Quote:
Originally Posted by Alastair
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I was just trying to say that Atkins works because you eat less calories than your maintenance. If you need to consume 3000 calories a day to maintain your current weight, and you only ate 2500 of chocolate, you would still lose weight.
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That assessment is incorrect. Carbohydrates, by their very nature, increase the total caloric requirements. Allow me.
Carbohydrates cause blood glucose to rise which in turn causes a secretion and release of insulin. This will be done proportionately to the carb intake. The more carbs, the more insulin. The less carbs, the less insulin.
Insulin is a storage hormone. This means that it acts on nutrients and causes them to be stored in adipose tissue. This is also done proportionately to the carbs intake. The more carbs, the more nutrients are stored in adipose tissue. Again, conversely, the less carbs, the less nutrients are stored in adipose tissue.
Insulin does something else to adipose tissue: It prevents nutrients from getting out. It locks them in, making them unavailable to lean tissue. Again, this is done proportionately to the carbs intake. The only way to allow them back out is to lower insulin level. And the only way to lower insulin level is to lower blood glucose level. And the only way to lower blood glucose level is to stop eating carbohydrates. If not to stop completely, at least to eat less carbohydrates i.e. Low Carb Diet.
As insulin locks nutrients in adipose tissue, blood nutrients levels drop, as those drop, hunger increases, as hunger increases, we eat more. Hunger is a function of nutrients availability. It is the primary regulator of food intake. In other words, nutrients requirement (which by definition includes total caloric requirement) dictates hunger.
From the beginning this time. Eating carbohydrates, by their very nature, increases caloric requirements. As we stop eating carbohydrates, our caloric requirement drops and so we eat less. But we still eat to satiety i.e. to our
normal caloric requirement. That is why your assessment is incorrect.