Net-Carbs and the Glycemic Index Are Rubbish

OMG, OMG Net-Carbs is rubbish, you just crushed my LCHF Weight Loss Dreams, I Hate You!!!

So Sorry, but maybe after you finish this article you may have a change of heart, and even thank me, but I won't hold my breath.  

First let me say that in my opinion the Low-Carb High-Fat diet is among the best diets around as far as weight loss, and health and wellness goes.  

It is not as much of a diet as a way of life, and eating.  The LCHF diet takes us back to a time when Humans ate what was available and survived for millions of years before we became agricultural based and moved into the supermarket diets of today.

But...with thousands of years of mankind trying to fix every whiny sniveling complaint, it too has become bastardized into just another "FAD Diet", full of junk science designed to make everyone happy.  

It seems that we as humans can't, or won't, Kick the Carbs to the curb, I guess they taste so good that we have to find away around the health risks. To a cat, antifreeze taste so good that they will lap it up until they die from poisoning, sucks to be a cat, because they can't read, but we can.

This Article is my response to hundreds of Quora questions, and even more Facebook sighting of posts in the LCHF, Paleo, and Keto Groups, that have this obsession with all thing carbs, but with fewer Net-Carbs.  

Pancakes, Tortillas, Breads, Desserts, and Books and Post claiming "  A Million Recipes for Paleo", "LCHF Cookbooks for the Pizza Lover in you", and on and on, all based on Net Carbs.  

This is like Near-Beer to me, either quit, or don't, but you must decide and not cheat just because some BS Theory on Net-Carbs.  So let's take a closer look at the real problem with Real Carbs first.

LCHF Diet...Fail

The Main reason why the LCHF Diet is so successful, is due to the low carbohydrate intake and a no sugar approach to eating.  But there are 2 reasons why it fails from time to time.  

The First is due to the fact that many people forget the second half of the diet, and avoid the High-Fat part.  There is so much garbage science out there that says that saturated fats kill, that many will opt for high protein from lean cuts of meat, grass fed or skinless chicken instead, or count on nuts and oils, in an attempt to micromanage their fat/protein ratio.  

This approach is self defeating because 66% of all protein will be converted into carbohydrate in the body, putting everyone that does this back into a High-Carb mess.

But the most important reason why this diet fails is when we forget the main reason to avoid carbs in the first place, to lose weight!  As dieters, people of all stripes, become consumed with trivial things like numbers, math, factiods, and cheats, how can I? what if I? is this better than? I miss my (fill in the blank).

It is not enough to cut carbs to lose weight, we must get into Fat Burning stage, ketosis, and out of Fat Storage, and this is done when we keep our carbs Low Enough to maintain low insulin levels.  

This is the main reason why the LCHF Diet works, it is not because we eat less, or because we count calories so well, but because our bodies Burn Fat as we lower our insulin levels by cutting out the carbs.

Unfortunately for those in the failure column, as they cut the carbs, they forgot to add back in the fat, why? because they bought into all the myths about Saturated Fats.  

Our biochemistry has only two choices, when it comes to getting energy, burn Glucose (blood sugar) or burn Glucagon (fat), and it can only do one of them at a time.  This process once turned on will stay in that mode for 4 hours, and tends to overlap the time between breakfast and lunch, or lunch and dinner.  

It is not enough to just keep the total grams of carbs below a certain threshold for the day, but for each feeding, otherwise you will stay in fat storage throughout the whole day.

Biochemistry For Dummies?

Not to get all Sciencey and shit, but, we need to dabble a bit into the science of this.  What happens when we eat food?

Food is processed into energy through our sweet, and complex Biochemical Treatment Plant that is our body. The foods actually stimulate their own disposal, and the fuel themselves are the primary determining factor of their own disposal, this is called humoral.  

The very foods we eat regulates the enzymes, controls the concentration, they affect other chemicals that then adjust the enzyme's rate of activity, and rate of gene expression.  The expression is responsible for manufacturing the enzymes.  

Food leads to a release of hormones that are specific to the food eaten. It’s both the amount and the ratio of these hormones that dictate responses at the cellular level.  

Next, the enzymes control the flow within the cells and the tissues.  In the transition the liver switches from an origin that either uses carbohydrates as fuel and manufactures fat, or uses fat as fuel and produces ketone bodies. These enzymatic changes are caused by hormones, particularly the two pancreatic hormones, insulin and glucagon.

Net-Carb, Glycemic Index, All Rubbish!!!

With this brief and basic understanding of what goes on in our bodies when we eat, I can now explain why the Net-Carbs Myth is such a hoax, and what we need to avoid dietary disasters in the future.

Even the researcher that tested the glycemic index were shocked when the results came in, yet the lie continues.  In a recent study, obese diabetics were fed two diets one was a high Glycemic Index and the other diet, low Glycemic Index foods.  They differed in their Glycemic Index by 50%.  

In the low Glycemic Index subjects, plasma insulin levels peaked 90 minutes after the meal, reaching 215 μU/mL. The subjects who consumed the high Glycemic Index meal had insulin levels that peaked at 150 minutes, reaching a slightly lower figure, 183 μU/mL.

There was no significant statistical difference however in the insulin levels of the two groups during the five hours that they were measured.  Wow, OMG!!!  

So much for a low Glycemic Index foods to prevent a high rise in insulin, remember, high insulin (above 32 uU/mL) equals fat storage. not fat burn.

The Main reason that most people go on the LCHF diet is to achieve weight loss, and what had me confused when I started writing this very Article was the Net-Carb aspect of the Low Carb part of the diet.  

It is true that fiber is indigestible, but it ferments in the lower intestine, taking more time, but you will still have the glucose in the blood and your insulin will still rise above 32 uU/mL.  

Therefore, DO NOT subtracted the fiber from the total carbs, what's the purpose in doing that when fiber will still allow glucose levels to rise to a level that stops all fat burning?  

This paragraph from the Book, The Glycation Facter -Greg Ellis, sums up the BS Science of the Glycemic Index perfectly.  "One could easily construct a daily diet, based on a variety of sugar-containing foods, such as jellybeans, chocolates, and other sugar-laden foods, while maintaining, at the same time, a low Glycemic Index food intake". 

Replacement Therapy

I know that giving up our Favorite, "Must Have" treats is awful, and such a sacrifice, but to lose weight and keep it off, to truly gain control of our weight, it must be done.  

There are NO Cheats, no cheat days or replacements for a bad habit, glycogen cycling will NOT jump start ketosis, and baking with coconut flour is just another spin on Net-Carbs.  

If you want a stack of pancakes, smothered with syrup everyday, then eat it, but if you want to lose weight, really lose weight, then don't eat it.

Every few days, lower your carb intake from 60%  to 55% and keep doing that until you are at 20% carbs, or under 75 grams per/day, then stay there and enjoy your new life.  

Each day increase your fat intake, real fat, heavy whipping cream in you coffee, real butter, cheese, cream cheese, bacon, high fat content hamburger, you get it, all the yummy stuff we have been told is bad for us. 

This is not a NO carb diet, use your allotted carbs in the foods you love, I personally use sugar in my coffee, and once in awhile I have a bun on my high fat content burger.

I try to never eat more than 20 grams of carbs in one meal, that way my insulin never goes to high, so try that, it works for me anyway.

"The one truth I know as fact is this, whining and sniveling, about all the foods missed by going on a LCHF Diet, never helped anyone lose a single pound of fat".-Mark Boyle

Carb Based Diets.

Carb Based Diets are Deadly, but we can't blame Doctors altogether, what they know about Nutrition would fit in a neat 3-4 page pamphlet.  So who is to Blame?  Everyone, You, Me, the Medical Establishment, The Media, Big Government, Big Pharma, Big Agra, and even Big Google, yes it's all our faults.

It is sad with so much readily available knowledge around us, that that in itself, becomes the problem, let me explain.

TMI

So when can Too Much Information, and Not Enough Information, come together all in one space?  There are literally thousands upon thousands of Peer Reviewed Scientific Studies, Journals, and Papers out there on just Diet, or Carbs, or Vitamins, Carb Based Diets, or Fat, yet each one has a specific purpose, and reason for it's existence.  We are drowning in information, with no Lifeguard in sight.

The myth that carbs are the primary fuel of the body is just one over studied and misleading piece of the TMI Factor.  It is true that Sugar, or Blood Glucose is burned as fuel if there is no alternative​ fuel, but fat has been the most prevalent fuel throughout history.  So when Doctor and Heart Surgeon Dr. Lundell tries to bring some clarity to the masses, he gets some of it right, and other parts wrong.

The Article below uses Evidence based systematic Review to make his point on Inflammation, what Evidence based systematic Review means, is that they, or Dr. Lundell in this case, will look for evidence that supports the Theory he is making, based on the plethora of information out there, picking and choosing so to speak.  

James Burke explains this in "The Day The Universe Changed", and is a philosophical idea that the universe essentially only exists as one perceives it through what one knows; therefore, if one changes one's perception of the universe with new knowledge, one has essentially changed the universe itself.

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The Meat and Potatoes of Food

I titled this the meat and potatoes for a reason, meat is high in fat and potatoes are high in carbohydrates, so yeah...pun intended.

Malonyl COa  and CPT1 are the 2 systems or determining factors to weight loss or the chronic health issues we face today. As our body processes the food we eat for fuel, one of two things happen, and that process will determine whether we gain weight, or get lean, and healthy.

When we consume  Carb Based Diets, Malonyl COa interrupts CTP1, and because Malonyl COa is a committed step it is not reversed for 4 hours.  During those hours all fat is stored, as opposed to burned, and the glucose is absorbed into the cells to be used as fuel.   But when we eat a High Fat diet, CTP1, an enzyme from the liver will allow fat to be carried to the cell through the mitochondria and used as fuel.

High levels of glucose are what triggers the pancreas to make insulin as discussed in Dr. Dwight Lundell's article, and also causes the substance Malonyl COa to shut down CPT1.  Because Carbs are so low in calories and have such high levels of glucose, blood sugar, it requires insulin to get that glucose into the cell membrane.  So in effect, you receive very little energy from the food you have eaten, and have now FORCED your body's biochemistry to add another layer of fat.

You are left with cravings and when the muscle tissue asks for more fuel, you will obey, causing you to overeat, and giving up on your daily calorie count.​

Less Information is Better.

​Why you may ask?  Because these two pathways are all you really need to know and understand, you can burn Sugar, or Fat.  Every sense we as humans have went on the modern diet, 50-60 years, we have gotten Fatter, have a greater risk of heart disease, and diabetes is now at epidemic proportions.

But we have been an agricultural society for over 10 thousands years, so this goes back a long time, but it wasn't until recently that we have had such a variety of choices, and information.​  Farms and Pharmaceuticals companies are larger, and with the advent of Big Media, supply Chains that reach around the World, we now suffer from not only Information Overload, but a plethora of diseases unknown to mankind before.