Are Low-Carb Diets Good for Everyone? Probably everyone can benefit from not eating too much sugar. Major health organizations are now telling us to limit the added. Introduction to Low Carb. A low-carb diet means that you eat fewer carbohydrates and a higher proportion of fat. This can also be called a low-carb, high-fat diet. Low-carbohydrate diets or low-carb diets are dietary programs that restrict carbohydrate consumption, often for the treatment of obesity or diabetes. Posted in Cholesterol, Cooking, Diabetes, Men's Corner, Men's Health, Metabolism, Paleo Diet Blog Articles, Weight Loss, Women's Corner, Women's HealthCarb controversy: Why low- carb diets have got it all wrong. Ask almost anyone what they need to do to lose a few pounds, and they’ll probably say: “Cut back on the carbs.” As a nutrition coach, I’ve heard it hundreds of times. While the low carb movement has waxed and waned in popularity since the Atkins revival of the late 9. Health- conscious diners order bunless hamburgers, skip the baked potato side dish, and send the bread basket back to the kitchen. Which is the problem. These simplistic statements about “good foods” and “bad foods” ignore biological complexity and the bigger picture. Let’s look closer. Do carbs increase insulin levels? Yes, they do. Does increased insulin after meals lead to fat gain? No.(Insulin’s actually a satiety hormone — in other words, it makes you feel full — so the idea that on its own it leads to fat gain doesn’t make sense.)Are carbs really inflammatory? That depends. Are we talking about processed corn syrup? Probably. But if we’re talking about whole grains, not really. Are carbs less important than protein, fat, and the many micronutrients that contribute to our health? A low-carb diet can help you lose weight because it turns on fat-burning processes, known as "dietary ketosis." These ketones are also thought to have an.
Well, if you’re talking about processed carbs, the answer is a resounding yes. But if you’re talking about whole, minimally processed carbs, that’s a different story. Can a low- carb diet work to help people lose weight? Of course it can. Is it because it is low in carbs? Maybe. Maybe not. Can eating an appropriate amount of carbs actually help you look, feel and perform your best? You bet it can. The problem with not eating carbs. As a weight loss strategy, cutting carbs (while reducing the total number of calories) clearly works pretty well for some people. If it didn’t, then Atkins would have never been popular in the first place. Here’s the thing, though: Carb reduction costs us. You see, most of us require some level of carbohydrates to function at our best over the long term. Sure, we can cut carbs temporarily if we need to lose weight quickly. But for most of us, keeping carbs too low for too long can have disastrous consequences. This is especially true for those of us who work out. If you’re sedentary, your carb needs are lower. So you might be able to get away with more restriction. But if you like to exercise regularly and enthusiastically, restricting your carb intake too drastically can lead to: decreased thyroid outputincreased cortisol outputdecreased testosteroneimpaired mood and cognitive functionmuscle catabolismsuppressed immune function. In other words: Your metabolism might slow, your stress hormones go up and your muscle- building hormones go down. You feel lousy, spaced- out, sluggish, cranky. If you just want to know what to do, skip to the end. Decreased thyroid. In order to function properly and to maintain an appropriate metabolism, our body produces an important hormone called T3. T3 is the most active thyroid hormone and is incredibly important for blood glucose management and proper metabolic function. Low T3 levels can lead to a condition called euthyroid sick syndrome, in which people are constantly cold and sluggish. When calories and carbs are too low, your T3 levels drop. In addition, the Vermont Study found that another hormone, reverse T3 (r. T3), is also sensitive to calorie and carbohydrate intake. Reverse T3, as the name implies, inhibits T3. Getting enough carbs can lower reverse T3. Not eating enough carbs will increase it, thus blocking the important work of T3. The Vermont Study is far from alone. Other research confirms that ketogenic (ultra- low carb) diets reduce T3 levels as rapidly as starvation. Additional studies show that when calories are held constant (in this case at 2. T3 levels (from 9. L respectively). Finally, French researchers examined four calorically equal diets (2. Two of these diets contained 2. The low- carb diet included 7. T3 levels were equal on the normal and high carb diets (ranging from 1. L). However, on the low carb diet they fell to 1. L on average. And of course, r. T3 correspondingly rose on the low carb diet, but not on the standard or high carb diets. Thyroid hormones are important for more than just weight loss; they also have profound effects on our overall health and energy levels. Thus, when you don’t eat enough, and/or eat enough carbs while training: T3 goes down. Reverse T3 goes up, further blocking T3. You feel like crap, and eventually your training sucks. If you’re active, you need adequate energy and carb intakes for a healthy thyroid. Cortisol up; testosterone down. Research consistently shows that people who exercise regularly need to eat enough carbs or their testosterone will fall while their cortisol levels rise. This is a sure- fire recipe for losing muscle and gaining fat. Incidentally, it’s also a marker for excessive training stress. In a study in Life Sciences, men who ate a high carbohydrate versus a low carbohydrate diet for 1. A few years later, another study took this research a step further. This time the subjects included men and women who exercised regularly. And in addition to considering the effect of their diet on hormones, researchers put them through some performance tests. Once again, when the subjects ate a low carb diet, their testosterone (and other anabolic hormones) went down, while their cortisol went up. And, after following a low carb diet for just three days, only two of the six participants were able to complete the cycling test! Meanwhile, when following the higher carb diet for three days, all six participants were able to complete the test. In 2. 01. 0, researchers reconsidered the same question — this time in relation to intense exercise. In this particular study, subjects eating the low carb diet (where 3. Meanwhile, the control group (who got 6. Thus: inadequate carbohydrate intake can decrease testosterone (which no one wants); andincrease cortisol (which no one wants); whilenegatively affecting performance (which no one wants). Carbohydrates and women’s hormones. We now know that eating too low- carb for too long can cause significant disruptions to many hormones. This seems especially true for women, whose bodies may be more sensitive than men’s to low energy or carbohydrate availability (perhaps because of the evolutionary importance of having enough body fat and nutrients to sustain a pregnancy). While organs like our gonads or thyroid make hormones, Mission Control of our hormone production system is the central nervous system (CNS), i. This partnership is often known as the hypothalamic- pituitary- adrenal, or HPA, axis. Thus, when women don’t eat enough calories or carbohydrate — or even when women eat enough calories but not enough carbohydrate — they face hypothalamic amenorrhea. This means disrupted hormones and stopped — or irregular — periods because of the HPA’s response to perceived starvation and stress. In hypothalamic amenorrhea, hormone levels plummet, and the cascade is felt throughout the system. You end up with low levels of luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle- stimulating hormone (FSH), estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. In addition, we’ve already seen that not eating enough carbohydrate tends to increase cortisol levels. When cortisol rises, it signals your HPA axis to further decrease pituitary activity. Not good. Your HPA axis regulates functions such as stress response, mood, digestion, immune system, libido, metabolism and energy levels. And your pituitary in particular is responsible for synthesizing and secreting growth hormone, thyroid stimulating hormone, prolactin, LH, FSH and other incredibly important hormones. With all this said, here’s the takeaway message: Many women try to eat low- carb, wanting to be healthier. Yet because low- carb diets can significantly disrupt hormone production, women with too- low carb intakes — especially active women — can face: a stopped or irregular menstrual cycle; lowered fertility; hypoglycemia and blood sugar swings; more body fat (especially around the middle); loss of bone density; anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues; chronic inflammation and worse chronic pain; chronic fatigue and disrupted sleep; anda host of other chronic problems. But research shows that lowering carb intake can affect your muscle mass even if protein remained constant. In other words, even if you’re guzzling protein shakes or eating steak 5 times a day, you could be losing muscle if you aren’t getting enough carbs. A recent study from the Netherlands compared three diets: a high carb diet (8. All diets had the same total calories and the same amount of protein — 1. For starters, pretty consistent with other research. T3 levels and reverse T3 levels stayed the same with high and moderate carbohydrate intake. T3 levels and reverse T3 went down on the low- carb diet. But here’s the interesting wrinkle. In this study, the researchers also measured urinary nitrogen excretion to see how the diets affected protein breakdown. In this case, the low carb diet increased muscle breakdown, because severely low carbs lowered insulin levels. Again, you’d assume that protein intake would determine muscle breakdown. And you might assume — based on what you’ve heard — that having higher insulin is always “bad”. In fact, insulin is crucial for building muscle. When you get enough carbs to meet your needs, you replenish muscle glycogen and create an anabolic (building- up) hormonal environment. You get strong and buff. That’s good. Conversely, when you don’t eat enough carbohydrate, muscle glycogen is depleted and a catabolic (breaking- down) hormonal environment is created, which means more protein breakdown and less protein synthesis. This means slower muscle growth — or even muscle loss. Putting it all together. The bottom line? Not eating enough carbohydrates can lower T3 levels, disrupt cortisol to testosterone ratios, interfere with a woman’s delicate hormone balance, contribute to muscle loss, and prevent muscle gains. Definitely not what most of us want! But wait a minute.
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