I've been trying the opposite lately -- a high carb diet. I've mostly been modeling my eating style after Dr. McDougall's "Starch Solution" plan. He basically believes that humans are designed to eat starchy foods (potatoes, whole grains, etc), and that fats are bad (healthy fats -- like from avocados -- aren't necessarily unhealthy, but aren't great if you are trying to lose weight). So one of the core tenets of this plan is to keep fat and protein very low, and roughly an 80/10/10 percentage of carbs/protein/fat, which means cooking without oils, butter, etc.
The staple of my diet is potatoes. I eat potatoes nearly every day, and I eat a lot of them. My favorite way is to slice them up into wedges, add some spices, bake them, and then dip them in mustard. I also eat lots of rice, beans, oatmeal, bread, occasionally something like cheerios for a snack, etc.
The beauty of this plan is that if you stick to resistant starches, and keep fat low, you don't need to count calories. You will likely feel full before you will overeat calories. I'm down about 15 pounds since starting in February (6 ft tall, down from 195 to 180ish), and I've got the most ab definition I've ever had from JUST a diet (I'm barely doing any cardio right now). But more importantly, I feel really good.
Anyway, this is not to undermine a ketogenic diet. I think both are effective ways to feel good and look good... either eating low enough carbs that your body burns fat (Keto), or eating low enough fat that your body isn't storing any. I just enjoy experimenting with different ways of eating, and this one happens to be working great for me right now.
Totally, I actually had a physical scheduled for last week, before realizing I scheduled it for a date I was going to be out of town. So unfortunately I had to reschedule for August. But anyway, there is a decent amount of people who are following this plan, and if you are interested, you can find a lot of anecdotal experiences (including people reporting on their blood testing, etc) by googling "Starch Solution" or "Dr McDougall Starch Solution". There is also an active Facebook group.
There is a book called "The Starch Solution" which I haven't read yet, nor have I done a whole of reading of research studies yet. But, I do know that McDougall and some of his colleagues believe that diabetes is actually caused by higher fat intake, and that this plan has been used by lots of people to cure their diabetes. Sounds so counterintuitive, and like I said, I haven't read/understood the science behind that claim yet.
This sounds dangerous. I am not on this diet and don't know anything about it but I second the recommendation to closely monitor your blood sugar levels because the science on that is clear. While I do the opposite (high fat low carb), I still monitor my blood sugar anyway, just for good measure (because I have too many people close to me with diabetes).
If you decide to monitor using this, you should check your waking blood sugar and it should be <100, ideally below 90. Your pre-meal should be 80-100, 45-60 minutes after a meal has the highest level usually and that should ideally not cross 140. <120 is great. 120-180 is acceptable. >180 is problematic. 200+ is pre-diabetes. 2 hours after a meal it should definitely be <140 or else that's pre-diabetes as well. Better to be <120 or completely back to our baseline of 80-100.
Regarding the high carb concept - this seems to go directly against our genetics. The human genome was basically "finalized" in its current form at a time when we had no large sources of carbohydrates because we couldn't cultivate anything like rice and potatoes. So our diet at the time consisted primarily of foods that are high fat and moderate protein, as well as greens and vegetables. One thing to note about high fat diets is that they should be high in natural, saturated fats like animal fats and nuts, not the garbage oils like vegetable and canola oil, which a lot of people and businesses drench their foods in.
Sounds dangerous? Perhaps it's more dangerous to "live in a bubble" and believe only the latest NYT-bestseller fashion diets.
I have two words for you: Mediterranean Diet. Before thinking that this paleo/keto stuff is the best possible, please take it with a grain of salt and try to understand the whole.
I am not an expert (even if I consider myself very well educated on nutrition and diets), and I am not saying you're wrong. What I say is: be careful when telling someone "it's dangerous" when, in fact, it's really hard to have a definitive answer to almost any diet you can encounter.
Thanks for the helpful breakdown. I might have to give the blood sugar monitoring a shot.
Just curious, in what way were you thinking it would be dangerous? I'm trying to find some good scholarly research articles, but I'm not sure what I should be searching for.
I think kind of the "common knowledge" perspective is that high carb causes obesity and diabetes. But I'm wondering if there are other dangers beyond those that you might be referring to.
In regards to obesity and diabetes, I think a lot of researchers are starting to doubt those claims. Here is an article from the American Diabetes Association that concluded that the participants of the study (all of whom had diabetes) responded well to higher carb diets:
Also, there are two notable cultures/groups of people--the Okinawans and the Adventists--that eat high carb, low fat, low protein, and both of which have some of the best longevity rates and highest rates of centenarians. Obviously those types of statistics are really hard to determine causation, but I thought that was worth mentioning that they at least don't have high rates of obesity and diabetes like you'd maybe expect.
Yes, the danger I was trying to caution you on was the well known causal relationship of carbohydrates producing blood sugar spikes. That could lead to obesity and diabetes.
The article you site is quite old, published 40 years ago in 1978. While I don't discount medical research based solely on age, there have been a substantial number of studies done over the last 5-10 years which have supported the higher fat diet, as long as those are healthy, natural fats.
I'm glad you brought up the Okinawans and the Adventists. That's a good point I would like to address. The Adventists consume a good variety of foods, and their website includes mentions of "legumes, dairy products, and healthy fats such as olive oil." It also includes fruits, vegetables, and yes, whole grains, while also avoiding processed foods and added sugars. So I wouldn't say they are necessarily low fat. With dairy, olive oil, etc, they are most likely moderate fat. The only real question here is the grains, which I will address next, along with the Okinawans.
It is my understanding that the human body has the ability to store glycogen in the muscles and the liver. The amounts vary per person, obviously, but a good ball park estimate is that the average person can store approximately 350-400 grams in their muscles and another 75 to 100 grams in their liver. At 4 kcal/gram this equates to ~1700-2000 Calories in storage capacity for the average human. Your body uses this as quick-access energy. However, when there is excess from consuming too many carbohydrates or other foods (like dense proteins that also get converted to glucose for storage), the extra remains in the blood, raising blood sugar. Think of it like a tank or a glass and once the tank is full, it overflows and spills everywhere because there is nowhere to store it. That's what you want to avoid - the excess sloshing around in your blood for extended periods of time.
So in the case of people like the Okinawans, I believe they are able to consume a majority of their calories as carbs because they do not consume enough quantity for it to be a problem and are physically active enough to not max out their body's storage tank. This is the same case in my mind for why people in rural China aren't overweight when they consume mostly grains like rice. They are physically active and work outside in things like rice paddies. And much of them are poor and simply cannot afford what is available to you and I in mass quantity for low cost. I could go to the store right now and get 2,000 calories of pure garbage for <$10. I believe this goes hand in hand with why the non-rural parts of China that are more economically well off have seen explosions in their diabetes rates over the past several decades. On a similar note, Eskimos, who have historically lived off high fat (seal blubber) diets, have seen explosions in diabetes rates since the 1960's as adoption of Western style diets have increased.
As far as the grains go, I don't see a real purpose to consume wheat. But there are very nutritious alternatives, such as steel cut oats. I consume those daily, in milk with raisins, flax seed, and crushed walnuts. That's a high carbohydrate breakfast (with high fat as well). My blood sugar spikes usually, but not too high to be problematic. Steel cut oats and hulled barley are extremely nutritious.
My suggestion is still to closely monitor your blood sugar. I still do. Sometimes I find that certain foods or combinations of foods spike me far higher than expected while others surprise me and don't move me that much. The glycogen storage also plays a factor. The more active you are, the more carbs you can probably consume, unless you are carefully monitoring volume of carbs. For example, in the summer if I am doing very laborious yark work in the extreme heat, there is basically nothing I can do afterwards to raise my blood sugar. After 2-3 hours out there working my ass off I can consume copious amounts of gatorade, juices, soda, anything - and my blood sugar won't budge and inch for the entire 2 hour window. Presumably because I have depleted enough of the glycogen storage through physical activity so that whatever isn't needed from the sugary fluids I am consuming goes straight into storage.
Wow, you're really "zagging" when science is "zigging", interesting to hear how that turns out for you, please keep us updated. I personally have gone from what you describe many years ago to paleo, then to keto and now to complete carnivory. Each step I feel better and shed more weight, think more clearly and have more energy.
However modern science is also positing that there may be people who thrive on what would be terrible for other people due to genetic or microbiome differences so I'm curious how it turns out for you.
That last sentence is an interesting point. The reason I stumbled onto this plan in the first place, is that I've had years of digestive discomfort, and realized that my system seems to handle starchy foods better. So I did some research on that, and learned that starchy foods are often the easiest for your body to digest and process.
Right. My limited understanding of this--and keep in mind I'm just regurgitating what I've read from those who support this way of eating--is that novo lipogenesis is a very inefficient process, and that you'd have to overeat a significant amount of _simple_ sugars for basically months to store even just a pound of body fat. I think the idea with this eating plan is, if you are keeping fat low, you will fill up on starchy foods long before you will eat enough calories/carbs to cause novo lipogenesis.
Definitely open to hearing counterpoints here... trying to learn about this stuff is overwhelming because it seems like you can find material, even scholarly research, to support any nutrition plan.
"de novo lipogenesis" in Latin literally means: "generating fat from new" - funny how knowing some Latin from school is always a bit helpful in understanding or remembering things like this one.
The staple of my diet is potatoes. I eat potatoes nearly every day, and I eat a lot of them. My favorite way is to slice them up into wedges, add some spices, bake them, and then dip them in mustard. I also eat lots of rice, beans, oatmeal, bread, occasionally something like cheerios for a snack, etc.
The beauty of this plan is that if you stick to resistant starches, and keep fat low, you don't need to count calories. You will likely feel full before you will overeat calories. I'm down about 15 pounds since starting in February (6 ft tall, down from 195 to 180ish), and I've got the most ab definition I've ever had from JUST a diet (I'm barely doing any cardio right now). But more importantly, I feel really good.
Anyway, this is not to undermine a ketogenic diet. I think both are effective ways to feel good and look good... either eating low enough carbs that your body burns fat (Keto), or eating low enough fat that your body isn't storing any. I just enjoy experimenting with different ways of eating, and this one happens to be working great for me right now.