Top 10 Reasons Why Low Carb Dieters Can Get Fatter and Fatter Written by Henri Schauffler
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7. Dieting alone - not enlisting help of a support network 6. Believing too much of hype on commercially prepared low carb foods – all “net carbs” promotion belies fact that one must eat a healthy mix of protein and complex carbohydrates everyday 5. Sliding in and out of low carb living - Yo-yo low carb dieting is a certain road to getting fatter. Higher fat combined with carbs - certain death! 4. Failing to be creative with one's menu choices - Eating same old eggs and meat everyday leads to cheating - for sheer lack of variety 3. Not exercising regularly - Every dieter needs at least four days a week of exercise, especially those over 30 (most of us!). 2. Ignoring need for self motivation - We need to spend time everyday, (we recommend at least 20 minutes per day) 1. Failing to commit to low carb living for rest of one's life - For long term success, one needs to commit to a self disciplined, intentional daily "Low Carb Lifestyle." Anything less will, for most of us, end up in weight gain and frustration. We have concluded that low carb approach is absolutely best system, but we must follow certain principles absolutely. Failure to do so will actually make you fatter while tricking you into thinking you are on a diet!
Henri Schauffler is the founder and webmaster of http://www.lowcarb-lifestyles.com, an online community that gives low carb dieters the tools they need to succeed - for life. Visit http:www.lowcarb-lifestyles.com to grab your free 7 day trial.
| | Can low carb dieters eat all they want, and still lose weight?Written by Tanya Zilberter, PhD
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salads, vegetables and unsaturated oils. Red meats and saturated fats were limited (as opposed to traditional Atkins menus.) All meals looked similar but were cooked to different recipes. The low-carb meals were 5% carbs, 15% protein, 65% fat. The low fat group got 55% carbohydrate, 15% protein, 30% fat. Results: 1. All dieters lost weight, but those on low carb diet lost more than low fat group -- even while consuming MORE calories: - Group on lower-cal, low-carb diet lost an average of 23 lbs. - Group on same-calories low-fat diet lost an average of 17 lbs. - Group on extra 300 calories, low-carb diet lost an average of 20 lbs. 2. Over course of study, group of low carb dieters who got an extra 300 calories a day consumed extra 25,000 calories. That should have added up to about seven pounds. But for some reason, it did not. Discussion: "It doesn't make sense, does it?" said Barbara Rolls of Pennsylvania State University. "It violates laws of thermodynamics. No one has ever found any miraculous metabolic effects." So it violates laws of thermodynamics, huh? Not so fast! When it comes to calorie counting, "calorie is a calorie" concept is very deceiving. Let's see what we count when we think we count calories. When you burn a piece of wood in a stove, you can directly measure how much heat energy it produces. Then you can claim that you know how many calories a piece of wood contains, right? Not exactly. You should specify what kind of wood it was, dry or wet, how you burned it, etc. Because if you spent another material to start burning, you should subtract these calories from total; if wood was wet you should take into account calories that water evaporation took. So even with a piece of wood, it's not that simple. Now look at a piece of food. You know how they tell how many calories it contains? Same way they talk about a piece of wood in a stove. It's calorie number that food would produce by being burnt in a stove. Then in addition to wood's calorie estimation (that takes into account dryness, etc.), you should add many more circumstances: how hard should one chew it before being able to swallow, how hard one's enzyme system will have work to digest it, will it influence hormones in charge of fat storing? What about its effect on hormones in charge of fat burning? Which chain of reactions will it trigger, activity-wise or metabolism-wise? Will it make one sleepy, thus conserving energy? Ot will it make one jumpy, thus wasting energy? Study #3 by: Laboratory of Applied Physiology, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan Reported: J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2003 Dec;88(12):5661-7 Method: Healthy boys, aged 8-11 yr, were examined for resting energy expenditure and thermic effect of a meal, which were measured for three hours after a same-calorie but high-fat or a high-carb meals. Results: There was no changes after high carbohydrate meals but there was an increase in resting energy expenditure after a high-fat meal. If researchers in Study #2 would have measured resting energy expenditure and thermic effects of meals, they would probably have registered same changes. Then everybody would make a sigh of relief: none of laws of thermodynamics have been violated: yes, low-carb dieters COULD INDEED eat more calories and lose more weight than low-fat group while violating no physical laws because -- they just burnt more, all time, even at rest. It's that simple.
Tanya Zilberter, PhD, is a researcher, health educator, exercise physiologist, and scientific journalist. In health sciences since 1972, Dr. Zilberter authored several hundred scientific and popular publications, including four print books and more than a dozen of eBooks.
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