Low Carb Diets: How can this work unless you restrict calories, too?

Cafe Society
1

I have, as an adult, struggled with weight gain since I was in my early 20s. Both of my parents are obese and so is my brother.

I have had the best luck with carb-restrictive diets.

Without a tsunami of backstory and detail, let’s just say I got scary skinny “just kind of watching my carbs” the first time, went food-nuts with a bad relationship, gained some back, got in the best shape of my life working out and doing low carb the second time, and about a year ago my current GF wanted us to go low-carb because she’s desperate to lose weight, and I was the biggest I’ve been (I spent like a decade not caring about my weight).

I’ve shed at least 30 lbs sticking with it (cheating every month or so, maybe more. Maybe half a pizza every 3 weeks) and there’s a clear, honest, downward trajectory with my weight that isn’t debatable. I’ve gone from a size 40 to a size 36. Weight is down but best part is I can wear clothes I didn’t fit for like 4 years.

I’ve gone from around 255 to 218. I’m not working out and I’m not getting any cardio. That will be added in. My goal is to be in reasonably good shape by Sept 2020 (I turn 40 and I want to be in reasonably good shape). I have ridiculous muscle memory and really athletic build. Any effort at a gym reaps immediate gains.

This diet is working well for me, and i don’t understand how. MY GF abandoned it because she got no results. She lost a little then stalled and just couldn’t bring herself to restrict her diet for NO REASON.

I’m posting here because I have a fitness buff for a BF who groans at “fad diets” and absolutely demands “YOU CANNOT LOSE WEIGHT UNLESS YOU RESTRICT YOUR CALORIES.” When I tell him I’m losing all this weight doing low carb he chimes that “you’re just eating less calories. There’s literally no other way to lose weight.”

I am in no way whatsoever restricting my calories. Only my carbs. This glaring truth smacked me like a runaway train tonight when my GF and I shared a bunless burger meal—which I cooked and seared in duck fat. I’ve been doing sous vide red meat cooked in duck fat for a while now, but when she–who is counting calories–asked what the fat percent of beef was, I had to contact my butcher. As we all suspected, it was 80/20. But the butcher pointed something out: “that duck fat is going to be a bigger issue.” He’s right. It’s an additional 130 calories per tblspn.

I don’t get why I’m getting away with massive calories but no carbs and I’m shedding weight like a bag I have to let go of while she can’t lose anything while counting calories.

How does this work? I have to admit I cannot believe I should be losing weight as well as I am.

2

Is duck fat an ingredient that’s in frequent rotation in your larder? If not, it’s probably not relevant to the point that a low carb diet tends to be lower in caloric content.

3

I think the point is that you do end up eating fewer calories, and the fact that you’re not consuming so many empty/high GI carbs means you don’t “crash” and feel really hungry again a short time later. plus since you’re not consuming a surfeit of carbs for your body to turn right into glucose, you’re running on ketones instead.

4

Congrats on the weight loss.

I don’t think a low carb diet is considered a fad at this point, there is much research on its effectiveness. Several studies indicate that it actually lowers your cholesterol, raises your HDL, and reduces blood sugar and insulin levels. Clearly it promotes weight loss.

Nutrition is incredibly complex. The theory is that, when you are eating carbs your body has a quick and easy source of calories available. But when you restrict carbs and put yourself in a state of ketosis, the simple sugars are not swimming in the bloodstream as freely and the body grabs much of its energy from your stored fat.

This is a gigantic oversimplification, of course. There are many other components of low carb diets that are said to allow your body to burn energy more efficiently, regulate blood sugar swings, and keep the desire to overeat at bay.

And…maybe you *are *eating less calories. It would be interesting if you track your food intake for a week or so and determine your average daily calorie intake. MyFitnessPal is great for that.

mmm

5

You don’t necessarily wind up eating fewer calories when you low-carb. The point is that calories from carbs drive up your blood sugar, which drives insulin production, which (if you’re really overweight) your body is resistant to, so fat storage is kicked into high gear.

Calories from fat DO NOT drive up blood sugar. Three hundred calories of bread will drive my blood sugar over 200 within an hour. The same NUMBER OF CALORIES of say, bacon, or salami will not move my blood sugar at all. So, no extra insulin production, and no increase in love handles.

Read Jason Fung’s book The Obesity Code. He backs up everything with many, many studies, some of them government studies that are decades old, but conveniently ignored by the sugar industry (which is who told us to cut out fat–wrong!). This is not a simple topic and it is widely misunderstood. Do your own research.

In short: it’s the **kind **of calorie that counts, not the number of calories.

6

's funny. 20 years ago when it was called “Atkins” everyone flipped their lids and said if you did it you’d drop dead of a heart attack within minutes.

call it “keto” today and everyone is doing it.

7

Some say it causes one to eat less, some say that it will increase one’s energy level once they get into ketosis, others say that it works differently metabolically, thus has different ‘efficiencies’ . All answers seem to have some merit, but nothing seems to be a one answer fits all.

What does seem to make sense is we have 2 main energy stores, fat and glycogen. Glycogen acts like a buffer it is used first and refills fast. Going into ketosis turns off that buffer (actually it empties it), so now one is dealing with fat as the store that is being used. Considering one losing weight wants to remove fat, it seems more efficient to directly deal with the fat, and not have that buffer of glycogen get involved.

8

Any diet that works is based on consuming fewer Calories than you use. That’s, ultimately, the only way that a diet can work.

The difficulty is that your body has all sorts of feedback systems to regulate how many Calories you consume. And those feedback systems work very well. But they’re calibrated by millions of years of evolution to an environment where shortage of food was a common problem, and overabundance of food a very rare one. Which means that, when you put a person with those feedback systems in an environment where food is plentiful, we tend to eat too much. And as I said, those systems work very well, so that even when you think you’re sticking to your diet, you’ll tend to cheat: You’ll put a little bigger serving on your plate than you’re supposed to, or grab a snack on your way through the kitchen without accounting for it, or whatever.

So what makes a diet successful is that it successfully fools your body’s feedback systems, to make you think you’re getting a diet appropriate to the environment you evolved in, while actually getting a diet appropriate for the environment you’re in now. And that’s a lot more complicated than just counting Calories. For that purpose, low-carb works, at least for some people.

9

If you think that’s something, try adding intermittent fasting. I’m on One Meal a day right now. Though honestly, I think that does lend to caloric restriction because my eating window is so small (and forced by work break times). However, I try to eat as much as I can, especially protein (I’m not doing the whole keto thing with higher fat and lower protein).

10

I don’t really see why your buddy would get his knickers in a twist that what you’re doing can’t possibly work, when you’re actually doing it, and seeing it work.

The reason is probably some combination of accidentally eating less because you don’t feel hungry so much which is a perfectly fine and valid way to be, and/or your body takes a bit more energy to process the calories in protein/fat than white flour and sugar and/or your body is using up the energy running your internal processes rather than on deliberate exercise (see: resting metabolic rate)

I would just put your buddy’s opinion on ignore. Tell him not to worry his pretty little head about it :wink:

11

Atkins explained it this way in his book:

  1. Your cells need fuel to function. Their first choice of fuel is calories from dietary carbs. As long as that is available, that’s what they’ll use.

  2. Your cells’ second choice for fuel is calories from stored fat. If there are no dietary carbs available, they’ll go for the stored fat.

  3. Their last choice for fuel is calories from dietary fat and protein. They will only burn that if neither of the first two are available. As long as your cells are burning stored fat, the dietary fat and protein will just get excreted out. Basically, they “don’t count.”

I’m not saying this is true, but that’s my understanding of how Dr. Atkins presented the situation.

12

I don’t know how to do multi-quotes so I’m just going to reply to everything here (sorry).

1, it’s a bona-fide fact that I am certainly eating more than 2000 calories a day. I might be getting awfully close to 2000 or maybe a smidge below, but just a quick-and-dirty run-down for last night as an example, I figured out around 1200 calories outside my meals.

2, I don’t even technically count my carbs, I just avoid anything with sugar or obvious carbs (bread, french fries, etc). I’ve done it enough I can ballpark it pretty well.

3, Intermittent Fasting somewhat might be a factor, but not because I am doing it on purpose (not regimented or regularly). I often skip breakfast and work through lunch, but will graze on crudite before eating a real meal in the evenings. It’s not every day, but it’s often during the week. Today, for example, I had an omelette in the morning.

3.5, I have noticed I can’t eat as much in one sitting as I used to. If I go out to lunch or dinner I usually have a starter salad instead of sides and will eat less than half the entre. But again, I am still consuming more than 2000 calories unless it’s really close to 2000.

4, Duck fat isn’t the main issue, nor a staple, just something I thought about because it messed up the GF’s daily calorie count, and not something I even have to pay attention to. I feel bad because I cooked for her and I blew out her restrictions without even realizing what I was doing.

5, Low-carb worked for her for maybe 15lbs but she stalled. I suspect she wasn’t strictly counting carbs but then again I’m starting to wonder if she doesn’t have a medical reason for not being able to lose weight. Who knows.

6, regarding my buddy, it just sucks because he’s one of those rabidly opinionated people who–when he thinks he has some level of expertise–bulldogs you. I was going to Dave and Buster’s for a nephew’s b-day thing and mentioned the outrageous amount of carbs they say some of their dishes have (like, thousands of carbs–literally more grams of carbs than grams it weights in some cases, which has to be some kind of error)…sure enough, I got the lecture…“WHO CARES ABOUT CARBS WHEN THE ONLY THING YOU CAN LOSE WEIGHT WITH IS COUNTING CARLORIES!” I don’t really discuss it w him anymore but it sucks I can’t mention it…

I have to say I’m really happy and excited about all of your feedback. I half expected to be berated that “NO DIETS WORK, ONLY LIFESTYLE CHANGES” (there were a few “if you intend to diet, DON’T” posts both here and on many newscasts around NY. This isn’t a NY’s thing, I’ve been working on this for at least 6 months and you know how it goes–once you see progress, it makes you really incentivized to keep it up.) I also expected some blowback along the lines of “THAT’S NOT HEART HEALTHY” or something.

I cannot express how much better I feel. Especially climbing around on scaffolding when I’m doing murals–my knees no longer smack into my gut when I need to climb around. So much less fatigue. So much less tired legs and feet. You really notice being able to jump up from sitting with just one leg without having to support your fat-ass with your arms.

13

Ketosis is your weight loss friend.

14

Anyone know if that’s true? That’d be pretty interesting. I would think they could test urine and stool to see if someone on low-carb is excreting a lot of calories.

One thing that people on low-carb often say is that they no longer feel hungry. Carbs can often create a cycle where the more you eat, the more you want. So people may do something like eat lots of calories of bread and it doesn’t feel like anything. But the same calories from beef seared in fat makes someone feel full and they don’t end up snacking or whatever. If you cut out carbs, it may reduce a lot of the feelings of hunger which are really just your body’s way of getting you to eat more carbs.

Do you know how many calories you were consuming before all of this? I would think any 220+ person doing manual labor would lose weight on a 2k diet regardless of what they were eating. The benefit of low-carb is that you don’t seem to be dealing with feelings of hunger. If instead you were just counting calories, you might be battling more of those irrational hunger feelings and have a harder time sticking to that number.

15

I basically lucked into low carb eating when I got an A1C test result that had me at “pre-diabetic” and I just was not having it. So I cut out the sugar and the processed carbs while basically ignoring carbs that came in the form of fresh, unprocessed fruit and veg and when I did eat carbs I made sure I went with the most complex ones available. It didn’t really change my diet much aside from eating a lot more fruit than before and snacking on pistachio nuts instead of chips and the like. I also got tired of having to think about all those meals every day and backed into intermittent fasting because I have a big cuppa coffee in the morning with a slug of (unwhipped, unsweetened) heavy cream in it and that holds me just fine well into the afternoon. I have a biggish dinner sometime around 3-5pm and snack on this and that until 10 or so or sometimes earlier if dinner was especially filling. I was only looking to lower my glucose levels, which I did, but the 25+ lbs of weight loss was a nice little bonus. I’m coming up on two years now and have maintained the weight loss and might have dropped a bit more, I’m not sure because I need a new battery for my scale but my pants are loose again and I’m needing a belt for most pairs. I don’t really care about the theory behind all of it, I’m just happy to be feeling much better (when I do cheat and eat something sugary it makes me feel bloated, sleepy and logy so I really avoid it) and keeping my blood sugar in healthy levels. shrug You can tell me how it doesn’t work all you like but I’ll just smile as I enjoy my huge steak and salad while pulling my belt in another notch.

16

Glad to hear that you’re feeling good and losing weight. I’ve bene doing low carb again also.
I don’t count calories and enjoy a big salad of low-carb, high fiber vegetables for lunch along with cottage cheese or some other protein source.
I’ve dropped 13 lbs since the beginning of the month.
I’ve done this before and knew to expect the 'keto flu" the third day of eating this way, so I started when I knew I’d have a day off for ‘keto flu’. It was mostly just ‘brain fog’ and a shitty attitude. My workouts have been different: I can’t lift as much and run out of gas after fewer reps, but my runs (elliptical machine, I have bad knees) are great.

EDIT: I am definitely taking in fewer calories than I burn every day. On this low carb diet, I don’t feel hungry, because the fat and fiber I eat keep me feeling full.
I don’t get the insulin spikes from dumping a lot of starch and sugar into my stomach, so I have the same level of energy all day long. The thing that’s killed this for me in the past were ‘cheat days’. If I avoid going off keto, I’ll be OK.

17

Different diets work for different people, low carb diets work great for some people, poorly for others. You seem to respond very well to low carb and your girlfriend not so much.

18

Atkins re-introduces carbs; keto doesn’t.