Has anyone heard of Low carb high fat diet
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angelofhope37
Posts: 5 Member
There are alot of diabetics that follow the low carb and high fat diet and apparently it lowers blood sugars.Has anyone heard of this or tried it?
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I am doing a 'lower' carb diet, but probably not low enough to satisfy Atkins, Paleo, Ketogenic, or LCHF advocates. It is working well for me, but in combination with losing weight, exercise, and medicine.
All food energy gets converted to glucose (sugar) before your body actually uses it as energy. For diabetics the last step of getting the glucose out of the blood and into the cells to be used is the problematic bit. As a result a 'backlog' of glucose stays in the blood while it is waiting to be used. This higher concentration of glucose causes minor damage to other body systems. The accumulation of that minor damage over time is what causes all of the disastrous complications of diabetes.
Food energy gets converted to glucose at different speeds. From fastest to slowest they are: Sugar, Carbohydrates, Dietary Fiber, Protein, Fats. (Non-Dietary fiber is energy stored in a form that omnivores can't digest at all, but a herbivores can. There is some evidence that dealing with this unusable stuff slows down the processing of everything else as well. This is where the idea of 'net carbs' comes from, giving you a sort of credit for eating NDF)
The greater percentage of your diet that is in the slow end of that scale the more time your body has to clear the 'backlog' of sugar in the blood. Thus you end up with less 'spikes' in your blood sugar levels. Spikes are bad, and do damage. Giving your body extra time to deal with the decreased efficiency coming from your diabetes is good. However, it may not reduce the long-term overall backlog which is the ultimate goal. Exercise, losing weight, and meds may be necessary for the long-term solution.
For weight loss in general shifting food energy from one group to another won't help. Ultimately energy is neither created nor destroyed; it only changes forms. Once it enters your system it either gets used or stored. Most plans that advocate one type of food over another are counting on psychological factors to get you to eat less total energy at the same time you are changing the type you eat.
P.S. There is stuff that happens to/with your food other than becoming energy. It is also the raw materials for making new cells, and chemicals, and all the stuff that is the physical you. Which is why vitamin deficiency and just plain starvation are also so terribly bad/unhealthy.0 -
@ angelofhope; Yes, try looking at The Low Carber Forum - The LCD Group. Look at the announcement section and follow the launch pad links for lots of information.0
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Second the low carb forum (http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/394-low-carber-daily-forum-the-lcd-group), great group of folks there, very active and supportive. I've lost 75 pounds on a ketogenic diet, very strict low carb in the last 14 months, my last two A1C's were 4.6 and 4.3 I think? The last time I saw my doctor for bloodwork and regular checkup he didn't even bother with the test once I told him I'm still eating the same way. My blood sugar never spikes, and never crashes. I had lost some weight before on a more standard diet but was constantly fighting against low blood sugars. No more. I'm also off blood pressure meds, cholesterol meds will be the last thing I have to try to get off of.
Lots of folks here find success managing their diabetes in other ways, but for many people I really feel like some form of low carb change can address many of the biggest problems that diabetics face.0 -
I would disagree with a couple things presented above. The first would be on the metabolism of fats. Carbs are converted to glucose before being metabolized. Proteins can be although they can also be used for tissue building rather than energy production. Fats are first broken down by hydrolysis to glycerol and fatty acids. The glycerol is oxidized. The fatty acids go through a process called beta-oxidation which is repetitive process which shortens the chain in steps, two carbons at a time yielding energy at each repetition. A summary of that process can be found here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_metabolism
It doesn't involve a conversion to glucose.
A second point is that what you eat can influence your metabolic rate. Insulin is needed for metabolizing glucose but it has other effects. Particularly in insulin resistant people, carb ingestion causes an overproduction of insulin and the excess insulin causes a shift to energy storage rather than energy use. The effect is the same as over eating, increase in body mass. However it is done with a change in metabolism rather than in increase in caloric intake. The same calories consumed as fat would not promote insulation production.0 -
KeithF6250 wrote: »I would disagree with a couple things presented above. The first would be on the metabolism of fats. Carbs are converted to glucose before being metabolized. Proteins can be although they can also be used for tissue building rather than energy production. Fats are first broken down by hydrolysis to glycerol and fatty acids. The glycerol is oxidized. The fatty acids go through a process called beta-oxidation which is repetitive process which shortens the chain in steps, two carbons at a time yielding energy at each repetition. A summary of that process can be found here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_metabolism
It doesn't involve a conversion to glucose.
A second point is that what you eat can influence your metabolic rate. Insulin is needed for metabolizing glucose but it has other effects. Particularly in insulin resistant people, carb ingestion causes an overproduction of insulin and the excess insulin causes a shift to energy storage rather than energy use. The effect is the same as over eating, increase in body mass. However it is done with a change in metabolism rather than in increase in caloric intake. The same calories consumed as fat would not promote insulation production.
I second this!
I also fast twice a week (yes, total fast, only water). It works to get the excess insulin out of your system and use up the fats that most likely are built up in your liver and pancreas. Once the "fatty liver" and "fatty pancreas" are resolved, the insulin cycle can return to normal. IF isn't magic, it takes time, but it does work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAwgdX5VxGc 0 -
a low carb high fat (in my case also ketogenic) diet has helped reign in my glucose tremendously.0
