In 2010, researchers from of the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple University, Philadelphia revealed that after a two-year comparison, a low-carb diet fares about as well as a low-fat diet with regards to weight loss. (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/196710.php/)
Put another way, a high fat diet is just as good for weight loss as a high carb diet.
More than likely, your first reaction to the suggestion that lots of fat in your diet is a good thing would be one of puzzlement or disgust.
“High Fat” conjures up images of fast food, grease, blocked arteries, obesity and even death.
However, the Inuit diet is a testament to a perfectly healthy, more natural, carnivorous way of eating. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_diet for a crash-course on the Inuit diet)
How does it work?
When you limit your carbohydrate intake (to around 5%), the body goes into ketosis. Ketosis is the state where your body converts fat (stored body fat and any fat that you ingest) into ketones (what you get when the liver and kidneys break down fatty acids into energy). Your body is designed to survive perfectly fine on energy from ketones.
Raw meat (in particular, organs, and most definitely from organic sources) provides a very compacted nutrient source, and contains a full spectrum of minerals, vitamins, and acids (see study http://www.jbc.org/content/87/3/651.full.pdf).
If a portion (for simplicity sake, let’s just say larger than 5% of calories, although the actual amount will vary from individual to individual) of your intake comes from carbohydrates (the sugars from which your body is fuelled), your body will convert energy from carbs as a preference to converting energy from fats.
When 6 grams (more or less) of glucose hit your bloodstream, insulin is released.
Insulin signals your body to store fat.
Therefore, in order to lose weight on a high carbohydrate diet you need to limit your fat intake to next to nothing.
Now, let me be quick to say that just because you [nearly] eliminate carbs from your diet, and therefore insulin production at a minimum, it doesn’t mean that you can eat unlimited calories from fat and not gain weight.
Acylation-stimulating protein stores fat without the use of insulin.
Our bodies developed for survival. The mathematics are simple: If you eat more than you need (whether carbs or fat), the excess will be stored for future use.
How calories are stored as fat (quoting from Larry DeLuca, EdM, CSCS)
“Excess carbohydrate calories must be converted to triglycerides before they can be stored as body fat.
This process requires over 25% of the energy stored in the food.
Thus, if you took in 100 Calories of pure carbohydrate in excess of your body’s needs, you’d only store about 75 Calories worth of fat, since you used up some of the energy in the conversion process.
Fat, on the other hand, is fat to begin with. It only takes about 3% of the energy in it to put it up on the larder shelf, as it were. Thus, 100 Calories from fat in excess of your body’s needs can end up as 97 Calories worth of saddlebag.
Remember that we take in nutrients of all sorts together, though – fats, carbs, and proteins. Thus, the most important factor over time is generally the total number of calories. However, if you keep the number of calories in your diet exactly the same and switch from a high-fat to a lower-fat diet you will generally notice a reduction in weight (assuming you were in caloric balance beforehand).”
How many calories do you need?
What makes you believe that your assumed “recommended calories” are correct?
This is a question that I’m still trying to answer for myself.
When your body is too deficient in calories, it WILL go into starvation mode and start to shut down on you to counter the starvation effect.
Back to the topic of this article, however…
Carbs and fat are just about as mutually exclusive as you can get.
If you want to lose weight, it’s either bread or butter. You can’t have both. (actually, from a nutritional standpoint, I hate bread … but I’ll cover that some other time)
Now. I’m not exactly overweight, but there are some stubborn pounds that I’d love to shed.
Most people feel the same way.
Truth be told, I’d give a high-fat, low-carb diet a shot … if it weren’t for the moral choices that I’ve made about eating meat.
My diet therefore has to be high carb, low fat, and calorie restricted in order to avoid weight gain, and that’s what this burst of writing is going to explore.
Did you know that on average, fruits and vegetables (greens included) comprise some 80-90% calories from carbohydrates?
No – it’s not just bread, pasta, and white sugar that are loaded with carbs!!
In fact, bread, pasta, and white sugar are (in my opinion) the reasons why carbs have got such a bad name.
These refined foods are high in calories, and VERY low in any nutrients (apart from sodium (because it’d taste AWFUL if there was no added salt).
When you fill up on these foods, you end up eating far more calories/carbohydrates than you need, the insulin triggers you to store the excess sugar calories as fat, and you end up having physically very little space (if any) left for the vegetables and greens that would actually nourish your body and not just sustain it.
Keep posted for the next article where I’m going to delve into carbohydrates in more detail, and how to eat a healthier high-carb diet.