Paketbote's Journal, 10 February 2016

they will raise your insulin levels dramatically.  

Good job making it a good day for yourself! Potatoes sound yummy! It's great that you stuck to your way of eating and enjoyed it too! 

Ditto with the insulin spike, and my wife said to buy potatoes tonight, and I'm like "cheat meal" on the way! 

the insulin spike is fine though, as long as I am in a caloric deficit :) 

Exactly. You'll get the anti carb crowd commenting though. lol 

That's not entirely accurate. The "calorie deficit" mantra is a fallacy devoid of actual human biochemistry fact. Your body assimilates nutrients via hormones, not just calories. Certain calories are treated different ways, but that depends on which hormones you call upon when you ingest something. You could eat 3,000 calories a day in just meat and fat, but lose bodyfat because your body isn't spiking insulin to make bodyfat or you could eat 1,500 calories a day in starches and gain tons of subcutaneous fat. I've eaten 3,500-4,500 calories a day on my keto diet and lost 71 pounds in 6 months without exercise. If the calorie deficit theory was true, I'd be extremely overweight by now. Keep in mind that fat, by volume, weights less than muscle anyways, so when you step on the scale and weigh yourself, it's an inaccurate depiction of body composition. Here's one of many articles that's debunked the calories-in vs calories-out myth. "The theory that the number of calories you consume vs. calories you expend determines your weight is false. In reality, the equation is far more complicated than that, due to the fact that human beings are incredibly complicated biological machines. If you take more than a moment to contemplate the notion that a unit of energy as simplistic as the calorie can precisely determine the makeup of your body, you’ll realise just how absurd conventional thinking is." http://healthyenough.net/calorie-counting/ 

Too many people have bought into the unproven theory of "insulin is evil" from so-called low-carb experts. If you look at the controlled studies on weight loss it does come down to calories in vs. calories out. If it wasn't how do you explain Dr Mark Haub losing 27 lbs in 10 weeks eating his "convenience store diet", basically doughnuts, cupcakes, candy bars with protein shakes. How would you explain John Cisna losing 56 lbs eating only McDonald's foods? This one fits right in with this discussion, "The Washington Potato Commissioner Chris Voigt illustrated this in his two month potato-only diet, during which he lost 20 lbs and greatly improved his metabolic and cardiovascular biomarkers without feeling hungry." The evidence just doesn't support the low-carb mantra of needing to prevent insulin spikes to lose weight. 

Bcoulal, you are simply wrong. Your anecdotes has little weight in the face of scientific fact. http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/index.php/free-content/free-content/volume-1-issue-7-insulin-and-thinking-better/insulin-an-undeserved-bad-reputation/ 

I lost weight eating pizza and ice cream with an average of 4000 calories in the past and lost weight. It's even all detailed on my log here. I simply had a calorie deficit still. You MUST have a deficit over a period of time to lose weight. 

Well everyone is right to some degree or another. @Bcoulal is correct, you can well over 3,000 calories of fats and protein and continue to lose weight. @CatHerder is correct, Insulin is a tool that you can manage for good or evil, and both @CatHerder and @Diablo360x are correct to some degree in calorie deficit. What it shows is that it is what you eat, not how much you eat. Well someone must be wrong :-) There is no law of physics that states "Calories in = Calories Out", or anything like that...it is a silly saying that carries very little weight. @Diablo360x is wrong for stating that Bcoulal's recollection is "anecdotal", however, while anecdotal it matches with what others on a LowCarb HighFat diet have found. What this does highlight is that you simply cannot count calories as precisely as people want to think, as a calorie is NOT a calorie, i.e....not all calories are the same. One thing is for sure....pounding carbs will lead to a "worn out" Pancreas, where it simply cannot produce the amount of Insulin required to remove glucose from the blood (Type II Diabetes), regardless of body weight. 

Potato is a super food. It's not picky. It grows just about everywhere. And, it has been a major gift to to us for our nutrition for thousands of years. I like em. 

Thanks again Mahjohn 

@mahjohn-I agree that counting calories is not accurate. Your intake needs to be constantly reassessed. The first law of thermodynamics is the conservation of energy. If you eat 3000 cals of food, whether fat, protein or carbs, it has only a few fates in a the body (closed system). It can be burned off (heat), stored (glycogen, fat, muscle) or excreted. If you are not in a caloric deficit, the body will store the excesss as fat if the other systems are full. Consuming too much fat will make you fat.  

too much of anything you put in your mouth will make you fat.  

@CatHerder, that's the point of a Low-Carb High-Fat diet is that glycogen levels are low and are never full and incoming fat is stored/used for energy and excreted. However, it seems that more is being excreted and used for energy than being stored. I've been searching for quite some time to get specifics on this process...still looking, as it is the only way I can see that 3500 - 5000 calories of LCHF does not cause the weight that it should based on calories... 

Poooootaaaatooooeees!!! No but in all seriousness, there is no "perfect" diet. Some people thrive on a low carb diet, in my case my neurodermatitis breaks out and my workouts (martial arts -> cardio) become terribly exhausting and sluggish. Just find something you can stick to, and a lifestyle you feel good with. :) 

haha you doing that potato diet? 

When on a Low-Carb diet, it is essential have a much large amount of fat, say..65% or greater, if not..you'll feel sluggish, low energy. It takes about 3 weeks to go through glucose stores and ramp up fat burning as the primary energy source. Once you do you'll have more energy than before and longer lasting energy. 

@Knith naah not really, I just eat about 700g of potatoes a day because they're cheap and I'm a poor student, haha :D @Mahjohn yeah, I know I did that last year and hated every day of it after two weeks. I just can't eat so much protein ... 

It's not the Protein you need to eat more of. Avocado, Butter, Fish, good sources of Fat....no need to concentrate on Protein, it takes care of itself. Starving students :-)