing many forums lately (weight loss/body building forums), and there seems to be a consensus that eating below 1200 results in metabolic adaptation?

I don't quite understand the reasoning behind this. Right now I eat about 800-1000 calories, which is less than my BMR and TDEE, but it is 70% veggies, 30% protein, with occasional cheese and yogurt here and there. I use full fat mayo sometimes, I get a LOT of food for this calorie range when it's vegetables. Basically I don't feel deprived, I keep my carbs under 100g a day only because they make me feel like crap and make me insanely sleepy.

I work out 5 days for an hr on my treadmills, my HRM logs my calories around 450, I put it into MFP as 400 in case it's not accurate. So if I'm not hungry, exercising well, is there any reason to be worried about this metabolic adaptation? There have been days where my net on MFP reads 700, but I'm scared to eat more when I don't feel the need to eat.

So many people have been telling me this, that's I'm starting to wonder if I'm approaching weight loss the wrong way? I've been doing this for 3 weeks and lost 1 lb. Not much to go off of, but what do you guys think?

Okay first of all I think I'd like some more information. What is your weight right now? Are you male or female? Are you weighing and measuring your food? Are you eating any other types of foods? Do you have cheat days?

I'm asking this because what you are saying doesn't make sense. From what I read I think you are saying that 70% of your calories come from vegetables; however you also say that you are keeping your carbs to <100g per day. Vegetable calories are predominately carbohydrate derived- about 80% of the calories from vegetables come from carbohydrates.

Your experience also doesn't jive with the information that you gave. Even if you are a 120lb female you are working out very intensely and should be experiencing hunger and weight loss at that calorie deficit. I think you may not be describing your food intake correctly. Do you keep a journal?

I'm not trying to be overly critical I'm just trying to help, but something is missing here because what you wrote does not add up at all.

P.S.- To a certain degree your metabolism will slow down when you reduce your calories. But like people said before when you asked about starvation mode it is mostly a myth. You will continue to lose weight especially if you are working out.

Hi Locke,

No worries at all. Sorry when I meant carbs, I mean I don't eat any starch/white flour products like rice, pasta, potatoes, cookies, cakes. I do eat oat bran with fat free fage yogurt in the morning.

I'm female, 169 lbs and 5'1. 26 yrs old. My carbs are less than 100g almost everyday with just veggies and oat bran. My sample menu looks like this everything is measured with my kitchen scale and i use MFP to add up calories.

breakfast
-2 tbsps oat bran with yogurt =150

lunch
-8oz cabbage +.5 cup persian cucumber + 4 oz chicken breast +1 tbsp mayo
=350

dinner
-8 oz steamed broccoli and cauliflower + can of tuna + 1 tbsp low sodium teriyaki sauce= 215

snacks
-almonds (23 pieces) -160 calories
-100 calorie granola bar

This has been my standard menu for the past 3 weeks. I'm not bored of it yet, i'm sure i will be soon, but I don't feel hungry eating this. I work out with a HRM and the calorie reading is always pretty high so i input as 400 standard everyday. I feel better, and my stomach is protruding out a lot less, I have no access to weights as of yet, so i didn't think water weight would be an issue here? I don't think I've given this enough time (only three weeks) but I don't want to start down the wrong path if you get what I mean?

I just feel like I could have lost 2 lbs or so by now, but I haven't. So is metabolic adaptation also a myth? Is there a good website to get credible information? My friend is a personal trainer who tells me I need to be in a certain heart rate zone to burn fat, I just can't keep track of all these rules. For now working on my diet is something i want set, I like the menu above but I also don't want to eat unnecessarily. Sorry for the length of this post! I appreciate your help.

My suspicion would be not enough food. Personally I've found that if I eat too little everything stalls. Once I got super frustrated at how good I had been with no result so I went out and had a big fat cheat meal. The next day I weighed in and had lost 1.3lbs.

Grains, especially wheat can mess up a person's metabolism. I would totally change your breakfasts around. I am grain free but even if I was not I would never have a cereal of any kind, including oats, for breakfast and not yougart, too much sugar even a full fat one. You are raising your insulin and putting your body in hold on to fat and calorie mode.

If you try grain free for a month, I bet you can eat 1.5 times your current calories and your weight is just going to plummet.

I do agree 100 grams of carbs is good but from what you listed I think you might be underestimating your carbs. And veggie carbs are fine but grain carbs can mess up a lot of people.

You can always go back to grains. If you are insulin sensitive though it might really help. At least try no grains/yougart/sugar at breakfast for a bit. Get good protein and fat at breakfast. Try your own bulletproof coffee if you like coffee.

But it does sound like maybe too few calories. Also our bodies adapt to our exercise routine so you might want to change that up, get some strength in. And don't be afraid of full fat. Coconut oil and grass fed butter are my wonder foods.

Push ups and sit ups, planking, bunch of stuff don't need weights.

I actually use full fat mayo and eat regular blocks of cheese now and then. The oat bran and yogurt is actually very little food. It's 2tbsps which i cook with water, add 1 tbsp fat free plain greek yogurt. The reason i eat this is because it keeps me full for hours! I mean i can wait a full 5 hours after eating (if i hydrate properly) but its my only source of grains. Maybe ill try grain free though.

I just feel so comfortable with this menu, i hate to change it, but I also dont want to put all this effort in and have it hinder my weight loss. This is all new to me.

I do have a kettlebell at home, will that suffice for weights? Maybe ill try a different cardio now and then too, thanks!

Kettlebells are fine. Just look up proper technique. They can be dangerous if done wrong.

The thing I always tell people is you can always go back to grains. I think everyone should, preferably try two months free and see how it goes. But at least give it a month.

And get good fats. In addition to the ones I listed avocados are good and macadamia nuts and oil. Stay away from vegetable oils and margarine, the omega 6 can be very harmful to a lot of people.

Wild caught seafood and grass fed protein sources are best if you can find them. And lots of people will have vastly different ideas, that's all good. Just listing what has worked for me.

Great! thanks diamond, I will look into those tips :)

As I understand metabolic adaptation it means that if you eat below a certain amount (I'm not sure there is any one magic number) that your metabolism slows and so you lose less weight than you would have lost had your metabolism not slowed. It doesn't mean, however, that you don't lose any weight at all. If you eat fewer calories than your slowed metabolism burns then you will still lose. You might be losing more slowly though.

The bigger concern with only eating 700 or 800 calories is that it is hard to get nutrition when you eat that way. On the menu you gave I'm not sure you area really getting all the vitamins and minerals that should be eaten for good health.

Hi Koshka,

How do I figure out how much I need? (nutrient wise) When I input my calories into MFP, I'm usually over in the vitamin percentages. I keep my foods colorful (lots of veggies) the main thing I did with my diet was cut out carbs, all processed carbs and put vegetables instead. I just feel that I get a lot more food, for a lot less calories, I just started realizing how low it was.

I also take a multivitamin daily. Thank you all for the responses! Greatly appreciated. I think I will branch out with more vegetables and see how it goes for a month or so. If I'm still at 1lb loss in 2 months, I'll know to switch things up.

Thanks again.

I'm a little confused, is this a fancier word for starvation mode? When you're body acclimates to lower calories and then you stop losing?

I say give it more time like you said if 2 months go by and you don't see a loss, you can increase your cals. You could also eat almonds, higher fat and calories, but they have the good stuff! Assuming you're not eating a ton and they're not covered in sugar :)

I really miss chocolate covered almonds!! I used to pick them as my "healthy snack" ha!

One pounds loss in three weeks, it rather does seem like you are going about this the wrong way.

Just as there is a lot of junk food out there, there is also a lot of junk information. I think you need to go visit your doctor and ask them for some good sources of information on all this stuff that you are confused about or a referral to a nutritionist dietician who can help you understand all this stuff properly.

Ask the doctor/dietician why below 1200 is too low even for a little person like you. Ask them to give you information to explain why the body needs more than 1200.

Ask them why some people think eating grains is harmful and why the mainstream of scientists in the field do not agree.

Ask them to explain how fat is burned with exercise. (Fat is being burned all the time by the way. But the body also makes fat if you don't eat it. Fat and carbs burn together in a healthy diet in a ratio that changes the longer you exercise. The longer you exercise the higher the ratio of fat to carbs. But this is technical. ask your doctor for a source of reliable technical information on this and other relevant matters.

ask the doctor if you could have insulin resistance. They can do a test on this. Have you had other tests done, e.g. your thyroid. If you are young its unlikely to be this but no harm in checking into it.

Ask the doctor why you might be sleepy eating carbs. (Not all carbs are equal btw. I find myself getting frustrated with the way people talk about carbs as if a potato were the same as as salad sandwich on wholegrain bread and a bag of lollies. There is a difference between carbs. Carbs are not the bogieman. Refined sugars are the bogieman for people who can't eat them in moderation - and that is most people on a diet forum.)

A lot of people are confused about the nature of carbs. Ask the doctor for sources of good explanations about the nature of carbs.

The thing is, you are probably getting confusing and conflicting information by taking your info off the web. There is a lot wrong information out there. And if you don't have enough basic knowledge and education to be able to sift the junk from the truth, then you should ask someone who is able to do that for you i.e. why i suggest you speak to your doctor.

You want to find some names of good reliable properly qualified and well reputed writers on this subject. The authors of famous diet books should not be in this list. Ignore those people until you have a solid grounding in basic nutritional information. Yes not everything these say is false. But misinformation gets mixed up with fact and you end up confused with a lot of unhelpful ideas about how to lose weight and stay healthy.

Eat the way you think you can eat for the rest of your life. If you think you can live on a diet of 70% vegies, 30% protein and a 1tbsp of fat, then that's probably fine because it does seem to fit with the basic distribution of carbs, protein and fats.Yours does not seem to be a problem of distribution but of total calorific intake. Note you can also get fat on vegies if you eat too many veggie calories - i would remind you that fat cows do exist - :-). And it seems you can have trouble losing fat if you don't eat enough calories.

What's good about fruit and vegies is that they are

So how much do you weigh? I don't see that anywhere here. If you way 120 lbs and have lost 1 lb in 3 weeks, I'd say that is normal. If you weigh 300, then I'd say there is something wrong.

I found that by changing my macronutrients around, my weight started to fall off, eating the same amount of calories. I eat a high amount of carbs but I was eating low fat, I started adding more avocado and nuts into my diet and I started to lose weight. I didn't change around the other things too much. I still eat bread, grains, fruit as well as legumes as my main source of protein. It was just ensuring that I added fat that made the change for me.

I would say you need to play around and figure out what works for you.

Did you pick up that intense workout regimen from nothing three weeks ago too? If so, you may be experiencing some water retention as your body adapts to the new routine. Fluid retention can easily mask several weeks' worth of fat loss.

For what it's worth, it's not unusual for me to go several weeks without seeing any weight loss on the scale. I don't lose a little each week - I lose in "whooshes" - typically three weeks hovering around one number, then one week in which I lose a few pounds.

It's not too unusual not to see your scale march cooperatively down by a certain amount week after week, although it would be nice if you could get that kind of short-term feedback on what you are doing. So give it a little more time, a month or two, to evaluate how well what you are doing is working.

I think you can get away with eating a little more, but I doubt that any kind of metabolic adaptation or starvation mode is responsible for what you are seeing here.

Nelie she's 5 foot one inch and weighs 169 pounds. She tells us in her second post.

I know its a bit weird how most posters don't give the relevant information - height weight age gender but there you go. people think these things aren't important.

Occam's Razor people ...

There could be large number of reasons to explain how you have lost 1 lb in three weeks. All of them are exceedingly unlikely.

Are you a metabolic miracle? Are your food choices radically affecting your caloric burn? Nope and Nope.

What is most likely is that you're retaining water, and due for a woosh soon.

Fat loss is not the same as weight loss.

Stopquitting, yes, metabolic adjustment is mostly a myth. The study that popularized the concept was based on people who were at a large caloric deficit for around 3 months or so. The metabolic rate of the group only dropped a little considering how little they were eating. I don't have a link to the study, but suffice it to say that any drop in metabolism will probably be insignificant, and your deprivation would have to be at some point extremely uncomfortable. It is unlikely that a normal dieter would go into "starvation mode" or what have you unintentionally.

As for expecting more weight loss, well, any time you are losing weight quickly, expect most of it to be water. There's no getting around a pound = 3500 calories, so in order to lose one pound, you'd have to operate at a 500 calorie daily deficit for a full week. My base metabolism is around 1500, so I'd have to eat about 1000 calories per day to lose 1 lbs a week. It is nothing to scoff at, and real fat loss takes TIME and a lot of it.

ha! I was hoping you would respond to this thread!! Give it sometime stopquitting!

Care to explain this?

Click on the picture in this link. https://www.dietdoctor.com/how-carbs-make-you-fat

Basically when you are eating too many carbs you have too much insulin much too often. When insulin is present fat in the meals will get stored as fat.

The theory worked to a T for me. I was always hungry on too many carbs primarily form wheat and I was a fat storage machine. Extremely high triglycerides. Stopped the wheat, belly fat plummeted, recently hit 34 inch waist from a 48 in May. Weight plummeted. Triglycerides in blood work really plummeted.

William Davis and others argue modern wheat in particular has some inadvertent genetic changes that make it even more addicting than before and more damaging to metabolism.

This is why calorie counting and not changing macro percentages rarely work. People have an impaired metabolism with too much insulin being produced. Their bodies are going to store and hold onto fat almost no matter what. The good news is if you stop the surges of insulin your body can repair and start burning fat. This is exactly what happened to me.

Satiety has nothing to do with metabolism.

If you have any evidence that eating wheat slows down someone's BMR lets see it. Otherwise you're just confusing people.

No doubt, a insulin resistant person will do better on a low carb diet and they may even burn more calories on a low carb diet but this is not their BMR.

Also, the link you provided I honestly thought you were making a joke and the link was a satire about the rediculous notions that some low carb people subsribe to. Then I realized that it was serious. Believe it or not you can be a fan of low carb dieting without the bad information and zealotry.

I focused on the infographic. It is a great summary and I feel of vital importance to many people.

Sure there are a lot of factors. But frankly JohnP people are dying because they are afraid of saturated fats, are using extremely harmful vegetable oils, and eating too many sugar/carbs from grains, drinks, and starchy veggies.

Insulin resistance to some degree is very common. America went low fat high carbs and its been a disaster.

And please tell me what is incorrect on the infographic.

well....
 

I can only chime in on my experience with this...I'm generally on a "slow carb" diet except I too have yogurt sometimes and that's questionable on this type. It looks as if you're going extremely low cal with moderate protein. From my research here's what it looks like:

1. Some veggies are very high carb, esp orange and yellow...also peas for some reason...these will not really help.... converts wrong I guess. Dark green is most diet friendly, really any diet, except maybe fruit diets.

2. if you cut out carbs, or lower extremely your body will need something to facilitate fat burn, it will use muscle if it doesn't think it's getting what it needs.... might sound strange but a lot of people up protein and fat to cover this. These burn better or according to low carb they do.

3. I've seen a definite slow down when going low carb and low cal even with fat and protein if under a certain amount of calories. For you, the level you're at could be it but I weigh a good deal more so mine looks like about 1,000 or less. I have been countering with occasional high carb days....relative success but dangerous tactic for binge eaters.

4. Addressing grain- it could maybe slow things down, I didn't check the carb/sugar content in your item but really if your overall day is low you might be fine unless you're intolerant- just like sugar, carbs cause insulin hikes, wheat might cause something.... reaction perhaps. Notably though more people seem to have trouble with soy.

Anywho...my two cents...I'd say chances are your diet is fine but you might need something to get it to stop "starvation mode" where it tries to hang on to everything because...yes you are depriving it since you're intake is less than maintenance. Maybe lil more fat perhaps? olive oil? oh kudos for vitamins that helps a lil when in this mode.

I'm not John, but the infographic is derived from Taube's book, "Why We Get Fat" (see attribution at the bottom), which is pretty shaky in some of its science. Here's a pretty good criticism of Taube's work:

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.co...f-obesity.html

And here's a critical book review:
http://www.weightymatters.ca/2011/01...e-get-fat.html

Both of these critics are generally supportive of low-carb approaches (as am I).

Thanks for the link, Yoyo. The paragraph below (taken from the link) could have been taken out of my brain. It's exactly what I find myself thinking when I hear yet one more claim that "insulin causes the body to store fat, rather than burn it."

F.

<<If you eat a meal of 500 calories of carbohydrate, you will burn that carbohydrate under the direction of insulin, which will also make sure body fat mostly stays inside your fat cells during the process. If you eat a meal of 500 calories of fat, you will burn fat instead of carbohydrate, but since you just ate fat, you aren't dipping into your body fat stores any more than you were when you ate carbohydrate. So even though insulin temporarily suppresses fat burning and the release of fat from fat cells when you eat carbohydrate, at the end of the day if you ate the same number of calories you end up with the same amount of fat in your fat cells either way. You now know more about insulin than many popular diet gurus.>>

People who have got the to the point of being insulin resistant or diabetic have got there by overeating, not by overeating grains. A lot of these people overeat refined carbs as well as high fat. I do not think the the dietary advice for people who have got themselves into that state should be applied to people who still have not buggered up their systems that much.

Also i've been reading around trying to understand the whole insulin argument that is used in low carb diets and in the course of that i read more about leptin, dubbed the hunger hormone and this morning an excellent article on seratonin which is a major mood hormone. I myself have started to recognise the importance of my maintaining my mood to manage my appetite. And this article helps a lot with the mechanisms.

I would urge people to try to learn about these while at the same time, realising that there is still a lot that is not known or understood about them.

And even in excellent articles i find, you need to be able to think through some of the things that are said carefully because you can easily find yourself emerging with a bit of confusion or misunderstanding. But do read.

http://nutritionwonderland.com/2009/...food-and-mood/

The site is worth scouring, and the stuff i've been talking about is found in the drop down menu, MAJOR ISSUES and then UNDERSTANDING OUR BODIES

I think this article i posted addresses the matter of the problem of the OP. She should read it and the leptin ones. Though what i'm not sure about the leptin ones is how long the changes last. A key point with leptin and seratonin unlike the insulin matter is that negative changes are not permanent. Even the leptin resistance problem doesn't appear to be permanent if i've understood it correctly.

I think its important the OP read these because her calories are low and if continues eating so low, she will get the rebound effect of increased appetite where suddenly her appetite will start to increase and she will put on any weight she's lost plus more. Also i think these articles address the sleepy thing she's experienced - see the seratonin article.

How do I increase my base metabolic rate?
 

Is BMR genetic? can it be modified?

You should write for a magazine. The way you combine hyperbole and hysteria is pure poetry.

We've had a very similar conversation in the past and all I can say is that I urge you to stop reading information on the web that already confirms what you believe and instead go read stuff from Alan Aragon and Lyle McDonald.

America's obesity problem is multifactoral.

What is wrong with the infographic? Almost everything.

1) Carbs are killing you! - Wrong and frankly the reason I thought this was a joke at first.

2) Eating fat doesn't make you fat. - Misleading and wrong. When calories are available for storage fat is stored.

3) We've reduced our fat intake. - Not true. As a percentage of our diet it has gone down but we never actually reduced our fat intake.

4) It's not your fault. - I don't completely disagree with it but at the same time I hate this kind of statement because I am a big believer in personal responsibility.

5) Diets rich in carbohydrates have been secretly storing fat. Wrong. Our fat gain as a group and as individuals has hardly been a secret.

6) You begin secreting insulin (by thinking about food) - Completely misleading and essentially false. If this were even remotely true you would have people dropping dead all the time due to diabetic shock. Same thing about diet soda. If it released insulin people on empty stomachs would be dropping like flies after drinking a diet coke.

I can keep going. The rest is misleading at best.

I am still a low carb proponent. While I am not a big fan of Taubes he has done more than anyone to help people realize that fat is not the enemy. Sadly he did so by creating another scapegoat.

Obesity is a multifactoral problem. The media loves to sell media so it makes headlines and right now sugar is the big headline grabber. Not too long ago it was fructose.

Back to the point. The OP, if being honest about everything, is simply holding onto water. It's not a hormone issue. It's not a metabolic issue.

John, wouldn't it be helpful to the OP if you could explain how and why she's holding on to water.

Her diet is not that high in salt is it to cause a high water retention? She's not doing that much exercise to cause muscle inflammation which might cause water retention.

of course as her muscles are growing she is certainly holding more liquid energy stores in the form of glycogen but It still seems mysterious to me why she the scales are not showing a greater loss.

Most people who start out on a diet rapidly lose all that excess water weight. Why isn't this girl?

http://nutritionwonderland.com/2010/...odies-insulin/

I finally found a good article on insulin relevant to all of us overweighters.

https://www.nsca.com/Videos/Conferen..._for_Athletes/

I like Aragon and especially this video.

I can also criticize explanations other than insulin and carb/sugar consumption as one of if not the main driving force behind obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. Along with vegetable oil use and the demonizing of saturated fats. Especially grass fed butter, lard, and tallow.

I think Prof Noakes, Taubes, Davis, etc. are on the right track. I kind of experimented on my own, learned more, feedback, etc. I am always open to new ideas. Remember low carb high fat is still the 'radical' idea now. So you have to be open minded to be on this path in the first place.

I've listened to Taubes, I don't follow him. I have more carbs and fruit than he suggests. I don't follow Paleo, I have dairy. But cutting out grains? Brilliant for my body, mind, health, and life. May be good for someone reading this also? Perhaps, perhaps not. Can't know until it is tried for couple of months or so. Could be the best thing ever.

I am thriving on no grains and low carb and high fat and that is more than good enough for me. And that infographic? More than a summary of Taubes work and FAO. I've lived that infographic.

At about 7:30 in that video Aragon could be talking directly from the infographic. The body's dominant energy storage is fat. But you can't access it with insulin around. How did my belly fat 'melt off'? Lowered carbs allowed my body to access it and burn it. Just lowering calories wouldn't have done it plus that is a moot point because if I still had grains 60% of calories from carbs I would have been too hungry to reduce calories even if I wanted to.

Regarding research. Taubes and others, their research and views threaten trillions in vested interests. Of course there is going to be pushback.

There is unfortunately a scientific industrial complex. Many researchers can't even get funding, might even have their careers destroyed if they don't support high carbs low fat and grains are good.

And Ancel Keys and T. Colin Campbell are some of the worst researchers around. I find their stuff awful at best. I wouldn't base anything I do on their work personally. Need to know who is funding work of people criticizing Taubes.

Excellent points, and thanks for the link. I must say it was refreshing to read an article that didn't bash carbs.

F.

It isn't about 'bashing' carbs or not. At least to me. It is about health and vitality to me. There is a reason there is a 'sea change' happening in views on carbs: demonizing fat, way beyond bashing, has been a disaster. For individuals, their loved ones, and health care costs.

I am far from alone in having my life transformed by a different relationship to carbs. It is saving not only my life but many millions who are having similar positives. BTW all for veggies. But other carbs were a disaster for my body and me. Bashing what they did to me.

It is ironic that low carb advocates have been talking about 'fat bashing' in diets for decades. So I guess welcome to the 'party' as views change.

The whole calorie is a calorie is so damaging to people in real life, to me. Yes many people DID, in fact, get overweight from eating grains. It stimulated their appetites and put them in fat storage mode. Radically different outcomes than had those calories come from fat. Just, to me, pointless to point to overall calories consumed. Why? Because for many you simply cannot control appetite and overall calorie intake without targeting carbs. Very simple thing to understand, for me, if you have been overweight with any kind of insulin resistance.

I am far from alone from having my appetite radically reduced by eliminating grains and lowering carbs overall. Flattering to think or assume it was massive willpower by me. The reality is, it was me working with chemistry, not fighting against it.

I'm not as impressed with this (unreferenced) article. At least two statements are patently false:

This key to keep in mind when trying to lose weight. Our bodies simply won't break down our fat stores when insulin is around.

[I guess I must be in violation of the laws of biochemistry. All my life I've been able to lose weight steadily on a 1,500 cal diet in which about 60% of my calories came from carbs, which promote the release of insulin.]

Type 2 diabetes is that much more dangerous [than Type 1] because the body will rarely respond to insulin treatment, meaning that drastic diet changes and exercise are the only ways to fight back.

[Oh really? What about the dozens of oral glucose-lowering medications available? Type 2 is less serious than Type 1 precisely because it doesn't depend on exogenous insulin in the earlier stages of the disease.]

F.

Well, one of the previous posters made the excellent point that people with no metabolic impairments need not (and maybe should not) follow the same type of diet as those with off-kilter biochemistry.

My metabolism appears to be fine, my lab values are fine, and by all indications I have a robust insulin response and process carbs just fine. I have no symptoms whatsoever from eating carbs except elevated mood. (In fact I have no physical symptoms of any kind, knock on wood. At 57 I feel exactly the same as I did at 20, with the exception that I need to go to the bathroom more.)

When I DON'T eat carbs, on the other hand, I feel very dissatisfied. I allow that the feeling may be partly psychological, but it's still very real.

Given the above, there isn't a lot of motivation for me to reduce my carb intake. I may try it one day out of simple curiosity, but that's about it.

F.

Freelance,

You like grains and carbs, fantastic. I am glad you are thriving on your diet. Great your approach works for you. It was killing me. Is my reality somehow less real or valid? Is lowering carbs somehow invalid for everyone because it is not necessary for you? Is it somehow 'wrong' that people find health and vigor lowering carbs and sometimes eliminating grains?

Is it less wrong when Aragon points this out instead of Taubes?

More and more studies coming out type 2 diabetes being not only controlled but 'reversed' on low carb.

BTW people eating carbs always feel that way when they first go off carbs. I did. I felt awful. My fat utilizing and burning metabolism was all but switched off. Now it is switched on. But until that happened, it takes at least a few days for most sometimes longer, yes you feel bad. Try lowering them for a month to two months. You can always go back. You might find the best health of your life. Or maybe not.

It's fantastic that you've found a WOE that works for you. Many of us (including me) have found that a low-carb approach that resembles your WOE more than the SAD is effective.

But many people have found an effective WOE in which carbs play a major role. Some of your absolute statements dismiss their success. Just as some of the conventional-wisdom ("everything in moderation") folks sometimes make absolute statements that dismiss the success of low-carb approaches for some people.

The science as to *why* low-carb approaches work well for *some* people is not yet completely settled. I think Taubes does a good job of discrediting the lipid hypothesis, but he doesn't do a great job of supporting his own insulin hypothesis.

But, honestly, aside from curiosity, the why is secondary to me. I, and I think most people, are more interested in black-box results, assuming that there is enough research to show that a given approach is safe. I think our collective experience shows that a high carb diet can be very effective for some people, but a low carb diet is very effective for some other people. There does not seem to be any evidence that all people need to follow a low carb approach (or vice versa). But people who have trouble managing their weight using conventional wisdom should at least consider a low carb approach.

Agreed. People need to find what works. Study after study is showing people generally do better on low carb with no calorie restriction compared to high carb with calorie restriction. But this may not apply to any one particular individual.

In other words eat as much as you want on low carb and people still do better. For weight loss and blood work. But for sure insulin sensitivity varies. I would just urge anyone who has struggled with weight to give an honest try to low carbs if they haven't yet.

To me that is two months. But others say try it for a month.

Part of that 'black box' to me is what carbs did to my appetite and my metabolism. A calorie is a calorie absolutely pointless to me. Not in theory, per se. Amount of calories still a very real import to me and anyone else. But in reality it was such bad, pointless advice to focus on.

Carbs kept me hungry. Pointless to restrict calories because on high carbs I was incapable of doing it. And my body held on to fat and accumulated it on high carbs.