A Call for a Low-Carb Diet • Hacker News Board

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#131

Post by whistlerbrk » Tue, Sep 02, 2014, 4:43 AM UTC

lukifer wrote: post #94

source99 wrote: post #89

Carbs(aka glucose) is a poisonous substance and as soon as your body detects the glucose it releases insulin. The Insulin lowers blood glucose levels by forcing the glucose to move into your fat cells as fat(through a long chain reaction). So carbs essentially become fat. If you don't eat carbs your body doesn't release insulin so you can't store anything as fat. In fact once you truly go very low carb your body rele…

You're thinking of ketones, which are what trigger your body to burn fat for energy. (Another perk of ketosis is being able to go long stretches between meals without getting hungry.) It should be noted that the first time moving to a low-carb, high fat diet, it's mildly traumatic and unpleasant. It takes 1-2 weeks of low energy and constant hunger before the body switches to ketosis mode. (This is sometimes called t…

never experienced it. I just ate more vegetables, nuts and fats.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#132

Post by sb23 » Tue, Sep 02, 2014, 4:48 AM UTC

buss wrote: post #21

sb23 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been on a low carb diet for over a year now, and I have a handful of nuts. Almonds, cashews, whatever. They have an acceptable amount of carbs in them and make you feel full enough to make it to the next meal. The biggest issue is the expense, I spend about $20-30 a fortnight on nuts alone.

True, nuts were a good choice. Unfortunately the cashews and almonds supplied at my office were all unsalted and I couldn't be bothered to buy my own for the brief trial.

I only ever choose unsalted. It's actually really frustrating - my supermarket sells unsalted bags of cashews for $2 more than the salted bags.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#133

Post by forkandwait » Tue, Sep 02, 2014, 4:52 AM UTC

Forgive my flip dismissal, bad use of caps, and general un-hacker newslike tone just this once, but:

NO MORE FAD DIET BULLSHIT, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!!

It's just like we have known since the Ancient Greeks and probably earlier -- eat fewer rich foods, more light foods, a big variety of foods, and get lots of moderate activity.

Want to lose weight? Eat fewer calories than you burn. Want to gain muscle mass and tone? Work out regularly. Etc.

Jesus christ, the next time I hear the words "Gluten Free" I am going to scream, jumping up and down, Remember The South Beach Diet!?? Remember the no-fat diet????!!! Don't you people ever learn!?!?!?!

Sorry. I promise to write more grown up posts in the future.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#134

Post by ScottBurson » Tue, Sep 02, 2014, 4:53 AM UTC

buss wrote: post #9

For anyone who has access to the paper ( http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1900694 ) and is skilled in reading medical research papers, I would love to know if they account for snacking. When I briefly tried a low-carb diet (just out of curiosity, not to lose weight as I'm already quite healthy) I found that I was unable to snack because almost all snack foods are loaded with carbs. I can only eat so much beef…

One of my favorite snacks these days is guacamole spread on rice cakes. It's not zero-carb, obviously, but the carb level doesn't seem excessive to me.

Guacamole is better on chips, but if I have chips around I'll eat too many of them. On the other hand if I try to eat the guacamole by itself, without any sort of crispy substrate, it's just unappetizing.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#135

Post by niklas_a » Tue, Sep 02, 2014, 5:02 AM UTC

This is why I would never eat Soylent. It's mostly carbs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_(drink)

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#136

Post by prawn » Tue, Sep 02, 2014, 5:05 AM UTC

forkandwait wrote: post #133

Forgive my flip dismissal, bad use of caps, and general un-hacker newslike tone just this once, but: NO MORE FAD DIET BULLSHIT, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!! It's just like we have known since the Ancient Greeks and probably earlier -- eat fewer rich foods, more light foods, a big variety of foods, and get lots of moderate activity. Want to lose weight? Eat fewer calories than you burn. Want to gain muscle mass and tone?…

You could probably pick a better target than "Gluten Free". A coeliac can experience debilitating stomach pain (almost wanting to scream or not being able to jump up and down) from a tiny piece of everyday bread, as one example.

Being able to eat out with such information readily available is liberating for a coeliac and I think it's a really positive thing that restaurants and manufacturers have become more forward-thinking with their labelling.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#137

Post by johnking » Tue, Sep 02, 2014, 5:09 AM UTC

forkandwait wrote: post #133

Forgive my flip dismissal, bad use of caps, and general un-hacker newslike tone just this once, but: NO MORE FAD DIET BULLSHIT, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!! It's just like we have known since the Ancient Greeks and probably earlier -- eat fewer rich foods, more light foods, a big variety of foods, and get lots of moderate activity. Want to lose weight? Eat fewer calories than you burn. Want to gain muscle mass and tone?…

The study doesn't condone any of the diets you mentioned. Instead it compares a lower fat diet (40%). No measuring of calories.

It's just a study with interesting data, no fad diets.

Although when you consider how prevalent carbohydrates are in western diets, you could be forgiven for jumping to the conclusion that lower carb diets are a fad.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#138

Post by mistermann » Tue, Sep 02, 2014, 5:10 AM UTC

SeanDav wrote: post #110

drcode wrote: post #26

I know this is just anecdotal coincidence (and not really that interesting to most people other than myself) but today when I weighed myself I had my ideal body weight for the first time in my life. This is after following a low carb diet for six months and losing 50 pounds... so throw another vote in the "yes, low carb seems to be effective" bucket. The findings in this article are certainly music to my ears. (Here…

This is very interesting to me! I had quite an argument / discussion about this only 2 days ago with my father. He calls it the "Slow Carb" diet and tried to get me to go on it. I had a look around and found that this is the invention of just 1 man with seemingly not much backing evidence out there. My argument was how can I follow the diet of 1 man, even if it is effective (anecdotally)? I think I used an argument t…

http://www.reddit.com/r/ketoscience

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#139

Post by dimitar » Tue, Sep 02, 2014, 5:10 AM UTC

I don't understand why there is this constant search for a diet that isn't just calorie restriction - learning about caloric content and restricting yourself in calories is much easier than following a diet. You basically eat the same foods you enjoy, but skip the occasional item that will take you overboard.

Learning a few facts about caloric content of different types of food is much easier than changing your lifestyle.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#140

Post by johnking » Tue, Sep 02, 2014, 5:11 AM UTC

amasad wrote: post #124

For an in-depth discussion about low-carb diets and the history of the misconception that fats consumed = body fat and cholesterol levels I recommend the book (although I haven't finished it yet): Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health

I can second that, great book, with really interesting analysis of not just carbohydrates, but cholesterol too. Also his second book 'Why We Get Fat' is great too. He realised the former book was too lengthy for most, and wrote it to condense and abbreviate the info.