http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/opinion/sunday/what-really-makes-us-fat.html

Gary Taubes ... He might not be right on everything (who is?) but he does make you think about what goes into your gob.

Dealing with the metabolism first and then worrying about calories in/out has to be a good idea

I heard him speak on a radio talk show. He makes a ton of sense. Believes that people that are sensitive to insulin quickly store carbs as fat and feel run down and hence don't feel like exercising and get fat. While others that are not as sensitive to insulin keep the sugar from the carbs in their bloodstream longer, have all of this energy, and hence feel like exercising which burns up the energy and they don't get fat. Makes a lot of sense, especially when you factor in the fact that insulin is what stores fat in your fat cells!

It does make sense ... Carbohydrates is driving Insulin is driving Fat.

Processed carbs and sugar especially so.

Protein also elevates insulin levels but to a much lesser degree, even so, too much protein on a low-carb diet can impede fat loss progress.

It makes "a calorie is a calorie" look pretty silly especially if you are suffering from insulin resistance and just focusing on calories (and also compounding the problem by following Conventional Wisdom and keeping dietary fat down) ... Doomed to disappointment, hunger, torture and failure. Been there, done that.

"Why We Get Fat" is well worth a read, I started on it's big brother, "Good Calories, Bad Calories" but I am a science geek

Keep in mind, while insulin does paint the picture all too well, there are other hormones that do fall into place here.

Lack of Leptin yielding Leptin-resistance
Cortisol - I cant (no pun intended) stress this enough, people just need to learn how to adapt to stress better, not get so overly obsessive with the weight scale daily (honestly... WHY? Its not accurate!??!?!)

Those are just two of the many hormones that can mess with our system. Pair that up with medications that dont often get monitored for fluctuations and its a whole other recipe!

Oh absolutely, everything from stress (including stress from over-exercising), medication, lack of sleep and all points in-between will hinder good health.

If you want to improve body composition then creating a 'calorie deficit' is fairly pointless if you have some underlying metabolic issues that need to be addressed first.

But still people focus on the calories first thinking it's a simple math problem, drives me nuts.

I am proof the math is WRONG! I was eating 1600 cals a day on a lower fat lower calorie diet and working out about 2 hours a day at high intensity. The instructor told me to cut carbs... I think he was sad to see my weight stay the same and be putting in so much hard work. Once I cut them... I have eaten about 2000 calories or more a day and losing weight. I don't worry about what I am going to eat all the time now... I don't crave the carby foods anymore.... I don't have workout as much (sometimes I am just too busy to do it) and I still lose.

I only worry about long term effects. I wish there were more studies on them!

Yup, crazy eh? And all to do with hormones, calories in/out take a back seat.

Long term I see it in evolutionary terms (or historical if you don't do evolution), we have thrived for millions of years eating a diet relatively low in carbohydrate and with none of the processed carbs/grains/sugar/dairy/whatnot that we have around today.

Since we introduced these things we have actually devolved, we have got shorter and have rampant diseases.

We can debate for ages about exactly what our ancestors ate and in what ratios but we can be sure of what they did not eat.

We do know what does NOT work for the majority in the long term, eating those pseudo-foods and then driving ourselves nuts with diets and exercising like loons trying to compensate.

I will always be an 'adequate carber' as I am absolutely convinced that not only is that the way forward for weight management but for general health and it's going to give me the best chance of avoiding all kinds of inflammatory disease.

I don't need a study

Awesome! This reinforces my goal setting decision and provides me with new sources for personal research.
I'm glad to be here and thank you for this post!

Hi I am a low carber and have to admit I am a little worried about the link to heart disease in the long run. What do you guys think?

Hi I am a low carber and have to admit I am a little worried about the link to heart disease in the long run. What do you guys think?

How come?

What link?

If it's a link between the consumption of healthy (naturally occurring) fats, including saturated, then I'd discount it.

If it's a link between the consumption of cholesterol I'd laugh, eat 3 eggs and then I'd discount it.

Avoiding the consumption of foods that chronically jack up blood sugar would be my first target on the road to good health.

Foods, incidentally, that we don't need to survive. Not one biological need.

I am coming around to the thinking that once in maintenance the occasionally higher carb day (good carbs) could be useful for mixing it up and keeping the body guessing metabolically, I'm thinking once a week.

But I'm not going back to a diet being based on grains. We already know the long-term effects of the food pyramid/myplate ... obesity, diabetes and disease, I think I'll chance my arm with an alternative ...

Some of the publications that show a link to heart disease I have copied below. There are many more in the references.

http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e4026

http://www.pnas.org/content/106/36/15418?ijkey=d860587f631ef900bd51f2967c1d0b820c60b218&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha&linkType=ABST&journalCode=pnas&resid=106/36/15418

Diabetes runs in my family so have chosen a low carb route to lose the weight. I am still in induction but am apprehensive about going through the phases to increase my carb levels (with vegetables) to where I am no longer losing weight and still consuming a lot of fat.
I am interested in hearing about peoples actual experiences about going through low carb to the final stage of maintenance and whether if they truthfully felt there was an affect on their vascular systems.

Thanks, so many studies out there, so many angles, so much stuff to wade through. I'm not putting it down but I prefer to come at it from an instinctive perspective.

Studies have recommended lower cholesterol intake, bad move. Studies have linked dietary fat to heart disease (which Ancel Keys did in the 70s to start this whole low fat food pyramid healthy whole grain nonsense off), in my opinion a very bad move.

I think eating more fat is the natural way that we have evolved and thrived and obviously eating a lot of carbohydrate isn't. We did not get through ice ages on veggies, it was animal-based and we ate everything, fatty or not. The grains, refined carbs and sugars were nowhere to be see for millions of years.

I am pretty much there with weight loss and have been eating this way for about 6 months, not long really for any particular study on the health issues but I will say this ...

I feel great, I look great, I am not obsessed with food, I am not hungry and if other people's results are anything to go by then all my markers for disease have improved.

Look at sugar cravings, problems with high triglycerides, gluten issues, wheat issues, peanut allergies (a legume), lactose intolerance, casein issues ... Is adding all this back into my diet likely to make me more or less sick and fat?

All things considered I think I'll follow this path. For maintenance, to be honest, I won't be changing much, I think my body will regulate my weight quite happily once it sees that I am lean.

Thanks for the genuine response. I absolutely agree with you that there is a huge amount of information out there about different diets. Low carb works for me in terms of weight loss but haven't done maintenance properly so will probably do the same as you.

Good luck to you, I think it's a case of listening to the body, some people don't get on so well with a very low carb intake (dry mouth, blocked noses, etc) so we all have to adjust as we go along. It's not as simple as 'We don't need carbs for energy' so we don't need to eat any, although, logically, that would seem to be true.

I can certainly see the value in having a higher carb day (within reason) occasionally during maintenance to keep the body guessing. A sort of "bumping along on the fringes of ketosis" would seem to be a good way of doing things. Burning fat primarily (no hunger, no food cravings) but supplementing with some decent sources of dietary glucose once in a while.

The process has certainly made me more carb-aware and mindful of what I am eating for health generally and this is my main takeaway.

Getting trimmer was the goal in February (I started on the standard low fat thing with the usual results of hunger, deprivation and frustration) and it seems to have morphed into a more health-focused thing along the way, with the almost incidental bonus of getting trim.

Just eat real food, avoid the starches, don't go hungry and don't go mad with exercise ... Whodathunk that would work?