Not Just a Man's World

I had a rant on a links post the other week about the misguided concepts that people have over what constitutes low carb or high carb diets.  One of the most common questions I get from people is that carbs are a necessity and how do I cope with no carbs in my diet.

Misconception number one is that carbs are a necessity.  Methuslah tried a 7 day virtually zero carb experiment a while ago and coped absolutely fine with no noticeable problems.

Misconception number two is that I have no carbs in my diet.  I challenge people by asking them what they think vegetables are.  In response I generally get a blank look.  People seem to think that vegetables and fruit are a macronutrient category of their own and don’t contain carbs.

These common misconceptions concern me so I’ve pulled together some links to articles and posts from the last few months covering the issues related to carbohydrates.

Should we be making more effort to avoid carbs for the sake of our health?

• A study published in March noted that junk food creates compulsive eating, sharing a similar biomechanism with cocaine and heroin.  NephroPal has taken this a step further, looking at the content of junk food and specifically the addictiveness of sugars, starches, grains and other high carb foods.  I’ve written about experiencing this addictiveness last Christmas when I tested being non-Paleo.
• Fats were given a reprieve when a meta-analysis in March comparing the food intake of nearly 350,000 people against their risk of developing cardiovascular disease suggested that processed carbohydrates rather than saturated fat may be the problem.  Another study of the diets of over 35,000 Italians was comparable to this, showing a potential link between high glycemic load foods and the risk of coronary heart disease.  This news even made it into the general press (both CNN and the BBC as a start), though how long people will remember it before they go back to their low-fat whole-grain diets is difficult to predict.  If the science in the articles is a bit too confusing, try the more readable explanation by Helen Kollias on Precision Nutrition.
• I’ve written about fermented and sprouted grains and foods before so I was pleased to see a detailed article on Whole Health Source which went through the detail relating to grain fibres and heart problems, especially pre-existing heart problems.  It’s well worth a read, even for those Paleo buffs who wouldn’t be seen going anywhere near a grain, since this is crucial understanding for conversing with those who don’t understand the Paleo diet.
• For a couple of really helpful summaries about what carbs do to the body (and what happens when you strip them out), try the articles on the Heart Scan Blog about “Slash Carbs … What happens?” and “Glucophobia: The Novel”.  They are really good quick-read summaries.  If you want a real-life experience of what a low-carb lifestyle can do to your body, Dr Davis also posted up the story of one of his patients.
• If you are wondering about doing resistance training and a low carb diet as a woman, an experiment done on overweight women suggested that a low carb ketogenic diet in combination with resistance training reduced body fat without significantly changing lean body mass.  This suggests that if you are overweight then a low carb ketogenic diet combined with resistance training would work well.  However, this doesn’t help any of us who are not overweight when we start out.
• I’ve done a good job of being rude about grains and I flagged up at the beginning that fruit and veg are also carbs.  However, there are some excellent benefits to eating your fruit as well.  Brian St Pierre wrote about fruit outperforming vegetables in helping to prevent macular degeneration.  This is an important lesson for all of us.  Even those of us on a low carb diet still need to consider the benefits of some of the carbs we are avoiding and consume them in appropriate quantities to obtain some of these benefits.
• For women it seems that there may also be a connection between carbs and infertility.  Or rather, Dr Michael Fox has found that putting women who are having fertility problems onto a low-carb diet often gives fantastic results.
• Finally, if people still don’t believe that reducing carbs would be a good idea then try suggesting they jump on the celebrity bandwagon.  After all, Ellen DeGeneres claims that her secret to staying in tip-top shape is due to a low-carb, grain-free, sugar-free diet.  Does this sound like a familiar diet to anyone?
• For those who are now convinced that you should at least give up the grains to reduce the high GI carbs, Mark Sisson has provided some tips on giving up grains.  He’s also posted up some thoughts on “low carb flu”, a name for that brain fogginess that accompanies the first few days or weeks hwile you convert to a lower carb lifestyle.

I hope you’ve found these links interesting and useful.  Are you someone who thrives on a low carb diet or are you more carb tolerant than I am?

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