Calling All You Lovely Low Carbers

Guzzler said:

Try a little bit (a few dots) with scrambled eggs or spread on low carb bread (toasted) of your choice. Because it's a soft cheese you need to be careful of the amounts you use but I still lost weight using it to snack on.

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Thanks for the tips, I do nor need to lose weight though as I have stabilised my weight at 95 kg. Just going to try it for the different taste / texture.

Resurgam said:

I was told that for over 40 years by doctors handing me low calorie/high carb diets for weightloss - not one of them ever worked.

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Forget about the diet names and boondoggles. The simple laws of physics apply. If you consume less fuel than your bodily requirements you must lose weight. If you do not, then your intake is equal or greater than requirements regardless of what sexy names the diets get called. The important bit is whether the kJ intake is under the daily requirements or not.

Crocodile said:

Forget about the diet names and boondoggles. The simple laws of physics apply. If you consume less fuel than your bodily requirements you must lose weight. If you do not, then your intake is equal or greater than requirements regardless of what sexy names the diets get called. The important bit is whether the kJ intake is under the daily requirements or not.

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For those with metabolic dysfunction the important bit is where the Kj comes from. In my opinion, that is.

Guzzler said:

For those with metabolic dysfunction the important bit is where the Kj comes from. In my opinion, that is.

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The dysfunctional aspect will only change the rate. The body requires energy to function. It must come from somewhere. There are only two sources, namely, what you eat and what has been stored.

Crocodile said:

The dysfunctional aspect will only change the rate. The body requires energy to function. It must come from somewhere. There are only two sources, namely, what you eat and what has been stored.

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So one could live on a diet of Snickers and pop just as long as one kept to RDA calories and expended the correct energy. Imo it is not the quantity of calories but the quality of those calories that make the difference to health and to weight.

Guzzler said:

So one could live on a diet of Snickers and pop just as long as one kept to RDA calories and expended the correct energy. Imo it is not the quantity of calories but the quality of those calories that make the difference to health and to weight.

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I never said that. As far as weight loss goes then the kJ total is the decider. Snickers and pop will fail the nutrition side. I certainly never suggested a diet of snickers and pop.

Crocodile said:

I never said that. As far as weight loss goes then the kJ total is the decider. Snickers and pop will fail the nutrition side. I certainly never suggested a diet of snickers and pop.

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It is the numbers on paper concept that I am not on board with. There are just too many variables.

Guzzler said:

It is the numbers on paper concept that I am not on board with. There are just too many variables.

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That is certainly true. The amount of time taken or the rate of weight loss is highly variable. However, if one consistently eats less than the daily energy requirements they will lose weight. The amount of time taken has a large window. It needs to be measured over time. Such factors as fluid retention can skew the figures. Logically, it has to be this way since the very act of being alive continuously uses energy. Just maintaining a stable body temperature of ~37 deg requires energy. Our brains consume a bucket load. Since energy is totally conserved it can't be simply manufactured.

Diakat said:

Thanks @Guzzler I think perhaps a small bag of nuts then given all he warnings, to try and give him a snack option that is less carb than some others.

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That's exactly why I choose nuts, its carbs that come with benefits. Tell hubs Good Luck from us all.

Diakat said:

He lost weight before on lower calls but is interested in trying lower carb. This suggestion came from him so I'll yry to support his choice.

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That's not quite what I was saying. He can reduce whatever he likes, including carbs. If it results in the same number or greater kJ then no weight will be lost. This scenario is possible if, for instance one reduces carbs but replaces the lost carbs with more fats or proteins. The primary key to weight loss is to reduce the amount of energy consumption.

@Crocodile

I understand what you are saying, but boiling down the subtle complexities of my hormone chaos and glucose dysregulation to calorie intake simply doesn’t work.

How do I know this? 51 years of living in my body.

I don’t lose weight on 1200 calories of a normal low cal diet. Consistently.
I have lost weight averaging over 2000 calories of a very low carb diet. Consistently.

Other factors include food intolerances, pain and inflammation levels.

Insulin resistance (and other factors) trump calorie intake in my body, and I am certain that I am not unique in this.

Crocodile said:

Forget about the diet names and boondoggles. The simple laws of physics apply. If you consume less fuel than your bodily requirements you must lose weight. If you do not, then your intake is equal or greater than requirements regardless of what sexy names the diets get called. The important bit is whether the kJ intake is under the daily requirements or not.

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Until your bodily requirements change.. slowing of BMR ..then you’re really messed up.

Brunneria said:

@Crocodile

I understand what you are saying, but boiling down the subtle complexities of my hormone chaos and glucose dysregulation to calorie intake simply doesn’t work.

How do I know this? 51 years of living in my body.

I don’t lose weight on 1200 calories of a normal low cal diet. Consistently.
I have lost weight averaging over 2000 calories of a very low carb diet. Consistently.

Other factors include food intolerances, pain and inflammation levels.

Insulin resistance (and other factors) trump calorie intake in my body, and I am certain that I am not unique in this.

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I'm sorry. Perhaps I'm being misunderstood. I'm not saying the path is not littered without difficulties. It still remains axiomatic that energy cannot be created from nothing. If you consume energy it has to have a source. It may be a simplification but also an innate physical law.

Perhaps your requirement is under 1200 calories per day. That does not mean the extra 800 calories are automatically conserved as stored fats.

Crocodile said:

I'm sorry. Perhaps I'm being misunderstood. I'm not saying the path is not littered without difficulties. It still remains axiomatic that energy cannot be created from nothing. If you consume energy it has to have a source. It may be a simplification but also an innate physical law.

Perhaps your requirement is under 1200 calories per day. That does not mean the extra 800 calories are automatically conserved as stored fats.

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The physics bit is easy to understand, test and demonstrate. It's a given.

When the biology comes along things do appear go a little off line. How the body deals with carbs and fats of the same calorific content does, for some people, differ. Carbs appear to be laid down into storage while fats appear to be "burnt" off.

What goes in does not always come straight out again but it does not vanish.

I have found that my weight loss corresponds very closely to calories in calories out - however I have yet to see what happens over a few months with a low carb high fat diet.

So far eating LCHF with less than 20g carbs per day has resulted in a greater weight loss than I experienced on moderate carb moderate fat (less than 150g carbs per day), but this is very likely because I need to eat a lot less food not to be hungry, and even on moderate carbs I was a nibbler, feeling a bit peckish frequently in the evenings. I now understand that I felt peckish because the hunger hormone ghrelin is at its peak in the evening - so moving my meals to earlier in the day may also have played a part in reducing food intake. My average daily intake a few weeks ago was 2500 cals - it is now around 1300-1400, without the hunger issues.

Along the same lines, eating one meal a day should be lowering my insulin levels as I have cut my eating episodes dramatically, having stopped the grazing and snacking. My blood sugars are a lot flatter, particularly when fasting for longer than 24 hours.

I think weight loss and maintenance is a very complex area - it is possible that many people have very different responses to food intake.

@AllieRainbow
My experience is similar. The key was actually calculating what the daily requirements are. It can't be done in a day. There is good reason for this since different foods metabolise at different rates and just the act of taking a pee can change weight. If I pee half a litre I will drop half a kg. It took several weeks of observation. I'm now a steady 88kg and have been for a while now. I consume 11,000 kJ per day. I am amazed at just how accurate the weight gain or loss calculation is now that the equilibrium point is known. I admit it is not easy as I have to weigh my food and know beforehand what the kJ contribution is. I'm used to it now and only have to weigh the stuff I don't know. Most of the name diets are doing much the same thing but taking the hard work out of it. Sometimes they work, sometimes not. The basic method is at least certain if one has the discipline and tenacity to carry it out.

I can see from your sig that you've dropped from 129 down to 115kg since April. That is an excellent result. Keeping it up requires vigilance. It took me 9 months to drop from 106kg to 88kg. The complication is that as your weight drops so does the required kJ intake so the loss tends to taper off until the kJ intake is adjusted downwards. Given the complex nature of weight maintenance I understand why there are so many different diets out there.
Have fun.