Hi all,

While I don't want to start a war, I have a serious question about low-carbing especially under 60 grams of carbs per day or being in ketosis. I was reading the Schwarzbein Principle II and she says in that book that taking your carbs too low damages your metabolism and makes you even more insulin resistant. She says you can force weight off by keeping carbs low, but that if you keep them so low that you raise your adrenaline higher than insulin (causing you to use yourself up more than you rebuild), your body will ultimately make you more insulin resistant in an attempt to slow down your usage, otherwise you might die. So if this is true I was wondering the following.

1. Since I assume the amount of carbs tolerated by different people equates to the amount of insulin resistance they have, how can you tell if you are going too low? Don't feel well? In ketosis?

2. Has anyone ever gotten a glucose tolerance test along with insulin after they had lost a lot of weight low carbing? I ask because they make you drink glucola which is pure sugar, and in my case, my 5 hour glucose tolerance test revealed that I'm nearly diabetic and my insulin resistance is very bad. But my post-prandial glucose and insulin (2 hours after eating a normal meal) was in the normal range for glucose and insulin. I take this to mean that I am good at controlling glucose and insulin by the way I eat but my body is no better at handling large amounts of glucose when I take a glucola test. Normal people are supposed to handle large amounts of sugar even when it wasn't good for you to have it.

Which means that even if you lost a lot of weight low-carbing, if you still show up really insulin resistant, the health you are trying to achieve still isn't there. Schwarzbein says you have to get healthy to lose weight, not lose weight to get healthy. Have those of you who lost large amounts of weight had a test to determine if you got insulin sensitive because of it?

Did she quote any specific studies or research in TSP2 that shows this to be true?

Unfortunately, most LC authors want to scare you off to think they are different from other LC plans, and that they alone are "healthy", and following others is bad, bad, bad.

There's nothing magic about 60 grams of carbs, you can get ketosis at over 100 grams. If she's right, there would have been no Eskimos

Wa'il

Define what she means by being healthy.
I have been on maintenance for over two years and don't eat over 60 grams of carbs a day. Why would it matter if I had a problem handling 400 grams a day? I exercise a lot and have lots of energy, low blood sugars, great cholesterol, sleep soundly, and enjoy life. My doctor has pronounced me as in the lowest risk group for heart problems. What is unhealthy about that?
I firmly believe that eating low carb (any plan) is healthy and eating high carbs is unhealthy.
Even when I ate zero grams of carbs (or as close to it as possible), I was not able to get Ketostix to show any color, although I had other symptoms of ketosis.

I believe she defines being healthy as being insulin sensitive which means your insulin does it's job correctly (as opposed to being insulin resistant) and also not having burned out adrenal glands. She contends that taking your insulin too low puts stress on your adrenal glands and then your body will make you even more insulin resistant. So while you are solving problems in the short term, in the long term you make yourself more unhealthy. That's why I brought up whether anyone has taken the glucola glucose and insulin test. Because you can affect your blood sugar and insulin with the way you eat, but the true test is how your cells respond when given a large amount of sugar. Insulin sensitive people will have a normal clearing of the sugar without large amounts of insulin and insulin resistant people will have trouble clearing the sugar thus the pancreas keeps pouring out more and more insulin, making the insulin in your blood too high.

So my goal is to have a healthy insulin response, not just to cover up the symptoms by eating differently. That's why I want to know if anyone had done a glucose tolerance test with insulin measurements at the same time so they could know if their low carb diet has really made them better or if they are just working around the problem.

KSRT

But that would mean you are trying to do a research/study to see if what she said is true, right? The problem here is that you can get all sorts of responses, and none of them is in a clinical setting, or a controlled group.

It would have been more useful is she just pointed out any such studies and references that made her arrive to such conclusions. Was there any footnotes or references in the book along with that statement?

I only read TSP 1, and while it had no footnotes, there was a list of references for each chapter. Check if there is one in TSP 2, and there might be some references there for the chapter where she said that, and we can check those out.

Wa'il

Ksrt-

I had the fasting insulin with glucola test before I started LC. I had very high insulin levels, although my sugars managed to stay within appropriate ranges. So, insulin resistant, but not yet diabetic.

I was warned that it is recommended to eat a 'normal' level of carbs for several days before taking the test to get a good reading. I don't remember what goal number for carbs I was told but I did try to match it. I know that it was a higher level than I ever plan to eat again on a regular basis.

I have not repeated the test since Atkinsing. I can only say that the feelings I associate with high insulin and unbalanced sugars are well controlled as long as I eat what my body considers 'properly'.

I have read 2 of the Schwarzbein books. I felt she had a lot of really good information, but not necessarily the whole story for everyone. I can tell you that eating the way she recommends is still much too high in carbohydrates for my body. I can not maintain balanced blood sugars at those levels.

I can tell you that after 7 mos on Atkins, eating between 30 and 50 carbs per day I've lost weight, increased my energy, and I have much better response to my periodic indulgence meals with high carb items. On the other hand, in July when I allowed myself one or two servings of fruit per day in the form of peaches and nectarines my blood sugars destabilized and my weightloss plateaued.

What I would recommend for you is to read a selection of different books, particularly Life Without Bread and one of the most popular ones like South Beach, Atkins, or Protein Power. Increase your personal knowledge base, then pick a system that sounds right for your body. Give it an honest try, then if it isn't working, start adjusting it according to your personal reactions.

If one thing worked for everyone, we'd all be thin wouldn't we?

I wish you well on your journey to find YOUR best way of eating.

Dr. Atkins recommended that if you have been low carbing that you raise your daily intake of carbs to a minimum of 125 grams per day for a minimum of 3 days prior to taking the test or the results could not be considered accurate. Going from a low carb intake of 20-30 grams a day to the amount that is given during a glucose tolerance test (generally 75 grams of glucose) is a shock to the system; not only is that a large amount of carbs at one time, but also high GI carbs that are rapidly absorbed with nothing else in the stomach to buffer the effect.



Once you are insulin resistant, you are no longer a 'normal' person and it's debatable whether you ever will be again.

I am a diabetic and without taking a test, I can tell you that insulin resistance is directly related to weight. A drop of 5-10 lbs will significantly lower my insulin resistance, as I can see by the dosage of medication I need in relation to my blood sugars. It's also related to appetite. When you're insulin resistance begins to get corrected, your voracious appetite no longer exists. On Atkins, I was ALWAYS hungry, trying to satisfy my cravings with more protein/fat, to no avail. On Schwartzbein, I do not feel that way and have no problem eating only the recommended amounts. Also, a cheat may consist of an extra half a serving of something and that is satisfactory. On Atkins, a cheat was a binge. I couldn't control it.

When I tried Atkins, I was bloated and constipated and weight loss came to a standstill after two weeks. I have been doing Schwartzbein and am feeling better AND losing weight. They're not too different. Schwartzbein recommends 15-20 carbs/meal and half of that with a snack. Its much like the maintenance of Atkins. I think people on Atkins tend to want to stay on the induction longer than intended, due to the quick weight loss and then they become carb-shy.

If you stick with really good carbs, filled with fiber, you'll find weight loss still continues and you feel better. It also seems to prevent me from seeking out the high fat foods to satisfy my appetite. Fat is ok, but you can get carried away. I like to think my diet is neither low or high fat, just stick with the healthy ones.

Thank you all so much for your replies. Schwarzbein does claim that you can "heal" insulin resistance, that's the reason for my question. If you assume that you can never "heal" then you definitely need to control the carbs all your life. But if taking your carbs too low actually makes you more insulin resistant, then you are kinda winning the battle but losing the war. So my real question was aimed at determining whether anyone who was formerly insulin resistant is now insulin sensitive by losing weight on a less than Schwarzbein amount of carbs (primarily because a Schwarzbein amount of carbs still keeps my insulin high). And what about this burned out adrenal thing? Anyone believe in that and has cured that by keeping the insulin up which is what she talks about in the book?

KSRT

How do you prove that you have 'healed' insulin resistance? Do you have to go back to a high carb lifestyle and see if you gain weight? If high carbs caused insulin resistance in the first place, why would it not do so the second time?

I have always had insulin resistance, I think. I only noticed it when I was pregnant and developed gestational diabetes, and type II after that.

I think its a genetic thing and its something you always have to watch. As your weight goes down, so does your insulin resistance, but that doesn't mean it wont return if you gain again. You're never healed, just controlled. Thats my opinnion.

I think everyone has a degree of insulin resistance....it's just at some point the one person will find out....later in life or early in life.

I was wondering the same thing. I have no doubt that low carbing can normalize blood sugars and insulin levels but if you go back to doing what you did before, the results will likely be the same and I'd be willing to bet that it wouldn't take long back on a high carb plan before the person would be headed right back into higher insulin production and insulin resistance again.
As with diabetes, normalized blood sugars don't mean that the diabetes is 'healed', only that it is well controlled.
As for Adrenal burnout, there are many factors that can contribute that that, not just a very low carb intake; stress, caffeine, chronic lack of sleep just to name a few.

We talk about going back to how we were eating before, but that was different for everyone. I ate junk and crap and tons of sugar/refined carbs. Of course returning to that is unhealthy, but if I grasp what the original poster is saying about Schwartzbein, Schwartzbein is probably suggesting that insulin resistance could be healed to the point where healthy eating could include a higher carb level comprised of whole grains, fruits, legumes than you might be able to have on regular low-carb maintenance.

If that is true, it's an interesting concept. I can see a scenario where I damaged my insulin response by years of crappy eating but if a diet designed to heal the insulin response worked, then I could go on to eat a healthy, but (relative to most low-carb diets) high carb diet in maintenance. If it's possible (and I don't know, I'm just theorizing based on this little amount of info) for insulin resistance to be healed as opposed to be managed, wouldn't that be the best solution?

In my own experience, the primary symptom of insulin resistance was hypoglicemia, in particular feeling sleepy after a meal (because of IR I was overproducing insulin, leading to low blood sugar soon after eating). While lowcarbing, the very occasional high-carb indulgence did send my BS skyrocketing but didn't put me to sleep soon after. To me, this means glucose is more quickly and readily accepted by the cells and thus there is no need to overproduce insulin. Improved glucose uptake means improved insulin resistance as far as I know.

This is purely anecdotal evidence, of course, and my own 2c.