On Fri, 10 Jul 2015 10:22:13 -0400, Gary wrote:

> The all fat Atkins diet was just a fad diet. So was the low/no carb
> diet. Bottom line is just eat a balanced diet and eat less calories
> than you burn.

True. Your bottom line is actually a re-telling of simple physical laws.

Where I believe the low-no carb diet has merits is based on the conjecture
that human hunger regulatory systems have not evolved sufficiently during
the time since the advent of agriculture. (~10K BCE).

This has been mentioned before, probably by people with better credentials
than me, but I will re-state it again in my own manner.

Before agriculture (and territorial boundaries, land ownership, etc.), our
ancestors ate food without a lot of carbohydrates. Simply stated, our
regulatory systems (hunger / fat accumulation etc.) were balanced to
optimize the dangers of accumulating fat versus the danger of starving to
death. We evolved for thousands of years getting most of our winter
calories from animal fat, although we would readily eat fruit when it was
in season, and we constantly sought ways to preserve all types of food for
the winter.

Complex carbohydrates were/are a blessing and a curse. They provided a
manner to have an energy source (grains) that could last years without
going rancid. But the complex carbohydrate while it is being digested
wrecks havoc on the finely-tuned regulatory system of hormones that makes
us feel hungry or lay down a layer of fat. We evolved in an epoch of having
blood sugar levels determined by digestive intake of animal fat, not
starch.

So now we have a practical epidemic of diabetes, especially amongst people
who only got away from stone-age diets a few generations ago. (I.e. Inuit,
Cree, etc.)

I recently lost about 15 kg over the past 6 months. All I had to do was
stop eating anything white. (Pasta / Potatoes / Bread). For the first few
weeks, I was ravenously hungry. But after that, when my body system had
"rebooted", the daily fluctuation in hunger level became less pronounced. I
feel hungry and eat, but do not feel driven to overeat. I eat as much as I
want, and I continue to lose weight.

Sometimes, I fall off the wagon and have a donut or fries, but there is a
price to pay by being extra hungry the next day or so. Also (very
important), try not to mix starch and fat (i.e. cheesefries), because the
high blood sugar level maintained by digesting the starch makes it easier
for the body to put the fat into body fat cells instead of burning it for
normal metabolism.

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