Low Carb Responses from the General Forums

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  • LunaKate
    LunaKate Posts: 64 Member
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    I am so glad I found this forum.

    I watched the film "Fed Up", if you havent watched it, I recommend it. It makes a lot of good points on how sugar crazy America is. It made me remember how my mother-in-law had to switch to a ketogenic diet due to health problems. She has since lost a lot of weight. I did my research on how it keeps your blood sugar down so you make less insulin and your body starts to burn more fat. I decided I wanted to try a ketogenic diet to see if it works well for me.

    I made the mistake of telling people so in my newsfeed and asking if anyone else had tried it. The very first response was "dont forget there are good carbs, like apples." I never said anything about bad carbs, just I was going low carb.... an apple would easily be all my carbs for one day but they probably just dont know anything about a ketogenic diet and why carbs need to be low.

    The next person who commented said they hated it and it made them get dehydrated, they added her friend has been going carb crazy since stopping.

    I know that carbs help retain water but I cant imagine cutting carbs effects hydration as long as you drink enough water every day. I try for a gallon. And going carb crazy after low-carbing is IMO the rise in blood sugar causes rise in insulin which causes the blood sugar drop that makes you hungry all over again rollercoaster I want to get off.

    In general it seems low carb is not well liked by a lot of people.

  • Alliwan
    Alliwan Posts: 1,245 Member
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    Mistizoom wrote: »
    Alliwan wrote: »
    yarwell wrote: »
    If it is possible to have a calm and respectful interplay of comments and opinions based on science as well as personal experience, may I ask a question? Have individuals on this forum heard of "carbohydrate intolerance" as a separate of distinct concern in relation to insulin resistance?

    At a first guess "carb intolerance" would show up as high blood glucose with low insulin, whereas "insulin resistance" is usually high insulin ('cos it isn't having any effect) combined with high glucose.

    Often with PCOS and Insulin resistance, you have high insulin and normal blood glucose. I know I am not the only one on the PCOS boards who have had really high insulin and my blood glucose is smack dab in the middle of normal along with my A1C.

    So weird right?

    This is exactly my experience as well. I have PCOS and have never had a high blood sugar reading, but I used to have super high insulin. Got it under control with metformin, now it is really under control with low carb eating + metformin.

    I use met, keto and Inositol to help with the insulin levels. They all seem to be meshing well and helping me also.
  • Sugarbeat
    Sugarbeat Posts: 824 Member
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    That's just it, they know nothing about it. Rarely you will hear someone be honest and say it just isn't for them. Mostly it's people being rude in an attempt to justify eating sugar.
  • Mistizoom
    Mistizoom Posts: 578 Member
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    LunaKate wrote: »

    <snip>
    In general it seems low carb is not well liked by a lot of people.

    And my theory on why is that they are all carb addicted and need to believe that carbs are necessary to be healthy. Because they could never fathom having to give up their carbs.
  • KnitOrMiss
    KnitOrMiss Posts: 10,104 Member
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    LunaKate wrote: »
    I am so glad I found this forum.

    I watched the film "Fed Up", if you havent watched it, I recommend it. It makes a lot of good points on how sugar crazy America is. It made me remember how my mother-in-law had to switch to a ketogenic diet due to health problems. She has since lost a lot of weight. I did my research on how it keeps your blood sugar down so you make less insulin and your body starts to burn more fat. I decided I wanted to try a ketogenic diet to see if it works well for me.

    I made the mistake of telling people so in my newsfeed and asking if anyone else had tried it. The very first response was "dont forget there are good carbs, like apples." I never said anything about bad carbs, just I was going low carb.... an apple would easily be all my carbs for one day but they probably just dont know anything about a ketogenic diet and why carbs need to be low.

    The next person who commented said they hated it and it made them get dehydrated, they added her friend has been going carb crazy since stopping.

    I know that carbs help retain water but I cant imagine cutting carbs effects hydration as long as you drink enough water every day. I try for a gallon. And going carb crazy after low-carbing is IMO the rise in blood sugar causes rise in insulin which causes the blood sugar drop that makes you hungry all over again rollercoaster I want to get off.

    In general it seems low carb is not well liked by a lot of people.

    LCHF and Keto affect your hydration because you don't retain as much naturally. So when you don't have enough sodium to tell your body to retain the water it needs to function, it starts dumping your electrolytes, including magnesium and potassium. So it does affect hydration some, in that you have to jump up your sodium (when I started, I was doing two cups of buillion broth a day to help with the "flu" effects, down to one now), and you can use lite salt which is half potassium/half sodium. There are magnesium supplements you can take (magnesium citrate is more readily absorbed, if I remember right). But yes, the crux of the matter is that you have to get enough water...and a gallon, unless you way over 300 pounds is probably enough for you (divide your weight in pounds in half, and use that number as how many ounces is your goal - 250 lbs / 2 = 125, so 125 ounces daily - and a gallon is 128 ounces, right?)...
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
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    Mistizoom wrote: »
    LunaKate wrote: »

    <snip>
    In general it seems low carb is not well liked by a lot of people.

    And my theory on why is that they are all carb addicted and need to believe that carbs are necessary to be healthy. Because they could never fathom having to give up their carbs.
    I would also say that many of them "tried" low carb because a friend was doing it or whatever, and never did their homework. They just dove in and ate meat. I see that all the time with the nonsense threads about Atkins, and especially South Beach. The number of threads I've read where people go on and on about the South Beach diet when what they're describing doesn't look like the south beach diet at all.
  • LunaKate
    LunaKate Posts: 64 Member
    edited March 2015
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    Im 172 lbs and drinking about 100 ounces a day at least, not including my tea and soda. I take a multivitamin but havent added anything to up my sodium. I always thought lower was better for sodium, how much should I be getting? Ive had 800 mg today. Ive been feeling fine so far.
  • Mistizoom
    Mistizoom Posts: 578 Member
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    LunaKate wrote: »
    Im 172 lbs and drinking about 100 ounces a day at least, not including my tea and soda. I take a multivitamin but havent added anything to up my sodium. I always thought lower was better for sodium, how much should I be getting? Ive had 800 mg today. Ive been feeling fine so far.

    Lower is not better for sodium for anyone (that's another one of those health myths that everyone thinks is true). Aim for 3000-5000 mg sodium a day when you are starting low carb. Later you may be able to dial back a bit, but even when keto-adapted I would say around 2500 mg/day minimum for most people.
  • sweetteadrinker2
    sweetteadrinker2 Posts: 1,026 Member
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    Mistizoom wrote: »
    LunaKate wrote: »
    Im 172 lbs and drinking about 100 ounces a day at least, not including my tea and soda. I take a multivitamin but havent added anything to up my sodium. I always thought lower was better for sodium, how much should I be getting? Ive had 800 mg today. Ive been feeling fine so far.

    Lower is not better for sodium for anyone (that's another one of those health myths that everyone thinks is true). Aim for 3000-5000 mg sodium a day when you are starting low carb. Later you may be able to dial back a bit, but even when keto-adapted I would say around 2500 mg/day minimum for most people.

    Its super easy to get enough sodium when you're eating meat with good seasonings, and things like salami.

  • JPW1990
    JPW1990 Posts: 2,424 Member
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    Mistizoom wrote: »
    LunaKate wrote: »
    Im 172 lbs and drinking about 100 ounces a day at least, not including my tea and soda. I take a multivitamin but havent added anything to up my sodium. I always thought lower was better for sodium, how much should I be getting? Ive had 800 mg today. Ive been feeling fine so far.

    Lower is not better for sodium for anyone (that's another one of those health myths that everyone thinks is true). Aim for 3000-5000 mg sodium a day when you are starting low carb. Later you may be able to dial back a bit, but even when keto-adapted I would say around 2500 mg/day minimum for most people.

    Not true. Sodium and blood pressure has been overblown, but sodium and water retention are a very real issue. There are a lot of conditions where you have to watch sodium. Even without those, when you have too much, all you're doing is hanging on to extra water weight you don't need.
  • Mistizoom
    Mistizoom Posts: 578 Member
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    JPW1990 wrote: »
    Mistizoom wrote: »
    LunaKate wrote: »
    Im 172 lbs and drinking about 100 ounces a day at least, not including my tea and soda. I take a multivitamin but havent added anything to up my sodium. I always thought lower was better for sodium, how much should I be getting? Ive had 800 mg today. Ive been feeling fine so far.

    Lower is not better for sodium for anyone (that's another one of those health myths that everyone thinks is true). Aim for 3000-5000 mg sodium a day when you are starting low carb. Later you may be able to dial back a bit, but even when keto-adapted I would say around 2500 mg/day minimum for most people.

    Not true. Sodium and blood pressure has been overblown, but sodium and water retention are a very real issue. There are a lot of conditions where you have to watch sodium. Even without those, when you have too much, all you're doing is hanging on to extra water weight you don't need.

    That's why I said most people. The 3,000-5,000 mg/day recommendation is from Phinney and Volek.
  • IamUndrCnstruction
    IamUndrCnstruction Posts: 691 Member
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    I have to be careful with my sodium levels due to congestive heart failure, but this woe has helped so much with water retention issues that I can be a tiny bit kmore lenient with myself. I can have things like salami, and certain cheeses I couldn't have before. As long as I don't go crazy.
  • LunaKate
    LunaKate Posts: 64 Member
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    Thanks for the advice, Ill be careful Im getting enough sodium. A nice excuse to eat more bacon!
  • GaleHawkins
    GaleHawkins Posts: 8,159 Member
    edited March 2015
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    I thought it was just the forums that were bad....but this morning I got told that I am not losing because I am not logging correctly and I am eating too much because, you know...CICO. This was from a friend on my list....."If you don't see a loss in another week, you should drop your calories by 100" I am quite discouraged this morning...

    It is mind blowing how some of them give specific dieting instructions Iike you had an in office visit with a professional.

    As I continue to research cancer treatments that can be done at home that are in use in Europe and Asia today I find my biases getting in my way as in "no way" when I am reading. :) It is just natural for humans to call false what we do not understand.

    While no one in my house has cancer today I decided to try and build/record some cancer treatment protocols that we can call upon should there be a need. Really been struggling with the concept of heat as in Far Infrared mats and saunas. Moving closer but it was as foreign as Keto eating for weight control coming from a lifetime of CICO which I know now is so incomplete as to all of the factors controlling weight just as is only using chemo and radiation to treat cancer.

    Since October the 'other' forums have actually improved in that CICO is not the only line of thought posting any longer. There have been some sharp minds coming and staying more than 12 hours. :)
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    JPW1990 wrote: »
    I wonder if a bunch of people from in here answering this "informal poll" in the cesspool would make any difference in the attitudes out there?

    No, but I did it anyway. I think everyone responding restricted carbohydrates, LOL.

    It makes me laugh when they say "I eat at a deficit" when they don't know that. They eat less, for sure, and the lose weight, but saying it's at a deficit is just retrofitting a hypothesis to the data. The same people would expect too large a deficit to stop weight loss, go figure.
  • KeithF6250
    KeithF6250 Posts: 321 Member
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    I thought it was just the forums that were bad....but this morning I got told that I am not losing because I am not logging correctly and I am eating too much because, you know...CICO. This was from a friend on my list....."If you don't see a loss in another week, you should drop your calories by 100" I am quite discouraged this morning...

    It is mind blowing how some of them give specific dieting instructions Iike you had an in office visit with a professional.

    As I continue to research cancer treatments that can be done at home that are in use in Europe and Asia today I find my biases getting in my way as in "no way" when I am reading. :) It is just natural for humans to call false what we do not understand.

    While no one in my house has cancer today I decided to try and build/record some cancer treatment protocols that we can call upon should there be a need. Really been struggling with the concept of heat as in Far Infrared mats and saunas. Moving closer but it was as foreign as Keto eating for weight control coming from a lifetime of CICO which I know now is so incomplete as to all of the factors controlling weight just as is only using chemo and radiation to treat cancer.

    Since October the 'other' forums have actually improved in that CICO is not the only line of thought posting any longer. There have been some sharp minds coming and staying more than 12 hours. :)

    Gale Hwkins, I have to agree that even recognizing how personal mindsets, whether learned or in-born) can influence a person's filters when trying to learn.

  • GrannyMayOz
    GrannyMayOz Posts: 1,051 Member
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    Looks like there's another one going down community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/31693018#Comment_31693018

    I won't be adding any more to the thread. I've given enough information if she wants it, and isn't blind-sided.
  • SideSteel
    SideSteel Posts: 11,068 Member
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    DittoDan wrote: »
    I was accused of demonizing carbs.... What ever that means.

    Demonizing...really??? Sheesh.

    Fat has been demonized for over 30+ years and their complaining about demonizing Carbs? The truth is that, for a lot of people, Carbs should be demonized. The whole obesity-metabolic syndrome-insulin resisitant-diabetic epidemic today is caused by carbs. The solution, for some people, it to lay off the carbs and start eating much more fat.

    Dan the Man from Michigan


    Yes the solution for some people is to eat more fat and less carbs, but we don't have adequate data to claim that carbs are responsible for obesity. We have population data from people who eat a predominantly carbohydrate rich diet who do not suffer from the issues you list at the same level as the US. That alone should indicate that the problem is not carbohydrates.



  • wheatlessgirl66
    wheatlessgirl66 Posts: 598 Member
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    SideSteel wrote: »

    Yes the solution for some people is to eat more fat and less carbs, but we don't have adequate data to claim that carbs are responsible for obesity. We have population data from people who eat a predominantly carbohydrate rich diet who do not suffer from the issues you list at the same level as the US. That alone should indicate that the problem is not carbohydrates.

    Hi SideSteel:
    Ok. It's fine for you to believe that the problem isn't carbohydrates, and for those who can eat all carbs, more power to you! But my experience tells me that for a LOT of us they are. For 40 years I've been trying to lose weight. I listened to my doctors' instructions/ranting and followed all rules of eating healthy grains, low fat, lean protein, exercise, staying at 1200 cal/day. I could not lose weight, and kept gaining despite all my efforts. The doctors, of course, didn't believe me when I said I was eating the 1200 cal/day. This year I started considering bariatric surgery, b/c it's gotten to a point of desperation. I googled "alternatives to bariatric surgery" and found out about Very Low Carb eating. Despite my doctors' opinions, I began eating 20 carbs or less and not worrying about eating good fat. Well, whaddaya know, the weight has been dropping. I've lost 6.8 pounds in the last two weeks. It's steady, not fluctuating. My blood sugar dropped 17 points in one week. There's nothing you can say that will convince me that carbs had nothing to do with it. I'm eating lots of vegetables, more than ever, but they're the ones that grow above the ground. There is such an emotional tie to carbs that people have a very hard time believing they can be the cause of obesity. But they are.
  • Gianfranco_R
    Gianfranco_R Posts: 1,297 Member
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    SideSteel wrote: »
    Yes the solution for some people is to eat more fat and less carbs, [...] the problem is not carbohydrates.

    If for some people the solution is to eat less carbs, it is also evident that at least for them the problem is indeed their previous carbs intake (elementary, my dear watson)