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Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#11

Post by brianwawok »

kbar13 wrote: post #3
donatj wrote: post #2

When I lived alone it was easy. I simply didn't buy any at the grocery store and as such didn't eat any. It's nearly impossible, now living with my wife who adores pasta and everything potato based.

My mother is convinced if i dont eat carb heavy foods (rice, fruit) that I will die of some disorder or other. It is hard to stay on diet whenever I go home.

She may be correct. The 70% ratio that many Americans eat may not be great, but 30% or 40% carbs seems about right for me. I see the no carb movement much like the no fat movement of the 80s.

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#12

Post by jonnathanson »

kbar13 wrote: post #3
donatj wrote: post #2

When I lived alone it was easy. I simply didn't buy any at the grocery store and as such didn't eat any. It's nearly impossible, now living with my wife who adores pasta and everything potato based.

My mother is convinced if i dont eat carb heavy foods (rice, fruit) that I will die of some disorder or other. It is hard to stay on diet whenever I go home.

My mother simply does not understand what a "carbohydrate" is, let alone the relationship between starch and sugar, or why things like mashed potatoes are not low-carb. ("But I didn't use any butter in them, so they're low-carb!")

When left to her own devices, she will consistently confuse and/or conflate carbs and fats. I think this is because she's from a generation that totally bought into the war on fat, and raised us accordingly. Fat is so evil in her mind that there is a subconscious revulsion to it.

I'm not sure older generations' assembly-level worldviews can be reprogrammed at this point. Carbs will be ubiquitous until younger folks become the predominant consumer power in the economy -- or unless someone actually influences the Boomers somehow, e.g., convinces Dr. Phil or Ellen DeGeneres or Gwyneth Paltrow or Matt Lauer or whoever to come out strongly against carbs.

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#13

Post by elcapitan »

rainbowmverse wrote: post #7

I don't know if it's exciting advancements in food science or something else, but I used to be able to make a bag of chips last a month. Now I just can't buy them because they disappear within a day. What's weird is I can eat carb-rich foods and get a very different result from what the researchers in this article found. It seems to have more to do with the composition of the meal than the exact nutritional content.…

I used it twice to lose weight, and it worked perfectly. The hungry and tired problem goes away quickly and your body just switches to burning more fat.

But you're right about filling up - that's very simply the most important part. Don't eat lots of small high-calorie stuff. Eat a real meal that fills you up. In carbs that would be fiber-heavy, long chain carb stuff, protein does that pretty much by itself.

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#14

Post by simonsarris »

indogooner wrote: post #6

Is it proved that Carbs are harmful? Don't want to cut down on them only so that a study 10 years down the line lists out Carb-diet benefits just like Fat ones these days.

It's not carbs per se, whats proven is this: Insulin spikes in your body drive fat storage.

"Foods with lots of carbs" are a very good approximation of the nature of foods that tend to do that. (More accurately, foods with a high glycemic load/glycemic index)

So offhand we can say foods that contain a lot of carbs tend to have a high gylcemic index, some more than others. Eating raw sugar is different than slowly eating al dente pasta with other foods in the mix like butter, cheese, etc, even though they both "have carbs." Think about approximately how long it takes different foods to break down. I hope that's intuitive as an example.

So "carbs are harmful" isn't quite the right picture. You can eat carbs, they're not going to harm you. But if you want to easily maintain a healthy weight, eat mostly fat and lots of protein. And being overweight is harmful, obviously.

(No such thing as fat but fit: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/17/obesity-heal...)

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#15

Post by the_af »

donatj wrote: post #2

When I lived alone it was easy. I simply didn't buy any at the grocery store and as such didn't eat any. It's nearly impossible, now living with my wife who adores pasta and everything potato based.

> [...] living with my wife who adores pasta

And who can blame her? I suppose you could live without pasta, but would you call that living? :)

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#16

Post by _pmf_ »

donatj wrote: post #2

When I lived alone it was easy. I simply didn't buy any at the grocery store and as such didn't eat any. It's nearly impossible, now living with my wife who adores pasta and everything potato based.

> It's nearly impossible, now living with my wife who adores pasta and everything potato based.

Try bean / chick pea pasta (or a mix of regular pasta and bean / chick pea pasta).

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#17

Post by shanev »

The trick is to force yourself to do it for at least two weeks. Afterwards, pizza and bread will look disgusting. I experienced this when I followed a strict low-carb/paleo diet for 4 months. Many of my low carb friends have experienced the same thing. I lost 35lbs and got a six pack without working out. As soon as you introduce processed carbs back though, the addiction starts up again.

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#18

Post by electriclove »

FussyZeus wrote: post #10

And none of this even goes into how much modern food is designed and engineered to be as addictive as possible. Every snack food is built practically from the molecule up to hit as many of the addiction-causing transmitters as possible, from the texture of the food, to the shape of the salt they use, to the size of the serving, all of it is designed to make you want more, perpetually, and as much more as possible. Th…

The addiction is the part that does not receive enough attention in regards to sugar, caffeine, and other substances that don't carry the stigma of alcohol, nicotine, or other drugs.

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#19

Post by hidflect »

This concurs with my own experience precisely. If I take too much insulin I have to take sugar to counterbalance the dose but this is no hardship as I find I have an enormous, unstoppable craving for sweets beyond the physical necessity.

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#20

Post by ralmeida »

indogooner wrote: post #6

Is it proved that Carbs are harmful? Don't want to cut down on them only so that a study 10 years down the line lists out Carb-diet benefits just like Fat ones these days.

As you have basically mentioned yourself - nothing stops it. Many people, with varying degrees of understanding of the studies involved (from almost none to very deep), believed high-carb-low-fat diets to be the best option before high-fat-low-carb became more mainstream.

Can't recommend a particular course of action, but my approach is to experiment with different diets on yourself and be as methodical as time and will allows in evaluating them: I note (either mentally or writing down) objective and subjective indicators. Objective would be weight, waist width, blood test results, etc, and subjective would be energy, drowsiness, amount of willpower required to stay on diet, environmental pressures for or against (social eating, food availability, cost), etc.

Of course, being this quantified may require significant effort itself. If you stick with it long enough, interesting things usually happen, though: it either becomes automatic and thus low-effort, or at least you train yourself to become mindful enough of your various habits, which is a huge plus itself.

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