I loved this. Tim Noakes letter to runner's world.


I wish every newbie to the message forum would read this. Shoot, I wish I'd read it about 30 years ago!

This is great! thanks for posting this!

T'is the same with all "diets" - once you go back to how you used to eat, then you're going to go back to how much you used to weigh - simple!

I remember a heart breaking moment, when I was nearing my goal weight and it was drawn to my attention that I could never binge on chocolate, cakes and high carb foods again if I wanted to stay slima nd feel healthy. I did actually slip back a bit a couple of years ago and put weight back on. But, it wasnt just the weight, it was the side effects I had from carbs - IBS, Arthritus, lethargy..... I realised that its better to stick without the bad stuff - lets face it, nowadays there are many low carb options once you hit your goal and you dont feel the same cravings or hunger

Jo xxx

That's so true.

But why does our society make us feel that eating all that stuff is somehow almost our moral duty. If you give up smoking, most people will pat you on the back. If you give up carbs (except veggies of course, which most people don't realise are carbs anyway) they think you're nuts.

Fortunately not everyone...

Nancy: Thanks for posting this. It's common sense, but it needs to be remembered during those times when we indulge in magical thinking and convince ourselves the same old foods won't yield the same old results. Could certainly help so many newcomers - a sticky maybe?

Excellent post!

I second the sticky notion!

Good question. I used to think I was well informed about diet and nutrition, kept up with all the "official" low fat, low calorie nonsense. Before I took the plunge to go low carb I actually googled "can human beings live without grains". That's how brainwashed I was into believing they were essential to our survival. So, I guess that's what most people still believe. They think we are nuts and they think we are setting ourselves up for great harm by cutting out an entire 'food group'. Sigh, sigh, sigh!

Not entirely true IMO, with LC + Fasting you can reverse IR and its resultant high blood sugar readings.

An broken metabolism can take a long time to 'fix,' but it also takes a long time to mess it up again. This is one reason IF is so very effective for so many people. My FBS on Atkins used to push 118 now it's always 88 even post eating. I can function on a blood sugar reading of less than 50 without becoming functionally impaired to any great degree. I think that's because I now utilize ketones mainly for energy.

FWIW Tim Noakes is a very widely-respected running author. His book Lore of Running is one of the best encyclopedia-type history of running books I've ever read. It is great to see he is on-board with low card.

I wonder if this is true in the way people would read it. Before I cleaned up my diet for maintenance, I could fail an OGTT at will, and my typical bG curve was much closer to a mild T2D than normal.

On LCHF, my b-cells have had time to "catch up", and with a very carefully designed intense exercise program I have a tolerable level of insulin sensitivity. Together, I get a bG curve that is vaguely normal. It is VERY artificial though. I stop the exercise, and go back on sugar, it won't be a week before I'm out of "juice" as it were.

So, I think its wrong to use the word "reverse". If it were reversed, I could stop exercising, eat a bucket of ice cream, and nothing interesting would happen. And that is NOT true, and there's nothing in journal literature to suggest that it ever will be true again for me.

But.... it is enough. I call it "control". I can keep exercising, and I can keep the LCHF diet plan, even if I fail to cravings from time to time; and I suspect as long as I do keep at it, I'll not have the doc explicitly say "D" to me. And that is a Good Thing (tm).

Over 3 years on low carb my A1c went from over 6 to 5.9 to 5.6 to 5.1. When it went from 5.6 to 5.1 I was eating low carb but lost only about 20 pounds. This was a 16 month time period. I believe my beta cells are healing somewhat, because my carb intake is not lower now than it was when my A1c was 5.9.