Carbohydrate Restriction For The Broken Metabolism
The low-carb diet has been called a crazy diet fad in many circles. The highly publicized Atkin’s version of this diet promotes a high-fat, moderate-protein diet while restricting carbohydrates. When the mainstream screams “saturated fat will kill you” how can this be good for you?
First of all, saturated fat is actually good for you and necessary for health.
Let me just say up front that I don’t believe this diet is necessary for everyone. Most of us enjoy eating grains, fruits, and sweets too much to simply give them up for no good reason. The problem is that there are those of us (myself included) who need to make more of an effort to lose or maintain weight.
Your metabolism may be broken due to many years of dieting, excessive carbohydrate intake, or simply overeating. This history coupled with the resultant hormone disruption in the form of an underactive thyroid or fatigued adrenals can present a tough case for weight loss.
If this sounds like you then you may want to explore a restricted carbohydrate diet.
Why It Works: Insulin and Blood Sugar
My own amateur research has shown that blood sugar and insulin are at the heart of weight gain. Have you ever eaten something carb-heavy and then had a sudden rush of energy only to feel deeply tired a little later? This is a spike in blood sugar, followed by a serious drop.
These spikes and drops in blood sugar encourage weight gain and restrict weight loss. The insulin hormone tells your body to store fat. By not consuming the carbohydrates which spike insulin you are not telling your body to store fat, but rather to release it.
When carbohydrates are restricted you replace them with nutrient dense fats, proteins, and high-fiber vegetables, all shown to help burn fat. These foods do not produce enough glucose in the body to trigger an insulin response. So you are simultaneously suppressing your body’s “store fat” trigger and pushing the “burn fat” button.
Why It Works: Satiety & Calories
I have been eating like this for a while and have zero cravings. First I know I am eating foods that my body truly needs and that the quality fats I am consuming are not going to cause heart disease. I have more energy, clearer thinking, and am slowly losing weight. On top of all of this I am eating fewer calories.
Let me give you an example of my daily diet.
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Two pastured eggs + two strips pastured bacon.
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Tea with real cream
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Large salad with homemade salad dressing or low-carb vegetables such as zucchini, broccoli, or green beans with butter or coconut oil.
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Non-lean protein: pastured meats with fat, salmon with butter, eggs cooked in butter.
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Maybe another tea with real cream.
By taking carb-heavy foods out of the equation and really paying attention to my hunger I am eating an average of 1500 calories per day.
I do not believe that calorie restriction is as important as the reaction your body has to the calories that you do eat. I have, however, seen the benefits of a carbohydrate restricted diet coupled with the calorie restriction it produces.
I also know that I am not alone in dabbling in a low-carb diet. Many of the ladies who have participated in the real food journal series, like Wardeh and Kelly, have stated the effectiveness of the low-carb diet. As has Ann Marie who has put together an ecourse entirely devoted to preparing pastured meats and organs as well as sustainable seafood.
Have You Ever Considered Carbohydrate Restriction For Weight Loss?
This post was very informative. I adore bread and don’t think I could do this but I have seen how it benefits others. I think the key to all this is balance. Thanks for all the great information as always 🙂
Yes! Great post! I am also on a low carb diet lifestyle and feel SO much better. My blood sugar seems to go hay wire while I am pregnant. I have reactive low blood sugar and eating less fruit and no grains helps my blood sugar stay steady. Plus I haven’t gained much weight at all this pregnancy. All in all though I am most impressed with the lack of cravings for sugar and carbs I used to live with. It’s wonderful.
I have found a lot of Paleo blogs to be helpful in eating this way.
I know it works and I know I need to get back at it. I am recovering from a bad depressive state and gained a ton of weight eating conventional carby food because I was unable to focus on eating well. Today’s DD’s birthday and I plan to get back on track on Monday. I need to stock up on nourishing foods to make it easier and it is the best time of the year for that. I just hope I can find lots of farm fresh eggs at the farmers market as they are my staple and they go really fast!
Oh, I’m excited to read this! I was following a pretty low carb atkins inspired diet from April-June (since then I’ve been pretty loose with the rules for various reasons, but plan on going back on the initial plan in the next few weeks). After 7 YEARS of not being able to lose weight no matter how much I worked out or how little I ate – all of a sudden I was dropping weight without even trying, and I was never hungry. I felt deprived at first, but only while I broke the sweet/sugar addiction. I felt great too, just all over, mentally clear and just healthy.
I rarely talk to people about it, because of the reaction I get (I used to be one of the people *giving* that reaction!)
Anyway, carb restriction just makes so much sense to me and it’s so, so nice to see someone (intelligently) discussing it to!
Crystal – Thanks so much for your comment. So good to hear.
Yes! My husband and I began this food change earlier this year and love how we feel. He found out about this by reading Gary Taubes “Good Calories, Bad Calories” and reading Weston A. Price’s book. We love the weight loss and that our cravings for sweets, breads and processed goodies are gone- now we crave our homemade yogurts and sauerkrauts and veggies. My sister has done this for years and the rest of our family is just now catching on. 😉 Thanks for the post!
Thank you for posting this! I decided to give the sugar, carb free and real fats and foods diet a try when I went gluten free for a year and still wasn’t feeling totally “healed”. It’s been 6 six months and I had no idea my body could feel this good. There is a total body connection between now between what I eat and how I feel. Like other people commented, my cravings are nearly gone and only resurface when I “cheat” and eat something with sugar or carbs. I’m also losing weight slowly and have tons of energy. This way of eating is fabulous and I can’t believe more people don’t try it! I think they, like me, would be very surprised with the resulting benefits.
This all makes sense to me in my mind, and yet yesterday someone’s comment about Atkins being hard on kidneys made me do a web search & I found many condemning articles backed by *numerous* scientific studies. One even said that studies have shown that a cheeseburger illicits a greater insulin response than carbs??? I imagine that it is different when the insulin response is backed by proteins & fats to keep it from being a crash… So confusing. We are not Atkins or even low-carb, but we try to limit grains whenever possible & eat more protein/good fats.
Lisa – I’d also wonder if that cheeseburger was wrapped in a giant white bun :).
I’ve tried this in the past when I needed to lose a few pounds quick for an event or something, but always found I crashed and had something that was on the no-no list like an apple. It worked, but I can’t do such an extreme swap. I know my dad did Atkins and experience the same “mental clarity,” but I never quite got there.
Lately I’ve been trying to do less carbs overall, and those I do eat are whole grains or in limited portions. After all, fruit can’t be all bad if God filled the Garden of Eden with it! 🙂
I have a client who recently started a low GI diet. She has never felt better. She has not totally eliminated grains but has eliminated sugar. She suffers from migraines and has not had one now in 25 days. She is also losing weight!
Eliminating grains takes a huge amount of calories out of our diet mainly because we over eat grains – who eats only 1/2 rice? Lately, when I do eat grains I have been measuring the portion. Bringing awareness back into my diet. Great post.
Denise – That’s great! I agree about grains. High calorie foods are always grains, fats, and meats – of which grains is the only one that our body does not need.
I can’t help but agree with al the sentiments you have shared :). I have just started living Primally and I’ve noticed a huge fat loss in myself. Well, initially I noticed a fat loss… I think I stopped losing so much fat because I continued eating more often than I needed to (out of habit from having consumed copious amounts of carbs for so long :P). I’ve just started day 2 of a Ketosis spell and already I feel more clear-headed and less “heavy”. I’m waiting until Summer before I start eating more fruits – my theory being I will be more active and can consume more hehe. Cheers for the post :).
I’ve been reducing my carbs and sugar and to eat more good fats. I have been gradually losing weight. (I lose for a little bit – then stabilize for a few weeks and then lose some more).
I could never do a low carb diet (I don’t actually LIKE meat, cheese, etc. that much.) BUT my husband has been on Atkins since January and he has slowly and steadily lost weight. He went from 305 to currently 245, with a goal to reach 200 by December. He hasn’t been 245 since right after we got married!
He has ALWAYS been heavy, even in high school, and this is the only thing that’s worked. His job is very physical and he’s otherwise in good health, just overweight. I’m glad something is working for him because his weight would often cause him to struggle so much.
This is great! I have been working with a nutritionist on this very issue. I love her! She has given me tons of recipes/information about the grain free diet. I am in the process of figuring out some hormone issues/imbalances and we are led to believe it is either PCOS (insulin) related or Thyroid related. Either way, I need to dramatically cut back the grains I eat in order to see improvement in my hormones and menstrual cycles.
Even though I have the information to make this lifestyle work, I still struggle with it daily. My body and my preferences are drawn to carbs! Even as i type, I am eating a Zucchinni muffin (with 2 pastured eggs cooked in Coconut Oil). When I eat grains, I try to balance them with lots of healthy fats and protein.
My biggest struggle is lunch and snakes. I can do a grain free breakfast (most days) and a grain free dinner (most days), but I really struggle with what to eat in between. You can only eat so much yogurt. I am not a lunch meat person and plain nuts are just boring! Any ideas?
Cori – I like nut butters on celery sticks, raw cheese, or just a piece of leftover meat. I always make way more than enough for dinner to have leftovers for lunch the next day.
Thanks for this post, this is something that I’ve been interested in for a while.
A few weeks ago, my husband and I cut out all grains, and most other carbs in an effort to lose weight. We would have some vegetables with carbs, but no corn or potatoes. We also would have a juice soda we make with 1/3 cranberry pomegranate juice and 2/3 sparkling water once a day or so.
We both liked eating that way, with a lot of meats, vegetables, and good fats. The only thing is, we didn’t lose weight and we were hungry all the time! After about a week, we added grains back in and by now we’re back to the way we were eating. The only reason I can think of for me not losing any weight and for the hunger is because I’m nursing a 3 month old right now. We went into it knowing it might be too early after birth for me to try and lose weight, but I’d really like to lose just 5 pounds (in the short term, long term I’d like to lose 25 pounds).
Do you have any advice for how we could make the low-carb diet work for us? Any advice on losing weight while nursing?
Meghan F – Eat more fat. That is the only thing that will help you feel satiated, carbs or no carbs. If you are nursing make sure you are getting plenty of calories. Grains are highly caloric compared with veggies so you’ll have to make sure you’re eating plenty of fat and protein to make up for it. Also if you’re nursing things like sweet potatoes and winter squash might be a good option for you (with lots of butter) since you need those calories.
I am very hesitant to give advice on weight loss while nursing. It is my personal belief that a nursing mother needs to maintain a good amount of calories and possibly even a slightly higher body fat content while nursing. That being said, eat the foods that make you feel good. If cutting out grains while upping your fat and vegetable intake makes you feel good then go for it. Just watch your milk supply to make sure that it doesn’t suffer.
@Shannon, Thanks for the response! I hadn’t checked back in a while to see if you had responded, sorry it’s taken me so long to reply!
Thanks for the advice. In the past couple of weeks, from my observation, I have been amazed at how much better I feel when I consume drastically less grains and more (healthy) fats. My blood sugar and energy is much less “up-and-down” throughout the day, in addition.
Eating this way, I have lost about 5 pounds, and feel better. My milk hasn’t decreased, so I’ll continue to restrict grains, fruits, and certain vegetables.
Thanks again, it’s good to hear from others about healthy weight loss on a nourishing diet!
I agree–saturated fats are good for you! But I disagree with any diet that restricts the use of vegetables that don’t meet the “low carb” criteria. Root vegetables like carrots and squash and yams are antioxidant-rich super foods that help balance our blood sugar, so we can move through our days vibrant and full of energy. Eating a variety of plant foods (read: complex carbs) also helps to avoid the types of nutritional deficiencies people on restricted diets experience.
I have seen the enemy, my friend and it is the categorization of all carbs as bad carbs.
@Hänni,
I agree, but I don’t see anyone saying all carbs are bad – just that those who have tried a lower carb diet noticed significant improvements in their overall well being. Some low carbers are really strict about it – others (like me) realize the benefits in nutritionally dense foods even if they are higher carbs. I’d fall more on the moderate carb scale and get most of my carbs from whole foods (not grains).
I’ve really enjoyed reading everyone’s responses too!
Crystal – I agree that one person’s carbs are just right, while another might be too high. Totally dependent on the person.
Hanni – I am not saying that these foods are not healthy, or even beneficial, or that I won’t be eating these foods in the near future. I believe that carb restriction comes in many forms, including one that includes ALL vegetables. Grains, on the other hand, really do not have any health benefits that you can’t receive in a lower-carb vegetable.
Hi,
I see my comment is still awaiting moderation. If you’d prefer to correspond about this over email or refer me to someone else, that would be fine.
While I’m happy eating carbs, my husband asked today if we could go grain free for his mental clarity. So, I’m back on the low carb trail again!
Meghan F – Sorry about that. While I was out of town comment moderation was slow.