Too much 'good food' will make you fat

Diet books are a perennial feature on the best seller list, right now if you look at Waterstone's non-fiction best-sellers list about half of the books are to do with diets.

The diet book is endlessly appealing, ‘finally a solution to my problem’ people say, ‘something which will just tell me what I need to do’.

At the top of the list is a book called, ‘I quit sugar’. It’s entirely representative of the trend of diet books at the moment. Everyone is blaming carbohydrates for their weight problems.

Low carb diets are not new, but they have never been more popular because they offer a quick and simple solution to most people’s problems.  The science stacks up, but there is a dark side to low carb diets.

Incorrect use of a low carb diet could make it impossible to return to a normal diet ever again. Ultimately just cutting carbs could make your problem worse.

 

 

Firstly, here’s the reason why low-carb diets work for most of us.

Take your average overweight person:

High levels of body fat impair the function on insulin by impairing its ability to transport nutrients (particularly carbs and sugars) into cells to be used for energy.

The more fat this person gains, the more that they are unable to properly manage their blood sugar. 

 

     Their body's sensitivty to insulin becomes more and more reduced, until they have to excrete a very large amount of insulin to control even small consumption of carbohydrates

The more impaired their ability to manage blood sugar becomes, the more their body has to store what they eat as fat.

When the insulin doesn't shift any more nutrients out of the blood, the body has to protect itself from damage by converting it to relatively safe fat stores.

The even better news is that because their insulin level is so high, their body is very reluctant in using fats for energy.  So as long as the carbs keep going in, the fat’s not going anywhere.

So they can’t get energy from carbs, and they can’t get energy from fats. The result is that they have no energy, which is why they feel lethargic. It isn't laziness, it’s just physiology.

When you reduce carb intake, you effectively stop the motor running this vicious cycle and everything can begin to return to balance.

 

Secondly here is a list of some of the metabolic effects of a low carb plan:

Insulin sensitivity increase

This means that cells can get hold of the energy they need to function correctly. Particularly muscle cells increase in their capability to use energy activity.

Insulin production decreases

Abnormally high levels of insulin are no longer required to keep blood sugar levels at safe levels. This means that the body will reduce its capacity to produce insulin.

Body fat will become more available for fuel

When carb intake is reduced the body alters fuel sources. After a while the shift becomes more to using fats rather than carbs. You will always use both, but the chains are off the fence surrounding your body fat. If your body needs to use it, it can.

Lastly here’s why a low carb plan shouldn't be done long term without consideration

Carbohydrate tolerance is a term used to describe how much carbohydrate absorb and utilise productively.

 

Limiting factors include the amount of insulin produced and the sensitivity of cells to insulin.

 

When someone eats more carbohydrate than they can handle they cannot absorb carbs because their insulin sensitivity becomes too low. This is what everyone hears,

 

But when someone goes too low carb for too long, they don't need to produce much insulin any more. Our bodies are efficient, we don't waste energy and so their body down-regulates the amount of insulin produced.

This means that each day they operate on a low carb level they lose the ability to produce insulin a little more. Until one day in a few years, they get to the point where they are producing so little insulin, that something like a bit of sweet potato will be too much carb and they will gain fat. 

What we need when on a low carb plan is intermittent re-feeding points.We need to periodically stimulate insulin production so that we can eat carbs. 

So next time you hear someone saying, 'Oh I don't handle carbs well so I tend to avoid them' give them a slap from me. All they're doing is creating a self fulfilling prophecy.

 The rock eats pancakes