for heavens sake, I STILL EAT BREAD AND LOSE WEIGHT!

seen a lot of posts lately regarding "whole grain/wheat" bread/brown rice.. and such.. I am not understand why alot of people choose to cut them out COMPLETELY... I have lost weight with still eating bread, at a deficit.. eating healthy and working out...

please tell me I am not the only one? share YOUR success so we can put the "bad carbs" posts to rest!

No need to be a jerk about it. Celiac and gluten intolerance is still woefully underdiagnosed, and a lot of people aren't even aware that such a thing exists. The same goes with insulin resistance in the absense of full-blown diabetes or PCOS.

To the OP - Carbs get a bad rap because the body can use them efficiently, and the foods that contain them tend to be calorie-dense (particularly the grain based carb sources). So, in otherwise healthy people, it's as simple as being far too easy to overeat when such products are involved.

Basically (note - this is highly simplified for basic understanding, I'm sure someone with a biochemical background will rake me over the coals for errors borne out of such simplification, but we're talking layman's terms and general ideas, here):

The body runs primarily on glucose, a form of sugar. The other fuel sources (except protein, which breaks down mostly into amino acids) ultimately get metabolized into glucose or glucose-like substitutes at some point or another. How long and how much energy it takes depends on the exact source. Pure glucose takes no time or energy, sucrose (table sugar) takes minimal, complex carbs take a little more (but it's just breaking stuff down, like taking a Lego structure apart), fats get broken down into the glucose-like fuel (glucose-like in that they don't need to be broken down any more and the body can use it directly if needed) that can't be used as efficiently and takes more energy to break down.

The body is built to run as efficiently as possible, which includes choosing the best fuel source to run on. Therefore, if you eat a lot of carbs and/or sugar, your body will use it before anything else, because it takes little to no energy to convert it to something useable. Like so many other things in nature - the body choses the path of least resistance.

Therefore, if you cut out carbs completely (such as the first phase of Atkins), you put your body into what's called ketosis, which is the release of ketones by the body. Ketones help break down fat to use as fuel in the absense of sugars. (Note: This is different from Ketoacidosis, which can be deadly.) This is why Atkins works at jump-starting weight loss, it forces the body to use a different fuel source, which requires more energy to convert (more calories burned).

Grain-based carbs are becoming vilified because there is growing evidence that humans as a whole have a relatively low tolerance for gluten, as evidenced by the rise in Celiac and gluten intolerance diagnoses. However, it's still really hard to diagnose, because it isn't always obvious (the symptoms are often flu-like or just a general feeling of "blah" that can't really be pinpointed). Therefore, it's possible to be intolerant and not know it or never be diagnosed. For those that are intolerant, it can lead to bloating and derail weight loss.

Additionally, many people become insulin resistant over time if they have a carb-heavy diet. Insulin aids in the absorption of glucose from the blood by the muscles and other cells and is released when there is a certain amount of glucose in the blood stream. In the presence of too much sugar over the long term, the cells stop responding to the insulin, leaving more sugar in the blood. In many/most cases, this follows hand in hand with Type 2 Diabetes (whether IR necessarily causes T2D is somewhat debated, but I don't doubt that it can). Women with PCOS also tend to be insulin resistant, making it damn near impossible to lose weight on a "typical" diet. Without a Diabetes or PCOS diagnosis, and especially if you don't get bloodwork done regularly, insulin resistance is easy to miss, because it doesn't really have any symptoms for the most part. Your body gets used to your normal levels of blood sugar, so until you reach the thresholds of blood sugar that put the body into a Diabetic coma, you may not even know you have it.

What these two groups have in common is that they will often have a hard time losing weight on the relatiely carb-heavy diet that many people can do just fine on. They may not have energy (because their body literally sees gluten as a threat and launches a white blood cell army to attack it), or they may feel ill, or they may simply be unable to lose weight and easy to plateau. Switching to something like Paleo or Atkins, then, works WONDERS for these types of people. The catch is, though, that unless you've gotten a diagnosis, you may not even know that you fall into one of these categories (or, you may be borderline - just close enough to have some of the effects, but not enough for a diagnosis).

This entire post is superb. Right on.

+!

37lbs down and most of what I eat is carbohydrate-based.

Carbs are a good source of tryptophan which is the essential amino acid needed to form serotonin. Low serotonin = depression/mood disorders.

Total bunk! Sugar activates the same region of the brain as cocaine. When these regions are activated serotonin levels are increased (body produces it). Imagine how moody a cocaine addict would be without anymore cocaine...

Sex increases serotonin levels, I don't think consuming carbs are involved with that.

But for the record, I eat carbs too, just they come from veggies and fruit!

In fact I just ate 21 grams of carbs with my breakfast and didn't consume any grains, imagine that! All 21 grams came from whole veggies. That works for me, YMMV.

Sugar and cocaine activate the mesolimbic dopamine pathway and have absolutely nothing to do with serotonin. Dopamine is your reward neurotransmitter which works through the ventral tegmental area and the nucleus accumbens to produce that feeling of reward and pleasure.

Further, simple carbs such as bread/pasta pass through the blood brain barrier easier than most sources of tryptophan. A low protein high carb meal is most likely to increase the tryptophan crossing the blood brain barrier because the amino acids present in protein interfere with tryptophan, as they are larger and inhibit tryptophan from crossing the blood brain barrier.

So no it's not total bunk that eating carbs increases tryptophan in the brain which is needed to form serotonin.

Also, the majority of your serotonin in your body is within your gut and is important for digestion.

Carbs are a good source of tryptophan which is the essential amino acid needed to form serotonin.

Tryptophan is a routine constituent of most protein-based foods or dietary proteins. It is particularly plentiful in chocolate, oats, dried dates, milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, red meat, eggs, fish, poultry, sesame, chickpeas, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, corn, spirulina, bananas, and peanuts.

I started on Feb 20th 2012 and I eat meat, veggies, and occasionally fruit and I am down 26lbs. I DON'T eat grains or processed sugars.


Oh, I don't binge, I don't have cravings anymore, and I am enjoying life! AND I don't have to do chronic cardio to lose weight. Just saying.

At the moment there is a supply problem with the gluten free bread I get from my doctors and have gone without for the last six weeks. I have also lost weight in those six weeks but i know its down to not having two massive bacon and humus sandwiches every day. I still get my carbs and when my bread does come available I will be having sandwiches but not the calorie loaded bacon and humus ones. i think that it is often what we eat with the carbs that can also cause weight gain - pasta with a cheese and cream sauce will contain lots of calories and fat but the pasta itself should be low fat.

I just don't understand why people think that everyone is the same. If something works for one person, it won't necessarily work someone else!!