Low carb diet = no fruit?

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by scorpio1980

I don't know where you get your info, but Dr. Atkins was born in 1930, and died in 2003, making him 72 years old at death. Also the medical report released from the hospital where he was admitted after his fall states that he was 195lbs at 6'0'' tall. That is a bmi of 26.4, but who cares anyways BMI is a stupid way to measure health, it doesn't take into account muscle mass. I have a BMI of 26, which would mean i'm overweight slightly accourding to the bmi calculations, but i'm actually under 10% bodyfat, so BMI is pretty useless for the most part in determining a proper weight. I don't follow atkins diet, but I know it can be usefull if done properly. Too much protein is not good, but fat is an excellent macronutrient, the most important in my oppinion, so important that without it you can't use all your micronutrients, also so important it is used to develop our hormones, and the fact carbs happen to be the only thing we can live healthy without, or in limited supply. Again I don't support the diet, but I support the research, and logic behind much of Dr. Atkins ideas, and even though his diet has flaws I believe he was heading in the right direction.

I used the figure of 200 pounds that came from the interviewer. Also if you read directions for household cleaners they say "not for internal use." That means that you do not use the cleaner for drinking. They are stating that it is not for that purpose. The info on the BMI does not say that the numbers are from the Almighty God of the Christians. It says that it is a guideline to help people who are wondering if they are overweight. It states that it does not apply to muscular individuals. So what you are complaining about is like me saying that a friend drank a cleaner and he died so the stupid cleaners are useless. The BMI is a good way to measure being underweight, overweight and obese, but it does not claim to be perfect.

Again is says that it does not apply to muscular people and they are the ones that complain about it. The picture of Dr Atkins is not that of a muscular guy. I would call it portly [large and heavy in a dignified and stately way]. So that means that the BMI is also no good for a power lifter. It does not apply to George Foreman before he was a boxer. He used to cut down tree with an axe.

I agree with Dr Sears that says that muscular people need more calories than others and they should get it from [good] fats (the extra calories). Raw vegan bodybuilders suggest eating avocados (60% fat) and olives.

[alexplatups]

Originally Posted by Manomanman

Interesting info alex. Given this information, I wonder which would be best for fat loss?

How much do you weigh now? And how much do you want to lose? And why
are you worried about fruit?

you can eat whatever fruit that you like, as long as you do it in moderation
and together with other macronutrients.

For example for breakfast, I eat fruit every day, and this is how I do it:

For example sometimes I eat oatmeal, turkey breast or chicken breast and a
fruit, I like apples, peaches, strawberries, pears, and many others.

I do not worry what I eat for breakfast that much anymore to be honest,
in fact I eat up to 5 cheat meals per week, with food like chocolate cake,
cheese cake, fudge brownies and other delicious food that I love

but I also do cardio training for sixty minutes every M, W, F, Sun, and do
weight training T, Th, Sat, every week of the year, except when I go for
my week vacation in Amsterdam, then my only exercise is drinking coffee
in the coffeeshops

And I lost 100 pounds in twelve months, it mostly came from body fat, and
I have maintained it for more than ten years, and currently have 10% body
fat and weight 80 pounds.

The whole time to maintain my weight I have worked out regularly and have
been eating like a normal person. This means that I eat about 3500 calories
per day, with 50% of my daily calories coming from complex starchy and
fibrous carbs, plus some fruit in the morning, 30% from lean protein and fish,
mostly salmon, and 20% from dietary fat, mostly walnuts and flaxseed oil, and
of course salmon has lots also (these 3 are the best sources of omega-3)

If you want to lose unwanted body fat, and you want it to come from your
fat cells, and not water or your muscle, the best path is losing 1.5-2.0 pounds
of body fat per week, any more and it is most likely water or muscle, to make
sure that you are losing body fat, you have to measure your body fat
percentage on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, and then you will know where
the weight loss is coming from

if you are losing lean body mass (water or muscle) then you have to adjust
your approach and either eat more, adjus your nutrients, or meal frequency
or lower the intensity, duration, frequency of your cardio workouts

to tell you the truth it is hard work to maintain my ideal weight, in fact I
spend 15 hours per week working out (cardio and weight training) this
includes driving to and from gym of course, and have to eat perfectly
most of the time thinking about every calorie I put in my mouth, including
beverages (I only drink water, except 1 cup of coffee in the office every
morning, of course) and of course my cheat meals during some of my
breakfasts. And this I will have to do for the rest of my life, because as soon
as I stop, my endomorph body type starts to gain body fat the next day!

[Orecle]

Originally Posted by joelr

Alex is advising 50% carbs which works on paper but in real life I think that would take a lot longer to lose weight. It took him 2 years to lose ~100 lbs which is great. With the lower carb, 6 small meals diet it takes about 6 months to drop 100 lbs. I used to do it every year.

The other poster is right about the fruit craving, it is a sugar thing. When you get off sugar those cravings go away.
It comes down to how fast you want to lose weight and how much you want to sacrifice. I understand that most people would rather lose weight a bit slower and still get to enjoy eating some sugar and never have to feel the low carb feeling.

I fully support this post. Why go at something with a toothpick, when a sledge hammer will do. If you are a natural endo morph, you will react worse to carbs than anyone else. The extreme reduction of carbs, ( grains and fruits, excluding veg - as you can eat as much as you like) will speed up the fat burning process many times. I am seeing so many people taking a year to do what they could have done in 8 wks, if they had just radically reduced carbs and exercised daily.

I congratulate anyone for taking 6 mths to a yr to lose 30 lbs, but that could have been done in 3 mths +. Cutting down on fruit (and eating more veg) is not going to instantly make anybody unhealthy. You are not going to drop down dead, suddenly. Carrying all that excess weight and not being able to run 100 metres seems alot more unhealthy to me.

Go at the fat loss like a military exercise, then enjoy a healthy diet and guilt free junk. I know from experience that the more carbs you give your body, the more it will use that rather than stored bodyfat. Especially since a majority of dieters will not do daily cardio of an hour + of vigerous exercise

I support Alex because he has done an amazing job, but a diet 50% in carbs is like riding a 100 mile journey on a bicicle, when you could have drove faster with the reduction of carbs and addition of daily (mon - sun ) exercise.

[Orecle]

Originally Posted by alexplatups

you can eat whatever fruit that you like, as long as you do it in moderation
and together with other macronutrients.

For example for breakfast, I eat fruit every day, and this is how I do it:

The problem with the term moderation is its ambiguous. Like a person that drinks daily vs the person that drinks mthly, but both class themselves as moderate drinkers. The fact is carbs affect endomorphs differently, so one endomorth can have his fat loss stalled by 3 apples + starchy carbs, while a natuaral mesomorph can eat 12 and still lose fat. Bottom line, keep the fruit, if you stop losing less than 2lb consistently in a week. then slowly wind down the carbs, espiecally the sweet carbs

Originally Posted by alexplatups

And I lost 100 pounds in twelve months, it mostly came from body fat, and
I have maintained it for more than ten years, and currently have 10% body
fat and weight 80 pounds.

I have tremendous respect for you for your accompilshment. I did under half of that and I know it was tough. Espiecally the mental side.

Originally Posted by alexplatups

The whole time to maintain my weight I have worked out regularly and have
been eating like a normal person. This means that I eat about 3500 calories
per day, with 50% of my daily calories coming from complex starchy and
fibrous carbs, plus some fruit in the morning, 30% from lean protein and fish,
mostly salmon, and 20% from dietary fat, mostly walnuts and flaxseed oil, and
of course salmon has lots also (these 3 are the best sources of omega-3)

If you want to lose unwanted body fat, and you want it to come from your
fat cells, and not water or your muscle, the best path is losing 1.5-2.0 pounds
of body fat per week, any more and it is most likely water or muscle, to make
sure that you are losing body fat, you have to measure your body fat
percentage on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, and then you will know where
the weight loss is coming from

This is not directed at you Alex, cos I have read the 'after 2lbs fat loss you lose muscle/water' in many books
I use to beleive the 2lb fat loss muscle thing, then one day it came to me. I have seen really obese friends lose 4lbs weekly for mths, and their muscles, espiecally in the shoulders went up. Why does everybody on the planet have to be limited to 1- 2 lb weekly before they start losing muscle. I then start asking round and others agreed that many individuals regularly lose more than 2 lb weekly without muscle loss.

Lets say an obese woman or man who has over 100 lbs to lose does it in 7 mths. this is roughly 4lbs a week. which is absolutely doable if really overweight. So this means in 7 mths, the body has lost 50lbs of fat and 50 lbs of muscle and water. this doesnt make sense. where did an untrained individual get this extra 56lbs of muscle /slash water to lose? obesity does not cause rapid muscle gain and certainly not 3 and a half stone of it. The body certainly does not store that amount of water just to lose it with body fat. The water we lose in dehydration aint the same as the one suggested we lose in fat loss. so if they did it in a year, would they after 6 mths, hold 50 lbs more muscle and water, since they were within the 2lb weekly threshhold?

This is identical to the BMI myth. The original measure is done on no more than 15 people. But some doctors still swear by it. Its mind boggleing

Originally Posted by alexplatups

if you are losing lean body mass (water or muscle) then you have to adjust
your approach and either eat more, adjus your nutrients, or meal frequency
or lower the intensity, duration, frequency of your cardio workouts

, my endomorph body type starts to gain body fat the next day

Agreed. In my opinion attack it hard and fast, so as not to get demoralised. It is easier to maintain than to lose in the 1st place. Once you have lost, you can introduce what ever you like and the mirror and clothes will be your judge

[ginkgo]

Some of it is coincidence like the macrobiotic diet. By cutting out carbs that would include tons of different junk foods and include no junk food. So that would be a huge improvement but you get the same improvement switching to eating fruit. Anyone knows that-- fruit is much better than junk food.

The macrobiotic diet had many stupid things with it like eating mostly grains and not eating nightshade plants. But people got huge improvements by giving up meat and dairy products. A macrobiotic chef on TV, Christina, now claims to be a vegan, not macrobiotic.

[Kasha]

Fruit is a good source of energy, and the fructose doesn't provoke an insulin response (which causes fat storage). Thing to keep in mind though is that the fruits we see on the store shelves today are biologically altered from those our ancestors ate - they have been selectively bred to be more sweet which may cause a problem with blood sugar.

I recommend fruit that is in season, grown in your part of the world no more than 200 km from where you live. As for any prescribed eating plan, truth is there are thousands out there, and they all work for some of the population. You need to find something that works for you.

I eat like you do, and have my raw fruit and nuts in the morning. Since I'm a personal trainer you got my blessing ;-)

[alexplatups]

Orecle,

It is true that much of what I post on here is ambiguous, which is open to or
has several possible meanings or interpretations (for someone like me who
did not really know what it means) , but the fact remains that nutrition and
exercise has to be individualized or custom tailored, and to give exact
numbers, I would need exact details about a person's current diet, and
activity level, plus many other things including his concepts about what
he/she considers objective reality, and why is he/she ignoring it

This is why I recommend that a person creates a weight loss chart, where
they track their total body weight, their body fat percentage, their lean body
mass and their total body fat weight.

By doing this on a weekly basis, you can objectively see where you are going
with your nutrition/exercise strategy. This is what I have been doing for more
that 15 years, and everyone that used my approach and used a weekly
weight loss chart has produced similar results

but the real secret is the goal setting chart that I also recommend to create
before starting an effective and permanent fat loss program, I explain how
to create it on this page, so that I do not have to write it all in this post

Effective Goal Setting

without using something like this and having an end result which you are
moving toward and at the same time tracking your current reality, it is
almost impossible to create the drive and non-stop motivation that is
necessary on a daily basis.

this is more important than anything else, and it is what has helped me from
day one and until the present moment, to eat properly and exercise without
ever stopping, quitting, giving up, or as many like to call it, throwing in the
white towel

I mean, let's be honest, the most difficult part of weight loss, is to create
that single-minded focus on hitting your main target (ideal body weight), and
the second hardest is to maintain this result for life

because more or less everyone knows what they have to do (eat less and
exercise more) but they can't get themselves to do this consistently
day in and day out, without stopping and returning to over-eating and
sitting on the couch

so in my honest opinion, weight loss, like everything else is 80% about
creating this non-stop energy (true motivation) and 20% process (the actual
steps toward bringing into reality what you want)

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by Kasha

Fruit is a good source of energy, and the fructose doesn't provoke an insulin response (which causes fat storage). Thing to keep in mind though is that the fruits we see on the store shelves today are biologically altered from those our ancestors ate - they have been selectively bred to be more sweet which may cause a problem with blood sugar.

I recommend fruit that is in season, grown in your part of the world no more than 200 km from where you live. As for any prescribed eating plan, truth is there are thousands out there, and they all work for some of the population. You need to find something that works for you.

I eat like you do, and have my raw fruit and nuts in the morning. Since I'm a personal trainer you got my blessing ;-)

Yes I know that people do terrible things to fruit. One guy almost died from eating an apple due to the pesticides on it. They genetically modify it so fruit can have pig genes in it. They also irradiate it. Once I started to eat watermelon and it was not sweet and had no taste. I did not eat it.

[Manomanman]

So I started on my diet 4 meals ago. I'm eating 3 equal portion sizes of: free-range meat + green/orange vegetable + legume. My cooking skills are fantabulous, and I've been loving every bite. I feel like I'm "starving" without being hungry, so I think it's working.

I ate 1/2 a banana this morning (for the first time in 2 days), and my mouth nearly had an orgasm.

I'm going to avoid everything but not-so-sweet fruit throughout the day. I will try making a fruit salad mix with stuff like cantaloupe and stuff...because it's hard to get going in the morning without at least one carb.

My poop is starting to get more solid, and my intenstines are slightly less inflamed around poop time.

I'll keep you guy updated on anything else going on.

P.S. Saturday is carb loadup day, and I'm already having fantasies

[liamona]

Originally Posted by Manomanman

So I started on my diet 4 meals ago.

I've been meaning to tell you, starting a LC diet in the summer is very challenging! There's just too many juicy fruits available.

I will try making a fruit salad mix with stuff like cantaloupe and stuff...because it's hard to get going in the morning without at least one carb.

That's true. If it's cold in the morning, I eat warmed veggies, usually leftovers from dinner. If it's warm, I eat a huge salad. I usually have eggs and some kind of meat with the veggies, cooked in butter.

Good luck with the diet! Remember to have fun with it.