are carbs or calories more important when losing weight?
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Lillymoo01 wrote: »What saddens me is that there is so much pseudoscience around that people no longer understand the basics of weight loss ...... or vaccinations ...... or climate change .....
all science started as pseudoscience....1 -
Calories, for sure.
I find I stay satisfied for longer if my calories are more protein and fat than carb, but that's an individual thing and down to you to decide.4 -
both, low carb 100 gr or less works good for me, I am not as hungry.2
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Calories are king.4
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I'm so tired of people demonizing carbs. Its calories that matter. Eat what you want and stay in a deficit.10
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I must be the odd one out here. My body will only lose weight if I am obsessive about cutting carbs. I have an awful time staying below calorie goal if I don't restrict carbs. I spent the first month of my weight loss journey at 1,000- 1,300 calories and barely moved the scale. Since I've been using MFP and cutting carbs I've lost 15 pounds in one month. And I feel the best with an overabundance of energy when I keep net carbs about 30 . Could it be it just depends on who you are?
No.13 -
I must be the odd one out here. My body will only lose weight if I am obsessive about cutting carbs. I have an awful time staying below calorie goal if I don't restrict carbs. I spent the first month of my weight loss journey at 1,000- 1,300 calories and barely moved the scale. Since I've been using MFP and cutting carbs I've lost 15 pounds in one month. And I feel the best with an overabundance of energy when I keep net carbs about 30 . Could it be it just depends on who you are?
No it doesn't depend on who you are.
There are weight loss methods that simply make it easier for people to count calories in, or weight loss methods that are so restrictive that counting calories in is no longer necessary.
If you can see a very low carb diet as part of your maintenance strategy (ie: lifestyle change) that's great. A smaller you will require fewer calories forever. Find your forever.
With very low carb there comes a pretty good chunk of water weight loss in the first couple weeks. The water weight will gradually return so prepare yourself for much slower weight loss in month two. Weight loss won't be linear.10 -
I think both low carb and high carb diets are effective. They work on different mechanisms and each individual will have different responses. We see in controlled feeding studies that when calories, fiber, and protein are controlled, no difference in weight loss really. Slight advantage to low fat, but not by much. If the carb insulin hypothesis were true, why have I seen high carb, whole foods, vegans lose hundreds of pounds? That's "food" for thought... 🤣6
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To answer the question above, I started at 300 lb and need to lose appx 120 more. I would be ecstatic to lose 90 by next fall. I do realize that the loss will slow down as time goes on and likely more sustainable. I really do appreciate any feedback and everyone's perspective.
@vkrenz you'll get better answers if you start your own thread.
There are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings2 -
Lillymoo01 wrote: »What saddens me is that there is so much pseudoscience around that people no longer understand the basics of weight loss ...... or vaccinations ...... or climate change .....
all science started as pseudoscience....
Not at all. All science started out as a hypothesis. Then through application of the scientific method and constant review and refinement either gets show to be plausible and a confirmable theory or disproved.
Pseudoscience also starts out as a hypothesis but skips the testing and proving stage and leaps straight to unsubstantiated assumptions.12 -
As a diabetic, carbs are very important to me because they can turn into sugar and I have to watch the amount of sugar I eat. I can still eat sugar but only a certain amount before my blood glucose goes up. Calories are important also. I am a bariatric patient and can only eat so many calories a day.3
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I read an article the other day which I thought made a very insightful point. Many times, different fad diets work for people, even when the instructions behind one fad diet are the exact opposite of some other fad diet. Keto? Many people lose weight. Veganism? (Usually high in carbs, since vegetables tend to be high in carbs.) Many people lose weight. Raw paleo gluten-free whatever? Many people lose weight.
What the article pointed out was that all these different diets have one thing in common: they substitute different foods for the ones that the person was eating previously. And if what the person was eating previously was a bunch of high calorie dense typical American junk food, which is statistically likely for an obese person living in America, that person will probably end up eating fewer calories and losing weight. Almost any fad diet is going to lead to lower calorie consumption for the average person, at least at first, than whatever they were eating that made them fat in the first place. Because what all these diets have in common is what you AREN’T eating: the same food that you ate too much of in the first place and got fat.
This also explains why fad diets don’t work in the long run. Because eventually most people who have been fat will figure out a way to overeat on any diet. It’s possible to chow down on bacon and nuts on Paleo/keto or avocado with ranch dressing as a vegan. Do this, and you will end up fat once again.
Because...
Drum roll...
It doesn’t matter what diet you eat, what matters where weight loss is concerned is calories, and only calories.12 -
Lillymoo01 wrote: »What saddens me is that there is so much pseudoscience around that people no longer understand the basics of weight loss ...... or vaccinations ...... or climate change .....
all science started as pseudoscience....
Written by someone who has no understanding of how to do science!6 -
rheddmobile wrote: »I read an article the other day which I thought made a very insightful point. Many times, different fad diets work for people, even when the instructions behind one fad diet are the exact opposite of some other fad diet. Keto? Many people lose weight. Veganism? (Usually high in carbs, since vegetables tend to be high in carbs.) Many people lose weight. Raw paleo gluten-free whatever? Many people lose weight.
What the article pointed out was that all these different diets have one thing in common: they substitute different foods for the ones that the person was eating previously. And if what the person was eating previously was a bunch of high calorie dense typical American junk food, which is statistically likely for an obese person living in America, that person will probably end up eating fewer calories and losing weight. Almost any fad diet is going to lead to lower calorie consumption for the average person, at least at first, than whatever they were eating that made them fat in the first place. Because what all these diets have in common is what you AREN’T eating: the same food that you ate too much of in the first place and got fat.
This also explains why fad diets don’t work in the long run. Because eventually most people who have been fat will figure out a way to overeat on any diet. It’s possible to chow down on bacon and nuts on Paleo/keto or avocado with ranch dressing as a vegan. Do this, and you will end up fat once again.
Because...
Drum roll...
It doesn’t matter what diet you eat, what matters where weight loss is concerned is calories, and only calories.
Agreed... keto pizza? Paleo brownies? Lol2
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