How can people stand being on low-carb diets?

Whenever I eat less than 200 carbs I feel so weak and I have literally no energy. I always try to have some complex carbs for every meal because without them I'm never satisfied. If I could I would live off toast, oatmeal, and bananas. I was just wondering what everyone's opinion on low-carb diets were because I know a lot of people swear that carbs are the enemy.

It's because your body hasn't adated to it. Low carb diets, are usually modeate protein low carb and high fat.

Carbs arne't the enemy. I rather do low carb, instead of not being on low carb. Low carb meal might be a nice fatty steal with some broccoli covered in cheese.

Do the non low carb version of that, probably some chicken breast, with a potato and a side of broccoli. Where is the flavor?

I don't do low carb right now, i used to, it doesn't improve fat loss.

PU is drunk in this response.

I'll translate.....


"I like carbs! When I dont eat lots of carbs I eat lots of fat and meat!"
Roar!



From my understanding at some point the low/no carbers will want to have their blood tested for pH issues that occur in Keto type diets.
Check ur breath and if its bad then you better come out of your low carb diet for a while.
Unless you have food allergies you shouldnt avoid carbs or cut them excessively.

So it's safe to stay in a keto diet when you have food allergies, but not safe (due to pH issues?) when you don't? Hmmm... Not so logical there, Dan.

Did you know that ketogenic diets were used as treatment for children with epilepsy all through the early part of this century? The kids stayed on ketogenic diets for decades and the only impacts were fewer seizures and healthier lives. Then, pills were invented (that of course made lives easier on the parents - bread is pretty portable), so ketogenic diets went out the window as the treatment of choice. Point (in case you missed it), is that ketogenic diets are safe. And that's for people with and without allergies

From Ori Hoffmekler.
Great info on ketogenic diets and the pitfalls.

Page 107-108 Maximum Muscle, Minimum Fat.

"Low-Darb Ketogenic diets

Ketogenic diets are based on carb deprivation, and the motivating idea is to create a metabolic state in which the body is forced to increase production of ketone bodies because of increased demand for fatty acid oxidation. In early stages of the diet, the lack of dietary carbs and low insulin increases the mobilization of of fatty acids for fuel and increases liver synthesis of ketone bodies in the form of acetoacetate, 3-hydroxybutyrate and acetone. Ketones serve as fuel for peripheral tissue and spares protein breakdown. Promoters of ketogenic diets promise maximum fat loss when ketosis is induced.

What is great in theory, however, does not always work in reality. Ketogenic diets are doomed to fail. People who experience prolonged carb restriction reach a point of stagnation beyond which they cannot lose any more body fat. Moreover, they may suffer metabolic decline and gain back all the weight they initially lost, but this time the weight gain includes a higher body fat percentage. During ketosis, blood pH declines as the bodies acidity rises. Desperate to reduce acidity, the body secretes insulin, thus inhibiting lipolysis and halting ketosis, with its acidic effect.

Chronic carb restrictions may adversely reduce cellular adenosine triphosphate, thus impairing thyroid hormone activation-that is, the conversion of T4 to the active form, T3. Low thyroid activity often causes overall metabolic decline, with impaired muscle fuel utilization, lack of strength, sensitivity to cold, and fat gain. Low-carb ketogenic diets are very popular these days. People who suffer from insulin resistance may benefit from low-carb diets adjusted to their specific needs. Nevertheless, the desire to reach a metabolic state of ketosis related fat loss, such as high fat, no carb ketogenic diets is misleading and ill advised."


You can go keto if you want.
Have a doctors permission and get **** tested frequently.
I wouldnt recommend it if you dont need it though.
The bounce back of fat gain can be pretty bad.
Hop over to BB.com and look through the fat loss forums.
Or do keto for a month on and a month off.
Come up for air so to speek.
There are advocates on this forum for keto who claim huge losses but if you compare their tickers to their join dates....you get my point.
Now if you can produce the same fat loss through moderate carb diets like Zone or even following Tom Vanutos "Burn the fat feed the muscle" you can still enjoy carbs and lose fat.
Since carbs have such a great effect on leptin and what not.
Speaking about fat loss i'm going to eat 9oz of Jamaican Jerk chicken 2 cups of potatoes and a whole loaf of Marathon Bread from Wegmans today.

I try to eat under 100 net carbs a day. At that level I don't crave them. At 200 grams are higher, instead of being full, I want more and more carbs which for me often leads to hypoglycemic episodes.

Don't get me wrong, it was up to me I would eat pasta and bread everyday, oh and cake, but that wouldn't be smart.

Exactly! 100 grams carbs tops for me and for the last month, I believe I've averaged at 50 grams, I have more energy now than before but I agree with another poster, you need to get over the initial shock which sometimes takes 2 weeks.

Im so glad you said this. Ive been reducing carbs increasing protein for the last week and the last 2 days Ive felt so tired to the point I went to bed early lastnight and today have struggled in work. More than the energy problem its more my eyes stinging with tiredness. I really hope it goes because I actually feel really good lately apart from that!

FWIW, and I agree with Dan on this thread, I just got back from Paris, France.

Skinny & gorgeous, every single woman and man in Paris, many of the women are wearing MICRO-MINIS and they can too because they are skinny and gorgeous. Skinny & curvy many skinnier than most Asians with their magic metabolism.

They eat baguettes, every day. In fact possibly more than one. Baguettes are .60 pence there.

They also don't tend to go to the gym either.

The reason they look that great is that they have to walk literally 5 miles or 10 miles a day to get to the train station, to get where they're going. They walk to get groceries, pet food, walk to work many of them. They walk everywhere as well as take their public transportation.

So, it's not the carbs, it's not bread. I would suggest walking to get your groceries, not even riding your bike, walking, everywhere and that will do it. Wear your HRM.

I used to eat just like you and believe me it was a big change, but I did it and am happier for it. My body looks better and I feel better, not so sleepy and tired. I just eat wayyyyyy more meat now. Red meat used to gross me out, but now I crave it. I'm not really "low carb" though, because I eat 150-170 grams of carbs daily, it's just all veggie based carbs for the most part. I rarely eat bread, pasta, oats, etc.

I loved doing low carb. I got to eat things I like (eggs fish chicken veggies etc..)

and it does work. but the plataeus really suck and last a long time and its an EXPENSIVE way to eat (which is why I had to stop it)

now if your physically active YOU MAY have energy problems. I had no energy problems in my day to day activities but when I became more active things got weird.

I was at Naram and felt freakishly weird really low stamina thought their was something wrong with me and when a fellow flyer eating with me said that's why after seeing what I was eating.

I "carbed up" the rest of the week at that event and felt great.

so it depends on your body metabolism and level of activity.

low carb is only unhealthy if you EAT unhealthy. if you live on steak and bacon yeah its going to fubar you but if you life on fish chicken and TONS of veggies you should be fine.

low carb is only unhealthy if you EAT unhealthy. if you live on steak and bacon yeah its going to fubar you but if you life on fish chicken and TONS of veggies you should be fine.

That's not entirely true. I follow the anabolic diet which can be found on stronglifts.com and consists mainly of red meats and high fats and my overall Chol dropped by 14 points and raised my HDL by 10.

There is now very good evidence thar high protein diets are potentially damaging for long term health.

It has been shown that high protein, particular from milk, is linked to certain cancers and neurological diseases.

The Recommended Daily amount is 0.8 grams per kilo of body weight.

There is now very good evidence thar high protein diets are potentially damaging for long term health.

It has been shown that high protein, particular from milk, is linked to certain cancers and neurological diseases.

The Recommended Daily amount is 0.8 grams per kilo of body weight.

glad you provided that evidence so we don't have to just take your word for it

i wouldnt last long on a low carb diet.

Carbs aren't the enemy, but it gets really easy after a while. I once lost 93lbs in 6 months doing heavy lifting, limited cardio and very low carb/low fat diet. I will never eat tht way again, though. It can't be healthy.

I know that feel.

Currently eating no grains, flours, sugars or fruit for a week and on my 4th day I didn't have the energy to do anything, and felt really light headed. Just gutted it out.

After this weak I get my grains back. I need my steelcut oatmeal,my protein pancakes, and my shrimp chipotle quesadillas!!

I don't know how people doing paleo do it.

I did a very low carb/high protein diet years and years ago and lost 20 pounds quickly. As soon as I added carbs back in, I gained all the weight back plus some. The second time I did the diet, I only lost about 12 pounds. Gained it all back plus some. The third time I did the diet, I lost 7 pounds. Gained it all back plus some. It just isn't sustainable for me, but that is just me.

I tried a low-carb diet once and my feet and legs swelled up so much that it hurt to walk!

There is now very good evidence thar high protein diets are potentially damaging for long term health.

It has been shown that high protein, particular from milk, is linked to certain cancers and neurological diseases.

The Recommended Daily amount is 0.8 grams per kilo of body weight.

glad you provided that evidence so we don't have to just take your word for it

This is part of another article which I wrote, which contains references to the evidence you seek.

If a goal, as part of doing IF, is to reduce your IGF-1 levels then current evidence suggests that a good strategy is not to exceed the recommended daily allowance of 0.8 grams of protein per kilo of body weight and/or limit the consumption of dairy foods, in particular milk.

Why reduce IGF-1 at all?

IGF-1 (Insulin Growth Factor) is a hormone which is very similar to insulin. Studies have shown that higher levels of IGF-1 stimulate growth of cancer cells.

In addition it is now widely postulated that signalling through the insulin/IGF-1-like receptor pathway is a significant contributor to the biological ageing process in many organisms.

Conversely, studies of humans with IGF-1 deficiency have shown exceptionally low levels of cancer and diabetes.

(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3357623/)

However, it should be also be noted that IGF-1 is vitally important for growth and there is evidence to suggest that low IGF-1 levels have higher risks associated with osteoporosis and heart conditions.

Therefore, it may be advisable to only actively pursue a strategy to lower IGF-1 if it is on the high side and/or you are older ( as cancer is generally an age related disease ).

You may remember that Mike Moseley, in the Horizon programme, was particularly concerned about IGF-1 because he had a higher than normal count, he's in his 50s and his father had suffered from Prostate cancer.

For those that are interested here's some of my notes/findings/observations on the relationship between IGF-1, protein, calorie restriction and IF:-

Long term CR (Calorie Restriction) is shown to decrease IGF-1 concentration by approximately 40% in rodents, and this reduction in IGF-1 levels is assumed to be a major reason why these animal live significantly longer than the control groups that are not on CR.

However, long term CR does NOT seem to impact levels of IGF-1 in healthy humans when protein intake is high according to some research:-

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2673798/.

This research suggests that protein intake is a more powerful modifier than calorie intake in modulating circulating IGF-1 concentration in humans. The research also shows that when humans who practice CR drop their protein intake to around 0.8 grams per Kilogram of body weight ( the Recommended Daily Allowance ) their IGF-1 levels fall significantly.

Other research suggests that the type of protein, is more important than the quantity.

http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/11/9/852.full

This research (on around 1000 women in the NHS) found the strongest correlation of higher IGF-1 was with milk consumption and there was little correlation with other animal proteins.

"In particular, we found that total energy and protein intake were positively associated with plasma IGF-I levels. The association with protein intake was largely attributable to higher IGF-I levels among women who consumed higher amounts of milk"

There is evidence that fasting acutely lowers IGF-1 in humans. However, the results of intermittent Fasting and its impact on IGF-1 in humans seems to be mixed. Some studies show a decrease and others an increase in IGF-1 levels and gender may also play a role. Therefore, one may assume when it comes to IF that variables such as protein intake may be more important in controlling IGF-1 levels than IF alone.

As an aside, this information may partly explain why a recent long term study of Rhesus Monkeys did not improve the longevity of a group of monkeys on CR versus a control group of monkeys on a healthy non-restricted diet

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11432.html

There is speculation that this may be because the monkeys were on a relatively high-protein diet and therefore did not have low levels of IGF-1.

What does still seem clear is that CR on both humans and mice have shown health benefits regardless of lower IGF-1…such as significant improvement in insulin sensitivity, significant reductions in serum leptin (a circulating hormone that reflects the amount of energy stored in fat tissue), C-reactive protein (a marker of systemic inflammation), insulin and triiodothyronine levels ( though it is also worth pointing out that some of these health benefits vary or are partly dependant on gender).

I also need carbs. Like you i feel i have no energy, especially when exercising without them.