I am tired of people pushing low carb/keto type diets

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Health and nutrition was my special interest for several years. I've read tons of articles and research papers.

Just some facts about nutrition and carbs:

1. Carbs have nothing to do with microelements and vitamins.

2. There is no such thing as essential carbs. Eating zero nutritional carbs has zero negative effects on health. You need dietary fiber, but it has nothing to do with glucose metabolism, so fiber doesn't count as nutritional carbs.

3. When you consume carbs above some threshold, your body flips the switch to glycolysis for at least several hours. Your body is hesitant to flip back to ketosis due to evolutionary quirks.

4. When your body is in glycolysis, fat metabolism is less efficient and more stressful by definition of this metabolic state.

5. Carbs cause insulin secretion and other hormonal reactions which as domino effect cause chronic inflammation, blood cholesterol rise and in long-term it results in metabolic disorders. The more you eat and the easier digestable they are, the worse is this effect. Chronic inflammation causes auto-immune reactions, like allergies. It affects your mood.

6. Your body needs long-term sustainable way to consume amount of calories required to function properly. You can't cut calories forever.

7. You can eat moderate amount of carbs without noticeable negative effects for your health, but It is very-very hard (I would argue it's pretty much impossible) to consume carbs in amounts to fully cover your energy requirements without any negative effects of #5

8. While in glycolysis you can't efficiently cover energy requirements by consuming more fats and proteins due to #4. Eating more fat and protein while you are in glycolysis is stressful for body and harmful for your health. This where common nutritional guidelines are not wrong.

9. While in ketosis, your fat metabolism is efficient, energy requirements are effortlessly covered as you seamlessly burn dietary and body fats as energy source without any stress, your needs of glucose are fully covered by gluconeogenesis. And fiber, vitamins and minerals as we already discussed in #1 have nothing to do with carbs or fats, you should consume enough on any diet.

10. If there are long-term negative effects of being in ketosis, it is still to be discovered and proved. So far there is no known and proven harm of ketosis.

I would say these facts summarised make me more inclined to claims "carbs are bad for you".

At the most neutral point carbs don't have any positive effects and are not essential, while preventing positive effects of being in ketosis.

Why would anyone say "normal" diet is better for your health? How so? I would agree if you would say more "convenient" or "easier", but better for health or weight loss? Hell NO.

Are they consuming the exact amount of calories as westerners? Or are they consuming less calories?

You could be right that they eat less carbs then us because they're eating less of everything. I can't see any evidence that they're diet has less carbs in proportion to the total size of their diet.

Again, just because their diet contains fish that doesn't mean their diet is mostly fish. I can't see any evidence that Asians eat more fat than us. Do you have some evidence that shows Asians eat more grams of fat per day than westerners?

Yes I really did say eating less calories is better. I never said eating a high carb diet is better.

I also never said you need carbs to live or you need carbs to be healthy. I don't know how you inferred "eating high carb is better" from "eating less calories is better".

I already answered this question. Ok, I'll be very patient with you and answer it again.

I'm arguing whatever weight loss people experience on the low carb diet was caused by reduced calories, not be less carbs.

Technically you are right, Japanese people eat slightly more carbs and slightly less fat percentage wise. But they eat 60-70% of their carbs as rice and vegetables which have 20-60% lower insulin index compared to 70-80% of refined wheat products western people consume and they drink about twice less sugary soda.

Eating carbs with lower insulin index is roughly equivalent to eating less carbs and taking into account how fat flux affected by insulin, it means roughly the same amount more of dietary fat becomes actually utilised instead of being stored as body fat.

Which from metabolic point of view is roughly equivalent to simply eating less carbs and eating more fat. Besides vitamins and minerals this nutritional proportion makes you healthier, not just total amount of calories you consume. Less steep insulin spike mean less steep blood glucose drop, + better fat flux profile mean you are less hungry and less likely to consume more total calories.

Chinese eat less carbs and more fat than westerners and Japanese even percentage wise.



Pardon, but you said "Instead of keto".

And you insist you need to eat less calories to lose weight. Fine. Why do you think it's better to lose weight eating less calories on whatever diet you defend instead of eating less calories on keto?



You are plain wrong. Yes, if there is weight loss, there is caloric deficit de facto, no s**t Sherlock, you can't break laws of physics.

But caloric deficit is not the same as caloric restriction or reduced calories.

Caloric deficit can be achieved by increased energy expenditure rate in general and basal metabolic rate in particular as a result of different hormonal profile when your body is in different metabolic state. Which is what's happening when you are on ketogenic diet.

On keto not all, but many people CAN achieve weight loss even without explicit caloric restriction. Not just water loss as some people here claim.

Yes I did. I said it's better to lose weight from eating less calories instead of from keto. I didn't say you have to be on a carb based diet while eating less calories. I also said that the weight loss one experiences is from eating less calories, even if you're on a low carb diet.

Less calories is certainly better for weight loss than keto if you were in ketosis and caloric deficit at the same time but the calorie deficit was the cause of the weight loss.

I never said it's better. Didn't we already discussed this? Your habit of asking me to back up claims I never made is quite remarkable. Perhaps you got into an argument with someone who said you need carbs to be healthy and now you're confusing me for him.

I said that less calories is better. I didn't say that less calories while eating a chiefly carb based diet is better. How many times do I have to repeat myself with you?

Sorry, which diet did I defend? Oh that's right. I didn't defend any diet. Eating "less calories" isn't exactly a specific diet.

So I'm right then. I'm glad we're in agreement.

And now you get to explain how keto increases BMR. This should be fun for you since it seems to be your favourite subject.

Many but not all? I guess Doctor Atkins' book should come with a disclaimer.

If they lose weight without having to count calories is it because they're eating the same amount of calories as they did in their former diet while having a higher BMR or is just because having less choices in food forced them to give up some of their unhealthy foods?

After all a lot the snack foods that people mindlessly eat at work are carb based. If you take those off the menu they could easily be eating less calories even without intentionally trying to reduce their calories.

So, you mean "keto with caloric restriction is better for weight loss than keto without caloric restriction"? OK, I agree with you.


Sorry, but no. Caloric restriction and caloric deficit are not the same thing. Caloric deficit is what you observe after the fact. Caloric restriction is when you "reduce calories" compared to some assumed number of energy expenditure as baseline. One doesn't necessary mean the other.


I don't get to explain HOW keto increases BMR. It's up to scientists to explain how. But this is what they observed in at least some humans.

You can believe what you want, I can't tell you what to think, but weight loss on ketogenic diet doesn't boil down to simple caloric restriction. And benefits of ketogenic diet do not boil down to weight loss.

I don't want people to dismiss this opportunity to change their life for better just because someone casually drops "Instead of keto wouldn't it be better..." line without any thinking or research.

Last edited by badRobot on 11 Mar 2018, 11:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

if you had Crone's, everybody around you would be aware of it [the most horrid flatus], that has been my experience with a barracks-mate in the army who had it.

You're right. That's not what "instead of" means.

I wrongly assumed that you were pushing for low carb, high calorie, but you never said that. I meant that low calorie (with or without carbs) was better than low carb, high calorie but you never said it has to be high calorie. I wrongly inferred that part.

When you talk about keto and not about eating less calories you make it sound an awful lot like you're relying entirely on keto and not on eating less calories.

Yes the baseline is your TDEE. I don't know what sort of baseline you were thinking of.

If you like you can imagine some arbitrary baseline so you can accuse me of having used it.

Last edited by RetroGamer87 on 12 Mar 2018, 12:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm starting a different approach to eating than I've used in the past except on a limited basis.

Several months ago I started using a small bowl for ice cream. With the bowls I was using, I'd put in about four whole scoops of ice cream. With the smaller bowl, I put in about 3/4 of a scoop and am just as happy with that as with a big bowl full of ice cream.

So now I've extended it to my regular meals. Instead of using a large plate, I'm using a salad or bread plate for my meal or a regular bowl.

For example my supper tonight consisted of rice with some baby lima beans cooked with a little ham on top. It made a very nice meal.

For lunch today, I had a vegetable spring roll and a small amount of popcorn shrimp on a salad plate. There was room on it for some duck sauce for the spring roll and some cocktail sauce for the shrimp. The plate looked quite full and I wasn't hungry when I finished.

Having a salad plate with the meal on it, the meal is more satisfying than with the same amount of food on a larger plate. Never forget the effects of your brain on what you eat.

There are obvious exceptions to the one salad plate rule:

1) If I eat bread with the meal, a separate plate for the bread is acceptable. For example, when cooking bacon or ham and eggs, there is room on the plate for eggs and a small amount of bacon or ham. The toast (or flour tortilla in some cases) is on a second salad plate.

2) Hamburger and fries. On those occasions when I go get a hamburger and fries and bring it back, I'll still use a regular plate. However, if they have a hamburger by itself on the menu without fries, I'll get the hamburger and not the fries.

Usually, though, I just fix my own hamburger and don't bother with fries.

3) When eating soup that came in a can, I'll still use a large bowl so that it doesn't slosh out of the bowl.

4) Something that just won't fit on the plate such as a bean burrito. I'll often fix a bean burrito for lunch or supper, but the size of the flour tortilla I use is a fair bit larger than the plate.

You can't possibly know your de facto TDEE for any particular day unless you spent this day breathing into a tube for indirect calorimetry. Unless you live in a laboratory or hospital breathing though a tube 24/7, your TDEE is an assumed, largely made up number. It is some arbitrary baseline.

Oh, so that's why restriction never worked for me. Oh wait, it did. I lose weight eating 1,600 calories per day. Since I can know my precice TDEE I suppose it's possible that my TDEE is less than 1,600, which would lead to weight gain but unless I think it would be unlikely my TDEE would be that low unless I was a small child (I'm not).

True we can't know our precise TDEE just like we can't measure something down to the micron using a tape measure. Does that make tape measures useless? It sounds like you've hit on the perfect solution fallacy. Shall we throw out all imperfect solutions?

True it would be impossible for me to get a deficit of -1 calorie per day without a precise measure of TDEE but why would I want such a minute deficit? How about I aim for a deficit of a thousand? Even if my estimate of TDEE overshoots by 500 calories I'll still lose weight.

Aim for restriction and you can get a deficit. They may not be the same thing but one leads to another unless you're way, way off in your estimate of TDEE.

But how can I know I was even remotely correct in my very rough estimate? Here's how. By observing my weight loss, which does not require laboratory equipment. For ten years of my life I was 35 kg heavier than I am now. I now feel much healthier and have more energy.

So if, as you say "caloric deficit is what you observe after the fact" and if we say weight loss is an acceptable way to observe calorie deficit after the fact then I think it's pretty safe to say I've observed a caloric deficit in my imprecise attempt to create a deficit of greater than zero through imprecise restriction.

What the hell is wrong with you? You already said this two pages ago and we already discussed this. I didn't say you can't lose weight in general, I didn't say YOU in particular would not be able to lose weight this way. This is not what my point is.

We are not talking about micrones. When your estimated TDEE is 2200 your actual TDEE could be anywhere from ~1700 to freaking ~3000+. Not exactly micrones kind of scale.

What the hell are you arguing about? What the hell is your point?????

Calm down mate. I even included the post I was arguing against in quotes to make it easy for you, yet you still can't follow the argument so I'll provide you with a summary.

You said that restriction and deficit aren't the same thing and I argued that restriction leads to deficit unless your estimate of TDEE is so far off that you're restricting above your actual TDEE.

You seemed to believe that restriction and deficit are totally different things unless I have laboratory grade equipment to measure my precise TDEE. You said that my calorie goal is just an arbitrary number. I then argued that a precise measure of TDEE is not necessary to set a calorie goal that will be some amount lower than your TDEE.

Yes I agree that a very rough estimate of TDEE is not micron scale. I never said said that was. The clue is in the term "very rough estimate".

You already said "how come I can lose weight" and I gave you my answer. You are repeating yourself.


I said deficit and restriction are not the same. This is true. I said one doesn't necessary lead to another, this is true. Not on -1kcal scale, but on hundreds of calories scale. This is freaking true. I said it is possible lose some meaningful amounts of weight without restriction. This is true.

Why do you feel the urge to come up with some borderline stupid thought experiments like -1kcal and keep arguing?

What the hell is your point???????? What are you trying to prove?

I'm not the only one. You tend to repeat yourself quite a lot.

So did I. On page 5. I said "After all a lot the snack foods that people mindlessly eat at work are carb based. If you take those off the menu they could easily be eating less calories even without intentionally trying to reduce their calories." Your response agreed with this but then you edited it out for some reason.

You're the one who brought up the need for laboratory precision. My example was in response to you saying I'd need to breathe into a tube all day to know my precise TDEE and I said I don't need to know my precise TDEE to come up with an estimate that's good enough for me to lose weight. I lost weight so I guess it worked. No tube required. Such precision is not needed.

How's this for an estimate. My TDEE is probably more than 1,600. How much more? It doesn't matter. That's all I need to know to create a usable weight loss diet.

What are you trying to prove? Or do you just want to argue?

I don't give a damn about your TDEE.

I just pointed out that restriction and de facto deficit are not the same thing. One doesn't necessary lead to another. You can observe non-zero de facto deficit without restriction and you can observe zero de facto deficit with restriction.

This is true because actual TDEE fluctuates significantly depending on many factors, including macro composition of your food.

It is YOU who brought up precision. Saying that one leads to another, but for this to be true you need to target higher deficit to be sure. No sh*t Sherlock! But I didn't argue about borderline cases you keep coming up with.

What are you trying to prove? Or do you just want to argue?[/quote][/quote]

I said many times what my point is.

I believe ketogenic diet has many benefits, including the fact that you might lose weight even without explicit caloric restriction, eating what you want except carbs. Just due to the fact that in abundance of energy from body fat metabolism your body downregulates hunger and upregulates energy expenditure.

It doesn't have to be my TDEE specifically. I was just using myself as an example. I could just as easily have said "One's TDEE".It does if you're doing it right. A wide margin of error is required.So are you trying to lose weight without restriction or without deficit? Does ketosis eliminate the need for a deficit or does it eliminate the need for restriction only?Yes I know. That's why a wide margin of error is required.You brought up precision instruments that can only be found in a laboratory. You wouldn't use scientific instruments if you didn't want precision.I never said you did.Eating what you want except most common types of food? That's a bit like saying you can you can buy the Model T Ford in any colour you want so long as it's black.Yes you already made that point several pages ago so why keep going?

And you certainly said what your point is many times. Once would suffice. Funny how you accuse me of repeating myself after you've said what your point is many times.