One other effect that can occur with specific diets (that is, anything more complicated than “eat X total Calories”) is that it forces you to think about what you’re eating. In fact, with many fad diets, this is the only way that the diet works. If, every time you grab a snack, you have to stop and think “How many carbs does this have? Is this a processed food? Is this on the list of foods I’m allowed to have on a day that starts with T?”, or whatever, the result is going to be that you don’t grab snacks as often.
But of course, if you stick to a diet for long enough, or come back to it after already having done it for a while, this becomes a lot easier. “I know these pork rinds are low-carb, because I checked the label last time I was on Atkins, so I can just go ahead and grab a snack”. This might be the reason why Atkins is less effective the more times you go on it: The stop-and-think factor is reduced.
No. It merely answers an extreme hypothetical without fighting it. It states nothing about that question.
Yes.
Glycogen is obligatorily stored with water. A major (if not the major) reason for more significant weight loss right away in low carb is that one’s initial energy deficit comes to a large degree from glycogen stores, which releases water, which is then urinated off. As soon as one liberalizes carbohydrate (including complex carbohydrate) some the body replenishes those stores, along with the obligatory water stored with it. It’s early water weight out and early water weight back on.
Low carb has worked well for lots of people. Weight Watchers has worked for lots of people. Meal replacement shakes has worked well for lots of people. Focusing on high nutritional value high satiety real foods and paying attention to real hunger cues, along with regular exercise, has worked for lots of people. Hell, specific approaches to veganism has worked well for lots of people. What works well for one individual may not be what works best for another and may not be what works well for you.
The only thing I’d state that is true for all is that if the goal is fat loss then that is maximized by including exercise, inclusive some of some intensity. It may not cause any more weight loss but it does impact body composition more than does diet alone. And of course health too!
This is a good point, the stuff of our bodies is made of proteins. Cells are constantly dying off and the body is only so effective at recycling the amino acids into new proteins for the new cells. Argo, we need a constant supply of proteins in our diet so to make available the required amino acids to rebuild what is being lost.
As a construction worker I blow through carbs like nobody’s business … a can of Coke and three donuts won’t even get me through to lunch time …
Okay, but what about the point of my question? The study states that an Atkins-type diet doesn’t result in more weight loss than a different diet involving the same calories, but with more calories from carbs. Is this a fair conclusion when their Atkins-type diet involved 33grams of carbs? That’s well above the 20 you mention is necessary for the first 2 weeks of induction to put the body in ketosis. If that study never did that, then how can they state it was a “ketogenic low-carb” diet?
Since most people would enter ketosis after eating less than 50 grams of carbs a day after a few days, saying that obese individuals eating 33 grams of carbs for 6 weeks are on a ketogenic low-carb diet seems accurate.