For some, has avoiding fat been more effective than avoiding carbs for weight loss?
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Eating higher fat, moderate protein, and under 100grams of carbs per day help me stay in a deficit, have clear skin, and a happy gut. High carbs and low fat cause me to struggle with keeping the deficit, destroy my skin, give me a stomach ache and a bad attitude. I believe macro needs are individual, but you definitely want to be getting good fats in your diet for overall health.
This chart explains what those good fats and oils are and which to avoid:
Edit: I can't get that image to show up here, so here's the link to it:
https://eatingrules.com/Cooking-Oil-Comparison-Chart_02-22-12.pdf
Tada!
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I've tried paleo/whole 30 because people swear by it and I also have PCOS, which is a condition that has low carb diets recommended for it. When I've done 30 day challenges for these types of diets, I would still watch portions or count calories but I actually lost less weight than when I ate normally. I lost even more weight when I tried a plant based challenge. All you hear about on forums and in the news nowadays is about how bad carbs/grains are for weight loss. Has anyone else found the opposite to be true that cutting fat has effected your weight loss rather than cutting carbs?
Weight loss is not about carbs or grains, it's about eating at a calorie deficit. Type of diet is individual and works only if it works for you.
If your doctor has recommended low carb for your PCOS, then I suggest you follow that advice. Keep in mind, however, that weight loss is still dependent on calories/in calories out, but with medical conditions it might take longer to find your correct calorie goal.
For me, I eat a balance of fat/carbs/protein and I've lose 44 pounds and I've been maintaining for a year and a half. My diary is open.0 -
Speak to your doctor about insulin resistance because with pcos nearly all cases have this metabolic disorder. Do you crave carbs all the time? Sugar then carbs then you feel like more sweets etc etc?
Most people with pcos can't tolerate high gi foods and need to limit sugar and carb intake. Low fat "anything" is not a good option as the sugars are increased compared to the full fat option.0 -
BILLBRYTAN wrote: »It is not a simple matter of just cutting fat and carbs; manufactured fats like canola, corn, safflower and soybean oil should be eliminated entirely because they serve no nutritional purpose. Most fats, like bacon and eggs, butter, coconut oil and other saturated fats should be increased because saturated fats and cholesterol are healthy. Same thing with refined white sugar, white flour, white rice etc. If it is manufactured you should not ever eat it. If the sugar is in whole raw fruits or vegetables you can eat lots. Nutrition is far too complex to be based merely upon macro-nutrients: CARBS, FAT, PROTEIN.
Nooooooooo.0 -
ceoverturf wrote: »What in the what is going on in this thread??
Kudos to the few in this thread wading through all the derp to give good advice.
Gee, now that I'm a the end, I echo this....
Mmmmm.........0 -
Rabbitjb -- perhaps we are dealing with semantics. I will agree that CICO is a 4 Laws of Thermodynamics fact when it comes to machines -- but when it comes to weight loss it is almost meaningless, because so many factors (which you yourself mention: hormones, bacteria, medicine etc) affect how our bodies respond. People are told (often so quickly and often smugly -- though I did not feel you were smug at all), "It's so simple, stupid -- eat less, move more." When it's not simple at all: Eat less, move more, but steroids can make you put on weight despite what you do. Eat less, move more -- but insulin levels affect how much fat you hold onto. Eat less, move more.... but antibiotics fed to mice (and cattle and babies) lead to changes in gut flora and weight gain independent of intake and exercise.
In such cases, and when it comes to a lot of people on this site and others, CICO as a useful concept is practically worthless and it doesn't help to beat people over the heads with it. People come here for help to figure out what is happening with their bodies. Why is it that, using the best instruments at hand -- MFP for CI, Fitbit or Bodybugg or whatever for CO, their bodies are not responding according to the CICO numbers? Why is it that I've lost 5 more lbs in these 14 weeks than I "should" have, and 5 less lbs the last time around than I "should" have? If the most meticulous methods of measurement are off by approximately 140 calories a day this time, then what does that mean for the "cut out a soda a day and you'll lose 15 lbs in a year" kind of simplistic advice that people so often are given?
The endocrinologist I mentioned said she didn't believe in gluten sensitivity for non-celiac people. I said, "So why is it that when I eat pasta, keeping sodium levels the same, I immediately and invariably put on 5 to 8 lbs of water weight overnight? Something is obviously going on in my body to have that reaction." She had no answer for that. I expect there is an answer, and someday science will discover it. For now, I have to go with how my body responds to different things going in. That's all any of us can do.
That's why I keep on saying, people need to find out what leads to weight loss for them.
End of my rant. I have to go to the oral surgeon today and see how last week's tooth extraction is healing.0 -
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Though I'll add the advice to all: based on my experience this week, if you want fast and easy weight loss, go have a tooth pulled. Because pain killers and a soft food diet really really work if you can stay off the ice cream!0
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Proving that CICO is worthless when it comes to real health and helpful advice.0
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And the derp lives on...
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Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »
Nigel Thornberry memes are a national treasure, that must be protected at all costs.
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Snickerscharlie: Sorry for the one liner response to yours. I just get fed up with one-liner smugness and should not have responded to it. It does none of us any good.0
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Rabbitjb -- perhaps we are dealing with semantics. I will agree that CICO is a 4 Laws of Thermodynamics fact when it comes to machines -- but when it comes to weight loss it is almost meaningless, because so many factors (which you yourself mention: hormones, bacteria, medicine etc) affect how our bodies respond. People are told (often so quickly and often smugly -- though I did not feel you were smug at all), "It's so simple, stupid -- eat less, move more." When it's not simple at all: Eat less, move more, but steroids can make you put on weight despite what you do. Eat less, move more -- but insulin levels affect how much fat you hold onto. Eat less, move more.... but antibiotics fed to mice (and cattle and babies) lead to changes in gut flora and weight gain independent of intake and exercise.
In such cases, and when it comes to a lot of people on this site and others, CICO as a useful concept is practically worthless and it doesn't help to beat people over the heads with it. People come here for help to figure out what is happening with their bodies. Why is it that, using the best instruments at hand -- MFP for CI, Fitbit or Bodybugg or whatever for CO, their bodies are not responding according to the CICO numbers? Why is it that I've lost 5 more lbs in these 14 weeks than I "should" have, and 5 less lbs the last time around than I "should" have? If the most meticulous methods of measurement are off by approximately 140 calories a day this time, then what does that mean for the "cut out a soda a day and you'll lose 15 lbs in a year" kind of simplistic advice that people so often are given?
The endocrinologist I mentioned said she didn't believe in gluten sensitivity for non-celiac people. I said, "So why is it that when I eat pasta, keeping sodium levels the same, I immediately and invariably put on 5 to 8 lbs of water weight overnight? Something is obviously going on in my body to have that reaction." She had no answer for that. I expect there is an answer, and someday science will discover it. For now, I have to go with how my body responds to different things going in. That's all any of us can do.
That's why I keep on saying, people need to find out what leads to weight loss for them.
End of my rant. I have to go to the oral surgeon today and see how last week's tooth extraction is healing.
Steroids don't make you put on weight by itself, neither does insulin or antibiotics.
It is ALWAYS calories. There are things that make finding out the corect numbers harder, but it is always, always always dependent on how much your body absorbs vs. how much it uses.
Energy cannot come out of nowhere and cannot disappear, as much as you'd like to believe that.
If your body absorbs energy from a food, it uses that energy or it's going to store it.
If your body does something, breathing, thinking, moving, it has to use energy to do that, we're not perpetual motion machines. If you don't provide your body with enough energy to fuel the energy needed to perform those feats, your body has no choice but to use its own energy storage. Or else you'd die because there's no energy to keep your heart beating. That is a fact, like it or not.
Btw, eating more carbs than usual leads to water weight gain too, not only sodium so there's your answer for that.0 -
Has anyone else found the opposite to be true that cutting fat has effected your weight loss rather than cutting carbs?
I think it's really individual.
What I also recommend is looking at your diet and seeing how you can cut calories painlessly.
For me, part of that was cutting starchy carbs, and that was a big part of my original approach. I tend not to care that much about stuff like bread, rice, pasta and to prefer the foods eaten with them, so reducing portion size or cutting out the bread in favor of non sandwich lunches was an easy approach for me.
But reducing fat by decreasing the amount of oil I used in dressings or when cooking (same with butter), decreasing the amount of cheese I added, tending to replace restaurant meals with home cooked ones (since restaurants can be assumed to use tons of butter), all were painless ways to reduce calories that resulted from reducing fat. Cutting out fattier cuts of meat for meatless meats or many kinds of fish or chicken breast also helps, although I've always eaten a pretty wide variety of protein sources (and not much of the fattiest stuff like sausage or non-lean ground beef, although I will make sure to include good marbled beef and pork shoulder).
Cutting down on sweets and eating them only in moderation after being sure to get a full complement of nutrient-dense foods like adequate protein and veggies and fruits also tended to cut down on both fat and carbs.
For me, then, I certainly agree that simply focusing on carbs is not all that helpful. I suspect this is because they've not been my traditional weakness (fats probably more so), I'm insulin sensitive (and pretty active now), and I've never experienced this thing where eating carbs makes me more hungry like some claim. I tend to like whole food or less processed carbs on the whole anyway, and find them quite filling.0 -
You know, my friend @Orphia shared this link with me and I think it's almost perfect
Especially the video that he links to with the actress
http://www.bodyforwife.com/the-most-important-thing-you-can-do-to-lose-weight/
http://www.documentarytube.com/videos/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-losing-weight starting at 18.15
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"Btw, eating more carbs than usual leads to water weight gain too, not only sodium so there's your answer for that."
Stevencloser: You assume I was eating more carbs than usual with the pasta. Not true. Same level of carbs, same level of sodium. Yet it caused some kind of chemical reaction in my body -- and the point was, I was curious about what was going on, and my endocrinologist was not. Yet curiosity is what leads to learning, and I am all about learning, for my own health if for no other reason.
Shell1005 -- I guess "worthless" may be too strong a word choice. CICO works easily and clearly for some people. It does not work easily and clearly for me. And because it does not, I find the way it is used by many many posters on MFP to be unhelpful for people who are asking for help to understand why their bodies are responding as they do. If the "numbers" should show a deficit, and you are not losing, then what? What help are quick one liners -- "it's CICO, stupid" -- which come across as smug? That's why I apologized for my one liner back to Snickercharlie. They're not helpful, for anyone.
Signing off for now.
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