Want your opinion re: this...

maggieeric1 wrote: »

I personally am a sugar addict and post menopausal. I have put on weight.

Understanding what causes the sugar cravings has really helped me.

You don't have to try every new fad/trend if you found something that works for you and your lifestyle... stick to it.

maggieeric1 wrote: »

There is only so much you can cut. To get a deficit, if you've been yo yo dieting your whole life, your bmr set point might be below what the calculations give out.

Your body is filled with many hormones. Things like sleep, stress, stress from a workout, your diet macros, environmental toxins, etc. all affect the hormone soup.

Sometimes you just might want to know how to tweak it. Not twerk it.

jtcedinburgh wrote: »

Disclaimer: I didn't write this but I did read it and wanted to see if there's any truth to it:
"Blood sugar causes insulin. No. Insulin is continuously released from the body (basal insulin) to counteract the liver releasing glucose on a continuous basis in order to fuel the body. This might be the simplest way to explain it: when we eat, there's receptors in our digestive tract that "tells" out pancreas to release insulin. The insulin released allows for our body -especially organs like the liver- to take up the glucose that was broken down from the food (all carbohydrates will be broken down into glucose) to save for when the body needs the glucose (the liver processes it into glycogen, which is simply 600+ molecules of glucose linked together). Our body's preferred source of energy is glucose (some types of cells, especially in the nervous system, prefer to run purely on glucose), so we need that glycogen supply in the liver to help "cover" the glucose our body needs whenever we're not eating (such as while we're sleeping). When our blood sugar drops below a certain threshold, the pancreas is stimulated to release glucagon, which tells the liver to break down some of the glycogen into glucose and release it into the blood.
Insulin is a fat storing hormone. If you are eating too much refined carbohydrates insulin prevents fat from being released into the blood stream. If you reduce carbohydrates fat can flow out of the cells to be burnt as energy. Excess fat is not driven to storage but is excreted. Insulin is a fat-storing hormone, when there's excess glucose. Insulin is like a traffic guard -it'll first tell the glucose to go satisfy the current needs for all the cells in the body (such as our muscles, which also store a lot of glycogen), then it'll tell whatever glucose is leftover to go to the liver to be stored as glycogen, and then it tells whatever glucose is left after all that to go to the fat cells to be stored within the fat as future energy. What this excerpt might be trying to describe is ketosis. Ketosis often happens when the body does not have the ability to use glucose as fuel. For instance, I am a type 1 diabetic, which means that an autoimmune attack caused my pancreas to stop producing insulin. Insulin is like the key that allows glucose to enter the cells, so without insulin, the cells within my body cannot use glucose as fuel. Instead, they have to resort to using fat (and protein -I lost a ton of muscle from the undiagnosed diabetes) as fuel in a process called ketosis (for a type 1 diabetic, ketosis due to an insulin absence can be dangerous, because ketosis produces acidic ketone byproducts that could decrease the pH of our blood and, when combined with dehydration associated from high blood sugars due to the insulin absence, can send us into diabetic ketoacidosis, which can be fatal if untreated). People on keto diets can induce ketosis by severely limiting their carbohydrate intake (typically <20g), though ultimately all that matters is a calorie deficit. The body still uses fat and protein as fuel (I can't really explain how exactly or what cellular mechanisms occur for it).
If you go into calorie defecit the result is that you will be hungry, miserable, tired and your metabolism will slow down. This is no way to live. On a low carb diet you may be eating more calories as good fats but you will not be hungry and fat will flow out of fat cells and be burnt and excreted. You will lose weight until you reach your target, then gradually increase good carbohydrates until you stabilise.All that matters is a calorie deficit. With insulin, it's continuously released by the body (unless you're a type 1 diabetic and don't produce any of your own insulin :P). The body uses all macronutrients -all calories- as fuel."
Can anyone advise? At present, I'm sticking with the 'defecit is all' approach - i.e. not giving too much concern to how I get my calories, provided I don't get too many of them and provided everything is in a reasonable balance. But..... this got me to thinking, maybe this guy has a point?

tomteboda wrote: »

As as a chemist whose graduate research focused on the glycolic pathway, and experience in protein signaling and metabolism both experimental and theoretical, I couldn't even get past the first two sentences without crying out in horror.

The quote in the first post is pure and utter bull manure and designed to scare people while sounding authoratative.

Eat what you enjoy.. Play around with trying a little more meat or fiber, or eating more snacks or smaller meals, but only make changes insofar as you continue to enjoy your food and lifestyle. All you need to lose weight is a caloric deficit. All you need to avoid may with your diet is to eat enough to be full and often enough to avoid hypoglycemia if you're prone to that, and to eat tasty enough food that you don't feel constantly deprived.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

jtcedinburgh wrote: »

Insulin is a fat storing hormone.

More accurately, insulin helps shuttle things around in the body. It helps get protein to muscles, too. It won't store anything as fat unless your glycogen stores are full, which typically won't be the case when you are eating at a deficit. Moreover, you will never gain net fat if you are burning more than you are eating (i.e., at a deficit). While some fat may be added in a moment, more will ultimately be burn. So this is highly misleading.

If you are eating too much refined carbohydrates insulin prevents fat from being released into the blood stream.

No--it might be the case at the moment, but not over the course of the day, unless by "too much carbohydrate" what is meant are too many calories overall. You will also put on net fat if you overeat with a diet that is high in fat (as recommended by the low carb advocates).

This is similar to the arguments that you should exercise only in the "fat burning zone," because otherwise you won't be burning fat. It doesn't matter -- net burn is what matters. You burn lots of fat when sleeping and when sedentary. You can't manipulate it so you burn lots more just because of what you eat or stop your body from taking the fuel it needs (which will mean burning fat overall if you are at a deficit, because it needs the fuel -- it can't run without it).

You reduce your intake to 1200 calories per day. Since insulin remains high, you cannot get any energy from fat stores. Why? Because the dietary strategy you are using (Caloric Reduction as Primary) only concerns itself with reducing calories, not insulin. Remember that the high insulin is telling the body to store energy as fat, or at a minimum, not burn fat (inhibits lipolysis).

AnvilHead wrote: »

sky_northern wrote: »

@alavasterVerve provided this gem [/i] --Why The First Law of Thermodynamics is Utterly Irrelevant

which says:

You reduce your intake to 1200 calories per day. Since insulin remains high, you cannot get any energy from fat stores. Why? Because the dietary strategy you are using (Caloric Reduction as Primary) only concerns itself with reducing calories, not insulin. Remember that the high insulin is telling the body to store energy as fat, or at a minimum, not burn fat (inhibits lipolysis).

Seriously? This person on a 1200 calorie diets has high insulin all the time?? They never sleep?? They somehow are eating enough bad, evil carbs 24hrs a day to keep their insulin high while staying at 1200 calories???

Obvious malarkey written by a crackpot with not even a basic knowledge of physiology or endocrinology - with the intent to be controversial, since 'controversial' sells books and gets media coverage. These silly snake oil salesmen will do anything for money, even outright lie to people (as evidenced in that quote).