Comment by MDS100 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MDS100 | Hacker News Reader

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You are wrong. Too much energy dense food makes you fat. Fat will make you fat if you overeat (because the fatty acid molecules from your food will be stored in your fat cells). It's not as easy as "more carbs" = obesity epidemic. There are many more factors, most important being inactivity and overconsumption of food. The carbohydrate hypothesis is very clearly Bullshit: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.de/2011/08/carbohydrate-hy...

When people go on a low carb diet they: a. restrict their food intake by restricing their choices (less processed foods if you exclude a massiv part of " b. increase protein intake (protein has a higher thermic effect than any other macronutrient and drastically cuts down total kcal consumption in ad lib feeding trials by reducing appetite)

You can do something similar with a low fat diet (on which another part of the population will feel better - skewed towards more active and leaner people).

Low carb (whatever that means - not clearly defined) isn't a better choice for your health than a mixed diet with a high(er) protein intake. If it works for you: great. But that doesn't mean calories don't count and carbohydrates/insulin cause obesity. Nor that it works for everyone.

"Fat will make you fat if you overeat (because the fatty acid molecules from your food will be stored in your fat cells). It's not as easy as "more carbs" = obesity epidemic."

Insulin plays a role in regulating the patitioning of fatty acids in the body. The flawed thinking, that calories burned by the body is a fixed amount that doesn't vary based on calories consumed, is simply wrong. The key is that energy expenditures only rise when the calories consumed are not being partitioned for storage. Elevated insulin levels cause storage of fatty acids, and inhibit release of fatty acids from fat cells by triggering them to be bound up into triglyceride molecules.

I'm not some hardcore paleo/keto/Atkins dude, but reducing carbohydrate intake (particularly refined carbs) makes appetite control much easier, by virtue of several obvous and not so obvious reasons. The obvous is that proteins and fats fill you up more (satiety), and that could be accomplished with diets that aren't high in fat by simply upping protein intake, of course. However, the less obvious is the energy partitioning going on with low insulin levels. The fat cells are behaving as they naturally should, pulling in and releasing fatty acids in a balanced manner.

Fats and Carbs don't vary that much regarding satiety. Mostly protein and fiber, as I said.

How adipocytes "should" behave depends on circumstances... Insulin resistance is probably more a defensive mechanism against the deleterious effects of overeating.

"The flawed thinking, that calories burned by the body is a fixed amount that doesn't vary based on calories consumed, is simply wrong." Who believes that nonsense? Of course we have adaptive mechanisms that regulate energy output (especially NEAT) based on energy intake. The kcal in/out model is very much valid. You just have to account for fluctuating variables in the formula.

"The key is that energy expenditures only rise when the calories consumed are not being partitioned for storage. Elevated insulin levels cause storage of fatty acids, and inhibit release of fatty acids from fat cells by triggering them to be bound up into triglyceride molecules." But this does not happen in a vaccum. This does not matter if you undereat. And if you overeat on mostly fat we still have extremely significant mechanisms to store these TAGs independently of insulin : HSL / ASP.

The thermic effect of protein is pretty much negligible, and food restriction has also been shown to not be the obvious explanation in trials where they partitioned out exactly the same amount of food (2000 kcal, I believe) in different ratios to find that the lower-carb apportioning caused the greatest weight loss.

In short, whatever facts anyone wants to bring up, there will always be more that either disprove, or at least throw them into doubt. But your final point is absolutely spot on -- it is absolutely about what works for your health and your situation. I've found low carb, unprocessed (i.e. paleo) with a sprinkling of IF and cycling works great, but I don't intend to be a militant defender of this approach; rather, I absolutely advocate n=1 experimentation, figuring out what works for you, and doing something rather than nothing. Learning about paleo kicked off a huge revelation in terms of my personal health and I want others to discover this joy.

TEF: 20-30% is not negligible. There is even a group of scientist trying to change the default value to 3,2 kcal/g.

Yeah, weight loss is greater because of the bigger WATER loss. (1g Glycogen = 3g Water) Which results in greater intial weight loss. Besides the possibility of low carb being a better treatment for adipose patients/people suffering from Metabolic Syndrome.

"In short, whatever facts anyone wants to bring up, there will always be more that either disprove, or at least throw them into doubt." > Mostly, if you don't know what you are talking about and haven't dived into the actual primary literature. Most just lack some basic domain knowledge and read some Taubes. Now they think there must be some big controversy with carbohydrates and low carb going on. Meh.

Self experimentation is great if you use a non retarded approach. I find too many people trying to reinvent the wheel instead of focusing on some basics and then experimenting with how to integrate them into their life/habit.

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