questions about low-carb diets

John said:

I just start the atkins diet and have a few questions.

Have you read the book yet? I mean, the *whole* book? And which
edition, as there are three basic varieties of the Atkins plan.

[what follows is my opinion, simplified]

You want to subtract fiber (the original book didn't), and you want to
avoid sugar alcohols until you can determine their affect on your body
(latest books say SAs are OK).

Quoted message said:

- If you go into ketosis why do you end up burning body fat ? Is it
possible that the body will just burn the fat that you intake ?

The idea behind LC is that reducing your carb intake low enough
changes the "mode" your liver is in. With high carb, the liver
produces insulin, which helps push blood sugars into cells, and
encourages fat storage. Also, if the liver is replete with glycogen,
it begins converting excess blood sugars to fat as well.

With low carb, the liver produces glucagon instead of insulin, which
encourages fat cells to release their fat. Also, the low (stable)
insulin levels reduce insulin-related hunger. That, and since LC food
tends to take longer to digest, means you eat less but feel fuller.

As for the fat you eat, there are a couple of reasons for it. Some
claim that you need a small amount of dietary fat as a catalyst to
keeping the fat-burning cycle running. Also, reducing total caloric
intake *too* far can have negative consequences. It also helps slow
down digestion and help you feel fuller longer. Plus it makes food
taste yummy.

Quoted message said:

- if you are obese and you go on atkins and eat almost no
carbs but pig out on high fat foot all day will you still lose
weight ?

Be careful with "almost no carbs" - the idea is to eat the *right*
amount of carbs - too low can be harmful as well. After Induction,
you want to eat the *most* carbs you can, *without* leaving ketosis.

During Induction, the goal is NOT to lose weight. The goal is to get
into ketosis as quickly as possible, and flush out all the stored
glycogen. Induction is an unbalanced and extreme diet, for this
purpose. After Induction, you slowly increase carb intake until you
hit the CCLL, the most carbs you can eat and still lose weight.

However, if you continue to eat too much, you will continue to not
lose weight. This isn't an issue until after Induction, but even so,
you should avoid "trigger foods" even if they're LC, as you could
easily eat too much to lose weight.

On LC there's always *some* insulin in your blood, and even that tiny
amount is enough, in conjunction with excess fat in the blood stream,
to cause fat to be stored in fat cells, LC or otherwise.

DJ Delorie said:

The idea behind LC is that reducing your carb intake low enough
changes the "mode" your liver is in. With high carb, the liver
produces insulin, which helps push blood sugars into cells, and
encourages fat storage. Also, if the liver is replete with glycogen,
it begins converting excess blood sugars to fat as well.

With low carb, the liver produces glucagon instead of insulin, which
encourages fat cells to release their fat. Also, the low (stable)
insulin levels reduce insulin-related hunger. That, and since LC food
tends to take longer to digest, means you eat less but feel fuller.

You're confusing the liver with the pancreas.

The pancreas produces insulin and glucagon. The liver is one of the
targets for these: insulin causes the liver to store glycogen and
glucagon causes it to release it. These hormones do lotsa other things
as well.

--
http://www.ornery-geeks.org/consulting/

Jackie Patti said:

You're confusing the liver with the pancreas.

You're right, duh.

Quoted message said:

The pancreas produces insulin and glucagon. The liver is one of the
targets for these: insulin causes the liver to store glycogen and
glucagon causes it to release it. These hormones do lotsa other
things as well.

Does the liver decide what the pancreas produces? Or does the
pancreas just monitor blood sugar levels?

John said:

I just start the atkins diet and have a few questions.

- If you go into ketosis why do you end up burning body fat ?

This is a common newbie question, one not addressed in the book.

Quoted message said:

Is
it possible that the body will just burn the fat that you intake ?

No. See DJ Delorie's commentary about glucagon. The deal
is dietary carbs directly trigger insulin release. Insulin moves
fat into storage. Cut the dietary carbs enough to lower the
insulin level enough to go into ketosis (actually ketonuria) and
insulin is no longer capable of pushing fat into storage. This
is why lower carb levels are NOT better; reducing insulin below
that point no longer helps loss rates. Glucagon moves fat
out of storage. Glucagon is released in indirect response to
dietary fat and protein (there is debate which is more effective
at that), but insulin suppresses glucagon action. So the goal
is to be in ketonuria at all to keep insulin from suppressing
glucagon, then maximize glucagon. The goal is NOT to drive
dietary carbs lower and lower in the false belief that the system
works that way. No matter that it goes against what is obvious,
lower is not better for carbs once in ketonuria.

No matter that it goes against the obvious, more dietary fat
drives more fat out of storage. See the warning in the chapter
on Induction that if you mix low fat with low carb you will derail
your loss? Doesn't matter that it goes against the obvious, it is
true. Note well that's "more as a percentage" not just plain
"more as in higher calories". But since fat does suppress
appetite it is actually natural to remain near the same total
calories as more fat is eaten and less protein for the same total.
The goal is to increase glucagon to drive loss, and that's from
dietary fat.

So to answer your question, loss of stored body fat goes hand
in hand with dietary fat. It is NOT a zero sum game where
decreasing dietary fat will increase losses from stored fat. It
does not matter that the zero sum is obvious; the chemistry
does not work that way.

Quoted message said:

- if you are obese and you go on atkins and eat almost no
carbs

If you eat almost no carbs, you aren't following the directions.
It is so tempting to think that if low carb is good, lower must be
better. It's false. If it were true every single plan out there
would teach it. But in fact none do. So follow those directions.
What are the chances that Dr A, who spent 4+ decades working
on low carb, failed to think of that? Of course he thought of that,
and of course he tried it. But the non-obvious system in his
book works better than that obvious way. Take advantage of
his decades of effort where he found a non-obvious way that
works far better than the obvious way.

Quoted message said:

but pig out on high fat foot all day will you still lose
weight ?

The book is quite explicit about this - Atkins is not an excuse
to overeat. If you pig out, you're not following the directions.
Are you here to lose stored fat without hunger, or are you here
to use a loophole to pig out without gaining?

LC does not permit one to "pig out." You still have to end up eating less.
However, with low carb there may be health benefits, and the appetite may be
reduced -making it easier to eat less.

"John" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I just start the atkins diet and have a few questions.

- If you go into ketosis why do you end up burning body fat ? Is
it possible that the body will just burn the fat that you intake ?

- if you are obese and you go on atkins and eat almost no
carbs but pig out on high fat foot all day will you still lose
weight ?

anyways thanks.

DJ Delorie said:

Does the liver decide what the pancreas produces? Or does the
pancreas just monitor blood sugar levels?

The pancreas has both exocrine and endocrine portions and is subject to
multiple positive and negative feedback loops.

The endocrine portions respond to blood levels of pancreas products:
insulin, glucagon and somatostatin. So you could say the pancreas talks
to itself. It also responds to other hormones and glucose levels in the
blood (and bg levels can be changed by the liver).

The exocrine portion seems to respond to anything in the stomach... the
treatment for pancreasitis is no food or water, not even ice chips,
until it resolves.

Wiki has a decent review article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancreas
and specifically regarding the endocrine portion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islets_of_Langerhans

--
http://www.ornery-geeks.org/consulting/

Doug Freyburger said:

John said:

carbs

If you eat almost no carbs, you aren't following the directions.
It is so tempting to think that if low carb is good, lower must be
better. It's false. If it were true every single plan out there
would teach it. But in fact none do. So follow those directions.
What are the chances that Dr A, who spent 4+ decades working
on low carb, failed to think of that? Of course he thought of that,
and of course he tried it. But the non-obvious system in his
book works better than that obvious way. Take advantage of
his decades of effort where he found a non-obvious way that
works far better than the obvious way.

Right now I'm in the induction phase so am keeping my
net carbs below 20g a day. I'm probably less than 20g
a day as I am erring on the side of going lower than 20g a
day than higher.

You are saying I should should go right for 20g a day then ?
But this is hard in practice since I don't know that carb
counts for food ... I don't know how to tell net carbs from the
packaging.
Like a piece of bread I'm looking at now says 20g carbs of
which 3g are sugar and 3g dietary fiber. I have no idea what
the other 12g is. Is it's Net Carb count 3g for the piece
of bread or is it 20-3=17 ??

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

but pig out on high fat foot all day will you still lose
weight ?

The book is quite explicit about this - Atkins is not an excuse
to overeat. If you pig out, you're not following the directions.
Are you here to lose stored fat without hunger, or are you here
to use a loophole to pig out without gaining?

I really want to lose weight without being hungry -
so far Atkins seems to be working. The ketosis strips
are saying I am now in ketosis - this is 4th day of my diet. I have
tried portion control diet before but am too hungry to keep
going.

Thanks.

John said:

Like a piece of bread I'm looking at now says 20g carbs of
which 3g are sugar and 3g dietary fiber. I have no idea what
the other 12g is. Is it's Net Carb count 3g for the piece
of bread or is it 20-3=17 ??

"carbs" is all types, "sugar" is one type. "Fiber" is the only thing
you subtract, so 17 is the right number. The other types of carbs are
usually starches (flour, potatoes, corn, peas, etc). You may safely
ignore the "sugar" entry on those labels; they're irrelevent for you.
Just check the total carbs and fiber, subtract, that's the carb count.

Some things, like eggs and cheese, you just have to know that they're
0.5g (per egg, or per oz cheese) or so.

Also note that for Induction, you're better off sticking to the list
of approved Induction foods, instead of trying to be creative. Follow
the book!

Quoted message said:

I really want to lose weight without being hungry - so far Atkins
seems to be working. The ketosis strips are saying I am now in
ketosis - this is 4th day of my diet. I have tried portion control
diet before but am too hungry to keep going.

As long as you're in ketosis, if you get hungry, eat. There are no
"portions" during induction, just keep the carbs at 20g. A little
less is OK, but don't spare the salad veggies! Their fiber helps keep
you from being hungry too.

After Induction, you should have the hunger thing beat, and then you
switch to OWL, where you gradually increase the carb levels until
you're just barely losing weight - this is the best *long term* place
to be.

John said:

Doug Freyburger said:

If you eat almost no carbs, you aren't following the directions.
It is so tempting to think that if low carb is good, lower must be
better. It's false. If it were true every single plan out there
would teach it. But in fact none do. So follow those directions.
What are the chances that Dr A, who spent 4+ decades working
on low carb, failed to think of that? Of course he thought of that,
and of course he tried it. But the non-obvious system in his
book works better than that obvious way. Take advantage of
his decades of effort where he found a non-obvious way that
works far better than the obvious way.

Right now I'm in the induction phase so am keeping my
net carbs below 20g a day. I'm probably less than 20g
a day as I am erring on the side of going lower than 20g a
day than higher.

You are saying I should should go right for 20g a day then ?

That's correct. Cutting back on the salad and veggies does
nothing to help loss and it is a bad idea. Consider that the
goals are FAR more than just "cut to 20 grams". The goals
include teaching us how we were supposed to be eating all
along and that means eating plentiful veggies. Also consider
that the quota on day 15 is 25 and you get there by adding 5.
If you haven't learned to get to 20 easily by then you are
already behind the stick.

If it takes you until day 13 of Induction to learn how to easily
get to 20 each day, you're doing fine. if it takes you until day
20. you're not doing fine. It is a lot of work to learn carb
counting but it does get easier with practice. In a couple of
months you'll think its easy while today you think it includes
endless looking stuff up and weighing it.

Quoted message said:

But this is hard in practice since I don't know that carb
counts for food ... I don't know how to tell net carbs from the
packaging.

Packaging? Have you read the book? Print out the list of
allowed foods and use that. Few of the foods on the list
have any packages at all. The cucumber I am munching on
as I write this sure didn't have a label. Five total, 1-2 net,
cuke half the size of a banana. Find the "power of 5" list.
Print that out also. It tells what portions of what foods have
5 grams.

Quoted message said:

Like a piece of bread I'm looking at now says 20g carbs of
which 3g are sugar and 3g dietary fiber. I have no idea what
the other 12g is. Is it's Net Carb count 3g for the piece
of bread or is it 20-3=17 ??

While DJ Delorie answered the question about calculating
net count (I disagree that the sugar count is irrelevant - You
don't want to consider eating a food like a pineapple where
the sugar accounts for almost all of the carbs). So I'll move
on to another goal of Atkins.

It doesn't matter at all what the label numbers say on a slice
of bread. Most bread is made with white flour so it is not
At-food. See white flour on the ingredient list, toss it. Even
so-called whole wheat bread often has whole wheat is almost
a spice not as the one and only source of grain. But what it
it really were 100% whole grain white with no white flour mixed
in at all? Grain is not on the allowed list of foods for Induction
so that bread isn't food now pure whole grain or not. It's
grass and it's for cows. Eat it after the cow does by eating
the beef.

The order to try ingredients after Induction is listed in the
"carb ladder". Grain doesn't appear for many rungs and at
a rung a week it's still a couple of months away. One reason
for the order on the carb ladder is how carby a food is. The
other reason is the chance of food intolerance.

Quoted message said:

I really want to lose weight without being hungry -

Then you're in the right place.

Quoted message said:

so far Atkins seems to be working. The ketosis strips
are saying I am now in ketosis - this is 4th day of my diet. I have
tried portion control diet before but am too hungry to keep
going.

DJ Delorie said:

John said:

Like a piece of bread I'm looking at now says 20g carbs of
which 3g are sugar and 3g dietary fiber. I have no idea what
the other 12g is. Is it's Net Carb count 3g for the piece
of bread or is it 20-3=17 ??

"carbs" is all types, "sugar" is one type. "Fiber" is the only thing
you subtract, so 17 is the right number. The other types of carbs are
usually starches (flour, potatoes, corn, peas, etc). You may safely
ignore the "sugar" entry on those labels; they're irrelevent for you.
Just check the total carbs and fiber, subtract, that's the carb count.

Yes but this is not the case with Atkins brand name granola bars. On
them
they have 18g total carb, deitary fiber 6g, sugars 1g, sugar alcohol
2g.
An then the granola bar is counted in the diet as 3g net carbs on the
www.atkins.com website
? The bar then does not follow the rule .. They somehow come up with
3g and
I cannot figure out how they get this ...

Doug Freyburger said:

(I disagree that the sugar count is irrelevant - You don't want to
consider eating a food like a pineapple where the sugar accounts for
almost all of the carbs).

Consider that starches begin being broken down in your mouth, by the
enzymes in saliva. Once it gets past your stomach, it's pretty much
glucose, so it doesn't really matter if it's listed as "sugar" or not
on the package. Breads and potatoes have almost no sugar, but they
certainly have a big impact on blood sugars. Check the GI database;
potatoes hit the blood stream much harder than even table sugar!
They're about the same as pure glucose, yet there's no sugar.

Maybe you can use it to tell if there's "added sugar" in a product,
but from a metabolism point of view it hardly matters to us. I ignore
that field, and look at what foods have the most protein and fiber,
when I want to judge the "quality" of foods.

Besides, blueberry carbs are 68% sugars, yet it's one of the foods
Atkins recommends early in OWL. Pineapples are 70% sugars (both have
the same carbs/kg). Not much difference, until you look at protein
and fiber - blueberries have more of each (24g/kg fiber vs 0g/kg for
pineapple).

Quoted message said:

Besides, blueberry carbs are 68% sugars, yet it's one of the foods
Atkins recommends early in OWL. Pineapples are 70% sugars (both have
the same carbs/kg). Not much difference, until you look at protein
and fiber - blueberries have more of each (24g/kg fiber vs 0g/kg for
pineapple).

Interesting!

Why are blueberries recommended but pineapple NOT
recommended

x-no-archive: yes

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Besides, blueberry carbs are 68% sugars, yet it's one of the foods
Atkins recommends early in OWL. Pineapples are 70% sugars (both have
the same carbs/kg). Not much difference, until you look at protein
and fiber - blueberries have more of each (24g/kg fiber vs 0g/kg for
pineapple).

Interesting!

Why are blueberries recommended but pineapple NOT
recommended

Because blueberrries have more fiber, lower net carbs, and they're
loaded with potent anti oxidants.

Susan

Quoted message said:

Because blueberrries have more fiber, lower net carbs, and they're
loaded with potent anti oxidants.

I see

So fresh pineapple is pretty much just all "candy"
then.... nothing but sugars?

Pineapple has little nutrional value as far as
anti-oxidant, etc?

x-no-archive: yes

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Because blueberrries have more fiber, lower net carbs, and they're
loaded with potent anti oxidants.

I see

So fresh pineapple is pretty much just all "candy"
then.... nothing but sugars?

Pineapple has little nutrional value as far as
anti-oxidant, etc?

Compared to the low glycemic effect of high fiber blueberries, pineapple
isn't a good bargain, but it's not devoid of nutrients. Bromelain is
said to have anti inflammator properties, for instance.

Susan

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Because blueberrries have more fiber, lower net carbs, and they're
loaded with potent anti oxidants.

In his later work, Dr Atkins mentioned an "Atkins ratio" of
vitamins and such per gram of carb. Berries tend to have a
high ratio. Tropical fruits tend to have a low ratio.

Quoted message said:

So fresh pineapple is pretty much just all "candy"
then.... nothing but sugars?

Compared to cranberries, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries,
lingonberries, bilberries. Yes. Compared to outright hard
candy, pineapple does have some nutrients other than sugar.

Quoted message said:

Pineapple has little nutrional value as far as
anti-oxidant, etc?

Correct.

Quoted message said:

Tropical fruits tend to have a low ratio.

Interesting!!

Wonder why?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

So fresh pineapple is pretty much just all "candy"
then.... nothing but sugars?

Compared to cranberries, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries,
lingonberries, bilberries. Yes. Compared to outright hard
candy, pineapple does have some nutrients other than sugar.

Quoted message said:

Pineapple has little nutrional value as far as
anti-oxidant, etc?

Correct.

Ok thanks

I will put it on my do not eat list

Will start eating only berries

John said:

Yes but this is not the case with Atkins brand name granola bars.
On them they have 18g total carb, deitary fiber 6g, sugars 1g,
sugar alcohol 2g. An then the granola bar is counted in the diet as
3g net carbs on the www.atkins.com website ? The bar then does
not follow the rule .. They somehow come up with
3g and I cannot figure out how they get this ...

You've heard the expression "Lies, d*mn lies, and statistics"?
It's really a 4 part expression - Lies, d*mn lies, statistics and food
labels.