How and why carbs and a high carb intake will keep you fat!!

@freerange - all of these quotes from studies mean nothing without you citing the actual study. It's meaningless. For all we know this was research done on people with diabetes, or insulin resistance, or some metabolic disorder.

Meaningless without the direct source. Post your sources.

HAHA, YOU'RE QUOTING DR. EADES.

Oh, this is rich. After his appearance in Fathead and his absolutely hilarious synopsis of carbohydrate metabolism and subsequent insulin response.

Oh, my. Let me guess, you've got Dr. Lustig's opinion on HFCS ready and waiting to copy and paste next.

In 2008 Stampfer co-authored a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that followed 322 moderately obese individuals for two years as they adopted one of three diets: a low-fat, calorie-restricted diet based on American Heart Association guidelines; a Mediterranean, restricted-calorie diet rich in vegetables and low in red meat; and a low-carbohydrate, nonrestricted-calorie diet. Although the subjects on the low-carb diet ate the most saturated fat, they ended up with the healthiest ratio of HDL to LDL cholesterol and lost twice as much weight as their low-fat-eating counterparts.

So now you're reduced to attacking the Dr, instead of hie work? Nice.

So now you're reduced to attacking the Dr, instead of hie work? Nice.

Well you're not citing direct evidence; you're just citing opinions based on his interpretation of research studies which you are withholding.

Furthermore, I DID attack his work. His explanation of carb metabolization in the human body in the movie Fathead was HILARIOUS. He said carbs get converted to and stored as fat almost immediately upon ingestion. No where in there did he mention the fact that carbs are stored as glycogen.

My 4 year old brother would be able to tell you he was wrong.

The study, reported in The Annals of Internal Medicine, showed that no matter what plan dieters followed, they saw improvements in heart disease risk factors, and low-carb dieters had a greater increase in HDL, the “good” cholesterol.

You mean this one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

I've never seen a video that cherry-picks and misrepresents data so badly. It's just astounding. Although it's a shame, really, as it just tries to create more dietary demons for people to panic about.

http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/

You can see a debate of the literature between Alan Aragon and Dr. Lustig himself. Lustig ends up leaving after being unable to answer quite a few questions regarding discrepancies in his presentation. It's pretty funny, actually.

Is this untz person even trying to lose weight? Don't they have OTHER forums for scholarly debate? This all seems a bit odd.

You mean this one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

I've never seen a video that cherry-picks and misrepresents data so badly. It's just astounding. Although it's a shame, really, as it just tries to create more dietary demons for people to panic about.

http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/

You can see a debate of the literature between Alan Aragon and Dr. Lustig himself. Lustig ends up leaving after being unable to answer quite a few questions regarding discrepancies in his presentation. It's pretty funny, actually.

I went to your link, didn’t see the debate between the two you mentioned, maybe it’s on there and I didn’t see it. I did read his critique of Lustig, not very convincing, since he exaggerated claims himself. This response sums it up best.

Lustig goes on and on about it being a “quantity issue.” I don’t know what more he could have said to mention the fact that the dangers of frucotse are dose-dependent, right in line with what Yudkin proposed.

donna - while I am NOT a nutritionist, the general rule is half to a full gram of protein per pound of your ideal body weight. Example: I'm 5'4, figuring my ideal weight at about 160 (I am very broad). So I generally shoot for a MINIMUM of 80g of protein a day. I generally try to stay under HALF of that in grams of carbs, so again, for me, that puts me between 40 and 50. It may seem low, but it works! This allows me to not only lose fat, but gain muscle. (I have regular body scans done to determine just how much loss/gain there is).

general rule is .75 up to 1.5 grams per lbs dependent on what you are trying to obtain. The FDA says .5 and this has been disproved by about everyone and their brother.

All things considered, if you're a meat-eating American, you probably eat more than enough protein and you don't know it.

The ACE guideline is up to 1 gram of protein per KILOGRAM of bodyweight, and while that is slightly more for the athletic individual, we are still blowing that number out of the water.

Also, since protein, while an energy macronutrient, technically, is not the body's preferred substrate for energy (Guess what are... CARBS). If you're burning protein for fuel, then something is going wrong.

That being said, protein is important and will help you feel full longer which is useful for caloric restriction, but carbs aren't the enemy.

References:

"How much Protein do Athletes need?" http://www.acefitness.org/fitnessqanda/fitnessqanda_display.aspx?itemid=271
"Are there any risks associated with excess protein consumption?" http://www.acefitness.org/fitnessqanda/fitnessqanda_display.aspx?itemid=272

I believe the study that freerange is looking for is here- http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa0708681

Here we go again, peer review, this empirical that. Not all evidence or facts have to be peer reviewed. If that is all you will accept that is fine, it does not diminish the evidence to me or others.

Back to Bunchesonothing, this is what I’m talking about, first it’s no evidence, then when there are studies posted, and reviews of these studies, well they’re just not good enough, the bar rises to peer reviewed, or some other such burden that can’t be reached.

Back to untz, please repost your peer reviewed papers, I must of missed them.

Yes. If you want to prove low carb is the best, then it MUST be empirically done. How else would you go about proving the superiority of low carb? What is your definition of "sufficient evidence"? Based on a group of peoples' experiences?

Just because low carb is best for YOU doesn't mean it's universally the best. It seems that's the leap you are trying to make, and how are you trying to support that? With nothing but anecdotal evidence. Hence the need for empirical research as your personal lives can't be generalized to the broad population.

I believe the study that freerange is looking for is here- http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa0708681

Excellent, let's have a look:

The criteria for eligibility were an age of 40 to 65 years and a body-mass index (BMI, the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) of at least 27, or the presence of type 2 diabetes (according to the American Diabetes Association criteria18) or coronary heart disease, regardless of age and BMI

Participants with type II diabetes, most of whom were in the low carb group, and the low carb group prevailed? Shocking.

The low-carbohydrate, non–restricted-calorie diet aimed to provide 20 g of carbohydrates per day for the 2-month induction phase and immediately after religious holidays, with a gradual increase to a maximum of 120 g per day to maintain the weight loss. The intakes of total calories, protein, and fat were not limited.

How do we know that the results of the low carb group were attained due to low carb and not attained due to a difference in caloric intake. This, freerange, is what we call a "confounding variable."

For weight loss, the prespecified primary aim was the change in weight from baseline to 24 months.

Weight =/= fat. It doesn't say that they measured body composition. How can we attribute the weight lost as being fat rather than merely muscle or water?

the 24-month adherence rates were 90.4% in the low-fat group, 85.3% in the Mediterranean-diet group, and 78.0% in the low-carbohydrate group

I thought you'd like to see that the adherence rates were lowest for the low-carb group, freerange.

The low-carbohydrate group had a lower intake of carbohydrates (P<0.001) and higher intakes of protein

Significantly higher intake of protein, the macronutrient with the highest TEF, over the course of 24 months...hmm...How do we know the benefits of a low carb diet aren't due to low carbs, but rather high protein? Freerange, this is another "confounding variable."

A phase of maximum weight loss occurred from 1 to 6 months and a maintenance phase from 7 to 24 months. All groups lost weight, but the reductions were greater in the low-carbohydrate and the Mediterranean-diet groups (P<0.001 for the interaction between diet group and time) than in the low-fat group. The overall weight changes among the 322 participants at 24 months were −2.9±4.2 kg for the low-fat group, −4.4±6.0 kg for the Mediterranean-diet group, and −4.7±6.5 kg for the low-carbohydrate group.

The Mediterranean group lost as much weight as the low carb group, both of which beat the low fat group.

All groups had significant decreases in waist circumference and blood pressure, but the differences among the groups were not significant.

Self-explanatory. The results are not statistically significant.

HDL cholesterol (Figure 3A) increased during the weight-loss and maintenance phases in all groups, with the greatest increase in the low-carbohydrate group. LDL cholesterol levels (Figure 3C) did not change significantly within groups, and there were no significant differences between the groups in the amount of change. Triglyceride levels were comparable between Mediterranean and low-carb diets

Good job to low carb on HDL, no significance on LDL or triglycerides, though.

In this 2-year dietary-intervention study, we found that the Mediterranean and low-carbohydrate diets are effective alternatives to the low-fat diet for weight loss and appear to be just as safe as the low-fat diet. In addition to producing weight loss in this moderately obese group of participants, the low-carbohydrate and Mediterranean diets had some beneficial metabolic effects, a result suggesting that these dietary strategies might be considered in clinical practice and that diets might be individualized according to personal preferences and metabolic needs.

Mediterranean diet comparable to low carb. Cool, cool.

Overall good study. Not a win for low carb as being *the best*

This is why you must reference the research itself, freerange, and NOT quote someone else.

This, freerange, is what we call a "confounding variable."

Now where did that Teemo go, and his rebuke for being condescending? I’m sure he will be along soon to straighten you out And by we do you mean those that think they are smarter than everyone else, or do you mean people that see life through the black and white lens of scientific method?

Well considering you were making fun of me for informing you of a null hypothesis, and clearly uninformed on how scientific evidence/debate is performed, it wouldn't have surprised me had you not been informed on what a confounding variable is. By "we" I mean the scientific community.

The scientific method brings color into the world not otherwise seen. The decoding of the human genome? Increasing our life expectancy via medicine and other health-related treatments? Was that done through a black and white lens? Eventually curing cancer and Alzheimer's? Nothing could be more beautiful than being able to tell a family that a loved one will no longer die due to medicinal breakthroughs made possible by the scientific method. THAT is part of the scientific method; a method that has benefited your life in more ways than you know or could ever fathom. Don't forget it.

I talked to my husband about this last night - he used to coach the Junior GB rowing squad and works in the cycling industry now, so definitely knows his stuff about sports performance and nutrition. He says 20% of your cals should come from protein, which is about in line with what MFP suggests automatically. Any more than that, even when training as an elite athlete, is unnecessary, as it will just be broken down and excreted as urea, making you need to pee more, therefore drink more. It's not actually good for you. The only exception is for serious body builders, who are doing major damage to their muscles on a regular basis with the aim of building them up bigger as they repair. Obviously protein is needed for that repair. In general, athletes should be having 3/4 complex carbs to 1/4 protein.

This is also the ratio of carbs to protein in the most highly recommended (by sports nutritionists) sports recovery foods and shakes.

This, freerange, is what we call a "confounding variable."

Now where did that Teemo go, and his rebuke for being condescending? I’m sure he will be along soon to straighten you out And by we do you mean those that think they are smarter than everyone else, or do you mean people that see life through the black and white lens of scientific method?

I can't believe you are still arguing with this person, you can NEVER win. The evidence he requires is nearly impossible to produce because you can't control all the variables. People lie, make mistakes, cheat, etc...

Mynameisuntz, right or wrong, it seems to me your only motivation for being on this site is to tell people how wrong they are. I don't have any peer reviewed studies to prove it though.

"no peer reviewed studies to prove it" LOL now that there is funny, I don't care who you are, Oh nutz that's a reference to Larry the Cable Guy.