Originally Posted by teaser

"carb cycling to restore hormones."


There's a problem with stuff like this. Everybody's going along just fine. Then somebody measures people's thyroid. There's a predictable difference between people on low carb and high carb, people on high carb with normal thyroid function, fed low carb, will get thyroid numbers that would have been abnormal if they'd gotten them while eating high carb. Somebody suggests that this must be bad, and this idea gets at least equal weight against the observations of people like Dr. Westman that contradict it.

Do we worry that the lower insulin levels somebody gets while eating low carb will cause hypoglycemia? Why should we worry that a hormone like leptin, that basically amounts to a shout-out from fat cells that they don't want to get any fatter, goes down when we eat a diet that doesn't threaten our fat cells with getting fatter?



In obese and overweight people, reduced leptin is a good thing, hyperleptinemia is no more desirable than hyperinsulinism. If you're not overweight--so by definition don't need to lose weight--sorry, but you might have trouble getting your hormonal system to cooperate with getting leaner, the body's resistance to six-pack abs is largely appropriate. Hypothyroidism and hypoleptinemia at lean body weights isn't hormonal dysregulation, it's an appropriate strategy for survival.