What the FUCKING HELL is an impact carb? When are you guys going to get it? The reason the rest of the “non converted Atkins” world is pissed off with you yobbos is because a “carb” is NOT, I repeat NOT, a unit of measurement. It is NOT a unit of mass or weight. It’s a fucking food group, and there is no such thing in the entire world as a fucking “impact carb”.
In life, you can eat too many calories, or you can eat too few. Your calories are derived from fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. The rest is all bullshit. To lose weight simply eat sensibly and exercise like a demon and you can call it the fucking Bart Simpson diet for all I care - just please stop referring to carbs as a unit of measurement. It shows in one fell swoop how LITTLE you know, not how much you know about nutrition.
No, the rest is not all bullshit. As Gobear has explained, different foods are processed differently by the body, like fiber and carbs for instance. If you eat 100 calories but shit 90 of them, it is different than if you eat 100 calories and the body burns ten but retains the 90 as fat.
An “impact carb” is just another word the Lo-Carb Fundies have invented to let you know how many carbs are in a product that will affect (or “impact”) your blood sugar. As CrazyCatLady said, it’s the total carbs minus fiber. It’s usually on all the sweet treats, like low-carb power bars and candy bars.
And carbohydrates are a unit of measurement. Here in the US, every food product sold, even plain old bottled water, is required to have a Nutrition Facts Label. They’re all exactly the same, and list the servings per container, and the nutrition breakdown per serving. It lists calories, total fat (also broken down by saturated, polyunsaturated, and monounsaturated) cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrates (broken down by fiber and sugars), protein, and various vitamins and minerals. It’s kind of funny on a bottle of water - everything is listed as “0”.
I’d find an example, but it’s too early, and I’m only half-awake. Maybe after more coffee.
If you read my earlier posts, you’d know I was following the ATkins diet. I don’t walk around talking about “impact carbs” (which is a stupid term), or spouting off about how many carbs I’ve eaten in a certain meal or day, or about how “bad” I’ve been. (Well, maybe over in the Weight-Loss thread, but not IRL.)
Yeah, I lost a lot of weight recently, and some people might say it was because I started eating better, but … I’ve been eating mainly from just two food groups, the meat and protein group, and the vegetable group. No grains at all. I do eat mainly whole, fresh foods. I prepare nearly everything myself. Lots of chicken and fish, salads, and lots of green veggies. I don’t count calories at all.
And I think it wouldn’t be hard to find a nutritionist who thinks the way I eat is terrible. I’m not following the Food Pyramid at all. I’m not getting my recommended 6-8 servings of grains each day.
(And I would also be the first to say that although it worked for me, it might not work for everyone.)
Lib, you’ve really got some learning to do on this matter… the body doesn’t shit calories. 50% of human waste is dead blood cells. 100% of excess calories eaten get turned into body fat reserves - the only determinant is how efficiently it’s done. Your comment there just confirmed exactly what I said earlier. You’ve just confirmed that all this talk of diets, and mixtures and ratios of fats vs proteins vs carbohydrates is precisely what I asserted before - smoke and mirrors.
Bottom line? The human body consumes LESS energy to convert digestible fats into fat cells than it does to convert carbohydrates or proteins into fat cells. This is why people who overeat find it easier to gain weight if their food contains fats - especially saturated fats. However, in the abscence of overeating on a daily basis (as a function of calories consumed versus calories burnt) - the rest of all this talk IS bullshit and here’s why - if you’re burning more calories than you’re eating your body fat gets tapped into to meet the fuel needs. The only thing that a crappy diet affects from that point on is how well you’re going nutrition wise - that is, are you getting enough amino acids and vitamins.
So gobear explained nothing. Nor did you. All you’ve done is confirm that you’re all hoodwinked by the latest diet fad. Different foods being processed differently by the body? Man… I’ve been hearing that arguement for decades. If you’re burning more calories than you’re eating, the body doesn’t care. It scrambles and dips into your body fat reserves on an “as needed basis”. All this crap about watching carbohydrates… man… just count your calories and calculate your calorie expenditure. It’s simple maths and discipline. Unfortunately, you can’t sell hundreds of millions of dollars of books and lectures selling simple maths and discipline.
And again, I need to reiterate - a carbohydrate is NOT a unit of measurement. It’s a food group, and in a given food product the only thing you can measure is what percentage of the total calories of that food product is made up of carbohydrates. However, what I constantly see getting conveniently overlooked is this… a gram of fat equals 9 calories… a gram of carbohydrate or protein equals 3.5 calories. Ergo, by replacing your carbohydrate intake with a higher percentage of fats, you are by extension almost certainly increasing your calorie intake - and THAT will gain you weight - every time. You can’t get around that fact of physics. You see, unlike a carbohydrate, a calorie is a TRUE unit of measurement, in this case, energy. The only way you can avoid increasing your calorie intake while ALSO decreasing your carbohydrate to fat ratio is to eat less grams of food per day; the goal being to also eat less grams of fat per day because fats have a 3:1 calorie ratio compared to carbohydrates - and there is no way around this fact of science. And last time I checked, is not eating less food per day the basis of any diet? Regardless of it’s name?
Hence, the issue is this - as I stated earlier, eat sensibly - lots of natural foods and vegetables and fruits and exercise like a demon. It’s the exercise which tips the balance. THe other side of the equation is to simply minimise calorie intake, and the single greatest problem in todays modern American diet is that there is sooooooooooo much readily available, high calorie pre-packaged yum yum processed food.
Ergo, I have nothing but disdain for “go hard” proponents of the Atkins diet - because when all’s said and done, they’re just crediting some dead guy with something that champion athletes have known for centuries. Burn more than you eat. It makes you lean, and power to weight ratio is everything.
Oh, and to all my fellow Dopers - sorry about swearing earlier. No excuse for that. My apologies. I enjoy debating here, and to swear while debating lessens the quality of that debate.
While I have to admit that some people seem to do well following the Atkins diet (presumably the actual diet, by reading the book), I’m glad to see I’m not the only one sick to death of the marketing barrage about “low carb” foods.
For what it’s worth, I’ve just read Walter Willet’s book, Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy, which is an effort to distill the most recent scientific research into a single guide. According to Willett, the USDA food guide pyramid is definitely dangerous. The problem is the pyramid equates Wonder bread with brown rice, when actually refined complex carbohydrates may be worse for you than pure sugar in many ways.
Personally, I’m following Willet’s advice and eating whole grains, fruits and vegetables, lean protein, and a good deal of nuts and olive oil. White flour , sugar, and white potatoes are infrequent indulgences.
Anyway, from what I’m reading of Atkins here, it may well be healthier than the previous low fat craze because it gets people to stop spiking their blood sugar with refined carbohydrates, and to eat more fruits and vegetables.
(snipped for brevity…)
First off, did you even read my post? I don’t count calories, I count carbohydrate grams. Again, I don’t count calories. I have NO IDEA how many calories I eat each day. I know my body is in ketosis, the state wherein I’m burning fat for energy, because I have some little ketosticks that I can pee on. They turn purple and that lets me know I’m excreting ketones on my urine.
I don’t gorge myself or stuff myself, but I eat till I’m satisfied. I never go hungry on this diet, as opposed to other diets where you count calories. Some people might say I’m eating less, but I’m always satisfied. There are some smart-alecky types who say Atkins “works” because although you can have all the real butter you want, you just can’t have any bread to put it on, so it tricks you into eating less, but trust me, it’s the ketosis that makes you lose weight.
Carbs are not a food group. Food is separated into groups like meat and protein, fruits, vegetables, dairy, grains, sweets and oils. Carbohydrates are not considered a food group.
Different foods are processed differently by the body. It’s different for different bodies. Everyone’s different. When I eat too much processed sugar, I get migraines (not headaches - MIGRAINES. Two very different things). I can’t eat shrimp, raw peanuts, avacado, or yogurt. There’s an ingredient in some of the low-carb candy called Maltitol that makes me sick (bad stomachache). I just can’t process it or something. So I don’t eat that crap.
I don’t exercise “like a demon.” I walk my dog daily, and I ride an exercise bike, 20 minutes a day, twice a day. That’s about it. I don’t go to a gym and I don’t work out.
And champion athletes? They usually “carbo-load” before big events to have energy, eating lots of pasta or carb-rich foods for the energy they need. That’s why Gatorade and regular power bars are chock-full of carbohyrates. That’s fine for them, but I won’t eat that stuff.
I suggest that you and Lib both reread my post–I never said that different foods are processed differently by the body because, as you point out, that’s arrant nonsense. I explained how carbohydsrates are digested and how the body turns to stored fat for fuel after the available store of glycogen is burned.
Go back and read what I wrote, not other people’s descriptions of what I wrote.
Most people have adverse effects to maltitol. For the record, low carb bread has been around for years; many of the sugar free, low calorie breads that low fat dieters have used is also low in carbohydrates. Earthgrains 35 is a 35-calorie/slice bread that also only has 6 carbs per slice. And it’s quite yummy.
BTW, when I was researching the good and bad of Atkins last year, one of the things that sold me on the diet was the simple fact that you can find all the information you need to do it on their website. I’ve never bought the book, and yet I’ve never had trouble doing the diet. When the diet a company is hawking only provides you with the information you need after you shell out money, my sensors go on high alert. In other words, you can do the Aktins diet without shelling out a single penny to the company. I hope that doesn’t change.
As for the OP, it’s obviously going to get silly before it levels out, just as the low fat thing did. I mean, does anyone actually like fat-free ice cream (obviously, yes, since it does still exist, but not in the quantities as originally created)? On the other hand, I love that companies are now making low carb frozen lunches that make it so much easier for my husband to fix his lunch for work.
Has anybody found a diet on which they didn’t lose weight? Long term success is the key…dropping the weight once, keeping it off for years, and improving your life/health in the process.
Long term success stories on registered with the Ntional Weight Loss Registry which monitors long term success indicate that reduced calorie diets, focused on meeting RDA standards, combined with reduced fats, exercise and general life style changes are the common themes in maintaining weight loss, despite the emphasis society places on low-carb options.
I fully support the OP, and proudly hang a sign in my cubicle at work which proclaims that I love carbs.
If once more obese person preaches to me (5’10" 180 lbs and 15% body fat) that I should eat carbs, I’m gonna punch them.
Even strictly sticking to Atkins, you will lose weight. It’s got carbs, and it’s not no carb, but with bajillions of Atkins books sold over a number of years now, those folks fail to find their way into reports about long term success. Most are still part of the yo-yo diet studies.
“Third, this is the hard one, is that digestion itself requires energy and feces contain energy which has not become available to the body. It is not practical to try to measure these at home. It is generally approximated that 10% of the measured calories in food and drink are not used. This is an approximation for several reasons. It takes more to digest protein than it does to digest fat or carbohydrate (hence the rationale for the dangerous high protein diet). A person eating a high protein diet will require more calories to digest the protein and so has a higher output than the approximated 10%.”
I think what they’re saying is that since protein is harder to break down, it’s being broken down as completely as most other nutrient classes. Therefore, there’s a higher percentage of it left intact when it leaves the body.
And yes, Booboofoo, you do indeed shit out calories. Fifty percent is dead blood cells, and most of the rest is undigestable food. Like, oh say, dietary fiber. That’s why some low-carb dieters count what they call impact carbs instead of total carbohydrates. It means they’re only counting the carbohydrates they don’t shit out, the ones that are actually available for the body to use and can impact the blood glucose. Oh, and carbohydrates are NOT a food group, they’re a nutrient class.
No. A gram is a unit of measurement. Carbohydrates are what is being measured. A carb is not a unit of measurement. Similarly, if I have 12 ounces of water, the ounce is the unit of measurement, not the water. I don’t have “12 waters”.
Again, I don’t want to diminish your success - but I would be willing to bet that if you followed that exact diet, but included whole grains as well, that you would have been just as successful. I don’t think the “no grains at all” part is what’s doing it. It’s the lean meats and lots of fresh veggies that’s key. Salad is mostly cellulose, which can’t be digested. If you eat a lot of salad, you are obviously going to eat less of everything else, and since the lettuce contains very little digestable material, your net caloric intake will drop.
Oh, I don’t know about that. I think the idea of the Food Pyramid is to eat whole grains rather than fat. But if you’re eating modest amounts of lean meats, and mostly vegetables, I don’t think a nutritionist would have a problem with that. I think what nutritionists have a problem with are people who eat tons of fatty meat and fatty dairy to the exclusion of everything else, and think they are being healthy.
A nutritionist would tell you that a dinner of a grilled chicken breast, no skin, salad, and whole wheat bread is healthier than a dinner of two bacon cheesburgers with no bun, salad, and no bread. The bread is not the deciding factor.
Shit and blood in the same sentence makes me a little queasy.