To Carb or Not To Carb

If you're not going to exercise, and do it all through food, very low carb can be very helpful. The body retains fewer calories from protein than from carbs. But cardio with carbs can be hard. I think most people will agree that sugars aren't very useful, so minimize them.

But overall, I say whatever works for you. I could never tolerate <20g of carbs a day though, no matter how many times I tried, so I don't go that low. On non-exercise days I keep it between 50-100g, and around 100-150g on exercise days, with protein >25% of calories all the time.

It's got to depend on your goal...

If the goal is to lose fat and get shredded, then it's hard to argue against a bodybuilder type high protien diet. It works (if you are disciplined)

If your wanting to run marathons or endurance train, then it's hard to live without more carbs.

Im new to strength training and recently I had a similar chat with a few people.

What I am doing now is 50% carbs 30% protein and 20% fat.

I train 3 times a week and mostly do weights ie squats deadlifts etc so after my workouts I have carbs and protein with no fat. My non training days I have fat but kinda cut down my carbs.

I drive a van for a living so I was also told that on my non training days to eat my carbs for breakfast and thats it. No carbs from then on as I am sat on my *kitten* all day and not burning them.

I've never been successful at losing weight and keeping it off in the past. For me the most effective was low carb, but I always had the attitude that it was temporary and I'd be able to add them back eventually. But as soon as I added them back, my insulin would go out of control and I'd start stuffing myself with sugars and starches.

I just finished reading "Deep Nutrition" by Dr. Catherine Shanahan and "Primal Body, Primal Mind" by Nora Gedgaudas, and now I understand a whole lot more about how insulin resistance and carb addiction works. It was enough to make me decide that with my severe insulin resistance, the only way I'm going to get healthy and lose weight is to eliminate sugar and starch completely from my diet--possibly forever. It is killing me slowly and at any time could kill me quickly.

But the most important thing that both these books taught me is that the secret is eating a high fat, moderate protein, low carb diet. Amazingly, all the research shows that this is the healthiest diet you can eat. Fat is only unhealthy if eaten with carbs. In the absence of carbs, the healthiest diet is fatty meats, including organ meats, with leafy greens.

It takes a week or two for your body to switch from burning sugar to burning fat, but once it does, your energy skyrockets. I've been following this for the last 10 days and have lost about 10 lbs. (mostly water that my body no longer needs, since it doesn't have to dilute the sugar to keep it from poisoning my cells.) I certainly don't expect to continue at that rate, but after a few low energy days, I have plenty of energy. And all my cravings and hunger are totally gone.

I know this all sounds like heresy as we've been brainwashed since the early 80's that low-fat is the only way to go and that saturated fats kill us. Please read one of these books if you really want to understand the science and research.