for heavens sake, I STILL EAT BREAD AND LOSE WEIGHT!

PaleoPath4Lyfe

I told my GP at my baby's 1 year check up about my diet. She goes, "I hope you're not doing a fad diet." I tell her about MFP. She says "Oh, that's a relief. There's nothing worse then those no or low-carb diets!" Then she touted the benefits of adding weights to my exercise routine. IMHO, this lady knows her stuff.

She doesn't know her stuff. She would never make a sweeping generalization like that if she did.

When protein and green vegetables starts being unhealthy, I will change my view. Until then, I would tell that Dr to STFU.

carolann_22

Well i guess most of you are lucky not to be carb sensitive.
Some people really don't get on well with carbs, despite being, in a deficit.

This is me - I GAIN at 1500 calories a day with exercise if I eat more than 100 g of carbs a day. I LOSE at 2200 cals a day with carbs under 50g. Simple choice for me.

sallywilson06

I lost about 14lbs eating whatever I wanted just limiting my intake and you better bet your bottom dollar that I was eating whole grains and bread.. lol I think without them I would be starving.

lancelot12

Totally agree,I have 2 slices of seeded toast with marmite for my breakfast-if I dont I`m starving by 10 o`clock.Have just joined this site a few days ago but have already lost 5stone (another 4 to go)without cutting my bread out of my diet.

soulynyc

i still eat bread , rice and even sweets but i'm tring to keep it minimal.. cause that stuff goes straight to my hips. i like it so im not going to give it up completely but i want to keep it in low consumption .. not everyday because what happens to me is the more i eat it the more i want it.. so one day of bread eating will become two if im not persistent on watching it. but i don't want to cut out whole foods completely. i do want to cut off ths fat completely. i say do what works for you.

dolldreams

I eat store bought wheat bread and home made all kinds of bread and I still lose weight. I eat pasta, cookies, crackers, pretzels and white rice too. I had days before I started logging on here where I ate nothing but home made bread because I don't like to waste the loaf and it tastes best when it's fresh. I was still able to lose weight eating a whole loaf of home made bread which is about 550 calories. When I feel like pizza, I make my own bread at home. I make my own bagels too and they are banging.

I generally don't eat sandwiches though. I like my bread as just that...bread. It's good stuff

2FattyXFatty4

Here, here! :drinker:

I never cut out whole grain bread, rice, or pasta and still lost weight.

Joysuzhou

Agreed!! Calorie is calorie, no discrimination! Having bread or rice is totally fine. I have not cut out any category of food. A balanced diet is one of the keys to sustainable life style!

TXBelle1174

I love bread, pasta, sugar, etc....

I was on a 1500 calorie diet (given to me by my Dr. at the time) which included those things AND I was exercising. I gained 40lbs in a year.. of FAT, not muscle.

Switched Dr.'s and my Endo switched me to a low carb (I include "healthy" carbs - fruit, veggies, etc) and I have lost 27 lbs in 3 months.

Not everyone processes carbs the same way. I have medical issues which make "bad" carbs, VERY bad. If a low calorie, low fat diet works for you, then great! Congratulations! But you cant throw everyone into a general category and say that what works for you, will work for everyone.

graciemom828

You are hugely lucky - I was most successful with weight loss while on a tightly restricted carb diet but due to having kidney problems, can't do that again. Bread, pasta, and rice are my weaknesses and it is so hard to "portion control" - congrats on your success. I limit myself to a light bread and try to not have pasta or rice more than once per week if then.

bytemeeeeee

Carbs are necessary for proper brain funtion. Carbs are your bodies energy.
Want poor brain function and low energy.... skip the carbs.

WELL said!

vyolette

When I'm hungry I grab a Wasa cracker, those things will fill you up and not hurt your weight. Just don't overdo it or anything else. :flowerforyou:

iuew

i ate bread while i was in the diet phase of my weight loss. pretty much just counted calories.

saxmaniac

No need to be a jerk about it. Celiac and gluten intolerance is still woefully underdiagnosed, and a lot of people aren't even aware that such a thing exists. The same goes with insulin resistance in the absense of full-blown diabetes or PCOS.

To the OP - Carbs get a bad rap because the body can use them efficiently, and the foods that contain them tend to be calorie-dense (particularly the grain based carb sources). So, in otherwise healthy people, it's as simple as being far too easy to overeat when such products are involved.

Basically (note - this is highly simplified for basic understanding, I'm sure someone with a biochemical background will rake me over the coals for errors borne out of such simplification, but we're talking layman's terms and general ideas, here):

The body runs primarily on glucose, a form of sugar. The other fuel sources (except protein, which breaks down mostly into amino acids) ultimately get metabolized into glucose or glucose-like substitutes at some point or another. How long and how much energy it takes depends on the exact source. Pure glucose takes no time or energy, sucrose (table sugar) takes minimal, complex carbs take a little more (but it's just breaking stuff down, like taking a Lego structure apart), fats get broken down into the glucose-like fuel (glucose-like in that they don't need to be broken down any more and the body can use it directly if needed) that can't be used as efficiently and takes more energy to break down.

The body is built to run as efficiently as possible, which includes choosing the best fuel source to run on. Therefore, if you eat a lot of carbs and/or sugar, your body will use it before anything else, because it takes little to no energy to convert it to something useable. Like so many other things in nature - the body choses the path of least resistance.

Therefore, if you cut out carbs completely (such as the first phase of Atkins), you put your body into what's called ketosis, which is the release of ketones by the body. Ketones help break down fat to use as fuel in the absense of sugars. (Note: This is different from Ketoacidosis, which can be deadly.) This is why Atkins works at jump-starting weight loss, it forces the body to use a different fuel source, which requires more energy to convert (more calories burned).

Grain-based carbs are becoming vilified because there is growing evidence that humans as a whole have a relatively low tolerance for gluten, as evidenced by the rise in Celiac and gluten intolerance diagnoses. However, it's still really hard to diagnose, because it isn't always obvious (the symptoms are often flu-like or just a general feeling of "blah" that can't really be pinpointed). Therefore, it's possible to be intolerant and not know it or never be diagnosed. For those that are intolerant, it can lead to bloating and derail weight loss.

Additionally, many people become insulin resistant over time if they have a carb-heavy diet. Insulin aids in the absorption of glucose from the blood by the muscles and other cells and is released when there is a certain amount of glucose in the blood stream. In the presence of too much sugar over the long term, the cells stop responding to the insulin, leaving more sugar in the blood. In many/most cases, this follows hand in hand with Type 2 Diabetes (whether IR necessarily causes T2D is somewhat debated, but I don't doubt that it can). Women with PCOS also tend to be insulin resistant, making it damn near impossible to lose weight on a "typical" diet. Without a Diabetes or PCOS diagnosis, and especially if you don't get bloodwork done regularly, insulin resistance is easy to miss, because it doesn't really have any symptoms for the most part. Your body gets used to your normal levels of blood sugar, so until you reach the thresholds of blood sugar that put the body into a Diabetic coma, you may not even know you have it.

What these two groups have in common is that they will often have a hard time losing weight on the relatiely carb-heavy diet that many people can do just fine on. They may not have energy (because their body literally sees gluten as a threat and launches a white blood cell army to attack it), or they may feel ill, or they may simply be unable to lose weight and easy to plateau. Switching to something like Paleo or Atkins, then, works WONDERS for these types of people. The catch is, though, that unless you've gotten a diagnosis, you may not even know that you fall into one of these categories (or, you may be borderline - just close enough to have some of the effects, but not enough for a diagnosis).

This entire post is superb. Right on.

Dragonwolf

@dragonwolf go back and call everyone out then who is being a jerk. I don't think it was necessary to say that as your opening line of your response.

There are several who are, but the one I quoted stuck out the most at me (and struck me as the most jerkish), which is why I used it.

The simple fact of matter is that a lot of people still don't know about gluten intolerance. Ignorance need not be mistaken for malice.

Sabine_Stroehm

No need to be a jerk about it. Celiac and gluten intolerance is still woefully underdiagnosed, and a lot of people aren't even aware that such a thing exists. The same goes with insulin resistance in the absense of full-blown diabetes or PCOS.

To the OP - Carbs get a bad rap because the body can use them efficiently, and the foods that contain them tend to be calorie-dense (particularly the grain based carb sources). So, in otherwise healthy people, it's as simple as being far too easy to overeat when such products are involved.

Basically (note - this is highly simplified for basic understanding, I'm sure someone with a biochemical background will rake me over the coals for errors borne out of such simplification, but we're talking layman's terms and general ideas, here):

The body runs primarily on glucose, a form of sugar. The other fuel sources (except protein, which breaks down mostly into amino acids) ultimately get metabolized into glucose or glucose-like substitutes at some point or another. How long and how much energy it takes depends on the exact source. Pure glucose takes no time or energy, sucrose (table sugar) takes minimal, complex carbs take a little more (but it's just breaking stuff down, like taking a Lego structure apart), fats get broken down into the glucose-like fuel (glucose-like in that they don't need to be broken down any more and the body can use it directly if needed) that can't be used as efficiently and takes more energy to break down.

The body is built to run as efficiently as possible, which includes choosing the best fuel source to run on. Therefore, if you eat a lot of carbs and/or sugar, your body will use it before anything else, because it takes little to no energy to convert it to something useable. Like so many other things in nature - the body choses the path of least resistance.

Therefore, if you cut out carbs completely (such as the first phase of Atkins), you put your body into what's called ketosis, which is the release of ketones by the body. Ketones help break down fat to use as fuel in the absense of sugars. (Note: This is different from Ketoacidosis, which can be deadly.) This is why Atkins works at jump-starting weight loss, it forces the body to use a different fuel source, which requires more energy to convert (more calories burned).

Grain-based carbs are becoming vilified because there is growing evidence that humans as a whole have a relatively low tolerance for gluten, as evidenced by the rise in Celiac and gluten intolerance diagnoses. However, it's still really hard to diagnose, because it isn't always obvious (the symptoms are often flu-like or just a general feeling of "blah" that can't really be pinpointed). Therefore, it's possible to be intolerant and not know it or never be diagnosed. For those that are intolerant, it can lead to bloating and derail weight loss.

Additionally, many people become insulin resistant over time if they have a carb-heavy diet. Insulin aids in the absorption of glucose from the blood by the muscles and other cells and is released when there is a certain amount of glucose in the blood stream. In the presence of too much sugar over the long term, the cells stop responding to the insulin, leaving more sugar in the blood. In many/most cases, this follows hand in hand with Type 2 Diabetes (whether IR necessarily causes T2D is somewhat debated, but I don't doubt that it can). Women with PCOS also tend to be insulin resistant, making it damn near impossible to lose weight on a "typical" diet. Without a Diabetes or PCOS diagnosis, and especially if you don't get bloodwork done regularly, insulin resistance is easy to miss, because it doesn't really have any symptoms for the most part. Your body gets used to your normal levels of blood sugar, so until you reach the thresholds of blood sugar that put the body into a Diabetic coma, you may not even know you have it.

What these two groups have in common is that they will often have a hard time losing weight on the relatiely carb-heavy diet that many people can do just fine on. They may not have energy (because their body literally sees gluten as a threat and launches a white blood cell army to attack it), or they may feel ill, or they may simply be unable to lose weight and easy to plateau. Switching to something like Paleo or Atkins, then, works WONDERS for these types of people. The catch is, though, that unless you've gotten a diagnosis, you may not even know that you fall into one of these categories (or, you may be borderline - just close enough to have some of the effects, but not enough for a diagnosis).

This entire post is superb. Right on.

+!

JanSmelly

Carbs are necessary for proper brain funtion. Carbs are your bodies energy.
Want poor brain function and low energy.... skip the carbs.

Sorry, but untrue. There is no biological need for carbs.

This has been stated, and I stated it in another thread, if there is no biological need, then why does breastmilk have carbs? It's 37% carbs, which isn't terribly high, but it isn't zero either.

ETA - I am in the best shape of my life and I eat carbs. There aren't many foods that compare to a hot loaf of bread straight from the oven.

paulasue145

FREE warm bread at a Restaurant!!!!

NovemberJune

I prefer wheat to white but I do eat stuff like rolls, cracker chips, etc and I still lose weight. I'd love to cut back my carbs a bit and eat more protein but I just love carbs too much. nom nom.
I just do my best to make healthier choices, eat around 1600, and exercise

neanderthin

Carbs are necessary for proper brain funtion. Carbs are your bodies energy.
Want poor brain function and low energy.... skip the carbs.

Sorry, but untrue. There is no biological need for carbs.

This has been stated, and I stated it in another thread, if there is no biological need, then why does breastmilk have carbs? It's 37% carbs, which isn't terribly high, but it isn't zero either.

ETA - I am in the best shape of my life and I eat carbs. There aren't many foods that compare to a hot loaf of bread straight from the oven.

It's just a science thing and some people like to point that point out when the opporunity arises. We can live/survive without actually consuming carbs and why their not considered essential. That doesn't mean we shouldn't eat them, we should and the ethnographical atlas will tell us that everyone did eat carbs, even the Inuit....lots of glycogen in raw organ and muscle meat.