Carbs - friend or foe?

Foe for me...totally agree with moderation in "Good Carbs" and high fiber. I've been seeking counseling from a nutritionist and Dr. who advise that "good carbs" in moderation are good, natural sugar only..no artificial sweetener because they are proven to induce sugar cravings and if you have as much to lose as I do (130-150) changing your body to burn it's own fat instead of the carb's you consume will definitely speed the process. For me, carbs and sugar are issues and both must be in moderation 50 - 100g Day, no "root" veggies for now and no Grapes or Bananas for now due to high sugar content. This keeps my cravings for those things down so I'm more successful in my choices and I feel more satisfied longer when consuming protein, veggies and good fruits. For folks who totally live for bread, sugar, etc. (i'm a total carb addict) reducing sugar and carbs can only be productive in their weight loss..but NO carbs isn't the answer....moderation with "good"...Just my opinion...

Glycogen is stored mostly in the liver for quick retrieval, and some gets stored in the muscles. The reason bodybuilders have to bulk up on carbs is because glycogen is used as energy, and they have to have the energy to build their muscles and compete.

"...excess of carbohydrate intake, exceeding bodily energy expenditure needs, will result in weight gain. " (T. Astorino, M.S. & Len Kravitz, Ph.D., ) http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article folder/glycogen.html.

What do you believe glycogen capacity to be, exactly? 100g carbs? 200g carbs? 400g carbs?

How many carbs do you think we're able to store before we undergo DNL ( de novo lipogenesis - conversion of carbs to fat).

If you are an endurance athlete, you may need "60-70% of carbs," according to Maria I. Martos, (2011), but for the general public, and I'm willing to say quite a few on MFP, a high carb diet is the reason they, and myself, are here. I'm being redundant, but again, "Any excess glucose is stored in adipose tissue as fat." (M.I.Martos, 2011) http://www.sagewoodwellness.com/Doc0006.htm.

Correct, and same question stands - how do you define "excess"? When, according to you, does liver and muscle glycogen max out?

Combining vegetables to get complete protein is possible. Vegetarians do it all the time, although I do know several who are obese, and clearly not healthy. Personally, I like lean meat and fish with my meals.

How can you discuss weight loss without discussing health? IMO, the two go hand-in-hand, but I'll attempt to humor you. I believe this is the statement you're looking for: If you are looking to lose weight, you could basically eat anything you wanted as long as you had a deficit.

They should go hand in hand, but they don't always. Look at patients with anorexia. Of course this is an extreme, but it implies that some weight loss is unhealthy whereas other weight loss is healthy. If you look at it like a spectrum, I was curious to know where on the spectrum you place weight loss with a carb-based diet.

I ask because the Okinawan diet is heavily based on white rice and starchy vegetables; neither of which, if I'm not misinformed, are complete proteins. Their diet consists of anywhere between ~70-90% carbohydrates. And yet they are the longest living population with the lowest rate of disability in old age.

Go ahead and eat all the all the high-fat foods, all the sugar, all the junk food, all the alcohol, all the high-carb stuff - in any combination, remain at a deficit, which is set at 500 on this site so that you lose weight, and then prove to me you have a healthy body. You cannot divide having a healthy weight and being healthy. You prove it if you can. I'm waiting.

How do you define healthy? Remember the professor who went on the Twinkie diet? Lost 27 pounds, improved HDL and LDL, triglycerides, etc. What do you make of that?

carbs can be friend or foe depends on your personal chemistry. Myself the are defiantly foe. I can be perfect on a caloriies but if too much carbs i hit a brick wall. other can eat almost all the cals in carbs and still have the weight fly off. you just have to figure out what works for you

Agreed again. I can eat ice cream or deep fried chicken til the cows come home (and I eat them too) but as soon as I put a bun on em, I gain. Also, I have to say, since I've dropped wheat products I feel fantastic.

Ice cream has a lot of sugar, though. Usually.

Yup, but I can eat it. I didn't start dropping weight until I dropped the bread. It misses me. I'm learning not to miss it. I think my body processes the sugar well, but not the starch. I can't eat potatoes without gain either.

See, I'm really not clear where the strawman is. I can see yours pretty clearly, though. I never once said, meant to say, or implied that what I say works for me should be taken as a sign that it will work for you, or that opinion should count the same as good science. I'm not sure how you got that impression.

Also, it seems clear to me that when I say 'essential', I mean is necessary for robust health and well-being, and you take that to mean 'will die or become significantly ill without', so hammering on it over and over as if it was a big 'gotcha' or whatever is just pointless (and ineffective) personal needling.

Anyway, those two points cleared up, I'd like to reiterate that in answer to the actual question at hand, it really doesn't matter what percentage of your calories is coming from carbs when it comes to weight loss. Cut calories, and eat real food. Track your food and how you feel. Play with it until you find a balance that makes you feel good, and that you can enjoy. If your weight loss slows down or stops, play with it some more. Maybe that means talking to a nutritionist, or maybe that means looking at some of the things that other people have successfully tried, and saving yourself some money. It's not taking anyone's opinion as gospel. It's called self-experimentation, and it works GREAT, even without wasting dozens or hundreds of hours studying the science or paying an expert to do it for you, running all sorts of tests and all that. You are smart enough to figure it out for yourself, and mostly it just entails listening to your body. Is it good that people study the subject scientifically? Absolutely. But giving that work-in-progress too much credence is just pointless. The suggestion to simply 'eat less, move more, and eat real food' is enough detail for the vast majority of people, the vast majority of the time, and most of the rest can be figured out on the fly, organically, for all but the most weight and/or fitness obsessed.

Quite frankly, I don't care what sports nutritionists do or think, because I'm not a competitive athlete, looking to get maximum performance, and I have no real interest in becoming one. I'm of the firm opinion that the whole obsession with optimization is actively harmful to the millions of people who simply need to eat less and move more, to say nothing of the people who make themselves miserable trying to get smaller or 'fitter' than they need to, pursuing ridiculously restrictive diets, dumping billions a year on supplements, all that crap. Leave the science to the scientists and stop obsessing over the details. We'll all be better off for it.

Strawman argument.

Look man, I'm really not trying to be rude here. I'm sure you're a smart guy and I've already been getting warnings that even using the phrase "logical fallacy" is somehow mean so I'll try and give it a rest. Just stop posting things that don't have to do with what was being discussed.

No one is arguing that psychological aspects and different metabolic aspects don't play a factor in diet and health in general. However, unless you have blood work done that shows something as a condition (hypothyroidism, low testosterone, etc) then it shouldn't be taken into account.

Other than that, I'm not really going to respond much to the rest of your post. You're saying that because statistics and studies are imperfect, we should not follow their results. Instead, we're supposed to follow the results of people who say "this worked for me, you should therefore do it" as if that is somehow better. No. Just plain....NO. We go with the best scientific approach at the time and that's how it works. That's how all sports nutritionists operate, all exercise physiologists operate and all those who are invested in the scientific community operate. It has nothing to do with my ego, your ego or anyone else. It has to do with a scientific approach to statements such as those seen in this thread ("carbs are essential" etc etc)

So, until peer reviewed and control group studies are presented to prove what I say wrong, I will call out mis-information as I see it. If you don't appreciate that, I suggest you take it up with the numerous organizations who fund studies to further advance our knowledge of the subject. Thanks.

What ever happened to the original poster of this thread? Has anyone heard from her? Oh, probably not because egos have hijacked her thread. I understand if you all have this much arguement and debate, which is fine, but maybe you should start a thread of your own :grumble:

As for evawilkerson, I love carbs and could never survive on a low-carb diet. I have however, tried to change my diet so I'm getting carbs from healthier places. I would rather get carbs from a banana, where I get numerous other nutritional benefits, than say from a pop or candy which offers little to no other nutritional value.

Glycogen is stored mostly in the liver for quick retrieval, and some gets stored in the muscles. The reason bodybuilders have to bulk up on carbs is because glycogen is used as energy, and they have to have the energy to build their muscles and compete.

"...excess of carbohydrate intake, exceeding bodily energy expenditure needs, will result in weight gain. " (T. Astorino, M.S. & Len Kravitz, Ph.D., ) http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article folder/glycogen.html.

What do you believe glycogen capacity to be, exactly? 100g carbs? 200g carbs? 400g carbs?

How many carbs do you think we're able to store before we undergo DNL ( de novo lipogenesis - conversion of carbs to fat).

If you are an endurance athlete, you may need "60-70% of carbs," according to Maria I. Martos, (2011), but for the general public, and I'm willing to say quite a few on MFP, a high carb diet is the reason they, and myself, are here. I'm being redundant, but again, "Any excess glucose is stored in adipose tissue as fat." (M.I.Martos, 2011) http://www.sagewoodwellness.com/Doc0006.htm.

Correct, and same question stands - how do you define "excess"? When, according to you, does liver and muscle glycogen max out?

Combining vegetables to get complete protein is possible. Vegetarians do it all the time, although I do know several who are obese, and clearly not healthy. Personally, I like lean meat and fish with my meals.

How can you discuss weight loss without discussing health? IMO, the two go hand-in-hand, but I'll attempt to humor you. I believe this is the statement you're looking for: If you are looking to lose weight, you could basically eat anything you wanted as long as you had a deficit.

They should go hand in hand, but they don't always. Look at patients with anorexia. Of course this is an extreme, but it implies that some weight loss is unhealthy whereas other weight loss is healthy. If you look at it like a spectrum, I was curious to know where on the spectrum you place weight loss with a carb-based diet.

I ask because the Okinawan diet is heavily based on white rice and starchy vegetables; neither of which, if I'm not misinformed, are complete proteins. Their diet consists of anywhere between ~70-90% carbohydrates. And yet they are the longest living population with the lowest rate of disability in old age.

Go ahead and eat all the all the high-fat foods, all the sugar, all the junk food, all the alcohol, all the high-carb stuff - in any combination, remain at a deficit, which is set at 500 on this site so that you lose weight, and then prove to me you have a healthy body. You cannot divide having a healthy weight and being healthy. You prove it if you can. I'm waiting.

How do you define healthy? Remember the professor who went on the Twinkie diet? Lost 27 pounds, improved HDL and LDL, triglycerides, etc. What do you make of that?

I've never known any anorexics who preferred a high-carb diet, but it couldn't hurt them - at their low weight, neither would a few hundred Twinkies, at least in the initial stage of putting on weight. That's not to say if they were able to turn around and start eating, they wouldn't need to cut down on carbs if they became carb addicts who ate nothing but junk food.

I haven't run across any anorexics on this site, although I've met several people who only manage to eat 1/2 of their calorie recommendations. I fall into that group too, although with carb cycling, I am able to meet it every other day. It's a trade off I have to accept when I'm trying to balance my fat and sugar intake with carbs and protein until I find what works for me in my present condition. High carbs don't work for me. I do have enough energy to get in an hour of workouts even on the days I only eat pure protein, and I am losing weight, which is my goal.

At this point and time, with a physical disability, and having to rely on a wheelchair for mobility, I am more concerned with being able to find the best way for me to lose weight so that when I have total hip surgery, my recovery rate will be faster. Before I became disabled, I was very active. I raised livestock, was able to lift 100lbs, wrangled 250lb animals every 6 weeks, and Mon-Fri I worked on a power plant where I was up and down scaffolding and 15 flights of stairs several times a day. I preferred stairs to the elevator, because with 12 bodies in a small box, it quickly becomes overheated in the summer, and overcrowded in the winter. I relied heavily on carbs duriing the week. I weighed 140lbs., which is considered normal weight for me at 5'6." The reason I relied on carbs more was because I worked 7 days a week, with a 12 hr shift M-F, and I had a hard time holding onto weight. My body likes carbs just a little too well! I should know, as I've been in it all my life and have always struggled with carbs.

The Okinawan diet does not sound much different from the food I was eating before I became disabled, or for the most part, from what I grew up eating, only when I was younger, my body burned carbs quite a bit more efficiently. Carbs give you energy and you need energy when you are physically active.

I ate 2 cups of whole-fat yogurt, and 2 glasses of whole-fat milk Mon-Fri, and that was my only protein during the week. The weekend was when I filled up on protein.

As for the Twinkie Professor, he lost weight by consuming less calories, and losing fat is why his HDL, LDL, and triglyceriedes improved. Now, the question is, will he be able to keep that weight off?

Actually, for a 70 kg man with ~45% lean body mass you can assume around 700g - 1200g of carbohydrate storage.

http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000960