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Carbohydrate Energy Paradox

lucylocket61

lucylocket61

Expert
Rant warning:

OK, so 15 years ago I was diagnosed with ME/CFS. I was told to eat lots of carbs to give me energy. I put on weight and got more and more tired. Slept 18 hours a day

Then I recovered partially from my ME/CFS 7 years ago. Told to eat lots of carbs to give me energy and aid my recovery. My weight stabilised, but i was still tired and sleeping 10 hours a night, plus a 1 hour nap in the afternoon.

Then i got stronger and reduced my sleeping to 10 hours a night, but no naps. Told to keep my carbs up and eat chocolate for instant energy. You know - a Mars A Day helps you Work, rest and play??? Weight started creeping up, but I still felt like I was stuck in first gear all the time. The idea of exercising was a joke. It was all I could do to get the essentials done.

2 years ago I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic, told not to worry about it, it wasnt a problem. Told to keep eating a healthy diet, lots of carbs. And have puddings for energy.

8 months ago I insisted on seeing a dietician and joining the surgery weight loss programme. I was given the healthy eating plan, and told to come for a weigh-in every 4 weeks. The HSP doing the weight-loss plan is wonderful, and very helpful lady not afraid to go off piste with the advice.

I only lost 2kg in 5 months :( They said I wasnt trying enough and I must have been cheating. Eat more carbs and cut out as much fat as I could.

3 months ago I was diagnosed as Type 2 diabetic. And I found you lot and this forum. I have reduced my carbs significantly and lost 10kg in 12 weeks. I have loads of energy and only need 7 hours sleep a night.

So HOW can it be the carbs which are necessary for energy?? Isnt it flippin' obvious that the carbs were the problem?????

I am not an expert, but even I can see that stuffing myself with carb is doing the opposite. Why can the HCP's see that??

Comment from DSN on my sudden weight loss? "See, I told you you could lose weight if you tried hard enough"

I dare not put down what my reaction and thoughts about that comment are :twisted: I smiled, and fled. Good job the weight loss nurse is on my side with low-carbing. But we have to keep it secret or she could be in trouble for no toeing the NHS line.

Thank you for reading - Rant over.
 
Comment from DSN on my sudden weight loss? "See, I told you you could lose weight if you tried hard enough"

:lol: ......I couldn't help but laugh at the above!

Well done on the weight loss lucy and pleased you have found something that has improved your health :thumbup:
 
For whatever reason, carbohydrates are seen as the panacea for all ills, and quite clearly they are not, in many cases they are the cause.

Yesterday I was looking at my families diet (myself excluded) and realised that carbs play quite a big part in their diet. My daughters will have things like pasta salad or wraps with occasional portions of chips for school lunch. They also have at the school a 'healthy fruit drink' that contains between 50-60g of sugar per 100ml bottle, hardly healthy. Himself will grab a sandwich or pasta for lunch, if he is out with clients, a restaurant where we all know that sauces and puddings are packed with sugar and carbs almost by default. They don't eat take away except on a very rare occasion, and only once (I think) since I was diagnosed.

At home, I have control over what they all eat, himself is a gym fanatic and goes every day, and swears he needs carbs to fuel his exercise program. Little does he realise I substitute what he thinks is a carby food item for things I make, claim they were for him and my daughters and not me, but are infact very low carb. :wink: When I am off the ND I will serve up for us all, the foods he thinks are carb heavy and eat them, telling him I have shown his carb laden diet is not necessary.

Until I am off the ND I am going to do a complete overhaul of the food I buy and cook for my family, and drastically reduce the carbs. They can huff and puff, but it needs to be done for long term health, and I will do it.

My diagnosis has made me look much closer at food and nutrition, and I will drag my family kicking and screaming into a healthier way of eating. I won't stop all carbs, but I will cut them way, way down from the levels they are at now.
 
Just to say that our daughter had ME/CFS in her teens and it has left her very sensitive to foods, especially wheat.

She does wonderfully, though, and you wouldn't know she was struggling all through her teens.

We were never advised to aim for carbs for energy (then again, we weren't really advised about anything - ME was at the time still often referred to as "Yuppie Flu" and not taken seriously by a lot of HCPs).

So loads of sympathy for the ME, and lots of support for changing your diet.
Going low carb may in fact result in cutting out wheat based foods (bread, pasta, pizza etc.) and you may be getting some benefits from reducing or eliminating wheat.

Cheers

LGC
 
Lucylockett

I found your post very interesting and am so glad you have managed to lose some weight. I have a life long weight problem but since I had to go on insulin it has become much worse. I would like to know approximately how many carbs you have each day and how that compares to before you reduced your carbs. To lose 10 kilos in 12 weeks was a very good result. :clap:
Actually not all health professionals dismiss reduced carbs because some weeks ago we had our diabetes dietitian give a talk and she ended with "in future I think the way forward will be with lower carbs" - she works full time with our community diabetes nurses.

Wishing you much success as you continue to lose weight.

Jude
 
Jude:

I have worked out that, including my chocolate habit, I was having about 300g carbs at least a day.

Now I have around 80g spread out into 4 small meals usually.

Can you tell me when the next Coventry meeting is please? I missed the last one as I was away.
 
Love the rant warning!! :lol:

And I love this forum too. There's so much useful information that people are willing to share, I feel better already.

As far as the carbs go and NHS advice - I'm with you on that one and I'm doing my own thing regarding what I eat, what makes me feel good, what doesn't and I've just had half a bar of ASDA's own make chocolate! I'll test my BG in a couple of hours and see what it's done to me. I ate chocolate two nights ago and my morning fasting reading was the lowest it's ever been so far, yet the night I had porridge for supper it was sky high next morning - so work that one out. :roll:
 
GraceK said:
Love the rant warning!! :lol:

And I love this forum too. There's so much useful information that people are willing to share, I feel better already.

As far as the carbs go and NHS advice - I'm with you on that one and I'm doing my own thing regarding what I eat, what makes me feel good, what doesn't and I've just had half a bar of ASDA's own make chocolate! I'll test my BG in a couple of hours and see what it's done to me. I ate chocolate two nights ago and my morning fasting reading was the lowest it's ever been so far, yet the night I had porridge for supper it was sky high next morning - so work that one out. :roll:
Click to expand...

If you're eating ordinary milk chocolate then I'd test a lot sooner than two hours (say 30 mins). It is likely to be very fast acting in its effects and you could be missing a very large spike but you could be a very lucky person at which point I'd keep very quiet about it :lol: By far the safest chocolate is the high content 75% or higher stuff which most of us can tolerate so long as you are pretty sensible on how much you eat in one go.
 
If you're eating ordinary milk chocolate then I'd test a lot sooner than two hours (say 30 mins). It is likely to be very fast acting in its effects and you could be missing a very large spike but you could be a very lucky person at which point I'd keep very quiet about it :lol: By far the safest chocolate is the high content 75% or higher stuff which most of us can tolerate so long as you are pretty sensible on how much you eat in one go.[/quote]

To be honest I think I'll be cutting out the chocolate completely very soon. I've never been a big chocolate eater but the more I've been eating low carb/high protein and fat diet, the less interested I've become in bad carbs like bread, cakes, choc etc. I get more excited now at the prospect of a small bowl of strawbs with single cream as my 'treat', and noticed that when I do now eat a piece of chocolate the sweetness of it seems more pronounced and yukky. I don't know if that's the effect of the Metformin or just a natural aversion because I'm getting enough protein and fat to both satisfy and nourish me. :)
 
GraceK said:
If you're eating ordinary milk chocolate then I'd test a lot sooner than two hours (say 30 mins). It is likely to be very fast acting in its effects and you could be missing a very large spike
Click to expand...

Thats not actually correct GraceK, chocolate is very, very high in fat and fat slows down digestion which means that far from any spike being sooner it would actually come later.

Also it is the 2 hour postprandial level that is most important as everyone even non diabetics will show a spike before their levels drop, what is important is that our levels are returning to near normal at he two hour stage or longer if eating a very fatty meal. ie. the pizza effect.
 
lucylocket61 said:
So HOW can it be the carbs which are necessary for energy?? Isnt it flippin' obvious that the carbs were the problem?????

I am not an expert, but even I can see that stuffing myself with carb is doing the opposite. Why can the HCP's see that??
Click to expand...

It is obvious.

It is obvious that your body isn't "designed" to get most of its fuel from carbohydrates, because, unless you are some sort of elite athlete, it can't eaily process more than about 160g a day.

I read this from Mark Sissons today and thought of you:
Your Body Prefers Burning Fat Over Carbohydrates

We’ve evolved* to be fat-burners (must be why we’re so adept at storing it on our bodies!). It’s easy to see why. Fat burns slow and evenly, providing all-day steady energy levels. Carbohydrates burn quickly, and they’re gone in an instant, leaving you groggy and depleted unless you “carb up.” Furthermore, carbohydrates are an inherently unreliable and fleeting source of energy for our body, with most people only able to store about 400-500 grams of carbohydrates on the body at any one time. Our storage capacity for fat, on the other hand, is virtually endless. Just ten or fifteen pounds of body fat, which is the bare minimum available on even the leanest individuals, can provide tens of thousands of calories. Luckily, reducing carbohydrates and increasing fat intake sends the epigenetic signals necessary to help us revert back to fat-burning, and it only takes a week or two to get things moving in the right direction.

Become fat-adapted, enjoy boundless energy. Free yourself from the shackles of a carbohydrate-based metabolism/dependency.

Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-prim ... z26KvDJtiF
Click to expand...

*or we have been designed.
 
It is obvious that your body isn't "designed" to get most of its fuel from carbohydrates, because, unless you are some sort of elite athlete, it can't eaily process more than about 160g a day
Click to expand...

citation please

Please note this is an academic question and doesn't necessarily refer to people with any sort of diabetes ie it's about normal metabolisms and what they are designed or not designed to eat, I just want to know where Stephen got that for the reasons below

Do the Kitavans with their 330g av carbs a day have different metabolisms to the rest of the world? Incidently they are according to Dr. Lindeberg only moderately active . (or the Okinawans, or whoever )
As Chris Kresser said in reference to the diet , that though he would personally feel cr** on a Kitavan diet "What I take away from the Kitavan study (along with studies of other primitive diets) is that there's a fairly wide range of food humans can thrive on.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.fr/20 ... lands.html
http://donmatesz.blogspot.fr/2010/03/pa ... logue.html

see also Nutrient fates : http://journals.cambridge.org/download. ... 4c1f57a0b3
Normal metabolisms can apparently oxidise and store far greater amounts of CHO than 160g a day.
Overfeeding of healthy , not obese subjects (1500g CHO) resulted in faster oxidation and higher amounts of glycogen stored and very little lipogenesis(new fat formed). This was in turn followed by increased lipid oxidation with a negative fat balance. Longer time over feeding required a large increase in glycogen storage before there was a increase in fat storage.
 
Sid Bonkers said:
GraceK said:
If you're eating ordinary milk chocolate then I'd test a lot sooner than two hours (say 30 mins). It is likely to be very fast acting in its effects and you could be missing a very large spike
Click to expand...

Thats not actually correct GraceK, chocolate is very, very high in fat and fat slows down digestion which means that far from any spike being sooner it would actually come later.

Also it is the 2 hour postprandial level that is most important as everyone even non diabetics will show a spike before their levels drop, what is important is that our levels are returning to near normal at he two hour stage or longer if eating a very fatty meal. ie. the pizza effect.
Click to expand...


Sid that quote above didn't come from me, it's someone elses answer to one of my posts. Don't know how it got attached to my name. :?: But yes I think you're right.
 
I am beginning to think there are different types of human metabolisms.

I know people who thrive on diets which are mainly raw foods

I know people who thrive on vegetarian diets

I know people who thrive on animal protein and meat etc, etc

They know what works for their bodies. And what works for one may not work for someone else. Thank goodness we have our meters and can test and see what works for us as individuals.

This thread is very interesting.
 
GraceK said:
Sid that quote above didn't come from me, it's someone elses answer to one of my posts. Don't know how it got attached to my name. :?: But yes I think you're right.
Click to expand...

Yes I see it was xyzzy wasnt it, you must have quoted him and the quote tags got lost somehow :thumbup:
 
lucylocket61 said:
Rant warning:

[long part of rant elided]
I only lost 2kg in 5 months :( They said I wasnt trying enough and I must have been cheating. Eat more carbs and cut out as much fat as I could.

3 months ago I was diagnosed as Type 2 diabetic. And I found you lot and this forum. I have reduced my carbs significantly and lost 10kg in 12 weeks. I have loads of energy and only need 7 hours sleep a night.

So HOW can it be the carbs which are necessary for energy?? Isnt it flippin' obvious that the carbs were the problem?????

I am not an expert, but even I can see that stuffing myself with carb is doing the opposite. Why can the HCP's see that??

Comment from DSN on my sudden weight loss? "See, I told you you could lose weight if you tried hard enough"

I dare not put down what my reaction and thoughts about that comment are :twisted: I smiled, and fled. Good job the weight loss nurse is on my side with low-carbing. But we have to keep it secret or she could be in trouble for no toeing the NHS line.

Thank you for reading - Rant over.
Click to expand...

Please do not not tell them their advice is rubbish and wasn't working. If you don't tell them that it wasn't their diet that worked, then they'll just keep pushing that rubbish diet on others.

PS. currently lost loads since I've reduced my carbs (can't go all out low carb as it's just too depressing and expensive), but all that weight loss is after changing my diet as well. While I was pre-diabetic, I was following their diet religiously and exercising and still putting weight on and they were tut-tutting me at every annual check as if I was back-sliding and failing and it not being their stupid diet...
 
phoenix said:
Lucy', I was only reading this earlier. I found it an interesting concept.(though at the moment that's just it interesting, not convincing)
Dieting by DNA? Popular diets work best by genotype.
http://www.theheart.org/article/1053429.do
Click to expand...

Yes an interesting concept and one thats been mentioned before I believe. I am more inclined to believe that we eat the diet that we have 'grown' into from the food our parents fed us through our adolescence when we perhaps try alternative foods until we arrive at our own diet. So I believe the best diet is a diet based on the foods we are already used to eating but in smaller portions. I dont believe any diet that heavily restricts the types of food you eat will ever work long term.

So rather than matching our diets to our gene types diets may be better matched to our regular diets but using fewer calories.

The DNA theory also doesnt explain why some people choose to become vegetarian when their parents (same DNA) were not.
 
we are more than the sum of DNA from our parents. Some people have it skip a generation and are very similar to their grandparents. That is why siblings can be varied in looks, temperament, like and dislikes, even when they are all raised together.

even identical twins can be different. We are unique.

we do not need to heavily restrict or cut out food groups. That is hyperbole typically spouted by extremists. But I observe and read that the proportion of food groups affect different people in different ways, and our meters tell us what proportion and amount is right for us, as does are weight fluctuations and amount of energy.

Its really quite exciting to break free from the mold of any one diet or way of thinking, and get to know my own body and what it needs. :D
 
phoenix said:
It is obvious that your body isn't "designed" to get most of its fuel from carbohydrates, because, unless you are some sort of elite athlete, it can't eaily process more than about 160g a day
Click to expand...

citation please
Click to expand...

As promised - from Paul Jaminet's "Perfect Health Diet" (which I really, really, recommend).
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Perfect-Health- ... 0982720904

PART-1 How Much Glycogen Can Our Body Store

Jaminet said:
Glycogen makes up 1-2% of the mass of muscle or about 300-500g. The liver has another 70-100g of glycogen which is used to manage blood glucose.
Click to expand...

Your blood holds only about 5g of glucose, so the total carbohydrate store of your body is between 375-605g of glucose.

Consider this your "maximum carbohydrate storage resevoir". It's like a bucket full of carbs - during the day - some leaks out (for energy use) and some fills up from your diet. We'll consider how much flows out, in the next post.
 
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