Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
Have you ever seen how much they smoke?!And yet Asians develop diabetes and hypertension at lower weights then their American counterparts and are considered obese at lower BMIs.
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Have you ever seen how much they smoke?!And yet Asians develop diabetes and hypertension at lower weights then their American counterparts and are considered obese at lower BMIs.
<warning, rant>
Back in the Bronze age, when I was in uni, one of the classes I took was biochem. What I learned there has colored my view on LCHF-diets rather dramatically.
1. The brain needs carbos to live. If your diet includes insufficient amounts of carbos, your body will convert muscle protein to glucose to keep your brain alive. That's why fasting and ultra-low-calorie diets rob you of muscle mass.
2. Large intakes of saturated fats are a health risk. Most LCHF-diets are rich in saturated fats, so if you follow a LCHF-diet a lot of your calorie intake will be from saturated fat.
3. Weight loss/gain is the consequence of your energy balance. Take in more calories than you use, and you gain weight.Take in less calories than you use, and you lose weight. It's as simple as that. So, why do LCHF-diets work? Because over time, they kill your appetite. So you take in less calories.
4. The best way to lose weight is to skew the calories in / calories used ratio. Basically, it means eating less and exercising more. IOW, go hungry and spend more time doing unpleasant stuff like getting tired and sweaty.
</rant>
Muscles also burn calories, fat tissue doesn't (or, more precisely, hardly does). Go on a diet that contains insufficient amounts of carbos (or protein; your body can convert protein to glucose) your body breaks down muscle tissue to feed your brain. End result, you have less muscle tissue and your basic metabolism burns less calories, so you have to diet again.
Sounds like you have a sensible approach. For me, it's not "no" pasta, potatoes, rice, sweets, etc., but rather, maybe a small bit once or twice in a week. And a beer or two on Fridays. I don't understand the "high fat" aspect of these low-carb/high-fat diets
my intuition tells me that living in ketosis or a "state" of anything else for a long period of time needs more study before I am convinced it's not damaging my body.
You want to be metabolically flexible and switch between the two pathways, which you can not do unless you burn fat regularly.
This is patently wrong. The brain cannot burn fat; it can only burn carbs. That's Biochem 101.your body will feed your brain using fat for fuel
Do you know of any way to do that (burn fat) other than cutting carbs (to 20g or so per day) and, basically, just waiting out the 3 days or so until your body switches into ketosis? In a healthy way, I mean. I'm pretty sure you can burn fat with just hard exercise, but I think by the time you get to that point (presuming your body is in a state of glycolysis) you are also breaking down muscle tissue as well.