Living Low Carb (21 page)

Does this mean you can’t achieve weight loss on other programs? Of course not.

But for an awful lot of people, sticking to a modest caloric intake on a low-carb program is going to be easier, more filling, and ultimately more healthful. The trick is to keep calories where they need to be—whatever your particular number is—and to keep your intake of the low-carb vegetables (and fruits) as high as can be (while minimizing all the rest of it). Don’t underestimate the “metabolic advantage”—but don’t overestimate it either!

That’s a prescription that makes sense for both health and weight loss.

CHAPTER 6

The Biggest
Myths about
Low-Carb Diets

O
ver the years, there have been many criticisms leveled at low-carbohydrate diets. Some of these have been repeated so often that they are now taken as gospel, even though some have never been closely examined; while others have long ago been proven false, although they continue to be repeated as if the research debunking them had never happened. Some of these beliefs are based on complete misunderstandings of biochemistry and physiology, some on an astonishing distortion of the program being criticized. (For example, one supposedly reputable healthinformation Web site criticized “The Zone” on the basis of the “fact” that “the Zone diet contains less than 1,000 calories,” which is patently false.)

Some of these beliefs are nothing less than cultural “memes,” a term meaning an idea that takes on a life of its own and is passed down from generation to generation, like the ideological version of a gene. These memes are rarely examined—they just “are.” Examples of memes are tunes, catch-phrases, the way you make a bridge, or a basic foundational belief—i.e., something “everybody knows” (like “the world is round,” “birds fly,” and “saturated fat causes heart disease”). Some memes are useful and true, but some are in dire need of reexamination and should ultimately be dumped in the cultural wastebasket.

You’d think “science,” with its reliance on experiment and validation and objective measurement, would be immune to the vagaries of beliefs and prejudices. However, you’d be sadly wrong. Scientists are first and foremost people, and they can be just as shockingly petty and proprietary and stubborn as the rest of us. And entrenched beliefs and theories don’t die easily. The history of science is littered with theories that lasted 50 or 100 years or more before people finally came to accept that they weren’t valid.
¹

And the prevailing medical and dietetic beliefs can be summed up in six words: low-carb diets will hurt you.

It’s going to take a while for popular opinion on that to shift, but let’s take on a few of the most commonly held assumptions here and see where it takes us. At the very least, perhaps some of what I’m about to say will give you pause the next time you hear one of these myths repeated with great authority as if it was gospel truth.

MYTH #1: You “Need” Carbs

When I do live workshops and talks, I often do the following demonstration: I tell everyone in the audience to pretend they are on the show
Survivor
and we’re going to divide the room into two teams. Everyone in the room is going to be on a desert island for one year. Then I draw an imaginary line down the middle of the room and make everyone to the left of the line “Group One” and everyone on the right “Group Two.”

Then I say the following:

“Everyone in Group One will be fed absolutely nothing but protein and fat for one year. You will get zero carbohydrates in your diet. Everyone in Group Two will be fed nothing but carbohydrates for one year. You will get zero protein and zero fat.”

Then I pause for the punch line, which is this:

“Everyone in Group Two will be dead within the year. Everyone in Group One will be doing just fine.”

The fact is—hold on to your seats now—there is no physiological need for carbohydrates in the human diet.
²

None.

Now, before you throw this book down and decide that I’m completely crazy for making such an outrageous statement, take a look at what the august and esteemed Institute of Medicine of the National Academies has to say about this in their reference manual,
Dietary Reference Intakes: Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids
. In case you don’t want to bother looking it up, here’s what it says on page 275:

“The lower limit of dietary carbohydrate compatible with life apparently is zero, provided that adequate amounts of protein and fat are consumed.”
³

The Institute of Medicine goes on to say: “There are traditional populations that ingested a high fat, high protein diet containing only a minimal amount of carbohydrate for extended periods of time (Masai), and in some cases for a lifetime after infancy (Alaska and Greenland Natives, Inuits, and Pampas indigenous people) (Du Bois, 1928; Heinbecker, 1928). There was no apparent effect on health or longevity. Caucasians eating an essentially carbohydrate-free diet, resembling that of Greenland natives, for a year tolerated the diet quite well (Du Bois, 1928).”

You’ve probably heard that the brain requires a minimum 120 grams of carbs a day in order to function. Actually, that’s technically inaccurate—it does indeed need 120 grams of
glucose
(sugar) to function, but it can make that glucose perfectly well from certain amino acids (found in protein) and from the glycerol backbone of triglycerides. Let’s not confuse dietary carbs with glucose. They’re not the same thing.

Okay, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me back up a minute.

The fact that there is no dietary need for carbohydrates simply means we can survive without them. It does
not
mean—and I am
not
saying—that we
shouldn’t
eat them (see myth #2).
⁴
I’m simply pointing out a basic fact in biology. Our bodies will and can run on ketones
⁵
—quite nicely, thank you very much—and whereas we will die without protein and fat, we will
not
die without carbohydrates. However, we would not die without hot and cold running water, nor without indoor plumbing. Nor without someone to cuddle with every night. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have them.

I do think it’s curious that groups like the American Dietetic Association continue to recommend that the lion’s share of our calories come from the one macronutrient we could actually survive
without!
But don’t get me started.

MYTH #2: In a Low-Carb Diet, You’ll Be Missing All the Vitally Important Nutrients that You Get from Carbs

Well, this myth would have some validity
if
low-carb advocates actually suggested cutting out all carbs.

But they don’t.

Not a
single advocate
of controlled-carb eating thinks we should eat a
no
-carb diet. Carbs—from vegetables and fruits and legumes—provide fiber, phytochemicals, and a wealth of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. Controlled-carb does
not
mean no-carb, and I am certainly
not
advocating a no-carb diet for anyone. A no-
junk
diet: you bet. A low-sugar diet, absolutely. But a no-carb diet? Not on your life.

What’s more, you can eat a ton—and I mean a
ton
—of vegetables and even fruits, and still be on the “low” end of the carbohydrate spectrum.

Consider this: you could eat—
on a daily basis
—
all
the following carbohydrate foods and still be consuming
under
140 grams of carbohydrate, which is
less than half
of what most Americans now consume:

•  5 cups of spinach = 5.45 grams carbs (3.5 fiber)

•  2 cups of cooked broccoli = 22.4 grams carbs (10.1 fiber)

•  1 cup of raspberries = 14.69 grams carbs (8 fiber)

•  1 medium apple = 25.13 grams carbs (4.4 fiber)

•  20 grapes = 17.74 grams carbs (0.8 fiber)

•  ½ sweet potato = 11.8 grams carbs (1.9 fiber)

•  ½ bowl of oatmeal = 13.5 grams carbs (2 fiber)

•  ½ cup of Brussels sprouts = 5.54 grams carbs (2 fiber)

•  ½ cup of blueberries = 10.72 grams carbs (1.8 fiber)

•  2 medium carrots = 11.68 grams carbs (3.4 fiber)

Considering that most people in America aren’t even getting 5 (let alone 7 or 9) servings of fruits and vegetables, and considering that the above list represents roughly
16 servings
, you can see that I picked a pretty extreme menu. But even so—16 servings of carb foods and you’re still
under
140 grams (138.63 to be exact, but who’s counting?).

But wait: it gets better.

Most people in the low-carb world don’t count fiber as part of their “carbohydrate” intake, since it has absolutely no effect on blood sugar. They subtract fiber from total carb count, and call what’s left either “net carbs” or “effective carbs,” which is pretty much the way it should be. The above 16 servings gives you a whopping 37.9 grams of fiber, one of the most important nutrients for health on the planet. (The average American gets between 4 and 11 grams, and every major health organization recommends between 25 and 38 grams.)

If you subtract those 37.9 grams of fiber from the overall carb total of 138.63, you are left with about 100 grams of carbs a day. That might be enough to make the American Dietetic Association apoplectic, but who cares? I defy anyone on the planet to show me how a diet that includes the above 16 servings of fruits and vegetables,
plus
plenty of protein (grass-fed meat, wild salmon) and fat like olive and coconut oil, nuts, avocados, and even a glass of red wine and a bite of dark chocolate, is “unhealthful.” Show me. Please. I’ll be right here waiting.

And I’ll be waiting a hell of a long time.

Now, some people in the low-carb world would not consider 140 grams of carbs a “low-carb” diet, and, to be sure, for some people—particularly the very insulin-insensitive, or those with metabolic conditions in which every single gram of carbohydrate must be counted—this might be too high. But let’s talk for a minute about the general reader: you, perhaps. A diet that reduces carbs to that very reasonable amount, and at the same time frontloads it on vegetables and fruits, is going to represent an improvement that’s literally light-years ahead of what most folks are currently eating. It’s going to extend your life, increase your energy, stabilize your weight, and improve your health.

K
ILLER
C
ARBS

Ever wonder why you’re hungry for more after you eat a high-carb snack or meal?

Research by Zane Andrews, MD and his team at Monash University in Australia identified key appetite-control cells in the human brain. These appetite-control cells are attacked by free radicals after eating, but the attack is bigger and stronger following a meal rich in sugar and carbohydrates.

“The more carbs and sugars you eat, the more your appetitecontrol cells are damaged,” said Andrews, the lead researcher on the study. The result? You eat more.

The forces that compel you to eat and the forces that tell the brain “Hey, this dude is full!” are constantly at war. When your stomach is empty, it triggers the release of a hunger hormone called
ghrelin
. When you’re full, a set of neurons known as POMC’s (
proopiomelanocortins
) kicks in.

Free radicals normally created in the body attack both the “hunger” neurons and the “anti-hunger” neurons, but the “hunger” neurons are naturally protected. This tips the scale in the direction of hunger and cravings.

And carbs create the most damage of all.

According to Andrews, people aged 25 to 50 are most at risk. “The neurons that tell people in that crucial age range not to overeat are being killed off.”

Yet another reason to limit your sugar and processed carbs if you don’t want to be the victim of constant cravings.

MYTH #3: Low-Carb Diets Induce Ketosis, a Dangerous Metabolic State

I will admit that in the last few years—between the publication of previous editions of this book and now—the subject of ketosis has faded somewhat from center stage. Once an important feature of low-carb diets (since Atkins promoted it as part of his original diet), ketosis is no longer a “required” part of any low-carb diet, unless that diet is being studied scientifically or used therapeutically (it’s a mainstay of dietary treatments for childhood epilepsy,
⁶
for example, and is still very effective for weight loss in recalcitrant cases).

So although ketosis was once the focal point of the arguments against low-carb diets, it no longer is. It’s now widely accepted that most people—if not all—do not
have
to be in ketosis in order to lose weight; conversely, you can be in ketosis and
not
lose weight. Nonetheless, I include this section simply to dispel many of the remaining myths about ketosis, and also perhaps as an object lesson in which we can see how a misunderstood concept can persist stubbornly for years.

And the best way I know to illustrate this is to tell you a story. Follow me on this, and you will understand more about ketosis than half the doctors in America.

Back in the 1990s, a lot of restaurants in New York City served a delicious fish that nobody would order. In fact, the presence of this fish on the menu caused more than a little distress in some circles and led to some heated exchanges between customers and restaurant managers. Animalrights activists—who were frequently baby boomers with enough disposable income to keep the restaurants afloat—were the most vitriolic in their condemnation of the establishments that served this fish, but the outcry from “regular” folks was not much more muted.