Active Low-Carber Forums - View Single Post - You MUST eat RESISTANT STARCH!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sagehill

Well, this IS the war zone, after all. If all who disagreed went away, there would be no war zone... and life would be boring.

I have to say I do agree somewhat with this. I've been low-carbing over six years now, around 30-40 g per day, except in winter when I go literally crazy due to Michigan's bitter cold, doom and gloom and lack of serotonin. From September through February I usually gain back 10-30 lbs, so it's taking me much longer than it otherwise might have. Over the past six years I've lost around two hundred pounds... I should weigh only 65 lbs by now. lol

Last year I've finally gained some control, mostly through three rounds of HCG, and while I still gained some 15 lbs last winter, I didn't gain as much as I used to and so ended lower than I have before.

This May I did the potato hack for three weeks, broken by high-fat LC weekends, and lost nearly 20 pounds that got me into a range I haven't seen since 1980's. Though I was reluctant to try the PH-- after all, I was a confirmed low-carber, six years of LC training screamed, "No no no, all this starch will be disastrous!!"-- I was shocked how fast the weight dropped off... as quickly and easily as my first time with Atkins six years ago, with minimal hunger.

Plus the PH seems to have reset things, even going back to LC. My body temperature is higher, I sleep better and my mood is improved, but most surprising of all it's been very easy to maintain my losses so far, though I have yet to undergo this winter on higher carbs to see if that all remains true. But I have maintained my losses even eating out not especially LC, drinking wine and LC beer and all without being 100% strict the way I used to have to be on LC just to prevent regaining. A glass of wine or one beer used to cause a 1-2 lb gain the next day that took forever to ditch.

That said, I'm not pushing PH for everyone, nor planning to continue it for myself. Right now, I'm doing the raw dairy diet, mostly because I have a cow that's just freshened and three gallons of milk to get through every day, though I don't drink that much of course.

And guess what, that's working too... a pound a day.

I believe anything done too long stagnates the system and causes stalls, LC included. Stalls are demoralizing. People start doing the wrong thing, dropping carbs when they should be increasing them. The first five years I did all the LC tweaks from Kimkins to meat & eggs to fat fast, and while they worked for a while, weight usually rebounded over time, and definitely over the winter when body systems usually take a dive anyway.

Perhaps what really should be done is do the opposite from LC... eat high-carb/low-fat as in the potato hack for several weeks, drop some more weight, then return to LC.

ETA: By the way, my fasting blood glucose DROPPED while on the potato hack.

One thing that helped me break the winter weight gain cycle was observing every animal that lives where it gets cold--they fatten up in summer and lean out in winter. That is my new modus operandi--I eat whatever is in season all summer long and don't worry about my weight. I also exercise more (pullups, pushups, sprints) and get outside as much as possible. When fall hits, I switch to more of a traditional LC diet with an intake of about 100-150g carbs mostly from potatoes and rice, and nearly zero from sugary fruits and sugars. In winter, I supplement with Vit D and do more steady state exercise like treadmill walking, snowshoeing, skiiing and lay off the heavy lifting type exercises.

Animals have a major change in gut flora from summer to winter which is why feeding a moose hay can kill it. The microbes that can digest hay are replaced with microbes that digest wood/twigs. Feeding them hay basically starves them to death.

In summer, I think that eating lots of seasonal fruit and veggies like watermelon, corn on the cob, strawberries, etc... provides good pro- and prebiotics for a healthy gut, then transitioning to a lower carb, higer fat diet and eating starches that have a high resistant starch content helps balance out any insulin resistance that leads to imbalanced fat storage in winter months.

A suggestion about the potato diet/hack: Do it only once a year, late fall/early winter, when potatoes are in season. Use it to lose up to 10 pounds of the weight you gained in summer eating healthy foods and then spend the rest of the winter eating a more seasonally appropriate diet.