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Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#261

Post by ksk »

sn9 wrote: post #260
ksk wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claiming that 0 grams of carbs allows you to remain healthy is not accurate. It is plainly obvious that unless you want to starve someone, a 0 carb diet, _necessarily_ means a diet that's either high protein or high fat. Both of which have documented problems, in humans, and in other models such as mice.

What are the documented problems in humans with low carb, high fat diets?

I've read about high LDL levels, inflammation, etc. I've experienced the latter, not the former. You can go look it up if that interests you. The original 0 carb statement continues to remain unsubstantiated because no such data exists.

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#262

Post by ksk »

jshevek wrote: post #253
sn9 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you list anything specifically that anyone is likely to encounter? Your comments are rather vague.

If you skim through the whole thread, you can get a feel for where this poster is coming from. The comment is "hand waving" because the fact of the matter is: Carbs are not an essential nutrient, and the parent poster was correct to say "carb deficiency is not associated with any impairment or disease"

> Carbs are not an essential nutrient, and the parent poster was correct to say "carb deficiency is not associated with any impairment or disease"

The phrase carb deficiency is vague. I took it as 0 carb since that was the context of the original comment. But if you take it to mean anything value you want, then that is shifting of the goalposts from 'you can remain healthy with a 0 carb diet' - a claim that has not yet met its burden of proof.

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#263

Post by woodandsteel »

nathan-wailes wrote: post #97
abtinf wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [I consume] carbs in the form of two bags of "steam-in-bag" broccoli and a bag of carrots Keep in mind that the glycemic index of foods influences how your body reacts. Broccoli is a very low GI food. Carrots are quite a bit higher. I would guess you can eat quite a bit less broccoli than you can carrots, because the insulin response to carrots is going to be much more severe.

I think you mean the other way around, right? I can eat more broccoli than carrots? The carrots take up quite a bit of space in your stomach, and I would wager their GI is far below breads/etc., so I would expect that I'd run out of space in my stomach before their GI became something to worry about. I'm someone who used to (and still does sometimes) eat an entire loaf of bread at once (God help me), so I'm not worri…

>The carrots take up quite a bit of space in your stomach, and I would wager their GI is far below breads/etc., so I would expect that I'd run out of space in my stomach before their GI became something to worry about.

You're on the right track, but what you mean is not the GI of carrots is low, but the glycemic load. For blood sugar and diet considerations, the GL is at least as important as the GI

http://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/glycem...

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#264

Post by woodandsteel »

abtinf wrote: post #89
athenot wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting but the rate at which sugar is metabolised is more relevant. If it's not consumed fast enough, then yes you have a problem. Drinking a coke while at rest is definitely a problem.

> the rate at which sugar is metabolised is more relevant It's not "more relevant", but it is deeply related and important. A low glycemic index food will spike your blood sugar much less than a high GI food. And the relation of a food to blood-glucose is not fully intuitive. Sure, soda is obvious because it contains pure sugar. But carrots have roughly the same impact as soda.

Carrots are fairly high in GI, but their glycemic load is very low, so they have little impact on blood sugar.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/glycem...

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#265

Post by abtinf »

pdog wrote: post #165
abtinf wrote: post #46

I've posted these numbers before, but I'll post them again because they are so low as to be totally unintuitive: Normal human blood sugar [1]: 70-100 milligrams per deciliter of blood. Blood volume of average human [2]: 5.5 liters Thus, total blood sugar in non-diabetic human: 3.85 to 5.5 grams Density of glucose: 1.54 grams per cubic centimeter Thus, total volume of sugar in average human: 2.5 to 3.6 milliliters Vol…

This is hilariously wrong. This is like saying the average human body contains twenty to thirty pounds of fat so you should eat 10,000 times more fat than sugar.

It is not possible to calculate the ratio of fat-to-sugar you should eat, as it would require a divide by zero.

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#266

Post by JadeNB »

iamt2 wrote: post #183
JadeNB wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their advice is wrong and deadly. Are you saying that "She's had several endocrinologists tell her that she needs to eat carbohydrates" is wrong and deadly? (There seems to be no other advice in mcone's post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14812819 to which you are responding.) If so, are you adducing the book you link as your evidence? Without knowing anything about that book or its author, I think that it's…

> Without knowing anything about that book or its author... He is a well-known proponent of cutting carbs for all diabetics, even Type 1's, see his Wikipedia entry for an intro [1]. He's been open about his own Type 1, and: "As of 2006, Bernstein had an HDL cholesterol of 118, LDL of 53, Triglycerides of 45, and average blood sugar of 83 mg/dl.[3] By 2008, at 74 years of age, Bernstein had surpassed the life expectan…

> Good luck with your wife's Type 1.

Just for the record, not mine, but mcone's (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14812819).

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#267

Post by Baeocystin »

nicky0 wrote: post #134
mikeryan wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cutting carbs is difficult for most people because of two things: 1) withdrawal from the sugar-high that you get from eating high-glycemic-load food (like bagels / pasta), and 2) your body needs a fair amount of carbs every day Research the ketogenic diet which is Starting with a low carb diet and transitioning to keto can be done without a lot of pain and I've eaten less than ~30 carbs a day for 6 months with no los…

Would this diet be suitable for a person who does a significant amount of endurance exercise? (E.g. ~1 hour of running per day)

Absolutely. When I'm following a ketogenic meal plan, my baseline endurance shoots through the roof. I can walk/bike/whatever for hours. However, I do lose sprint performance.

As I'm in my 40s, and just exercise for fun and the health benefits, this is a tradeoff I'm more than happy to make. I'd much rather be able to cycle for another 10 miles without thinking about it than to increase my pace from 12 to 14 mph. But it is something to be aware of.

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#268

Post by 1123581321 »

roel_v wrote: post #192
keymone wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> calorie intake has nothing to do with obesity who is saying that? > that's what all those others say too where? the author is talking about energy balance disorder vs insulin hypothesis. first stops at "expend more than you intake and everything will be ok", second goes further and explores difference between sources of calories and why it's wrong to say that caloric number is all you need to care about. > show me…

"who is saying that?" "The conventional thinking, held by the large proportion of the many researchers and clinicians I’ve interviewed over the years, is that obesity is caused by caloric excess." "The minority position in this field — one that Dr. Ludwig holds, as do I after years of reporting — is that obesity is actually a hormonal regulatory disorder, and the hormone that dominates this process is insulin." 5 or…

What you are missing is that diet can affect metabolic rate. If eating equal amounts of different food causes weight loss, technically energy consumption is now less than expenditure but it is the change in expenditure that matters.

It is true that it is harder to overeat on a high fat, low carb diet, though.

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#269

Post by CuriousSkeptic »

Cerium wrote: post #147
ue_ wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. I regularly drink soft drinks, and written on the can is the government-mandated notice of how much of my "daily recommended intake" is in the can. For sugar, it says 40%. How does that figure relate to your one-half teaspoon metric? Does it mean that one of the figures is wrong?

Just an observation, but if a soda has 10 times more sugar than you need in your body, and it is about half the daily value of sugar you need, then I suppose it is a rate problem. Drinking a whole soda at once puts way too much sugar into your system, but it may be possible to drink a sip an hour.

Only the glucose part of the sugar would end up in the blood stream though, the fructose part gets converted into liver fat directly. So you'd need to keep the time between sips long enough to start converting that liver fat into glucose, and that could take longer than a day.

Re: Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

#270

Post by xiaoma »

travmatt wrote: post #201
xiaoma wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really. Most traditional religions have fasting practices and pretty much all our ancestors did it from time to time. A 7 day fast here and there is completely natural and not that hard after the first 30-50 hours.

Your point is irrelevant - the post you replied to asserted that it's tough to create a diet with no carbs, to which your suggestion is to not eat at all. Not eating is not a sustainable diet.

It is a sure-fire way to get into keto if that's your goal. Also there are some significant advantages to intermittent fasting vs continuous calorie restriction: https://www.dietdoctor.com/intermittent-fasting-vs-caloric-r...
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