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I've pretty much cut out sugar and most carbs for 4-5 years now. I was never fat, but I wanted to lose those 5 extra pounds around my hips that just seemed impo

I've pretty much cut out sugar and most carbs for 4-5 years now. I was never fat, but I wanted to lose those 5 extra pounds around my hips that just seemed impossible to shed for me doing a standard, less caloric diet and lots of exercise. Cutting out sugars/breads worked wonders for me personally, and at stretches in life when I'm feeling really lazy and don't want to work out, it's way easier to regulate my body weight using a low-carb regimen and still be able to eat large, satisfying meals.

autism_hurts 12y ago
Agreed. The Four Hour Body's "Slow Carb Diet" completely changed my life. I was insulin insensitive and game from an Italian background of low-protein high carb. I lost 30-35lbs in 3.5 months. It was unreal. The weight came off, without exercise, every day. When I plateaued, I cut diet soda as a treat and the weightloss continued. I got to 150lbs at 6'0 -- too skinny. Now I eat more Paleo, but still low carb and still eat some legumes (lentils!) I don't subscribe to the calories in calories out model at all. Everyone seems to discount body composition. Someone eating 2,000calories of carbs is going to look AND feel a lot different than eating 2,000 calories of protein and carbs bound with fiber. I hate the crowd here that subscribes to some sort of human body perfect thermodynamic engine. It's complete bullshit.
- uaygsfdbzf 12y ago
  I often try to argue with a few friends that modeling the human body as a perfect thermodynamic engine (the idea that your energy output being the same, the consumed calorie count is all that matters WRT weight gain). I haven't been able to get any interesting discussion about nutrition started because of this fundamental disconnect -- if you do treat the human body as converting calories to energy regardless of how you take in the calories, a lot of very interesting research (e.g. the importance of gut flora) becomes practically irrelevant if you're talking about weight loss/weight gain. Does anyone have any pointers on research or well-supported arguments that clearly show that this model (only calories matter) doesn't do the real world justice? If you have research/pointers suggesting that the model is actually good enough, I'd be interested too.
penguindev 12y ago
Congrats on such a long time sticking with it. I've been on low carb 2 years, no wheat, down from 225 to 180 with 0 exercise, and I'm 34. In the middle of that stretch, I had a regression due to eating too much fat (fat bombs, sour cream, heavy cream, butter, etc.) and I bounced up. So I decided to just eat protein and what fat comes naturally with it, and not add any extra pure fat, for as long as I'm trying to burn my own fat. And that's worked well - basically meat, eggs, cheese. In fact, I'm probably about done with the loss phase now. Yay! And I don't get 'hangry' as my wife would say, due to blood sugar crashes, so mentally I'm much better.
- taternuts 12y ago
  > I had a regression due to eating too much fat (fat bombs, sour cream, heavy cream, butter, etc.) I went through this phase too - at one point I was eating things for breakfast that even Ron Swanson would have thought was disgusting :)

autism_hurts 12y ago

Agreed. The Four Hour Body's "Slow Carb Diet" completely changed my life. I was insulin insensitive and game from an Italian background of low-protein high carb. I lost 30-35lbs in 3.5 months. It was unreal. The weight came off, without exercise, every day. When I plateaued, I cut diet soda as a treat and the weightloss continued. I got to 150lbs at 6'0 -- too skinny. Now I eat more Paleo, but still low carb and still eat some legumes (lentils!) I don't subscribe to the calories in calories out model at all. Everyone seems to discount body composition. Someone eating 2,000calories of carbs is going to look AND feel a lot different than eating 2,000 calories of protein and carbs bound with fiber. I hate the crowd here that subscribes to some sort of human body perfect thermodynamic engine. It's complete bullshit.

uaygsfdbzf 12y ago
I often try to argue with a few friends that modeling the human body as a perfect thermodynamic engine (the idea that your energy output being the same, the consumed calorie count is all that matters WRT weight gain). I haven't been able to get any interesting discussion about nutrition started because of this fundamental disconnect -- if you do treat the human body as converting calories to energy regardless of how you take in the calories, a lot of very interesting research (e.g. the importance of gut flora) becomes practically irrelevant if you're talking about weight loss/weight gain. Does anyone have any pointers on research or well-supported arguments that clearly show that this model (only calories matter) doesn't do the real world justice? If you have research/pointers suggesting that the model is actually good enough, I'd be interested too.

penguindev 12y ago

Congrats on such a long time sticking with it. I've been on low carb 2 years, no wheat, down from 225 to 180 with 0 exercise, and I'm 34. In the middle of that stretch, I had a regression due to eating too much fat (fat bombs, sour cream, heavy cream, butter, etc.) and I bounced up. So I decided to just eat protein and what fat comes naturally with it, and not add any extra pure fat, for as long as I'm trying to burn my own fat. And that's worked well - basically meat, eggs, cheese. In fact, I'm probably about done with the loss phase now. Yay! And I don't get 'hangry' as my wife would say, due to blood sugar crashes, so mentally I'm much better.

taternuts 12y ago
> I had a regression due to eating too much fat (fat bombs, sour cream, heavy cream, butter, etc.) I went through this phase too - at one point I was eating things for breakfast that even Ron Swanson would have thought was disgusting :)