No one eats carbs alone
mccindy72
Posts: 7,001 Member
Thread after thread gets posted about carbs causing weight gain, low-carb diets being required, but hey, let's get real.
Here's something to consider. The foods that some people like to point fingers at as causing the problems - cookies, cake, doughnuts, pizza, etc- all contain more than one macro. not just carbs, but also fat, and in some cases, protein as well.
The problem lies in when those foods are overeaten - the excessive intake of calories. It's not an excess of carbohydrates that causes weight gain, and it's not an excess of carbohydrates that prevents weight loss.
No one eats just one macronutrient in their diet - when food is consumed, it's a combination of macros. Blaming one of those macros for the inability of weight loss is ludicrous.
Here's something to consider. The foods that some people like to point fingers at as causing the problems - cookies, cake, doughnuts, pizza, etc- all contain more than one macro. not just carbs, but also fat, and in some cases, protein as well.
The problem lies in when those foods are overeaten - the excessive intake of calories. It's not an excess of carbohydrates that causes weight gain, and it's not an excess of carbohydrates that prevents weight loss.
No one eats just one macronutrient in their diet - when food is consumed, it's a combination of macros. Blaming one of those macros for the inability of weight loss is ludicrous.
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truth0
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Come to the dark side.. We got cookies0
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100% true !
People don't want to take responsibility for their weight gain so its easier to blame carbs. They can't admit that they over ate and gained, instead they claim carbs are the culprit. Then they back it up with Dr oz woo science to make themselves feel better.
Fact is , if you eat at a surplus you gain weight. If you eat at a deficit, you'll lose weight.
Ive lost all my weight eating cookies ,cakes , whatever in moderation. Portion control works .
It comes down to calories always. Cico for weight loss.0 -
Thread after thread gets posted about carbs causing weight gain, low-carb diets being required, but hey, let's get real.
Here's something to consider. The foods that some people like to point fingers at as causing the problems - cookies, cake, doughnuts, pizza, etc- all contain more than one macro. not just carbs, but also fat, and in some cases, protein as well.
The problem lies in when those foods are overeaten - the excessive intake of calories. It's not an excess of carbohydrates that causes weight gain, and it's not an excess of carbohydrates that prevents weight loss.
No one eats just one macronutrient in their diet - when food is consumed, it's a combination of macros. Blaming one of those macros for the inability of weight loss is ludicrous.
Well said!
Also, people say carbs are bad for you, but they're forgetting that it's things like adding high sodium to them that do the most damage.
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I read the title and I was all, "I eat cookies by myself all the time!"0
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Soda? Jube jubes? Sugar in coffee? Just putting that out there...
I agree that one macro does not cause weight gain, but I believe carbs can nudge one along the path to gaining more than the other macros, especially if you have a health issue like IR, heart disease, PCOS, etc.
For the perfectly healthy person, carbs often are not an issue, calorie counting is.0 -
UltimateRBF wrote: »But..I eat carbs alone..in the dark where no one can see my shame.
Just kidding, sort of.
Nice post and good point.
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If someone has a medical condition, then by all means limit carbs.
But for everyone else , carbs aren't anything to be afraid of. Its a macro and isn't evil !0 -
thorsmom01 wrote: »If someone has a medical condition, then by all means limit carbs.
But for everyone else , carbs aren't anything to be afraid of. Its a macro and isn't evil !
Even for those with a medical condition, carbs aren't evil - just a detriment to their health (or medical condition).0 -
This is a really good point. So many people seem to think that all foods have single macro. It is good to remember that foods have different macros, vitamins, minerals, etc.
I hope this will clear up some confusion.
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thorsmom01 wrote: »If someone has a medical condition, then by all means limit carbs.
But for everyone else , carbs aren't anything to be afraid of. Its a macro and isn't evil !
Even for those with a medical condition, carbs aren't evil - just a detriment to their health (or medical condition).
Not always. It depends on the medical condition.
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There are foods with nearly all their calories from carbs, so eating such an item can be effectively carbs alone.
You wouldn't live long on a carb only diet, as the minimumamount of them compatible with maintaining life is zero whereas protein and some fats are essential to life.
The issue with carbs is the "metabolic bully" effect - eat carbs and you reduce oxidation of fat. Eat fat and you don't affect nutrient partitioning / fuel selection. I want to burn off fat as much as possible, therefore.....0 -
Anyone looking at a doughnut as the source of all their problems is probably out to lunch, but who would be so simplistic?
Too high a percentage of carbs in the macro mix very likely is a real problem for more than a few.0 -
If you analyse the diet of an overweight person you will find what it is that person needs to reduce. For me, who ate lots of sweets, cake, ice-cream and chocolate, all i needed to cut out was sugar. Sugar is carbohydrate. I wouldn't deny that most of those foods contain other macros but it was for the sweetness that i was eating so much of these foods.
Some people eat lots of pasta and white bread amd feel they have little control over their consumption of those particular foods. That's why they want to cut those things out.
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Patttience wrote: »If you analyse the diet of an overweight person you will find what it is that person needs to reduce. For me, who ate lots of sweets, cake, ice-cream and chocolate, all i needed to cut out was sugar. Sugar is carbohydrate. I wouldn't deny that most of those foods contain other macros but it was for the sweetness that i was eating so much of these foods.
All those things also contain fat.0 -
Patttience wrote: »If you analyse the diet of an overweight person you will find what it is that person needs to reduce. For me, who ate lots of sweets, cake, ice-cream and chocolate, all i needed to cut out was sugar. Sugar is carbohydrate. I wouldn't deny that most of those foods contain other macros but it was for the sweetness that i was eating so much of these foods.
Some people eat lots of pasta and white bread amd feel they have little control over their consumption of those particular foods. That's why they want to cut those things out.
If the culprit in your weight gain was consuming too many gumdrops, hard candy, and jellybeans you may be on to something. Everything you mentioned has a lot of fat as well, in some cases, calorie per calorie, even more than sugar. A typical vanilla ice cream for example, not even the rich kind, has equal calories from fat and carbs. Now if you liked the items you mentioned only for the sweetness, try a fat-free vanilla ice cream next time and see how you like it. I'm willing to bet you would spit that stuff out unless the manufacturer took great care with additives to make it a somewhat less ugly stepsister of vanilla ice cream.
Many people live and thrive on an 80/10/10 diet, and many live and thrive on keto. Although neither would be my personal choice (I love my fats and carbs too much to limit either), any macro combination can lead to weight loss (or gain).0 -
Not true
Low Carb diets are not posted as being required for weight loss
The most often repeated piece of information is that calories burned need to exceed calories taken in.
Add exercise as you can to help burn more is a close second.
This stuff isn't complicated.
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KittensMaster wrote: »Not true
Low Carb diets are not posted as being required for weight loss
Not by the posters who understand calories in - calories out. It's the newer posters to MFP who start threads asking for meal ideas and recipes that don't include carbs. Carbs are evil! How to achieve weight loss with no carbs because, carbs are evil! How to eat in social situations where omg there are going to be those evil carbs!
Posters who don't understand CICO are the ones posting about having to cut carbs as a requirement for weight loss. So yeah, it's pretty prevalent. Just like the 80's and 90's where fat was the big bad evil, now carbs are the big bad evil.
Oh and it's ok to eat fat. Fat doesn't make you fat. Too many calories do.
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This is a really good point. So many people seem to think that all foods have single macro. It is good to remember that foods have different macros, vitamins, minerals, etc.
I hope this will clear up some confusion.
Yep. It's such a pet peeve of mine that people call "junk food" that is carbs/fat and sometimes protein (like ice cream) "carbs," as if that were the issue somehow, and not calories, or as if people were eating it just for the carbs. I've posted my cookie recipe that gets not that many calories (less than an apple) from sugar, but has way more calories than an apple, of course, because of all the butter. Also flour, but the number one contributor to the calories is butter.
For me, no high calorie/low nutrient foods I like are "carbs" -- all are a mix. The only "just carbs" I like are all foods (like fruits, veggies, potatoes and sweet potatoes) that would ordinarily be considered pretty healthy, so I always think the talk about "oh, no! carbs are so bad!" is weird.0 -
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thorsmom01 wrote: »If someone has a medical condition, then by all means limit carbs.
But for everyone else , carbs aren't anything to be afraid of. Its a macro and isn't evil !
Even for those with a medical condition, carbs aren't evil - just a detriment to their health (or medical condition).
And even there, it is just a matter of proportion. I eat a moderate carb diet in order to manage my diabetes. I average around 150 grams per day which is 35% of my total calories. The majority of it is whole grains, veggies, fruit, and dairy. I don't drink fruit juices because I would rather eat my calories. I do have beer, cake, cookies, pizza, candy, etc. where I can fit them in.
If eating carbs caused weight gain, would this happen to someone who makes up 1/3 of their diet in carbs ?
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I think that the experience of people who drop significant amounts of weight eating carbs prove that fat oxidizes just fine with carbohydrate consumption happening.
The interesting argument regarding high fat oxidation rates observed in low carb dieter that it happens in relation to circulating fat in the bloodstream anyway, that is from excess dietary fat being consumed. It doesn't equate to a higher percentage of body fat being burned.
Reasonably designed longer term studies have proven that any diet which restricts calories over time will result in just about equal amounts of weight loss, no matter which way you partition out the macros.0 -
Soda? Jube jubes? Sugar in coffee? Just putting that out there...
I agree that one macro does not cause weight gain, but I believe carbs can nudge one along the path to gaining more than the other macros, especially if you have a health issue like IR, heart disease, PCOS, etc.
For the perfectly healthy person, carbs often are not an issue, calorie counting is.
I had heart disease, I don't anymore, eating over 250 grams of carbs.0 -
thorsmom01 wrote: »If someone has a medical condition, then by all means limit carbs.
But for everyone else , carbs aren't anything to be afraid of. Its a macro and isn't evil !
Even for those with a medical condition, carbs aren't evil - just a detriment to their health (or medical condition).
And even there, it is just a matter of proportion. I eat a moderate carb diet in order to manage my diabetes. I average around 150 grams per day which is 35% of my total calories. The majority of it is whole grains, veggies, fruit, and dairy. I don't drink fruit juices because I would rather eat my calories. I do have beer, cake, cookies, pizza, candy, etc. where I can fit them in.
If eating carbs caused weight gain, would this happen to someone who makes up 1/3 of their diet in carbs ?
Indeed, people lose weight quite well on 80-10-10 vegan and raw diets too. I don't recommend them as I think it's problematic to go too low in fat and protein and the restrictiveness would drive me crazy, but it's quite clear that people do well on them.
Some endurance athletes eat 80-10-10 too, simply due to the amount of carbs they consume, and don't gain. Again, not my thing, but the anti-carb-rhetoric gets so tiresome. Like shell said, though, I totally get why someone might find a low carb strategy a good way to lose or maintain weight loss on a personal level. I just don't see the need to pretend like eating carbs is bad for others (or in general) or that 50% carbs is somehow too high for humans or the even more ridiculous things like that people will gain on 1200 calories if they don't cut carbs (which are all things that have been promoted on MFP in recent days). (And I do think vegetables, at least, should be included in the normal recommended amounts even if one does low carb.)0 -
Here's a rather deceptive label for an oat bran muffin.
Compare this to 6 jujubes.
Let's face it. Nobody eats half a muffin. And perhaps some people can't stop at six jujubes. But the calorie load is pretty well the same, the carb load is the same, and you're getting a lot more fat from the muffin.0 -
I think the pro-carb and anti-carb arguments on MPF are a little annoying. It does come down to CICO for sure, no question about it. However, I've seen posts where people say that they can't stop carb cravings and when people suggests trying low carb they get bombarded with the moderation police going nuts on them for every suggesting carbs should be cut in any way! You have a problem with binging on cookies? EAT THE COOKIES (and stay within your calorie goal). Wait, what? That didn't help the OP. Though when the OP has an unhealthy view of carbs and people post to back that up (YEAH, CARBS MAKE PEOPLE FAT!) that also doesn't help the OP. I just take issue with the downright rude way some people are treated on here when they post things about looking for help and low carb being the only way to lose weight. I get it, we're annoyed by it, we see it every darn day...but a MFP newbie who just posted to get some encouragement and information didn't. Let's help the ignorant folk is a way that is kind and fact driven. Not arguing and name calling...which I see...a lot.
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