Do Carbs Really Matter?

Does the same apply to sugar and fat? I've been stuck at the same weight for a while and wondering if my problem is that I'm eating the wrong kinds of sugar (from rice, pasta, bread), carbs (same sources) and fat (meat, butter, oil) rather than from good sources like fruits, beans, olives? I find it difficult to get enough calories when I'm eating healthy.

Sugar is a carb.

"Eating healthy" and "eating clean" are essentially terms with no definition and completely arbitrary. If you aren't losing weight, and aren't gaining, then whatever you are eating is your maintenance calories, AT THE MOMENT. It can change, keep in mind that some foods track more accurately than others. Look for some kind of error in your logging first. Are you weighing and logging cooked meat as if it were raw? Are you logging pork loin that is fattier than the pork loin from which the MFP database entry is derived, and thus higher in calories? Are you overestimating TDEE? Are you eating too little and low on energy, and changing your behavior to conserve energy (very difficult to judge on your own, everyone does it but almost nobody believes they do)? Have you been dieting for a long time?

All we can ever KNOW for sure is that if you are gaining mass, more material is going into you than is coming out. The why part of this is much more tricky, and the where (where is the material going) is equally tricky to predict (but not measure).


Nobody likes to think they've been wasting time or made a mistake, so much so that they will question the basic laws of thermodynamics rather than keep looking for the error, or develop some other system that reinforces the notion that they are not like everyone else and even though they did everything right, it didn't work for them. Bit if you are patient and assume you are always making a mistake, and keep looking for it, you have a high likelihood of figuring out the problem eventually.

Does the same apply to sugar and fat? I've been stuck at the same weight for a while and wondering if my problem is that I'm eating the wrong kinds of sugar (from rice, pasta, bread), carbs (same sources) and fat (meat, butter, oil) rather than from good sources like fruits, beans, olives? I find it difficult to get enough calories when I'm eating healthy.

It could very well be.

My understanding is you can eat low fat/high carb OR high fat/low carb but NOT both, as in high fat/high carb.
The combination of too much carbs (sugars and starches) and high fat will make you put on excess fat.

You could always reduce your starches and sugars and replace with leafy greens/veggies and see how you do.

If only this were true. It would make my current bulk a lot easier. Unfortunately it's rubbish and the easy way to prove it is to attempt a lean bulk (you try to gain weight slowly to put on muscle but almost no fat).

I'm both lots of fat and lots of starch (pasta and bread), and having trouble gaining anything at all. According to your theory, I should be at least putting on fat.

These kinds of things are easy to believe if all you're paying attention to is weight LOSS. When you are trying to gain on purpose, it gets more and more obvious that if it doesn't work in reverse, it probably wasn't true to begin with. The biggest difference is that losing weight is an emotionally loaded subject, so logic and empiricism fly out the window and the human mind turns to ANYTHING that helps it feel like things are not so out of control.


OF COURSE if you replace all your starches and sugar sources with leafy greens, you will start to lose weight. It's extremely difficult to eat 1000 calories of broccoli or spinach, but very easy to eat 1000 calories of spaghetti carbonara

Thanks everyone. That's helpful.

I've tried cutting back on carbs before, but just end up feeling fatigued with headaches if I cut them right down.

At least now I try to eat the right kind of carbs in moderation, rather than stuffing my face full of the bad ones regularly.

YES CARBS MATTER. but more importantly the timing of carbs matter. Look into Carb backloading..

Personally, carb intake makes no difference to me. It's purely calories. But then again, I don't have insulin resistance or anything like that. If you are a normal, healthy person it shouldn't matter.

I have found in brief 'experiments' that when I cut carbs down (not out, just down) I lose weight really really fast. As someone else mentioned above, it is also easier to eat less when you eat less carbs.

BUT, although I feel great for a few days, on about the 5th or 6th day, I fall in a heap, absolutely exhausted and no chance in hell of being able to do any sort of decent workout, so it's not really a viable long term option. I just try to stick mostly to whole grains and away from refined sugars etc - weight comes off more slowly, but much it's a much more sustainable approach.

I can't comment because the carb police arrived early, as expected. Just wait and two or three more will show soon to school the community. If you don't believe me, look at all the thread with "carb" in the title and the same three guys are in all of them.

Personally, I like being "schooled." Learning and all that crap....