Awriter, on the carbs, that is total or net?

The fad part is believing that it cures everything and that raw milk is somehow absolved of all the food intolerance issues that pasteurized milk presents.

I can't find it now! I've looked and looked, it had cool graphs and everything. It showed how healthy young people released insulin that was sustained for quite a long time after eating protein. Carbs showed a higher release, but it diminished more quickly. *sigh* Maybe Jenny has that archived on Bloodsugar101... I'll look there.

As far as I know there may not be definitive answers for how much protein is converted to sugar and how quickly in someone on a low carb diet. They tend to study these things in people on standard diets. But hang out with the diabetic low carbers for awhile and you start to see that while low carb definitely helps... it isn't a cure-all for them.

Why is excess carbohydrate not turned into fat and why is excess fat not turned into fat?
The whole premise behind low carbs diets is that if insulin is low, fat can't get stored. But I think where it fails some of us is that insulin isn't really getting that low.

I took Caveman's post as a request for critique, not necessarily the critique itself. I was happy to see some useful information here, but I was hoping for more. I'm disappointed that Pangolina chose not to post here.

I think I'll probably try to get the book sometime. If I do, I will post anything I learn from it.

awriter,

Thank you for the useful feedback - much, much appreciated. I was having a hard time finding the basic info in all those threads. I'm going to try out the 'math' and see what it comes up with for me, just out of curiosity.

Clearly - the Optimal Diet is still a low-carb diet, even a 'very low carb diet' by a lot of standards. The only real difference is tinkering with the protein a wee bit, and as a result - the fat percentage is a wee bit higher. Does this sound about right? I had the (perhaps mistaken?) impression that it was all about purposely trying to increase fat consumption dramatically...but am now thinking that as you lower protein a bit, and carbs are still a constant 'low-carb' level, it's just that the percentages shift.

I know that you're into weight training - didn't you worry a bit about reducing protein? To me, protein still seems super-important, especially with weight training...but I'll still try out those formulas, just for fun. Once again, I'm not tracking my foods, so don't really have any idea what my 'macros' are these days anyway.

Where's a typical 'ideal weight' chart? Came across one, but it gave a range for me: 117-130 lbs. What number to pick? Very small frame here.

Hmmm, I'll go with my goal weight - 120

54.6 kilos - so that's:

54.6 grams protein
136.5 grams fat
43.7 grams carbohydrate

Hmm...interestingly, my own best weight loss periods, where I was tracking these things show me at slightly lower fat, much lower carb and higher (as in double the amount) protein than those recommendations.

Food for thought. Always fun and interesting to see what other plans recommend.

Thanks for looking though, Nancy!

It's a shame they always use those "healthy young people" - students who need a bit of extra cash? - hey, I could use a bit of extra cash, too! How about more studies where they use clapped-out 40-something housewives??? They're the ones who go on the diets, after all. The "healthy young people" presumably are still a healthy weight, too, and don't actually need to diet (yet)...

amanda

Oh, okay. I misunderstood the subject header.



Your wish is my command. There's now plenty more at:

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...134#post7793134

Lisa

Net carbs. Which leaves lots of room for formerly forbidden foods that many of us are enjoying.

Lisa

I did! I worked too damn hard for these built biceps, and I'm not giving them up without a fight. But so far, I haven't found (nor have any of the Slow Burn followers who are also doing this) any problem AT ALL.

In fact, I decided to give this WOE a real test by not doing any exercise for a while, to see if lack of it would either prevent me from losing, or would cause muscle loss. And I'm here to tell you that the opposite seems to be happening. I'm not just losing weight (really, stored body fat), I'm gaining lean muscle mass -- without doing anything! And my energy level is starting to verge on the scary.

Others on the K thread who are reaching the 3rd and 4th week are noticing the same thing. Some of us are going to bed later and later, yet waking up at our regular time feeling amazingly refreshed.

One hypothesis would be that the increased fat is giving us greater energy, but if that were the case then the effects would be felt immediately when the WOE starts, since everyone seems to be so hungry when they give up the protein, they eat even more fat than their daily allotment. But that effect is NOT felt at the beginning stage.

So what else could be going on? Here's what I'm thinking now: the reason this WOE works for some of us is that we do in fact have a metabolic defect with protein that manifests when we eat a high fat diet. What this means in real terms is that unlike 'normal' people who take in fat and protein that is then converted to energy to feed our cells, people with the defect take in the fat and protein which isn't converted to fuel, but to stored fat. So our cells are deprived of the nutrients in both.

The we start the WOE, and reduce our protein while increasing our fat. Slowly -- over the course of several weeks (or in some cases maybe months - but who knows? -- this is all so new) -- our metabolism begins to heal. That means for the first time maybe in years -- our cells are actually getting all that nutrient. Our bodies are no longer starving in the midst of plenty. So of course, the spigot on the stored fat cells open, and even more nutrient is released and now, because we are fixing the defect, it is immediately converted to fuel and burned properly.

I am eating thousands more calories a week now than I was when stalled. No exaggeration. Thousands more. And my body fat is literally disappearing daily, the way it did when I first began LCing. However, I also suspect that my having done weight training for so long and having built up hard, dense, nutrient-needing and burning muscle is playing a role here. Because as the nutrients are finally burning and being released to my cells for food -- there's a lot more places for that fuel to go and be absorbed. Hence, I believe I am now growing more insulin sensitive. This theory would also explain the severe drop in BS many of the WOE followers on the K thread are experiencing.

Does this make sense?

Lisa

Maybe this should be another thread but what about the thyroid issues? Have you been able to follow up on that and if so did you start any kind of treatment?

I did follow up. My GP ordered a full thyroid panel which showed my TSH in the normal range, but higher than 3 years ago when it was last done. However, my free T4 and T3 look miserable. I'm having a reverse T3 done this week, and I have an appointment with an endo mid-May. However, fatigue was never one of my symptoms, so energy was never an issue. Not until now that is. I need to get to sleep before 3 a.m. !

Thanks for asking . . .

Lisa

Thanks for posting, Lisa. I'm exhausted just thinking about trying to respond to the contradictions and tautologies that you present. Last time I bothered to point out these things, TheBear drooled all over me.

I'm not comfortable critiquing a book I've never read, so. (What? No Amazon?) I WAS hoping to get some critique from my fellow paleo forum buddies here, but characteristically--when left to its own devices--the chatter devolves into a dairy discussion. Love 'em. But paleo? They ain't.

It would be nice to have the time or patience to critique in full, let me see if I can steer the discussion into a more paleo direction. Picking one of Lisa's answers at random:



Fifty grams of carbohydrate per day is astronomically high for a paleo diet.

Can someone confirm my math below?

Let's take raspberries, for instance. A good paleo carb treat that our ancestors might pig out on, right? In order to get 50 grams of carbohydrate, ancestor would have to eat about 600 raspberries, or about 2.5 pounds worth. Considering a tribe size of 100, that's 60,000 raspberries that would need to be available EVERY DAY.

Data: http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/

Amaz-ing () but no. Guess they don't quite have all the books in the world after all.


OD isn't paleo. So I'm guessing that Atkins 135g is beyond the pale?


Do paleos believe in calculators? An ounce of raspberries (about 6) is 3.5 grams of C. I ate exactly that much for breakfast this morning, with some homemade yogurt/mascarpone. Which means you'd reach 35 grams with only 10 ounces, or roughly 60 raspberries. But you were only off by a factor of ten.

Lisa