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A very very powerful thing that most of us forget when we start reading all the conflicting evidence about carbs / sugar / fat: You can experiment on yourself

A very very powerful thing that most of us forget when we start reading all the conflicting evidence about carbs / sugar / fat: You can experiment on yourself for free! Obviously this won't prove how everyone's body works. But it will teach you something very powerful about how your own body works. Go off sugar for 3 months, make your mind and do it, and note the changes in your organism. Or go off carbs totally for a few weeks, and feel what happens to you. etc... Make up your own experiments, the only danger is that you may end up lying to yourself about what you ate, or not be sure about the composition of the stuff you ate...

notthegov 11y ago
Except your kidneys excrete more electrolytes and water, and it can take weaks to adapt, and theoritically some people will never fully adapt. I would have to drink 1 gram of warm saltwater and my headache would instantly go away. So how you feel is deceptive. If I would drink a Vanilla Latte at Starbucks now, I would get a serious headache...
- glaberficken 11y ago
  >So how you feel is deceptive. Well, yeah you are right. At some point you will have to read and educate yourself a bit to try and guess what is happening to your body. But as a rule of thumb if you stick to a no sugar habit for 3 months your headaches should not last for more than a few weeks, if they don't subside and you keep feeling "unhealthy" obviously its time to get medical advice, but I argue the same would be true if you were to keep to a sugar heavy "current normal" sort of diet.
- rhinoceraptor 11y ago
  Lite salt is better, it has sodium and potassium.
  - notthegov 11y ago
    Nusalt (potassium chloride) tastes like something that will kill you. But I drank it everyday and about 3 grams of salt.
    - rhinoceraptor 11y ago
      I put it in some chicken broth, it's a lot more tolerable that way.
geoka9 11y ago
Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on this, just describing my own experience (which may be subjective/biased/completely misinterpreted by me). If you're mostly sedentary in a first-world country, going off sugar/carbs-dominated diet brings your insulin sensitivity to its natural levels (which, very probably, it hasn't been since the moment you started eating adult food). For me this had the amazing effect of becoming more alert and productive mentally and more aware of my body physically. As an athlete, I suddenly discovered that I can be underperforming because I'm lacking fuel, and not because I'm tired, and that if I "fuel up" by eating carbs, I can expect a surge of energy that will allow me to perform well. Needless to say, the discovery was amazing, I felt like a finely tuned sports car or something. Back when I was eating a regular western diet, my insulin sensitivity was low, and "injecting" fast carbs made me drowsy, not full of energy. Needless to say once I experienced that new state, I got hooked, so sticking to good eating habits haven't required tremendous will power for me. Getting there, though, did.
- tblt 11y ago
  Can you go into more detail about what a regular western diet is and how your new diet differs?
  - geoka9 11y ago
    By western diet I meant the gratuitous consumption of highly potent energy sources in the form of white bread/soda/cake/sugar/etc., which is common in North America (can't speak about the rest of the Western world, I hear that Europeans are lean compared to North Americans). Anyway, my approach is simple and unscientific, but it seems to work for me. I just treat any carb-rich food as fuel (there is a difference as to "slow" vs "fast" carbs, but it's not important for the purposes of this discussion :)). So, since it's fuel, I use it as such. For example, if I'm in my sedentary/low stress mode, I eat just a token amount of them. If I'm preparing for a gruelling match or bulking up at the gym, I'll load up on carbs (ideally the day before the match). If I'm cutting, I reduce the amount considerably. As for fat/protein/fiber, that's pretty much an invariant. I just eat a normal healthy amount. I do increase protein intake on the days I work out a lot, though.

notthegov 11y ago

Except your kidneys excrete more electrolytes and water, and it can take weaks to adapt, and theoritically some people will never fully adapt. I would have to drink 1 gram of warm saltwater and my headache would instantly go away. So how you feel is deceptive. If I would drink a Vanilla Latte at Starbucks now, I would get a serious headache...

glaberficken 11y ago
>So how you feel is deceptive. Well, yeah you are right. At some point you will have to read and educate yourself a bit to try and guess what is happening to your body. But as a rule of thumb if you stick to a no sugar habit for 3 months your headaches should not last for more than a few weeks, if they don't subside and you keep feeling "unhealthy" obviously its time to get medical advice, but I argue the same would be true if you were to keep to a sugar heavy "current normal" sort of diet.
rhinoceraptor 11y ago
Lite salt is better, it has sodium and potassium.
- notthegov 11y ago
  Nusalt (potassium chloride) tastes like something that will kill you. But I drank it everyday and about 3 grams of salt.
  - rhinoceraptor 11y ago
    I put it in some chicken broth, it's a lot more tolerable that way.

geoka9 11y ago

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on this, just describing my own experience (which may be subjective/biased/completely misinterpreted by me). If you're mostly sedentary in a first-world country, going off sugar/carbs-dominated diet brings your insulin sensitivity to its natural levels (which, very probably, it hasn't been since the moment you started eating adult food). For me this had the amazing effect of becoming more alert and productive mentally and more aware of my body physically. As an athlete, I suddenly discovered that I can be underperforming because I'm lacking fuel, and not because I'm tired, and that if I "fuel up" by eating carbs, I can expect a surge of energy that will allow me to perform well. Needless to say, the discovery was amazing, I felt like a finely tuned sports car or something. Back when I was eating a regular western diet, my insulin sensitivity was low, and "injecting" fast carbs made me drowsy, not full of energy. Needless to say once I experienced that new state, I got hooked, so sticking to good eating habits haven't required tremendous will power for me. Getting there, though, did.

tblt 11y ago
Can you go into more detail about what a regular western diet is and how your new diet differs?
- geoka9 11y ago
  By western diet I meant the gratuitous consumption of highly potent energy sources in the form of white bread/soda/cake/sugar/etc., which is common in North America (can't speak about the rest of the Western world, I hear that Europeans are lean compared to North Americans). Anyway, my approach is simple and unscientific, but it seems to work for me. I just treat any carb-rich food as fuel (there is a difference as to "slow" vs "fast" carbs, but it's not important for the purposes of this discussion :)). So, since it's fuel, I use it as such. For example, if I'm in my sedentary/low stress mode, I eat just a token amount of them. If I'm preparing for a gruelling match or bulking up at the gym, I'll load up on carbs (ideally the day before the match). If I'm cutting, I reduce the amount considerably. As for fat/protein/fiber, that's pretty much an invariant. I just eat a normal healthy amount. I do increase protein intake on the days I work out a lot, though.