http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v...oby200576a.html















So was Pennington right about obesity being caused by an inability to properly metabolize pyruvic acid? It does make sense. If pyruvic acid is broken down into acetyl-coa, it can no longer be used by the body to make glucose. It can't be used to make glycerol-3-phosphate, either.

So what does this mean for the lay person? That excess protein should be guarded against?

That and the quote posted by Valtor.
I hope his readers are not reading this because it doesn't sound like a professional and honest decision. He is basically saying that since his readers are too stupid to understand, he needed to claim something arbitrarily, without being able to explain why, just not to scare them and not lose money. There's no place for dietary suggestions based on tactics rather than science. As long as an author explains scientific concepts, rather than making pseudo moral and ethical suggestions about them, there's no problem with people being scared by facts. That's like claiming a scientific truth that during lack of food the body can survive without starving for like 40 days without food, it's not a suggestion, just a fact. So whether the body functions better with 60 grams of carbs or with no carbs, should have been explained as a neutral scientific facts, leaving retarded pesonal consideration aside and leaving the choice of what to do with those scientific facts to the reader. Which becomes a reason to boycott him in favour of Wolgang Lutz book. Their suggestions are identical, but Lutz explain scientifically how he reached what he consider a practical minimum amount of carbs, not saying that less is worse, but not more beneficial and useless. You can agree with him or not, but at least he is using science, not scaterring arbitrary number arounds as a marketing strategy.

Didn't Lutz change his opinion on protein after talking with Kwasniewski though, well after he'd written Life Without Bread? I don't know that for a fact....just what I heard. He didn't write another book so we don't know, and I can't find any interviews so far.

From what I recall Lutz doesn't think going below 72g carbs is any more helpful in terms of weightloss/health, and that to get 'thin' one must restrict calories - that a non-calorie-restricted diet will not make you 'thin'. I think he is referring to Hollywood ideals though.

I have a theory, and it's not a nice one. I think that if you start off with Atkins induction level carbs or below, and stay there for a long time, that for some people it becomes impossible to raise carbs again to a reasonable low-carb level, impossible to lose any more weight, and becomes extremely easy to gain weight - even on say 72g.

Not a nice theory I know - and I hope I'm wrong, but I've seen so many people in this position, including myself. Some of them even start to gain after awhile - including me.

THIS is what there are no answers for - why would this happen?

When I tried Atkins I needed like 6 weeks to adapt and start functioning at a level above staying in bed for 14 hours every day. During this phase there is some extreme weight loss and lack of energy. The extreme weight loss is not only about water bound to glycogen, but also the body wasting huge amount of fat calories and ketones. Your body needs to learn how to use a different substracte efficiently, when that happens even weight loss normalize tieing itself more to calories.

Seems pretty likely that when if you do the reverse, going from Atkins to way more carb, your body needs as much or more adaptation with weight being rather extreme at the beginning. Not only because of glycogen water (10 pounds of intramuscula fluids can be gained from raising carbs) but also because the body is still confused about using this new substracte (no matter it was used a lot in the past) so at the beginning there's an excess of storage and lack of energy, just like at the beginning of VLC carb there was an excess of wasting and lack of energy, but it goes away once the body learns again how to burn the new available substrate. At this point again weight will normalize and will tie itself with calories.

I have read anecdotal evidence that the more times you switch back and forth the better your body becomes faster at adapting.
I know a person who couldn't adapt to Atkins even after three months. Switched back to a Zone like diet. Tried again Atkins and this time could adapt after one month. Again left Atkins for lack of results and followed an high carb diet for quite some time. Tired Atkins again and this time adapted in less than a week feeling wonderful the whole time.

Glucose is broken down into pyruvic acid. Pyruvic acid is basically a ketone, but it's a ketone that can be used for gluconeogenesis. Pyruvic acid could also be used to produce acetyl-coa, or it could be further broken down into lactic acid.
If pyruvic acid goes down the acetyl-coa route, the glucose that went into its creation is basically lost to the system. Acetyl-Coa can still be made into fatty acids at that point, but it can't be used to make glucose from. Glycerol 3- phosphate is needed to store fat, and can't be made from Acetyl-Coa, either.
This was a small study, only ten obese and ten non-obese. So I don't really know how much we should make of it. What they found was that an enzyme that shuts off an enzyme that shuts off an enzyme that is necessary to make acetyl-coa from pyruvic acid was lower in the obese subjects.
This suggests more to me the avoidance of carbohydrate. The question about protein sent me here;

Studies on the regulation of leucine catabolism in the liver

The authors in this study mention that a lot of the stuff needed to break down pyruvic acid is also needed to break down leucine. They also mention that pyruvic acid promotes the break down of leucine. Maybe there's a link here to that study where they found that branched chain amino acid supplementation worsened the effects of a "high fat" diet on rats, promoting insulin resistance?

Eating fat and protein "causes" diabetes....(in rats)

Hi Loops,



What do you mean by "impossible" here? Surely, you just mean "in psychological terms, very very difficult"??? That is, if you have conditioned yourself to believe that anything more than, say, 20g of carbs a day is absolute poison for the body, then you will have extreme difficulty raising your carb intake to anything more than 20g of carbs.

It is not "impossible" to raise your carbs, unless someone is holding a pistol to your head and threatening to shoot you if you have that bowl of raspberries or whatever...

It is so easy to get brainwashed about food-related matters, and it seems convincing ourselves that carbs can be actually OK to eat in greater quantities than only 20g a day is a huge psychological hurdle to overcome after believing that carbs are made by the devil himself. But most of us were brainwashed that red meat, bacon, eggs, butter and cream were bad and got our heads round the opposite idea, so I am sure that reverse brainwashing is possible - eventually... You might just have to work really hard on it, that's all...

amanda

I see it the same way as you, Loops. Maybe its due to being here for so many years seeing the same pattern over and over and over....yet again. Its actually a sad state of affairs to me.

The culture of our community, by and large, is that all carbs are bad, evil and need to be avoided all the time. In my opinion, this is not only unrealistic for long term success, it makes weight loss harder. There is a moderate way to be carb controlled, lose weight and keep it off. All carbs are not evil and I am one of the few people here who see it this way.

Atkins itself, is a 4 phase plan...not 1 phase as most here see it. OWL phase does not make it easy to add carbs back in as the numbers and the carb ladder make it hard to follow. That is one of the reasons why I chose SB....the counting carbs was too daunting for me. Finding my CCL kinda freaked me out so I was also afraid to go that route.

But the bottom line is that I was able to lose all my weight, and keep it off, using a higher level of good and unprocessed carbs. I would not be able to live happily eating 20 grams carbs a day. I don't count my carbs but do count the amount of starchier carb servings(2-3) that I eat daily, and count my fruit servings daily(2-3).

I think that people could raise their carb levels if they keep their fats more controlled. You can't eat higher levels of good carbs and eat a higher fat diet, somethings gotta give as we can't have it both ways. It also needs to be done very, very slowly.

You may see it as a "not nice theory"...but its the truth that many do not wish to see. Denial goes both ways for many people... living in denial about our weight and like me, become morbidly obese. Then all of a sudden, become desparate to lose it all tomorrow and seek fast weight loss... make a 180 degree turn and it no carbs ever....

There are few people who can do this to extremes, nor should they. Its way too restrictive and hard. Eating sould not have to be so hard. Its hard enough to get off all the white flour, sugar, wheat and all the other crap we have to get off of. Doing this in a more moderate way was key for me.

I watch all the M&E threads...seen them going on from 5 yrs ago. Clearly not working for most of the people doing them for extended periods of time. M&E is best used as a 3-5 day fast, not a long term approach to weight loss. I know I'm going to get blasted for saying this but its the truth as I see it.

I'm not a scientist nor a doctor, but I can see and analyze in my head, trends that I see over and over again in this community and others around the 'net. I can see when something is working ...or not.

Most of us find that hunger and cravings come back when we do that. Most of us find that low carb and moderate or high fat keeps the out-of-control binge-ing under control effortlessly. When we reduce fat and increase carbs the beast raises its ugly head again.

I would *love* to eat like you do Judy.

I put an article about a new book in the research area called "The End of Overeating" by Dr David Kessler.
You might want to take a quick read.

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...779#post7802779

That was a great post Judy ! You're making me second guess my decision now.

Patrick

Judy, I'd have to agree with Allison - the more carbs I eat the more fat I seem to need to keep blood sugar under control - I'm not talking about huge amounts of carbs either - but that is impossible to do anyway on a 75-80% fat diet. I don't personally think reducing fat is the answer - it certainly isn't for me.

What I meant by impossible to raise carbs was more directed at weight loss - yeah psychologically for me it has been a problem - I'm not really basing that comment on my own experiences as it is obvious I haven't really tried to raise carbs very much. But from what I've seen from other people, the successful ones usually don't start off on extremely low carb counts - or if they do, it's not for very long. I've seen lots of people slowly lose weight on 60, 70 or even 100g of carbs without restricting fat or protein, but I haven't seen people who have been very low carb for a long time start losing once they increase their carb amounts to similar amounts. That is what I am interested in - finding out why, and is it a bad thing? I would think that it is, and that scares me somewhat.

Some zero carbers are having success, but when I look more carefully at what most of them are eating, it turns out to be low-calorie - not intentionally low, but nontheless due to extreme appetite suppression it is - the ones who are having success that is. There are a few who are eating large amounts of calories and having success, but they seem to be in the minority. I was following one woman's progress thinking WOW she is finally losing weight on ZC - it must work then! But then it turns out she only eats fatty meat - around 16oz of it a day at one meal. Even for the fattiest piece of meat, that is not that many calories.

To each his/her own. I am speaking in generalities and what did work for me. I can't speak to other people's health issues with blood sugar control. May I ask which carbs you use to raise your carb levels?


If you find out why, I'd be interested in hearing it.


And do you think that for most people, this is a long term strategy for successful maintenance?
I would not be able to keep eating that way to maintain my weight. I have realized that the way we eat to lose it, is the way we will need to keep eating to keep it off.... without a lot of effort.

Thank you Patrick!

Originally posted by Judynyc:



I agree that it does often seem that people think Atkins means sticking to 20g of carbs a day FOR EVER!!! When I read DANDR, I was, quite frankly, put off by all the acronyms, the OWL and the CCL and so on, and stuck with my Barry Groves plan. I haven't stuck to it rigidly for the last two years (otherwise I would be at goal and not just halfway there ), but, on the other hand, within a broad band, I have managed to maintain by following the broad principles of this plan.

My winter weight has been briefly higher - around 145lbs - and then I have lost some weight again and got down to around 136lbs in the summer, and stayed there more or less till December, where this is a quick rise. Since Jan 2009 I have been making good progress.

I have not had trouble counting my carbs, and keeping the fat fairly high, but the protein lowish seems to come naturally now and seems largely determined by my appetite and the experience I have gained of what kind of food keeps me going for the kind of time I don't want to be hungry.

This kind of low-carbing is easy to do and easy to stick to, because it is not as restrictive as what Atkins preaches for Induction. My weaknesses sometimes lead to my putting a little weight back on again, but it has by no means been a case of yo-yo-ing and putting on more weight back on than I lost.

Atkins, of course, meant well with his idea of the induction phase, hoping to give motivation to dieters by letting them see dramatic weight losses in a short space of time, but, from my occasional forays into the "Newbies" section, you get a lot of people who just can't stick to it and get the induction flu and what have you because the sudden drop in carb intake is just too much of a shock for the system.

A more gentle approach, with more carbs, is so much easier to do and it works, too!

amanda