Does High-carbohydrate Intake Lead To Increased Risk Of Obesity? A Systematic Review And Meta-analys

[Cirion]

I have a special place in my heart for haagen dazs because when I crashed and burned on the Peat diet it helped me not waste away and stabilized my blood sugar. I don't see how it harmed me at all. Its almost half fat half sugar.

For sure it is helpful for someone struggling to eat enough calories and/or someone who is underweight. Also, straight sugar / sugar containing foods are not satiating (at least not for me), clash made a comment about that where I did indeed say I found fat was satiating and its in fact the reason why I kept trying to make a high fat high sugar diet work for me, because I thought it was impossible to be satiated on a pure carb diet - then I realized, starches are very satiating (for me anyway) compared to sugar, and personally it was the solution I had been missing. I secretly already suspected that for a while, but was absolutely adamantly against starch because of what Ray had written about starch basically scaring me off from even trying it lol.

 

[TeaRex14]

Yes, you stated it better than I could have. I may have remained at a reasonable weight, and others may as well - but keto is likely to be effective at making one lose muscle mass alongside the body fat and it's probably not effective at gaining muscle even in a surplus (I've tried it, it was an uphill battle to gain muscle mass on keto - it is one reason I stopped it). Water in cells tend to promote growth. But, it is challenging to impossible to keep water in muscles on keto (glycogen) thus they aren't receiving the proper signals to grow like they are in a high carb diet. I dunno if I agree with the low protein part though. BUT, I will admit I haven't been going low-ish protein long enough to say anything conclusively yet. So I'll hold my tongue on that one until I have more experience doing it. Also I do think dietary fat absolutely has some value - once you are metabolically flexible to handle it. That's the key. I don't think a 80%+carb diet is likely to be the ideal human diet long term but rather an intervention diet like in my case where I'm struggling to regain insulin sensitivity and body weight. Also dietary fat is probably desireable if someone is underweight. Eating low fat is likely not wise in that scenario. I likely plan to re-introduce some dietary fat once I reach my goal weight.

Well it's also important to define "low protein". Considering every individual seems to have a different opinion on that. I know when I first started applying some of Peat's ideas to my lifestyle, I thought his view on protein was a little on the low side. I came from the whole bodybuilding.com side of things, eating around 0.8-1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. But as time went on, I actually felt kind of better restricting protein to around 120-130 grams a day. Of course people from the whole 80/10/10 side of things would think 120 grams is still about 60 grams too high. Yeah I think fat is important, besides facilitating the adsorption of fat soluble vitamins, it also provides a satiating effect to meals I've found. But the amount needed to achieve these things is no where near as high as people might think. Most people would do just fine on a diet with 20% fat, or even 15%.

 

[CLASH]

@Cirion
Works for me man. Wish you the best. I’ll be watching from the sideline to see how it goes.

@TeaRex14
I came from bodybuilding as well. Definetly think the protein levels discussed there are overblown. Felt way better on .6g/lb to .7g/lb than 1g/lb

 

[Cirion]

Well I started reading up on vegan lifestyles and was at the very least motivated to dramatically lower protein intake. Immediately I have noticed dramatic increases in energy and reductions in lethargy. However, I have noticed one or two issues. I am having some pain in the muscles near my ribcage. I can't say for sure if it is a result of lowered protein intake though. Because I am rather fat now, my stomach bulges out, so I wonder if a lot of the pain is literally because the skin/muscle is chronically stretched in an uncomfortable manner? I don't really have muscle pains or anything anywhere else. And my protein isn't insanely low, despite radical reduction in animal protein intake. I still typically get at least 60-80 gram a day. I am probably going to add in a small amount of beef once or twice a week, just in case, to avoid protein/B12/mineral issues. I also still have one or two glasses of non-fat milk just to avoid any calcium deficiencies also. I think 100 gram is a reasonably safe spot to be. It's not super high so you don't really run into tryptophan issues, but it's not super low either, so you should probably avoid any muscle wasting concerns, at least as long as you eat sufficient carbs/calories.

 

[TeaRex14]

I have a special place in my heart for haagen dazs because when I crashed and burned on the Peat diet it helped me not waste away and stabilized my blood sugar. I don't see how it harmed me at all. Its almost half fat half sugar.

Metabolic flexibility is based on how well your metabolic rate is working. Also the more muscle you have, the more fat you will burn at rest. Weight lifting 2-3 times a week greatly helps, I think reps until failure is the best method. But due to the fact PUFA inhibits multiple metabolic pathways, everything from thyroid hormone to pyruvate dehydrogenase (needed to burn glucose properly), embarking on that long journey to remove them is crucial. It can take up to 3 to 4 years of strict low PUFA (1-3%) to deplete them from your tissues. I find quitting PUFA is a lot like quitting cigarettes. You can quit cigarettes today, and 3 years from now, still get a health problem related to your past cigarette usage. PUFAs are exactly the same way.

 

[TeaRex14]

Well I started reading up on vegan lifestyles and was at the very least motivated to dramatically lower protein intake. Immediately I have noticed dramatic increases in energy and reductions in lethargy. However, I have noticed one or two issues. I am having some pain in the muscles near my ribcage. I can't say for sure if it is a result of lowered protein intake though. Because I am rather fat now, my stomach bulges out, so I wonder if a lot of the pain is literally because the skin/muscle is chronically stretched in an uncomfortable manner? I don't really have muscle pains or anything anywhere else. And my protein isn't insanely low, despite radical reduction in animal protein intake. I still typically get at least 60-80 gram a day. I am probably going to add in a small amount of beef once or twice a week, just in case, to avoid protein/B12/mineral issues. I also still have one or two glasses of non-fat milk just to avoid any calcium deficiencies also. I think 100 gram is a reasonably safe spot to be. It's not super high so you don't really run into tryptophan issues, but it's not super low either, so you should probably avoid any muscle wasting concerns, at least as long as you eat sufficient carbs/calories.

If you're eating high carb then 100 grams s probably fine, I wouldn't worry about it. Unless you physically start feeling bad.

 

[Cirion]

Metabolic flexibility is based on how well your metabolic rate is working. Also the more muscle you have, the more fat you will burn at rest. Weight lifting 2-3 times a week greatly helps, I think reps until failure is the best method. But due to the fact PUFA inhibits multiple metabolic pathways, everything from thyroid hormone to pyruvate dehydrogenase (needed to burn glucose properly), embarking on that long journey to remove them is crucial. It can take up to 3 to 4 years of strict low PUFA (1-3%) to deplete them from your tissues. I find quitting PUFA is a lot like quitting cigarettes. You can quit cigarettes today, and 3 years from now, still get a health problem related to your past cigarette usage. PUFAs are exactly the same way.

Agreed. I think metabolic flexibility should be the goal. I however don't think based upon my own experience at least, that trying to "force" metabolic efficiency via mixing fats and carbs is wise. I think losing the body fat and purging pufa's are required first. Which you basically already said. And I don't believe that eating a high fat diet is conducive to this. Especially if you are fat like me. The rules may very well be different if one is skinny but hypo vs. someone who is fat and hypo. It's virtually impossible (aside from eating hydrogenated coconut oil) to eat high fat and be low PUFA anyways. So it does basically mean low total fat is going to be the best to drop PUFA stores. (I tried HCO btw - that stuff is bad for my digestion/bowels. I had very very angry bowels after eating a lot of HCO... lol)

The advantage of a very high carb diet is it makes it easier to weightlift. For 6 months I haven't had enough energy to workout. I'd be lying if I said my energy levels were 10/10 now, but I'm finally at the point where I think I can handle light workouts, and I owe it to a large carb intake. I've noticed I can handle longer walks without fatigueing quite as easily. Walked a total of 1 hr yesterday, and since I'm fat, that's like almost 2 hrs of walking for someone lean (I have a lot of mass to move lol)

Nathan hatch seems to be somewhat of an outlier. In his book, he says he ate high fat and high carb while restoring his metabolism. However, he took lots of supplements, hormones, and T3 as well. I think that is the key. If you take a lot of T3 and/or hormones, this may help in restoring metabolic efficiency even while you're still fat/PUFA laden. I am interested to see how T3 works for me. My tyronene should be in the mail this week. I know I have sworn off virtually all supplements, but T3 is different from all "supplements" I have used in the past, I am hoping it will directly improve some metabolic markers to help me lose weight in a healthy manner, and I'll likely later taper it down or off completely.

 

[TeaRex14]

Agreed. I think metabolic flexibility should be the goal. I however don't think based upon my own experience at least, that trying to "force" metabolic efficiency via mixing fats and carbs is wise. I think losing the body fat and purging pufa's are required first. Which you basically already said. And I don't believe that eating a high fat diet is conducive to this. Especially if you are fat like me. The rules may very well be different if one is skinny but hypo vs. someone who is fat and hypo. It's virtually impossible (aside from eating hydrogenated coconut oil) to eat high fat and be low PUFA anyways. So it does basically mean low total fat is going to be the best to drop PUFA stores. (I tried HCO btw - that stuff is bad for my digestion/bowels. I had very very angry bowels after eating a lot of HCO... lol)

The advantage of a very high carb diet is it makes it easier to weightlift. For 6 months I haven't had enough energy to workout. I'd be lying if I said my energy levels were 10/10 now, but I'm finally at the point where I think I can handle light workouts, and I owe it to a large carb intake. I've noticed I can handle longer walks without fatigueing quite as easily. Walked a total of 1 hr yesterday, and since I'm fat, that's like almost 2 hrs of walking for someone lean (I have a lot of mass to move lol)

Nathan hatch seems to be somewhat of an outlier. In his book, he says he ate high fat and high carb while restoring his metabolism. However, he took lots of supplements, hormones, and T3 as well. I think that is the key. If you take a lot of T3 and/or hormones, this may help in restoring metabolic efficiency even while you're still fat/PUFA laden. I am interested to see how T3 works for me. My tyronene should be in the mail this week.

Yeah I don't think forcing it is good, because in the end it doesn't really work. It'll just result in weight gain, sometimes massive weight gain, lol. I think if there's one thing the Peat community is confused on by large it's the whole saturated fat topic. Peat seems to be pro saturated fat in the context of an overall low total fat diet. He believes the two superior sources of fat is the fats we make from carbohydrate, and eating a couple tablespoons of coconut oil. I think many of the people on the forum dealing with problems still should probably look at reducing their total fat intake and see if that helps them, but that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. I've never tried hydrogenated coconut oil yet, I just use the regular refined stuff (non hydorgenated). I don't really eat enough of it to let the PUFAs add up anyways.

And there's no way I could lift weights without my carbs, I would fail every time. You won't find too many low carbers hitting the gym much. The biggest voices in the low carb community, guys like Mark Sisson, also support the idea of carb "refeeds" to lose that last little bit of bellyfat that tends to hang around. Which makes sense, considering a carb refeed would lower cortisol and allow abdominal fat to decrease.

Yeah I haven't read Nathan Hatch's book, from my understanding though he had cancer right? Or am I thinking about someone else? Anyways I'm happy for the guy, hope he has a long and healthful journey. I think the T3 and hormones would help a lot. Just from my own personal experience pregnenolone helps me a lot. I think with T3 specifically, dosage and timing of dosage is key. From everything I've read small, frequent dosages is better than big dosages.

 

[Cirion]

Yeah I don't think forcing it is good, because in the end it doesn't really work. It'll just result in weight gain, sometimes massive weight gain, lol.

This is literally what happened to me. I kept eating dietary fat, believing "the fat gain will stop once my stress hormones have sufficiently dropped from eating a calorie surplus". I still actually kinda believe this, but in a different way. I think eating a large / surplus of carbohydrates WHILE eating a low / deficit of fats is the key now though.

I think if there's one thing the Peat community is confused on by large it's the whole saturated fat topic. Peat seems to be pro saturated fat in the context of an overall low total fat diet. He believes the two superior sources of fat is the fats we make from carbohydrate, and eating a couple tablespoons of coconut oil. I think many of the people on the forum dealing with problems still should probably look at reducing their total fat intake and see if that helps them, but that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. I've never tried hydrogenated coconut oil yet, I just use the regular refined stuff (non hydorgenated). I don't really eat enough of it to let the PUFAs add up anyways.

Yeah the problem is it is easy to take some things he says out of context. Saturated fats are good, so let's eat 200 gram of it! (I am ashamed to say I used to eat that much while also eating high carb lol). There *are* a few people here thriving on very high fat BUT virtually all of them have lowered their carb intake also, so that's probably why they get away with it. Yeah I wouldn't worry about bothering with HCO. For someone who isn't extremely overweight, they might not need to go extreme like me, but I've done the damage to myself, and now paying the price lol.

And there's no way I could lift weights without my carbs, I would fail every time. You won't find too many low carbers hitting the gym much. The biggest voices in the low carb community, guys like Mark Sisson, also support the idea of carb "refeeds" to lose that last little bit of bellyfat that tends to hang around. Which makes sense, considering a carb refeed would lower cortisol and allow abdominal fat to decrease.

I used to powerlift (squat 300+ bench 240+ deadlift 350+) while on low carb. One of the most stupid things I have done in my life, let's just say. Lots of chronic pains, depression/emotional problems, chronic fatigue and insomnia, all sorts of fun stuff. One day I want to powerlift again, but it's going to be in a healthy fashion probably fueled by a very high carb diet.

Yeah I haven't read Nathan Hatch's book, from my understanding though he had cancer right? Or am I thinking about someone else? Anyways I'm happy for the guy, hope he has a long and healthful journey. I think the T3 and hormones would help a lot. Just from my own personal experience pregnenolone helps me a lot. I think with T3 specifically, dosage and timing of dosage is key. From everything I've read small, frequent dosages is better than big dosages.

Yeah same guy. Yeah I'll see, I'll start at a moderate dosage and increase until I am happy with the results.

 

[pepsi]

I been very low fat for a while losing body fat slowly . I included some cocoa butter past few days because of recent threads saying it helps burn body fat. I feel like I got fatter already lol. For me the fat i think the fat is the fat I wear .

I felt like I gained weight with the cocoa butter also, I still have it sitting in my refrigerator and wondering if I should try it again.
I did get hydrogenated coconut oil though and feel like Ive lost a few pounds, I havent changed anything else in my diet. I ordered a few more bottles so will see how it goes longer term.