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Low Carb making news on GMB

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Its not a closed system, so inefficiencies will exist.
I seem to be particularly efficient though, others aren't as unlucky as me, as it seems whatever energy source I use, income must be kept below my expenditure level.

I would guess the difficult bit to accept, is if you reduce your calorie intake, and further reduce it, and still never lose weight, if you extrapolate that to a zero calorie intake, or even down to an intake that would reasonably be well below that of the bodies resting energy expenditure, it would seem to suggest energy is being created.

I think, if there were people that could seem to produce energy from nothing, it would be a gene worth looking at more closely.
 

I would suggest the posters of this forum seem to care, and are having their own discussion.
If you don't care, there are many others threads you could participate in instead, if you choose one that is of interest to you.
 
SunnyExpat said:
I would suggest the posters of this forum seem to care, and are having their own discussion.
If you don't care, there are many others threads you could participate in instead, if you choose one that is of interest to you.
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So, when did you get appointed a moderator to tell people where and in what circumstances they should post on the forum?
 

I think I managed to turn mine off.
Probably many years of not eating all day, then eating at night, initially I was active enough to cope with that, but then became more sedentary, and lost some muscle, so less to mop up the glucose later, and followed by an increase in insulin resistance as well.
I wonder if that's why so many on here report they personally feel satiated after eating fat?
If you can fool your body with a sudden leptin rush, from eating fat?
 

I'm reading Dr Feinman's Kindle ebook ' The World Turned Upside Down: The Second Low Carb Revolution' and it's good.
 
I think you and I both had leptin and insulin resistance. With me the insulin resistance is the tough one to crack and with you it's the leptin resistance. .
 
zand said:
I think you and I both had leptin and insulin resistance. With me the insulin resistance is the tough one to crack and with you it's the leptin resistance. .
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Willpower mainly, for both with me.
I know I can get good BG results by eating the correct food for me, and I know I'll keep the weight off, if I don't eat too much of it, regardless of what type of calorie it is. All found by trial and error, so I know it works.
I also know dieting, crash diets, fasting, doesn't alter my metabolism, I don't seem to have a starvation mode, so that works as well, without any issues.

Intensive exercise drives my BG down as well, and distracts from eating, particularly snacking, so again a double bonus.

The most interesting thing in this thread is why some of us seem to feel full immediately they eat fat though, maybe that's the next 'magic' diet pill that we'll see on the market?
Maybe that would work for me?
 
Well I have bucket loads of willpower, the weight loss still isn't easy though. Unlike yours, my metabolism has been badly affected by all sorts of diets, which is why I'm guessing you're a man. I think we women are more programmed to store fat and therefore find it harder to lose it. I think we go into starvation mode more easily than men .

Like you I found out what works for me by trial and error many years before I was diagnosed diabetic, but it's still very slow progress for me and a bit disheartening and frustrating when people reduce the problem down to sheer physics. Injury and misfortune along the way have hampered my efforts amongst the more obvious hormonal changes that happen throughout life.

Exercise often (not always) puts my BGs up. I haven't snacked for years, way before I was diagnosed diabetic.
 
Isn't it true that a calorie is a calorie? - (when burned in a closed system by whatever machine is used to measure calories these days). The differences emerge when we eat them and put them in our bodies - not a closed system and with infinite variables. It's where that energy goes that changes surely. We can change this by exercise (calories in = calories out theory) or by changing the type of calorie since the body uses calories from fat and from carbs differently. Glucose from sugars and starches can be used immediately, whereas fat has to be broken down before use which presumably requires energy.

The difference then could be that those calories with their exact amount of energy but from different source are used differently by the body (and that no two bodies are going to use them the same way as it is dependent on so many different things for example:
metabolic rate - some people just have faster metabolisms (but we can often adjust our own by exercise)
time of day - calories eaten at night before bed don't have a chance to get used up by the body so more likely to get stored as fat. A big breakfast (whether carb or fat based) tends to make people feel fuller all day so they may naturally eat less as a result. Plus those carbs have all day to be used up by activity rather than just by metabolic tissue which burns calories constantly.
Hormones- people on injected insulin tend to gain weight without changing diet because insulin promotes fat storage. Disruption of hormones by previous diets can change the way the body uses calories which is why people don't maintain weight after a diet when they go back to previous eating habits although they may have had a stable weight on the same diet before. Stress hormones tend to increase fat storage 9ready for fight or flight)
Bodies natural set points
Fat burning adaptation
etc etc etc.

So there are many variables at work which is the reason why everyone is so different and some people find it easier to lose weight than others.

For me if I have eaten carbs and testing shows my BG levels have risen I can immediately lower it by a 15 minute walk. This ensures the sugar goes to the muscles and so doesn't get a chance to be stored as fat. A short walk of 15 mins after every meal helps to burn every type of calorie. Too much exercise by contrast can raise cortisol (stress hormone) levels and so affect the way the calories are used and make them go towards fat storage. Another reason why calories in doesn't always = calories out and why for many people HIITs is more beneficial than hours of cardio which can raise cortisol. HIIT also increases aerobic capacity which in turn increases basal metabolic rate.
 
@seadragon Exactly that! We don't all respond in the same way. One of the things in your post that rang a bell with me was the stress hormones. Those of us who have suffered PTSD for instance can struggle with this.
 
zand said:
@seadragon Exactly that! We don't all respond in the same way. One of the things in your post that rang a bell with me was the stress hormones. Those of us who have suffered PTSD for instance can struggle with this.
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When I was stressed from non-diabetic stuff, my GP asked if I'd like counselling and I felt it was really helpful and kept my numbers lower.

Even now, changes I made in my life help. For example, when husband comes in from work we sit down with mug of tea and talk about our day. He will tell me about work, I will tell him how my writing is going, about news, calls from my mother or his, where I've been, which deliveries turned up, suggestions for dinner or that I've prepped or started or that it's cooking.

Having that unwind time really helps both of us connect and keeps the stress levels down.

Sent from the Diabetes Forum App
 
hmmm that would be lovely. Unfortunately when hubby gets home from work he has had enough of interacting with people all day and needs time alone. We have got into a routine where he does the washing up on his own as therapy.
 
Hehe, my husband shoots me a relieved n grateful look if the kitchen is tidy then proceeds to make a mess of it while he cooks to relax.

Sent from the Diabetes Forum App
 
TorqPenderloin said:
Please prove that statement "Not all calories are equal."
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OK, I've just seen this.

If you want help with your condition I’d stow the above attitude we are not talking abstract conceptual theories here; this is a support forum for people with diabetes. I don’t have to ‘prove’ anything to you.

If you are getting upset because of the statement that ‘all calories are not equal’ is because you know that actually a calorie is a given unit of energy and that therefore 1 calorie does indeed equal 1 calorie and you assume people don’t understand that then wow, well done. You’ve really got a handle on this maths thing.

The point, as anyone who has given it half a minute's thought must agree, is that our bodies do not treat all foodstuffs equally. Looking at nutrition in purely calorific terms is a way of avoiding huge confounding factors (the metabolic effect of scarcity or surfeit for one, insulin and leptin for some others). If that were not the case you could surely get your energy requirements from ethanol; which has lots of lovely calories. As you will no doubt agree 2500 calories from ethanol is the same as 2500 calories from red meat. Isn’t it? A calorie is a calorie after all?

Our bodies essentially run on dual-fuel. On one hand they are very happy to process glucose from the diet and use that as the primary energy source and where there is excess storing it as fat. Insulin is the key metabolic agent here; it ‘pulls’ glucose out of the blood and helps process it fat and muscle cells. The other fuel options are protein and fat; there, in a much more complicated process, glycerol from fat can be converted into glucose as can protein. When that is happening there is a much lower insulin profile which means that the body is able to use stored fat as well as the consumed fat/proteins to provide energy and crucially is not storing fat at the rate that it does when glucose levels require insulin to be used.

Many of us find that that lower insulin profile plus the fact of eating a low-carb diet means that we lose weight or at least do not put on weight even when the calorific intake might not indicate that. The exact mechanics of that is not properly understood and are arguably not important if we get the results. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. You standing around shouting that ‘1 calorie equals 1 calorie’ is of no help, or interest, to anyone.

Edit to remove personal remarks.
 
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Many of us don't lose weight, and clearly do gain weight, so when you make claims that you admit you don't actually understand the mechanics, then arguing it's not important, and simply trying to shout down those who ask the question when they don't get your result isn't going to be enough for some of us.
Like many, for me, a calorie's a calorie.
Don't speak for me when you personally have no interest in questions you can't seem to answer.
 
@SunnyExpat if all calories are equal for your own body then that's great! It means you have a wider variety of foods to choose from. That's surely not a problem, so I don't understand why that's an issue for you. I don't for one minute believe @Dillinger was speaking for you. Your body seems to work fine with no metabolic problems at all. He was speaking for those of us who don't have that choice and who have to fight for every pound of weight loss. He may not be able to answer the question of how the mechanics work but he is one of the people who has helped me in the past with great advice. No doctor has helped me lose any weight at all. I am grateful to people on this forum for helping and encouraging me. I didn't find that being told that weight loss was simply reduced to the laws of physics was helpful at all. Those of us who have struggled with our weight know that is simply not true.

It seems that all you personally have to do is to limit the quantity of food you eat, trust me, you are one of the lucky ones.
 

Hence the 'many of us' - I don't believe we've spoken @SunnyExpat so how can I consider your circumstances when I post? I don't know anything about you.

Why are you upset?

Low-carbing works, if you read Taubes et al you will see that there isn't consensus on why it works; so it's not just me who doesn't understand the mechanics. The fact is that it works certainly for controlling diabetes and by all accounts for a great many people for controlling weight. I'm not sure who is being shouted down here? My original post is directly addressed at another poster how is that 'speaking for you'?
 
A calorie is not a calorie, because it was never designed to measure energy in food for starters.

We all have individual metabolism, which respond differently to different types of food. Some people can eat carbs all day and all night and stay skinny.

Low carb diets have beaten low fat diets for weight loss in 17 studies now. If you need a reference it's on dietdoctor.com somewhere.

Weight loss only needs to happen if someone is overweight. My mother goes on a full scale diet if she thinks she needs to lose 2lbs. In between she binges on baked goods. Despite the bingeing, she's not overweight, it's just that all her fat is on her backside and hips.

We're all different and what works for one doesn't necessarily work for another.

I'm not on a diet, I eat LCHF as a lifestyle way of eating. I lost weight as a side effect of cutting down on carbs spiking my BG. I have never actually dieted and don't count carbs or calories.



Sent from the Diabetes Forum App
 

Dillinger said:
You standing around shouting that ‘1 calorie equals 1 calorie’ is of no help, or interest, to anyone.
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It's certainly of interest to me, after many on here claim they can eat unlimited amounts of certain foods, whereas I seem to be one of the unfortunate ones to whom 1 calorie equals 1 calorie, so it is a topic which I am happy to see continue, despite your objection that it of no interest to "anyone"
Possibly you mean "it is no interest to you"?
 
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