Low carb

Hey, I got the post on my wall from you! I am going to do a full write up this weekend on low carb with some articles to back it up. It will include information on how it works (actual science!), what to eat/what to avoid, tips and stuff like that!!

Oh, dear, can of worms. This is just such an emotive topic, and please be prepared to hear a lot of half-truths and biased opinion... either way.

A while ago I put my nose into what I could find that at least looked like reliable, known fact. The main points that stood out are:

- Low-carb tends to get weight down faster. However, the results tend to be harder to maintain.
- Two years or so after start of the weight loss, there's no significant difference between groups of low-carb and low-calorie dieters.

There are a number of question marks over low carb regarding the health effects of what is ultimately a diet the human body isn't made for. There are also reports of bad mood swings.

Last, I just read through some German weight-loss forums and was surprised how often I saw the following story: "I lost a lot of weight with low-carb, but then had the hardest time to maintain. Now I've managed to, by permanently restricting my carbs."

Bottom line, it certainly works in the short term, it works about as well as just calorie-counting in the long term BUT may require long-term changes to one's diet that may be hard to put into place. For me, that equates to a "no". (I eat about 45% calories from carbs, and 25-30 % from fat/protein, respectively, ie slightly raised protein, but not low-carb.)

Look to the others for scientific information, I can only offer personal experience. It's a great lifestyle change. It was really hard for me to do at first. I gave it a shot a few times and failed, than eventually decided that I couldn't live low carb. Than I changed the way I looked at it. In the beginning I considered low carb to be no carb. I first started on the Atkins/sugar buster diet, where you start off with no carbs and eventually work them in as you go. I LIKE carbs, still do, so that diet was impossible for me to get into. Than I just hit a point in the road where I thought there has to be something "right" about all of these people eating sprouted grain, and whole grain products. So I started switching out all of my "white" foods for the whole grain options. That was my start. Than I just started paying attention to how often I was eating them, eventually only doing one or two in a day. At this point I never considered it a "diet", just a change I wanted to make. There's more flavor in the whole grain varieties, they're more filling, and it just makes me feel better to know that I'm making the healthier choice.
If you're struggling with it, my advice is to not think of it as a diet. If you're struggling to the point of it being upsetting for you than eat the carbs, just make them whole grain variety and gradually work your way down to less a day. They can be an easy choice for busy people, and that's not a bad thing.

I have watched my sister live low-carb since June last year and she has lost over 50 lbs. She's found products like Carbquik (replaces Bisquik) so she can indulge her longing for blueberry muffins & pizza. She found a great cold cereal that tastes great with a little fat-free half & half. Check sites like Netrition.com for low-carb products of all kinds.

I live low-carb, too, but I had RNY last November so I have different issues.

Cheer!

Kat

I have watched my sister live low-carb since June last year and she has lost over 50 lbs. She's found products like Carbquik (replaces Bisquik) so she can indulge her longing for blueberry muffins & pizza. She found a great cold cereal that tastes great with a little fat-free half & half. Check sites like Netrition.com for low-carb products of all kinds.

I live low-carb, too, but I had RNY last November so I have different issues.

Cheer!

Kat

Personally, it is better to stay away from the products because you are just swapping one bad habit for another and not actually breaking the sugar addiction that is there. It is merely being masked.

I specialize in coaching those to a whole foods eating plan and not depending on products, but actually breaking the addiction to sugars and starches.

Take a look at a new book called The Four Hour Body by Tim Ferriss. His diet is essentially low carb/Atkins but with one cheat day a week, which he feels is essentially to keeping your body's hormone balance correct.

I'm lost about four pounds this week (I started the diet on Sunday) and have yet to really add in exercise to the mix. Can't wait to see the results when I do that.

It's often hard to tell whether the author of a forum post is on a no-carb/ultra low-carb diet or a more moderately low-carb diet, and I can tell you from personal experience, it makes a huge difference.

The more extreme diet was easy enough to follow in that its rules were simple and it pretty much eliminated hunger and cravings, but I couldn't stick with it because of the frightening physical symptoms. I had zero energy after the first few days, got light headed when I stood up, and had heart palpitations. I didn't make it through the first week and quickly regained the weight that I'd lost - not that I expected anything different. I knew it was mostly water weight at that early stage of the diet.

A moderately low carb diet - one that allows an unlimited number of servings of non-starchy vegetables, plus more carbs as the diet progresses, has proved in my case to have pretty much all of the advantages of an ultra low-carb diet without any of the scary side effects. I may not be losing weight as fast, but I am losing, I'm not hungry, I don't crave starch or sugar, and I feel great. If anything, my energy level is up.

I can see that getting from where I am now to the maintenance phase of the diet will take some work, though, because it can't be an all or nothing thing with the higher carb foods. I'm already eating oatmeal again (so far, so good) and will eat bread, potatoes, pasta, and rice again. I'll just have to work out how much of which kinds I can eat without getting myself into trouble. But at least I'm aware that evolving an effective maintenance diet will take some work. My last "successful" diet was of the low fat, calorie restricted variety, and while I concede that I could have, and should have, given more thought to maintenance than I did, I went back to my old way of eating within a few months and weight came back. And then some.