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can you really lose weight eating hi fat on low carb?

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the_anticarb

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Spiders, winter, bills, ignorance, prejudice
I know some people on here have said that low carb has to be high fat. For weight maintenance, this I can understand - you have to get your calories from somewhere. But to lose weight, has anyone managed to lose a lot of weight and still eat a lot of fatty food whilst they are low carbing? Would you lose weight faster on low fat/low carb as opposed to high fat/low carb or does it not make much difference?

I'm trying to lose 1.5 stone, have been having low-medium fat with lots of protein and veg, going ok but would like to add in some higher fat foods eg sausages, cheese without affecting the weight loss.
Can it really be true that we can eat these things and still lose weight? All these years of conditioning to avoid the lardy stuff whilst dieting is making me reluctant to believe it!

Gina
 
Hi Gina, I know what you mean. The demonising of dietary fat is something most of us have grown up with and very hard to ignore. If we had been born in an earlier era though, very often the advice would have been quite different, that carbohydrates are what makes us fat.
For me I lost 4 stones by eating less carbohydrate and more fat. More butter, cream, cheese, full fat milk, meat etc. and cutting out the empty, low fat starches.
I firmly believe the weight loss has little to do with calorie restriction because I have never consciously reduced my calorie intake.
The dire predictions from my health team have completely failed to materialise. Bg's normal, weight stable, energy levels high, blood lipids much improved, and absolutely lovin' the grub.
The clincher will be when you try it for yourself for a few weeks. You'll very probably find exactly the same effect.

All the best,

fergus
 
Thanks, I'm off to buy my sainsbury's taste the difference tolouse sausages! :)
Been referred to the dietician at the diabetes centre, not sure whether to go now as I'm sure they'll trot out old party line about low fat, high carb, blah blah blah but I don't want my diabetes nurse to think I am not cooperating with them after being a naughty patient for so long before.

Maybe I will just go to see what the so called experts have to say - having read Bernstein's book I may even challenge her with some of his teachings! But for me, the most important and fundamental change of going low carb has been that I can get off the novorapid. I always peaked and troughed a lot with this bolus insulin, haven't been officially told I can stop it, but if my bg's are ok then I don't see a need to take it, and especially as it means I won't need to worry about going hypo, which was leading me to underdose and run high in the first place.

So, is it worth going to see the dietician does anyone think?
 
Our Mrs. Pugwash is a dietician and a very good person to ask in my view.
My own experience of the dieticians I have spoken to is that, although some may privately agree that low carb is the way forward, it does put them in a very vulnerable position professionally if they challenge the orthodoxy.
You sound very well informed though so I'm sure you'll give as good as you get if you do ask their opinion!

All the best,

fergus
 
Thanks Fergus - I may go along just to see what they have to say. I think I know what I am doing with my diet in any case (<50g carbs a day, lots of meat dairy and green veg).

Gina

PS Just bought my high fat but extremely delicious toulouse sausages from Sainsbury's :)
 
Hi Gina,
I lost 1.5 stone low carbing and eating lots of fat, in fact I actually had a problem losing too much weight. I low carbed, didn't count carbs, but eat no obvious carbs or fruit at all, lost my 1.5 stone in 3 months. My weight loss included the christmas period where I must confess to eating masses of double cream in lieu of my christmas pudding!
Jo
 
Hi anti_carb, the answer is a resounding YES as the previous posters have said. In fact, it's quite hard NOT to lose weight on a reduced carb, high fat diet. As a dietician and a diabetic, I have followed this regime myself for about 3 years and have not only lost the weight I gained after following a standard low fat high carb diet but also have seem my HbA1C drop to 5.6% at my most recent check-up with corresponding drops in my LDL and trigs to near normal levels. Fat, in itself, doesn't make you fat. Eat good quality unprocessed fats such as extra virgin olive oil, real cream, and avoid processed fats - it's fat in combination with carbs that causes weight gain and contributes to health problems.

There is a multitude of information on this site as to the science behind all this so I won't repeat any of it here. If you avoid processed food as far as possible, eat good quality fats in conjunction with protein and a good variety of vegetables (not potatoes!) and include a moderate amount of carbs (I usually start my patients on about 50g a day), then you should find the weight dropping off, your energy levels improving and your BG levels etc reducing.
 
I've got to agree with Mrs Pugwash, being underweight and on a high fat low carb diet, I struggle to gain the pounds despite having a high calorie intake. Increasing carbs for me is not an option as my meter will testify :D

Graham
 
MrsPugwash said:
As a dietician and a diabetic, I have followed this regime myself for about 3 years and have not only lost the weight I gained after following a standard low fat high carb diet but also have seem my HbA1C drop to 5.6% at my most recent check-up with corresponding drops in my LDL and trigs to near normal levels.
Click to expand...

Sanity returns!

welcome back
 
If the calorific value of any food (carbs, fat, protein) is the amount of energy that it gives to the body when it is consumed, then if you eat more 'energy' than you need, what you do not need is retained in the body, as fat. It would be fantastic if the body only utilised that portion of our food that it needed for energy and excreted the rest but it doesn't. So if you decrease the overall calorie intake to below the energy that your body needs you will lose weight as the body uses fat stores to make up the difference. If you eat more calories, no matter in what from, you will gain weight. That is my understanding. Have I got it right? I'm a bit confused that some people appear to be saying that they eat high amounts of calories - where does the energy go?

Doug :?:
 
Hello Osidge,

Low-carb weight loss works on the principal that calories derived from fat and protein provoke
less of an insulin response than calories from carbohydrate. The fat-sparing effect of insulin
means that when levels are high, fat burning is inhibited.

Therefore, you might say that all calories are equal, but some are more equal than others. :D

Hope this helps,
timo.

:arrow: Physiologic Effects of Insulin
 
Just to add my two cents, I've lost 4 st without really trying. Eating amounts of fat that would terrify most people. My chlesterol levels are fine, and I reversed a fatty liver diagnosis after two months when the doc though it would take a year or more, blood pressure is now well within normal range and my obstructive sleep apnea (sp?) disappeared within TWO weeks of dropping the carbs.

On the flipside I have eaten loads of carbs this week and feel absolutely dreadful. It's been a stark reminder that my body can't process carbs. Been back on the program since yesterday, looking forward to returning to my new happy and energetic post carb self!

Dave
 
Thanks everyone, well I have lost around 10-12 lbs already and only been doing this 5 weeks so something is working although I have been having high protein, medium fat (still can't completely let myself go with the fat yet but I'm getting there) and around 50g cho per day.

Best moment was sitting in gourmet burger kitchen with a friend eating a mayonnnaise and cheese covered burger with bacon (obviously I left the bun and carby fillings) and seeing her face when I told her this was my diet!

Another question someone may be able to answer - if I drink alcohol (which I do on around a weekly basis, but when I do drink I will have quite a few beers or glasses of wine) will this act as a carb and turn the fatty foods into fat? ie stop the 'magic' working? As I say this only happens about once a week but when I go out for a few drinks I want to be able to just drink what I like and not have to worry too much about that, although if it will impede the weight loss maybe I will have to
 
Doczoc said:
Just to add my two cents, I've lost 4 st without really trying. Eating amounts of fat that would terrify most people. My chlesterol levels are fine, and I reversed a fatty liver diagnosis after two months when the doc though it would take a year or more, blood pressure is now well within normal range and my obstructive sleep apnea (sp?) disappeared within TWO weeks of dropping the carbs.

On the flipside I have eaten loads of carbs this week and feel absolutely dreadful. It's been a stark reminder that my body can't process carbs. Been back on the program since yesterday, looking forward to returning to my new happy and energetic post carb self!

Dave
Click to expand...

Astonishing improvement - but not entirely unexpected!

You sound like me, much more functional running on ketones, and easily knocked over by an excess of glucose.

Sometimes it's worth the blowout just to remember why you're staying on track.
 
Trinkwasser said:
Astonishing improvement - but not entirely unexpected!

You sound like me, much more functional running on ketones, and easily knocked over by an excess of glucose.

Sometimes it's worth the blowout just to remember why you're staying on track.
Click to expand...

The sleep apnea was the most surprising, I'd suffered with it for years even at a body weight several stones lighter than I am now. I gave up starchy carbs and like I said within TWO weeks I was sleeping like a baby! I saw a specialist about the sleep apnea, tried to tell him about the dropping of carbs having a huge impact on the sleep apnea but he just looked at me as if I was crazy, he couldn't see beyond my weight. Despite me telling him it was no longer an issue he carried on the consultation as if it was! As far as he was concerned I was fat and that was the sole reason for it. Yes I was still fat but having dropped the carbs I was sleeping soundly - doesn't make sense for the fat obsessed NHS. I now know how to lose weight, and guess what it's not the NHS way. I will be slim one day (and soon) and I'll be doing it by eating fat!
 
I lost about 21/2 stonesfairly fast this way, but now I think I've got to restrict calories too. I won't up the carbs though, because my BG is fine this way Hba1c last time 5.9% and hoping for better this june. On minimum medication too.I could do a lot better if I went back onto Gliclazide, but weight would probably go back on. It's a balancing act all the time.
Still my dessert of fresh raspberries, Greek yogurt , topped with cream was delicious and very few carbs.
 
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