My understanding has always been that the main effect of insulin is to allow uptake of glucose into cells to be burned as energy immediately for our moment by moment energy needs, and some uptake for storage for fasting needs, and it's only when there's an excess of glucose that weight issues might arise - which takes us back to the notion that weight issues are kinda more to do with eating too much rather than insulin per se.
These threads can sometimes lose perspective. It seems to me that low carbers sometimes assume that non-low carbers are all stuffing themselves relentlessly with super-sized meals and gallons of insulin, but that's plainly not the case for the vast majority of us.
It would be interesting to put some numbers to it instead of discussing it in the abstract.
For example, some of my meals will be low carb, if I fancy some grilled lamb chops and steamed veg. But if I was to have an omelette, I always prefer to eat it on top of three slices of toast, say, 36g, maybe a tub of rasps, say 10g. Kinda low carb, but if I decide I'm going to have some tortellini, I'm getting on for 80 to 100g there.
Just out of interest, what do the low carbers make of those choices? Am I tempting fate with tortellini?
I've been on insulin for almost 30 years and have been about 70 to 75 kg all that time. The only time I put on a few pounds is over Xmas and on holidays, when I, erm, eat more. And then I lose it when I eat less. Maybe I'm just lucky with my metabolism, but it's all suggesting to me that it's a calorie in versus calories used issue rather than insulin. Although I do accept, of course, that we're not all the same and there can be other factors involved.
I was surprised when I started carb counting to find out just how low some of my meal choices were, about 50g, not through design, but just because the meal I wanted to eat that evening happened to have 50g. I think a surprising number of us might be accidental low carbers without realising it!