Want to lose weight? Low-Carb actually works!

No, its true. A low carb diet isn't a fad diet.  Atkins diet where you load up on proteins and fat is.  Also, all carbs aren't created equal.  A slice of whole wheat bread has the same carb value as a slice of white bread, but it comes with better fiber. 

I am not extremely overweight, 5'10 185, but I do have type two diabetes.  I was recently put on insulin injections and taken off pills.  I'm currently working on dietary improvements and getting into gear and hopefully sticking with my exercise program.  Yeah it means I'll have less time to waste on progarchives, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for better health.

Lose weight, stop eating. 

JLocke wrote: CPicard wrote: Lose weight, marry an Italian.

CPicard wrote: Lose weight, stop eating.

Unfortunately that doesn't work. Well, if you take it literally it does ... if you stop eating, then you'll lose weight. And technically fasting is a low-carb diet, too. The question is: how do you keep your weight after the diet?

One of the greatest misconceptions when it comes to weight loss is that those who are overweight simply eat too much. Or by the reverse logic: All an obese person has to do in order to lose weight is to eat less. I'm now very sure that it depends on *what* you eat much more than how much you eat ... and contrary to common belief, the bad nutrient is carbohydrates, not fat.

micky wrote: might be stating the obvious here.. but let's just say I'm not an expert on diets..  just diet coke since all of our bodies are different... I would not  think there is a 'magic' diet for all.  I would suppose you just have to try them till you find one that works.

Well, technically you just made a "low-carb" suggestion, so I would agree.

I don't think that there's a "magic" diet - but all diets have a reason why they're supposed to work, and low-carb makes a lot of sense physiologically. I can't say the same for the grapefruit diet or any other "fad" diet. Plus the results seem to confirm that. So while I don't think that there's anything "magical" about low-carb, I do think that it stands out among most, of not all other diets. It also makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint, since I doubt that your typical cave man had easy access to carbohydrates 100,000 years ago.

The only thing you loose weight on is more physical training with the same diet. I loose three pounds on every round of golf......... with the same diet as before. I have lost ten stones (65 kilos) on golf, cycling and walking. I have also won several golf tournaments and seen parts of this country I would not have seen without my bike. But that's only a pleasant side effect of this regime.  

Besides of that; slimming is also very nice on the environment. Walk instead of drive the 1-2 miles to the shops/farmers market.  

.......but plenty of black coffee/unsweetened tea is also a good slimmer.   

Sex is probably the best slimmer/diet in the world. But as progheads, we don't do sex.   

To sum it up: Human beings was not born to lay idle on a sofa. Human beings was born to hunt, reproduce, be hunted, run, walk, fish, farm, work and everything else we are not doing now. 

In my family, we have been fighting starvation for ten generations. We have only had plenty for the last two generations........... and very severe weight problems. Coincidence ? I don't think so.  

I'm glad this is working for you Mike - congratulations    keep us posted on your progress

Slartibartfast wrote: No, its true. A low carb diet isn't a fad diet.  Atkins diet where you load up on proteins and fat is.  Also, all carbs aren't created equal.  A slice of whole wheat bread has the same carb value as a slice of white bread, but it comes with better fiber.

I think that the Atkins diet is a valid form of the low-carb diet. When you reduce carbs this automatically means that you'll eat more proteins and fat. As a matter of fact, I'm currently reducing carbs to a bare minimum - I practically live on meat, eggs and dairy products.

Slartibartfast wrote: I am not extremely overweight, 5'10 185, but I do have type two diabetes.  I was recently put on insulin injections and taken off pills.  I'm currently working on dietary improvements and getting into gear and hopefully sticking with my exercise program.  Yeah it means I'll have less time to waste on progarchives, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for better health.

So your pancreas is no longer producing insulin? In any case, I would recommend trying to reduce carbohydrates rather than adjusting insulin in order to increase your tolerance for carbohydrates, and another book that I'm currently reading (in german, written by a medical doctor) recommends just that.

CPicard wrote: Is anyone ready to learn how to gain weight with my method? It involves lotta butter.

You mean that fatty foods make you gain weight? I disagree. The evidence clearly shows that carbohydrates are much more fattening than fats, as illogical as it may seem at first thought. And of course the fact that for the last 50 years or so doctors and nutritionists have been advocating low-fat, high-carb diets doesn't help either.


The basic logic is this:

Eat carbs -> Insulin rises -> Fat is stored rather than used
Eat fats -> Insulin is not affected -> Fat is used rather than stored

The problem in most obese people seems to be that they have chronically elevated levels of insulin, caused by their carbohydrate intake. Just like lean people their body maintains a balance between fat storage and fat utilization, but as long as insulin is elevated, too much fat is stored rather than used. And simply eating less (while maintaining carbohydrates in the diet) doesn't cause that balance to change ... people might lose some weight that way, but they'll be in a constant state of semi-starvation, which means that not only will the be hungry all the time, but their body will also feed on itself (on the protein), since fat utilization is blocked by the insulin.