A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

eric_sg61

I guess those Okinawan 's who get 90% of their diet from carbs, the Blue Zone populations who eat tons of carbs and live longer than anyone on the planet have it all wrong.

parkscs

#bull**** .... I only believe a bit of what I read on the internet.

It does not matter what you eat as how much you eat ... no deficit no loss. Pure and simple.

The study is from the National Institute of Health, not some guy or gal trying to sell a fad diet book.

It's bull. In order to lose weight, you MUST eat less calories than you burn. Nobody gets to be a special snowflake in the world of weight loss.

It's an article in the New York Times which is biased toward the Atkins diet. There are no references to the "studies" or peer reviewed articles which, to me, means this content of this article is pretty meaningless.

Amazing how quick some people are to try and tear something down, just because they think it conflicts with their own little viewpoint about weight loss. Before crying media bias, a bit of reading comprehension might be useful. What they're almost certainly talking about is what we've known for years - that low carb diets allow many people (not all) to naturally create a caloric deficit even when they're not focusing on tracking their calories. That doesn't mean they aren't creating a caloric deficit - it means their focus isn't on calories every day, but rather focusing on low carb foods. In short, it just reinforces that satiation is a very powerful factor when it comes to weight loss.

kgeyser

I did some hunting online and found more about this study at Reuters. Here's the difference between the diets:

For the new study, she and her colleagues recruited 148 obese men and women between the ages of 22 and 75. None of the participants had heart disease or diabetes.

Half were randomly assigned to follow a low-carbohydrate diet for a year, and the other half were assigned to a low-fat diet for a year. They were told to not change their physical activity throughout the trial.

All participants attended regular meetings where they learned about portion control, healthy eating and overall nutrition. They were also offered one meal-replacement bar or shake per day.

The only difference between the groups was the proportions of carbohydrate and fat in their diets.

Those in the low-carbohydrate group were told to eat at no more than 40 grams of digestible carbohydrates per day. ("Digestible carbs" equals total carbs minus total fiber.)

Those in the low-fat group were told not to get more than 30 percent of their daily energy from fat and no more than 55 percent of their daily energy from carbohydrates.

Note the difference in how the diets were laid out. The low carb group was given a specific amount - no more than 40g digestible carbs per day - regardless of calorie intake. The low fat group was given percentages relative to their individual calorie intake - no more than 30% from fat, 55% from carbs.

Here's a link to the Reuters article if anyone wants to read it: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/01/us-carbon-fat-study-idUSKBN0GW33P20140901

And here's the link to the data from the actual study, not full article unless you have a subscription: http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1900694

DeguelloTex

What "we"? I eat a low carb diet. Not on purpose, but since I don't eat grains, beans, or packaged food it ends up low carb. I ate a 40-30-30 diet based on my BMR and TDEE for years - gained 8-10lbs a year. Now I eat less because I'm not hungry all day and the scale is going down in numbers finally.
In short, this study doesn't fly in my face at all, it supports what I've chosen as right for me.

The article states you don't have to count calories.

Whoever said you did have to count calories?

If you can eat at a caloric deficit without counting -- maybe by eating a lot of satiating protein and fat and not so many carbs -- good for you. But you're still eating at a deficit if you're losing weight.

MelRC117

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Dieting can only work if you don't have hunger pangs half the day. And for many, a low-carb (and inevitably lower calorie) regimen is the way to make it through the day.
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Exactly this. People can eat whatever they want, however they want. For people who do low carb, they enjoy feeling full off of fat and protein while losing weight. It's honestly easier for ME to lose weight this way.

Some people obviously need to chill a bit and realize THERE ARE DIFFERENT WAYS TO GET TO A CALORIE DEFICIT. If someone decides to eat low carb, paleo, vegan, low fat...at the end of the day its about calorie deficit. I first starting eat low carb 4 years ago and I never would have believed I was eating in a calorie deficit and that's why you lose weight. I would have never believed with the chicken wings, sour cream, bacon, etc I was eating...all the stuff ou're told over and over that you can't eat while "dieting", that you can and still lose weight. It was after being on MFP both seeing my diary and forums that I realized, I WAS eating less because I was feeling so full from fat and protein.

jeffpettis

Interesting article in today's New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/health/low-carb-vs-low-fat-diet.html

From the article:

“To my knowledge, this is one of the first long-term trials that’s given these diets without calorie restrictions,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, who was not involved in the new study. “It shows that in a free-living setting, cutting your carbs helps you lose weight without focusing on calories. And that’s really important because someone can change what they eat more easily than trying to cut down on their calories.”

Flies in the face of everything we believe here.

No. It backs up everything we believe here. If you cut carbs, whether you intend to or not, you are cutting calories. Just because you're not counting calories doesn't mean you're not eating less of them if you are eating less carbs.

Any diet that works does so because of a calorie deficit, whether intentional or not.

tiffanybrooks530

Yes, i have heard about this for years. It has helped me in the past, the challenge really is DOING IT. When you live in a society, culture, family etc where carbs, breads, pasta, rice, potatoes make up a majority of the meals it can be difficult to break this habit.

itsbasschick

i am a strong believer in calories in, calories out. i'm diabetic, type 2, and when started counting calories may 1 my blood sugar was 300 fasting. even so, i lost weight every single week and my blood sugar is down to less than half of what it was without medication eating among other things125 to 160 grams of carbs per day every day. true, my carbs are even throughout the day, but then so is all my food. i'm happy to include bread, oatmeal, potatoes and beans in my everyday meals as i enjoy them and they fuel my workouts well.

btw, i tried to cut out carbs for a very brief period. the sudden drop in my blood sugar made me so sick and dizzy that i almost went to the hospital. i added carbs back, felt much better and did it all more gradually.

ksy1969

Kind of seems like a no brainer to me. Not that I support a low carb diet, but it only makes sense that if you cut or lower the intake of a macro nutrient you automatically cut calories. So it still comes down to CICO. Stop trying to complicate it.

lemurcat12

Flies in the face of everything we believe here.

How's that? It's a comparison of low fat and low carb diets, and low fat is far less popular on MFP (from my unscientific observations, at least) than low carb. In fact, lots of people who aren't low carb tend to find cutting carbs some or at least focusing on higher protein and fat macros than MFP (and the typical recommendations) would recommend to be helpful.

I believe (and don't think this is a minority view around here, but I haven't done a survey) that low carb works for lots of people because it's a pretty easy way to lower calories for many, without counting. If I cut carbs I invariably lower calories--it's what I was doing before I started focusing on counting calories, and at the time (in part because I was trying to cut calories, so wasn't compensating with higher fat foods or larger meat servings) it resulted in me cutting calories more than I wanted (below 1200) pretty painlessly. So the results seem unsurprising to me.

I wouldn't enjoy a low carb diet, especially when working out a lot (which is not to say others wouldn't), but of course they work for many.

lemurcat12

The article states you don't have to count calories.

You don't have to count calories. You have to eat fewer calories than you burn (overall, not merely from exercise). Any way to achieve that is fine.

Oblaidon

I went on the low carb Atkins diet when I weighed 260 in the year 2000. I lost 40 pounds, but froze at about 220. I then joined Weight Watchers and lost to get to my all time low 192. People said I was too skinny so I stopped dieting and just tried to watching what I ate. I went back to weight watchers and MFP, but have had minimal success. I got back up to 230 and have been battling ever since.

Atkins got me to kickstart my dieting. It is boring eating just meats and veggies. Calorie counting is the way to go for me. I don't think I could go back to meats and veggies.

Now I am thinking about combining calorie counting and low carb for a while. I would have to raise my calories per day though. Sigh, not sure what to do.

neanderthin

Interesting article in today's New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/health/low-carb-vs-low-fat-diet.html

From the article:

“To my knowledge, this is one of the first long-term trials that’s given these diets without calorie restrictions,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, who was not involved in the new study. “It shows that in a free-living setting, cutting your carbs helps you lose weight without focusing on calories. And that’s really important because someone can change what they eat more easily than trying to cut down on their calories.”

Flies in the face of everything we believe here.

What I still don't understand is how the article does what the OP states above in bold.

Or is this just another case where the OP states something just to say it without thought. Kind of like her people eating an all donut diet a few days back.

OP, how does the article fly in the face of everything we believe?

That's the author taking license trying to make it more sensational. It doesn't fly in the face of what we know.......we know that protein is more satiating and we've known that for decades.......the studies they're referring to, which are plenty basically show the control group restricted in their calorie consumption and the low carb group are allowed to consume as m any calories as they want...........the results are always the same. When the calories are similar within the groups, there's no difference in weight loss. The interesting part is that even though the lower carb groups were not calorie restricted they lost more weight in many of these studies.......they ate less calories.....why, because protein and fats are more satiating, nothing more.

parkscs

If what you believe is that counting calories is mandatory for weight loss, then I suppose it flies in the face of that, but I don't know any people that really believe that. That certainly doesn't mean counting calories is a bad idea, even when following a low carb diet - but recommended and required are different things. I suspect the "flies in the face of everything we believe" bit was just overdramatizing it on the OP's part.

Kind of seems like a no brainer to me. Not that I support a low carb diet, but it only makes sense that if you cut or lower the intake of a macro nutrient you automatically cut calories. So it still comes down to CICO. Stop trying to complicate it.

Not necessarily. Just because someone keeps carbs under Xg/day doesn't mean that they will automatically cut their calories. You have to remember that the participants were not told to keep their fat and protein macros fixed when they cut carbs, and it's entirely possible to eat a caloric surplus from fats and protein while keeping carb intake very low. So it's not as simple as an automatic caloric deficit, but it does show that satiation can be a powerful factor in creating a caloric deficit.

yarwell

There are no references to the "studies" or peer reviewed articles which, to me, means this content of this article is pretty meaningless.

http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1900694 is the study concerned. Well, the abstract ;-)

Sabine_Stroehm

Time magazine reported on it as well.

http://time.com/3222213/low-carb-diet-beats-low-fat/