NowIunderstand's Journal, 15 March 2018

I would say the study didn’t prove anything relating to “starches” as being the sole cause to their weight being lost. The fact isn’t that they added bread or fiber or more starch to their diets which caused the weight loss. It’s the fact that they were in a calorie deficit, and most likely eating the bread & fiber rich foods, made them more full, because fiber and bread and other foods similarly high in grains/fiber are filling foods. So they wouldn’t have wanted to eat more, hence creating an unknown calorie deficit, causing the weight loss. You can easily eat 5lbs of potatoes every day and if the calories from those are in excess of their daily/weekly calorie maintenance levels, they’ll gain weight. Only thing that will literally cause any type of weight to be lost is a calorie deficit. So in conclusion. If you eat more dense fibrous foods, or vegetables which also have water content in them (which also make you feel fuller) then you may indirectly create a calorie deficit from simply being too full to eat more foods. 

And as the study said the bread worked “to replace” the foods higher in fat which, fat is higher in calories, also leading to less calories being consumed 

Deadpool - That was the whole point of the study. If you fill up on lower calorie density foods, you have less room for high density ones. The participants were given no other instruction than to add the 12 slices per day. They weren't told to eliminate anything at all. It naturally created a deficit. Also, your body can only extract 1 to 2 calories per gram of complex carbs because they're much more difficult to digest. There are hundreds of studies on this exact subject over the past century. All produced similar results. It's the entire basis for the weight loss aspect of whole food plant based eating. Calorie density. The other numerous benefits are just bonuses. 

Ah yeah, the way I read it is they were trying to say the starch was the thing that caused weight loss, not the fact it was a deficit, but I see what you’re saying. Any foods in any infinite combination regardless of if they’re high/low fat/carb/protein, as long as they create a deficit of calories will always cause weight to be lost of course. Speaking of potatoes though, Fun fact, In 2010, Chris Voigt, the head of the Washington State Potato Commission (funny title but it’s a thing lol) decided to dispel the myths that potato’s were unhealthy & other crap people said about them, so he went on to only eating potatoes for 60 days. Indirectly Creating a calorie deficit, which wasn’t even his purpose in the first place, and lost 21lbs in those 60 days. 

He's one of many examples. Penn Jillette Started with a 30 day potato cleanse before transitioning to a WFPB diet. High Carb Hannah documented her 30 days on youtube. Another guy in australia did it for a year. In the 1940's, Dr. Walter Kempner conducted a series of studies with a diet comprised entirely of white rice, sugar, fruit, & fruit juice. The addition of sugar was to reduce protein intake to 5% of total calories. In one study, 93% of patients dropped their cholesterol by over 100 points, this in a time when statins didn't exist. In another study, he had 106 massively obese patients do it. Their average weight loss was 141 pounds. Dr. John McDougall prescribes this diet to his sickest patients to this day, with the same types of results.  

I have no doubt this works, and adding complex carbs to your diet is a good thing. However, some people will eat four cups of white rice (for example) at one sitting thinking, hey it's not fat, so it's good for me. I fear their insulin will spike and the resulting low blood sugar will make them feel shaky and panicky. At the same time they'll be full but not feel satiated, and turn to simple sugars and fat. I could be very wrong. Good luck!! 

Actually, Kempner cured Type II Diabetes on a regular basis with his diet. All of the WFPB doctors out there currently cure it on a regular basis as well. The cases where it isn't outright cured, it's much better controlled than on any other diet, though perhaps it's only on par with the low carb diets. The difference is, WFPB diets have none of the side effects that low carb diets do, like kidney stones, kidney failure, heart disease, & fatty liver disease, just to name a few. "Carbs cause diabetes" is a myth.  

Interesting 

Dryphtr what you meant in the first comment was about fiber from the complex carbohydrate source. So only a small portion of fiber can be broken down and ingested by intestinal bacteria, since the complex carbs digest slower due to the fiber content, and The bacterial breakdown of fiber generally contributes less than 2 kcal per gram 👍🏻 but yes complex carbs such as oatmeal would be a better source than simple ones without much nutrient content  

it's all hogwash!  

Deadpool, actually, I was trying to oversimplify the digestion of starches in a way that would be appropriate for a web forum. If you want a longer version of what I was talking about, there are 2 newsletters that cover it very well. Since fs truncates web addresses, I'll add search queries instead. If you want the full version, buy The Starch Solution. It's a wealth of information. <Excerpt from McDougall Newsletter - March 2009> <Google search reference - People Passionate About Starches Are Healthy and Beautiful - 1st result> "You may have heard that “all calories are the same when it comes to body weight.” This is incorrect, especially in terms of efficiency of appetite satisfaction and ease of fat accumulation. Three substances—protein, fat, and carbohydrate—can provide fuel for the body, measured as calories. Starches, like corn, beans, potatoes, and rice, are abundant in carbohydrates, dietary fiber, and are very low in fat. Appetite satisfaction begins with physically filling the stomach. Compared to cheese (4 calories per gram), meat (4 calories per gram), and oils (9 calories per gram), starches, at only one calorie per gram, are very calorie dilute. In the simplest terms, starches physically will fill you up with a fraction—one-fourth—of the calories as will cheese, meat, and oil.2 Furthermore, research comparing the impact of eating carbohydrates and fats on the appeasement of our appetite shows carbohydrates lead to long-term satiety, enduring for hours between meals; whereas the fats in a meal have little impact on satiety—people are left wanting more food when they eat fats and oils." <Excerpt from McDougall Newsletter - February 2012> <Google search reference - starch: the traditional diet of people - 2nd result> "There are three basic types of carbohydrates—sugar, cellulose, and starch—each made up of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in specific configurations. The simplest of these—sugar—includes sucrose (the granulated sugar you bake into cookies), fructose (which makes fruit taste sweet), lactose (found in milk), and glucose (the simple sugar that comes together in chains to make cellulose and starch). Sugar provides quick and powerful energy because it is so easily broken down in the body. (We’ll learn more about sugar in Chapter 12.) The second type of carbohydrate, cellulose, is made up of chains of glucose bonded together by indigestible linkages. It is found in the cell walls of plants and in wood and other organic matter. Our digestive system doesn’t have the enzymes to break down cellulose to use it for fuel, but termites do, which is why they can eat through the wood beams of your home. Although we get no energy from them, indigestible carbohydrates like cellulose are valuable to us for their dietary fiber. The gold medal for the carbohydrate most beneficial to humans goes to starch. Like cellulose, starches are made up of long-branching chains of glucose molecules. Starch is valuable to us because we can break it down into simple sugars that provide us with sustained energy and keep us feeling full and satisfied. Starchy foods are plants that are high in long-chain digestible carbohydrates—commonly referred to as complex carbohydrates. Examples include grains like wheat, barley, rye, corn, and oats; starchy vegetables like winter squash, potatoes, and sweet potatoes; and legumes like brown lentils, green peas, and red kidney beans. Starch is so important that an international scientific journal—Starch—is dedicated to its study." 

Ah I see, I assumed so, I was just talking about the calorie aspect of fiber was all. But all of that is correct and good information on the satiety of filling starchy/carbohydrate dense foods 

Also another reason I choose to have higher carbohydrates in my weekly diet, not just for fuel purposes and other benefits, but because carbs are very filling as those sources indicated 👍🏻 

😉