I’m pretty big on diet shake-ups: if what you’re doing is not working for you then change it. Doing the same thing (or more of it) and expecting better results is just *nuts*, if you think about it.
Just in the last few months I have finally wrapped my brain around the idea that insulin is not the only hormone. I’ve recently gone back and read the actual food suggestions in Neanderthin and The Paleo Diet and found that those diets have 25-35% of calories (maybe 150g in a 2,000 calorie diet) from carbohydrates. For The Primal Blueprint, that’s near the top of the curve, but it’s definitely still on the curve. Certainly, from the point of view of the USDA Dietary Guidelines, that is a low-carb diet, but for people that come from a world of GCBC and Atkins…from the way they react to the idea of eating a banana, you’d think it was SAD-levels of carbohydrate.
I found myself saying on a forum “but I eat a lot more fruit than is currently fashionable in Paleo circles”, and I realized that it is probably more than just fashionable — it’s more like a dogma. In particular, there seems to be a terror of fructose, but the accepted leading authority, Robert Lustig, has no problems with fruit. He thinks fruit juices are a really bad idea, but not whole fruit because it comes with fiber. I’ve seen others (and I’m not sure who, unfortunately) say that juice is OK if it’s fresh squeezed in your own kitchen (something Ray Audette has on his Neanderthin meal plans, BTW) – that what makes fruit bad is *cooking* it. Since virtually all bottled juice is pasteurized, that would eliminate all but that you’ve squeezed yourself. That whole end of the discussion seems to provoke incredulity in people like Jimmy Moore who think all sugar is bad and that’s that. I believed for a long time that any kind of sugar would make me gain weight, but it just doesn’t.
A trip around paleohacks.com will show that there are more than a handful of folks that have stalled out with muscle gains and/or weight loss while eating 50g or less of carbohydrate a day. I see people on the low-carb boards and forums decide that they are eating too many calories, so they take carbs lower or go ZC because more protein and/or more fatty meat allows them to eat fewer calories. They either can’t stick to it or it still doesn’t work, and they just come on and off the threads alternately sounding discouraged or confused. It gets a little sad to read because it gets to the point where, though they diet is failing them ultimately, they think *they* are a failure for not sticking to it properly. If you can’t stick to it, that’s a failure of the diet too. TRY SOMETHING ELSE. Many of these folks have lost a lot of weight already, and they have demonstrated they have will power…but suddenly it’s not working, so it must be their fault!
Here’s how it seems to me:
- If you have an insulin resistance problem, low-carb will work well for you and you probably don’t need to deliberately reduce calories. You may or may not be eating less, but reducing the glucose load on your already burdened liver and pancreas is so helpful that you lose weight no matter what.
- If you don’t have an insulin resistance problem, low-carb will work well for you if it causes a decent-sized spontaneous reduction in calories.
The insulin resistant folks seem to stop losing weight when they have solved their sugar problem. This is often way before they’d *like* to stop losing weight. Eventually, kind friends and internet acquaintances start talking about how health is more important than appearance. Goodness knows, I think that a long-term low-carb diet is quite healthy for people. All their biomarkers are excellent, but if they want to be thin, they need to take a chance on something else!
Awesome. I’ve been saying this recently too. While paleo is awesome, and there’s lots of take-aways from it, there’s a lot of take-aways from the “Real Food” movement as well. Whole foods that are both natural and (kinda) enjoyable in their raw state are what we should be eating. Counting calories, macronutrient levels, or anything else is just moving AWAY from paleo and into the realm of Nutritionism and its bro-science
I came to Paleo (actually Sisson’s Primal diet) and dropped pounds and improved my entire lifestyle dramatically. I’ll never go back SAD again. That said, I have found I do just as well on a WAPF type diet as on a paleo type diet (got a copy of Nourishing Traditions and like it quite a bit). I still eschew grains for the most part – WAPF recommends you eat them but should soak/ferment them and I just don’t see why I would go to all that trouble for a slice of bread. I do eat rice on occasion now, and I’ve been gorging myself on peaches and nectarines over the summer as I just can’t get enough. And peaches are awesome cooked – they go well with ground beef or buffalo and a little cayenne thrown in.
So, I guess it comes back to the old “moderation in all things” axiom. Who’da thunk?
It really is odd how often your posts mirror what is going on in my own head. I have been struggling with a fear of carbs (and particularly fructose) but I do so love my apple chips, dried mango and fresh strawberries and really don’t want to give them up. Lately I have been making a concerted effort to not get seduced into the carb cutting mentality when I want to drop a few pounds (like the four I brought back from Mexico). Lately I have found I am able to eat quite a lot of fruit, a great big bowl of rice and some Terra chips without them showing up on the scale as I feared they would. I can also admit to a trip to a famous dessert place that resulted in my downing a HUGE slice of Dulce De Leche Chocolate Cake without gaining much to speak of. I’m also trying very hard to not go back to FitDay either … and not focus on calories or % of F/P/C. It still remains to be seen how I will lose those 4lbs – I’m hoping my body setpoint had been lowered and if I just cut back a little for a little while my weight will go back down on it’s own. What’s the ’something else’ you think folks should try?
I find the endless debate about percentages of micro-nutrients, etc., among basically healthy people or people whose only goal is to lose weight to waste a lot of bandwidth. If you are damaged like me, a 25-year type 2 diabetic, then you are only a prick away from figuring out exactly which foods you can and can’t eat. In fact, testing sugar levels would be a good way for non-diabetics who are interested in eating real foods to make the same determination.
It would be extremely rare for a non-diabetics sugar level to be over 120 one hour after eating. If it is, then the carbs you ate are not something your body handles well.
Honestly I found the most effective approach to really long term weight-loss is doing basically this… I have a lot of weight to lose, but after about 15 pounds or so a low carb diet will seem to taper off for me effectiveness wise, especially when it comes to body fat loss. What does help me when I hit that wall is to spend some time (usually at least a week) on a paleo diet that is lower in fat and “high” carb. Basically lean means, lots of fruit, and starchier veg than I would usually reach for, also more milk/yogurt than I usually have. I’ll gain about 2-3 pounds right away, but that seems to be all water because my body fat % won’t raise. Over the week, I’ll lose very slowly (at least compared to low carb), but when I return to low carb the weight drops off like it did when I first started the diet, and the majority will be body fat. It’s also good for sanity
All that been said, I would REALLY love to know the science behind why this method works so well for me.
I’ve seem to have “evolved” through food allergies to a Paleo diet, and like you I eat a TONNE of fruit, but it doesn’t seem to do me any harm at all. I love it! Mind you I also eat a tonne of veggies, but i’d be lost if I had to cut out my fruit, nor would I ever! lol!