Ok the Sass wants to ‘starve the carb’ to trim down the Jelly Roll.
BUT after joining one of those sites where it logs your eating & dieting, to my surprise it tracks your total Calories, not carbs.
I thought that carbs made you fat, not calories. To my surprise some low-carb foods I thought would not make you fat, in fact have lots of calories.
So which is it? I also heard that ‘complex carbs’ don’t make you fat (or not as fat) as simple, so would I be even worse if I replaced my whole wheat with wonder bread? But the diet site doesn’t seem to care, it just counts calories.
Six squares of dark chocolate is listed as having 440 calories, 46g of carbs (has added sugar since it’s chocolate)
4 Tbsp of natural peanut butter is listed as 398 calories, 16g of carbs (but has no added sugar).
So peanut butter isn’t really much better than chocolate? Should I be counting just sugars, or all carbs, or all calories?
I don’t think it really matters that much. It’s all about calories in versus calories burned. If you burn more calories each day than you consume you will lose weight. If you consume more calories each day then you burn you will gain weight.
When I want to lose weight I not only cut down on my calorie intake but also get on the treadmill for 45 minutes to an hour each day. Just keep in mind that a drastic reduction in calories will cause your body to react by burning less calories than it would otherwise…
There is only one way to lose weight - If calories in < calories out, you will lose weight. That’s why your online tracker tracks calories.
A pound is about 3500 calories, so if your calorie deficit is 500 per day, you will lose a pound a week. Use a tool like this to figure what daily caloric intake you need to stay at your current weight, and then either burn off 500 calories a day, or eat 500 less.
The only differences in food calorie content is the basic amount of calories per unit. For example, fats have about 9 calories per gram, and sugars (“carbs”) have about 4 calories per gram. The food you actually eat is made up of sugars, fats, proteins, etc., and that’s how they breakdown. The higher the fat or sugar, the higher calorie content, which is why your peanut butter (fat/oil) is a as much as the chocolate.
Food and exercise tracking is a PITA at first, but I encourage you too keep with it - it’s the only real way to lose weight, get healthy and stay that way.
If you consume any calories at all then than you will lose weight more slowly than if you did not consume them.
If you consume more calories than you burn then you will gain weight.
It makes absolutely no difference at all where those calories come from.*
Carbohydrates are no different at all to fat or protein. “Complex carbs” are marginally less energy efficient than sugars, but the difference in reality is tiny.
Technically you can’t *gain *weight form drinking alcohol. However, since very few people live on an all-alcohol diet, this statement remains true.
A calorie is a unit of energy content. Sugars, proteins, and fats all have calories, though differing amounts; IIRC protein is about 4 calories per gram, sugar about 6, and fat about 9. A bowl of olive oil will get you fatter than a bowl of sugar, which in turn will get you fatter than a bowl of pure protein. But if you too much of any of them you’ll get fat. The typical American diet just has too damn many calories in it. There isn’t a lot of carbs in a 1/2-pound bacon cheeseburger (unless the bun is humungous), but if you’re trying to lose weight, you should probably cut down on those.
Some diets propose changing which types of food you eat in order to change your metabolism, rather than simply lowering your calorie intake. The Atkins diet is one of them, although it’s not entirely clear whether it really works by altering metabolism or just getting dieters to eat fewer calories.
My understanding of complex carbohydrates is that the energy content is the same as simple sugars, but they take longer to process, leading to slower energy release. Eat a spoonful of sucrose, you get a quick burst of energy followed by lethargy; eat a spoonful of starch, you get a longer-lasting, slower release of energy suitable for sustained physical activity.
Calorie surplus makes you fat. You know what has a lot of calories? Carbohydrates. The low-carb thing is just another strategy for controlling your calorie intake. A low-fat diet achieves the same thing.
Personally, I’ve found that diet plans are basically useless. I track the calorie counts of everything I eat and just maintain reasonable portions spread over the day. I also gave up beer and french fries.
as I understood it, the core problem is always an excess of calories, but carbohydrates are stored as fat far more quickly and preferentially than consumed fats. i.e. that blob of fat on that pork chop you ate can’t simply go from your stomach to your arse.
So if you’re an average american, you eat too many calories and too many of those calories are empty carbs.
The idea of low-carb approach is that it curbs your appetite. This helps you eat fewer calories (because eating fewer calories is the only way to lose weight) without feeling that you are hungry all the time. Also, for some people they may still be able to eat some of their high calorie “indulgent foods,” so there is a psychological compenent of not feeling deprived.
However with these plans, Including South Beach and Atkins, you will initially eat virtually ZERO carbs (I believe for Atkins it is 5 “net carbs” – that is total carbohydrates minus fiber). For about 2 weeks you will eat essentially nothing but unprocessed meat/fish/poultry, eggs, high fiber veggies, and certain fats. No starches of any kind, no sugar in any form, no fruit at all, no fresh dairy, and no high-glycemic vegetables such as carrots and corn. As you can see it is quite restrictive and requires you to carefully monitor what you put in your face.
if you just sort of guesstimate “cut carbs” (such as by eating peanut butter that contains sugar! BIG NO-NO) you will still be as hungry as ever and you will be eating a lot of high calorie food. This is a sure recipe for failure.
I suggest that IF you feel that using a low-carb diet would work for you, you get one of the books and follow the plan EXACTLY as directed. Whether you feel it will work for you is a personal preference.
I repeat, the ONLY way to lose weight is to consume fewer calories than you take in. “Low carb” dieting is one way to achieve that. By no means the only way or the best way for everyone.
speaking only for the former, meat (or other protein source,) vegetables, nuts, fruits. don’t obsess over natural fats, eliminate trans fats and junk sugars, and minimize grains.
overly simplified, but it’s far more than just what people think of when they hear “Atkins.” I blame our worthless news media for this as whenever any of them would talk about it, they would inevitably lead off with a shot of a grill in some diner with sausage, bacon, and eggs sizzling away on it.
Too many people saw that and thought it was all there is.
Simply put, a calorie IS NOT a calorie. Your body is not a bomb calorimeter.
The reason for this is due to what’s called the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF), whereby some portion of the calories you ingest are consumed in processing/metabolizing the food you’ve eaten and are therefore unavailable for fat/glycogen storage.
Fat has a TEF of around 2%, carbohydrates 5-10%, and protein has a TEF of around 20-30%. So if eat protein in lieu of fat you could consume as much as 25% more calories but not gain any more weight.
There are 4 stages to Atkins. “Induction” (the extremely restrictive phase described above) is Stage 1. it should normally last for two weeks only. After that you will add back foods in in 5-net-carb increments the following progression, as long as you are still losing weight you proceed down the list:
Fresh cheeses (as well as more aged cheese)
Seeds and nuts
Berries and melon
Wine and other spirits low in carbs
Legumes
Fruits other than berries and melons
Starchy vegetables
Whole grains
In Stage 3 you are no longer trying to lose weight to any significant degree. You add back whatever foods you did not eat during stage 2, and are just examining how you respond to various foods, what your feelings of hunger are, triggers for overeating and such things. Stage 4 is “the rest of your life” - whatever you developed through the previous stages as a psychologically sustainable lifelong choices for eating happily while maintaining your weight loss.
