I've been losing 2/3rds pound or 300g per day

Arwin said:
Carbs aren't necessarily bad. But in order to prevent addiction and mood swings, you are highly recommended to avoid simple carbs (white rice and such), and go for complex carbs instead (e.g. non-white rice, grains and such). Of course, even that is only when you are actually having health problems (either physical or mental). Complex carbs release 'feel good' hormones in your body very gradually (as they are gradually decomposed) whereas simple carbs release a lot quickly, which generates euforia, which is then (over)compensated for by your brain by increasing the serotonine uptake.
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What makes white rice a simple carb but brown rice, I.E. rice with some husk a complex carb given the fact that they are effectively the same sans shell? I have the same question in regards to wholemeal flour vs normal flour. I bake bread on a regular basis with wholemeal flour for others, but I don't really see much difference as the 'wholemealness' seems additive to white flour rather than changing the fundamental nature of the food.

Sugars are the worst offenders for this, as they for a large part are digested in your saliva already and taken up by your glands to be transported to your brain almost directly. That is why they can be very addictive (and the addiction is as real as any euphoria related addiction!). So avoiding sugar should be your first priority. Then simple carbs are changed by your body into sugar very quickly as well, so they have the same effect, but delayed and not as powerful. Complex carbs gradually release their energy, and therefore don't cause spikes that your brain reacts to.
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I seem to feel better from not touching sugar. To be honest I don't really miss it when had you asked me 3 months ago I would have said I wouldn't do without it. However im concerned that the distinction complex carbohydrate doesn't make sense. A raw carrot makes sense as a complex carbohydrate as it is actually harder to digest. Pasta / Flour / Rice even if they are 'brown' don't quite make as much sense. A lot of white products like flour are while because they are bleached. So effectively brown flour is unbleached.

Spikes in serotonine can are bad because your brain to change permanently in order to protect itself against such spikes in the future / balance itself out against these spikes. Also, the effect is basically that all the other healthy stuff that causes serotonine levels to increase (solving problems, sports, social interaction, sunlight) becomes less significant.
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Well my mood has lifted considerably. Funnily enough I have hardly touched a game since I started my change in diet. Obviously the diet of what im eating is a work in progress however it seems that I haven't wanted to touch anything aside from Kinect games. Theres nothing like coming home from a 2 hour walk to a nice game of Dance Central!
 
The paleolithic diet is the low carb/no carb thing which I did the other year. I was hardly overweight but dropped about 8lbs within a few weeks without trying, without dropping booze and having little exercise!

Unfortunately, my girlfriend has moved in this year (better not let her read that!) so my chances of keeping to any kind of diet without bread/pasta/rice/potatoes has gone to pretty much zero. She appears to think that green vegetables are evil, or something.
 
White rice and brown rice are both the same form of complex (starchy) carbohydrate. The difference between brown and white rice is that your body needs to break down the extra bit in brown rice which contains both fat and protein. Both fat and protein slow digestion and absorbtion of carbs, meaning that the release in to your body is slower. This is why wholemeal products are recommended to diabetics, as the slower release means that the body isn't loaded with sugar as quickly, and has time to work on the incoming carbs slowly - and the reason that diabetics don't (or shouldn't) treat low blood sugar with chocolate (high fat content).
 
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Dr Evil said:
Low carp is already very popular currently with those who like to think themselves as in the know :smile:
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Yes, but I was referring to popularity among those not in-the-know.

Dr Evil said:
You don't get hungry in a couple of hours if stuff yourself with carbs. Your body can't process them that fast.
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Well I do, and the problem is exactly in the fact that the body can't process them that fast :) It is not a real hunger caused by need of more energy, but an urge to get something to snack. And since in reality you still have plenty of reserves from stuffing yourself with the meal, those snacks are all just surplus energy.

Dr Evil said:
But yeah high protein low carb diet has some benefits, especially in relation to it being easy for lot of people. Balanced diet is still better and I myself got my Goat when I was on low carb, a lot sooner than my father did back in the day.
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The common mistake people do with low carb is associating it with high protein. Excess protein is only good for body building, and it introduces several health hazards, gout being a classic example. The energy content of the dropped carbs should be replaced mostly with fat, not mostly with protein.
 
Mize said:
It's not exactly a low carb diet guys. Bfast is coffee, cereal and bread.
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He said breakfast was a plate of all-bran or bread. He gets maybe 30g of carbs out of that, and the other stuff he eats does not practically add much to this figure. He easily consumes those with his physical activity, so I'd say he most definitely is having a low carb diet. Considering it is possible for people to maintain ketosis even without any real excercise with carb intake of 40-50g per day, I wouldn't hesitate to call that ketogenic diet.
 
WhiningKhan said:
The common mistake people do with low carb is associating it with high protein. Excess protein is only good for body building, and it introduces several health hazards, gout being a classic example. The energy content of the dropped carbs should be replaced mostly with fat, not mostly with protein.
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I only consumed about 200g of protein per day so 800Kcal from it, certainly not a huge amount. Protein itself has nothing to do with Goat, because not all protein contain purines.
 
Short of stuffing yourself with a stick of butter, I'd rather have the protein along with the fat there. :p
 
Dr Evil said:
I only consumed about 200g of protein per day so 800Kcal from it, certainly not a huge amount. Protein itself has nothing to do with Goat, because not all protein contain purines.
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I don't want to sound like I'm preaching here, but that's still quite a lot if you were dieting to lose weight - the usual recommended protein intake for low carb diets is along the lines of 25% of total calories.
 
Hmmm. I remember watching a science documentary investigating the Atkins diet which concluded that the theory of 'ketosis' was pretty much a load of old bollocks.
 
Healthy fat is needed to lose fat. Also eating 2gr of protein per kilo of body weight will ensure youre body has enough proteins if you also do cardio and weight training. If not then less but not less than 1gr per body kilo as you dont want your muscles to be used as fuel. Also remember that to much protein is just wasted and also strains your liver.
 
WhiningKhan said:
Of course. You can eat almost whatever you like, if you can control yourself. The problem with the carbs for many people is that the control is difficult to maintain, since the carbs trigger the insulin rollercoaster - you get hungry after a couple of hours, no matter how much you stuff yourself. With low carb diet, it is easy to eat two or three times a day feeling energetic and not hungry, as our friend Squilliam here has testified.
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It takes a few hours just for the food to exit your stomach. It might make sense to eat low amounts of carbs if you're overweight and need to lose fat, but not when you're at an ideal weight and have a healthy appetite. The reason is that carbs are needed to produce glycogen and what glycogen does is hinder both the storage and the burning of fats. So if you're at a good weight, you'll want to store as much energy as glycogen as possible.

Remember, the thinnest nation in the world (Japan) gets the vast majority of their calories from rice so it's obvious that insulin regulation is very different for different people. I think generally the people who eat more carbs have better insulin regulation but I don't know how long it takes for your metabolism to adjust to different diets.
 
Mariner said:
Hmmm. I remember watching a science documentary investigating the Atkins diet which concluded that the theory of 'ketosis' was pretty much a load of old bollocks.
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In what sense? Ketosis itself as a phenomenon is very real biochemistry. Its relation to diets and weight loss you can argue as much as you want, but the fact is that ketogenic diets are very effective for losing weight.

Obviously ketosis is not _necessary_ for losing weight, but makes it easier as it extinguishes the feeling of hunger.

What was the argument in that documentary?
 
nintenho said:
It takes a few hours just for the food to exit your stomach. It might make sense to eat low amounts of carbs if you're overweight and need to lose fat, but not when you're at an ideal weight and have a healthy appetite. The reason is that carbs are needed to produce glycogen and what glycogen does is hinder both the storage and the burning of fats. So if you're at a good weight, you'll want to store as much energy as glycogen as possible.
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Only if you need to be able to run a marathon any time, and you actually do perform rigorous physical exercise regularly. If you keep your glycogen stores full all the time, the surplus energy of your food ends up as lipids in your bloodstream and accumulates in the fat layers in your body, since you can't just keep increasing the glycogen reserves unless you consume the clycogen by physical activity. That is exactly how we get fat and get bad blood lipid values - you really _have_ to be able to control your eating and have sufficient exercise with that style.

Obviously, when you can control your eating, there is no problem, since the assumed problem was that you can't control your eating. :D
 
WhiningKhan said:
Only if you need to be able to run a marathon any time, and you actually do perform rigorous physical exercise regularly. If you keep your glycogen stores full all the time, the surplus energy of your food ends up as lipids in your bloodstream and accumulates in the fat layers in your body, since you can't just keep increasing the glycogen reserves unless you consume the clycogen by physical activity. That is exactly how we get fat and get bad blood lipid values - you really _have_ to be able to control your eating and have sufficient exercise with that style.

Obviously, when you can control your eating, there is no problem, since the assumed problem was that you can't control your eating. :D
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Well you have like a couple thousand calories of glycogen that can be stored and daily exercise isn't a tall order for somebody who wants to be serious about getting in shape. If you've got a very sedentary lifestyle, then any food will be stored as fat. If you try to get most of your calories from fat, as you would in a paleo diet, then ALL of your energy is stored as fat whether or not you exercise regularly. Obviously that's not ideal.
 
nintenho said:
Well you have like a couple thousand calories of glycogen that can be stored and daily exercise isn't a tall order for somebody who wants to be serious about getting in shape. If you've got a very sedentary lifestyle, then any food will be stored as fat.
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Sure, physical exercise is good for you. But if you work long days sitting on your ass, have kids sucking all life out of you, when it's -20C outside and sun is up for 5 hours a day, guess which is easier - improving your eating or radically increasing exercise...

nintenho said:
If you try to get most of your calories from fat, as you would in a paleo diet, then ALL of your energy is stored as fat whether or not you exercise regularly. Obviously that's not ideal.
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Again, a common misconception - when people eat fat, they get fatter. False. It's still the control of eating we are talking about. In reality, if you follow a LCHF diet properly, you end up eating less calories per day without really thinking it, because you feel less hunger. The dietary fat is burnt for energy, there's nothing left of it to store in your body, and your body smoothly continues the fat-burning with the reserves you have in your body.
 
I know what you're saying but you could still feed the same "slow burn" metabolism with carbohydrates. I'm saying that any extra calories you eat in fat can only be stored as fat while carbs first fill up your glycogen stores and then go into fat.
 
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