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Comment by matwood | Hacker News Reader

Calories make you fat. The problem with carbs is that they are generally very caloric dense and they are everywhere. Cutting carbs is an easy 'diet for dummies' way of doing it, but I'm going to guess that you put yourself in a caloric deficit by cutting out the carbs, thus experienced weight loss. Just for reference, I eat a ton of carbs are part of my total P/F/C intake and am still cutting down with a goal of 9% BF.

The problem with many of these types of books is that the science behind them is very weak. Here is an article where Alan Aragon looks at the problems with the glycemic index (I know you didn't mention it, but it shows the problems with many studies dealing with food).

http://alanaragon.com/elements-challenging-the-validity-of-t...

I know I've read an article from him dealing with no carb, but I can't seem to find it right now :/

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Insulin + calories make you fat, not just calories. That's why one of the early symptoms of Type I diabetes is uncontrolled weight loss despite increased hunger.

Insulin has a very important role in weight control but is often ignored in favor of the calories in - calories out argument, an argument that ignores important factors in weight control (most notably the influence of diet on satiety and metabolic rate).

Insulin is not evil. Studies have shown that proteins elicit the same insulin response.

http://www.weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319

> Calories make you fat.

It's not nearly that simple. 2000 calories once a day in one sitting is vastly different than 2000 calories spread evenly over 5 or 6 meals throughout the day.

Calories don't make you fat, insulin spikes make you fat, which are caused by too many calories too fast causing your blood sugar to spike.

Intermittent fasting with nutrient timing:

http://www.alanaragon.com/an-objective-look-at-intermittent-...

It seems that the research points that body comp levels are either unchanged or lead to more fat with the more meals/per day. The benefit of spreading out calories has to do with satiety and hunger not the gaining of fat. From the well researched article summary:

§ A haphazard/randomly variable meal frequency, not necessarily a lower frequency, negatively impacts thermogenesis, blood lipids, and insulin sensitivity.

§ Within a day, a higher frequency has no thermodynamic advantage over a lower frequency under controlled conditions.

§ The majority of controlled intervention trials show no improvement in body composition with a higher meal frequency.

The glycemic index of the carb also affects hunger to a large degree because of the resulting spike in blood sugar. Yes, if you are only going to eat X amount of calories they are pretty much all the same. One of the biggest carbs to cut is fructose as it interferes with the "im full" feeling.

But if you are a sane human being that eats when they are hungry then cutting carbs especially high glycemic index carbs (fructose) can put your body in a state where weight loss will occur naturally because of reduced appetite.

Sigh. So much misinformation in this thread. The main person who champions that fructose interferes with satiety is a guy named Lustig. Here some real research is placed up against Lustig's claims:

http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-ab...

and http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-...

From the article:

"Hold on a second…Lustig is forgetting that most fructose in both the commercial and natural domain has an equal amount of glucose attached to it. You’d have to go out of your way to obtain fructose without the accompanying glucose. Sucrose is half fructose and half glucose. High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is nearly identical to sucrose in structure and function. Here’s the point I’m getting at: contrary to Lustig’s contentions, both of these compounds have substantial research showing not just their ability to elicit an insulin response, but also their suppressive effect on appetite [3-6].

But wait, there’s more. In studies directly comparing the effect of fructose and glucose preloads on subsequent food intake, one showed no difference [7], while the majority have shown the fructose preload resulting in lesser food intake than the glucose preload [8-10]. A recent review of the literature on fructose’s effect on satiety found no compelling case for the idea that fructose is less satiating than glucose, or that HFCS is less satiating than sucrose [11]. So much for Lustig’s repeated assertion that fructose and fructose-containing sugars increase subsequent food intake. I suppose it’s easier to sensationalize claims based on rodent data."

  > Lustig is forgetting that most fructose in both the commercial and
  > natural domain has an equal amount of glucose attached to it.
  > You’d have to go out of your way to obtain fructose without
  > the accompanying glucose.

According to Wikipedia, the most common HFCS mixture is a 55-45 fructose-glucose mix. How else would HFCS be sweeter tasting than sucrose?

55-45 is pretty close to equal. His comment still stands that get it would be hard to find straight fructose. In addition, I'm not sure how 55-45 invalidates any of his argument, mainly that glucose is always around with the fructose.

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