Low-carb ends up being low-calorie. It's a tasty way to go low-calorie if you want to lose weight. The studies that compare low-carb diets to other diets include the calorie count for the diets and low-carb is usually lower in calorie if not the same intake as the other diets.

Eric Westman says exactly this in this interview. (He's the spokesperson for Atkins these days) but he not only says that this is what drives weight loss on low-carb diets but that this is common knowledge. I would think that just reading the studies would show it.

Eric Westman explains low-carb dieting:
http://radio.theheart.org/bob-harri...io.theheart.org)

The fact that people end up eating fewer calories on low-carb diets 'is a feature, not a bug' - any diet that restricts you will lower calories. Low-carb is restrictive as any diet. Westman says that it works better for insulin-resistant dieters but any low-calorie diet will work.

When people lose weight, things happen to them, health-wise, that happen no matter how they lose weight.

With all due respect to you and Dr. Westman, mathmaniac, the low-carb = low cal = weight loss equation is nonsense.

I gained weight on a 1200-calorie/day regimen (high fiber/carb, low-fat), and lost -- and continue to maintain! -- on 2,000+ calories with 0-2g carbs/day.

Others have had the same experience. Let go of this rubbish already.

I actually am not going to let go of the 'rubbish.' It was gratifying to hear Westman say that in the interview.

All the anecdotal evidence is there, I'm sure, for failure of a low-calorie, low-fat, low-anything diet (including low-carb diets). I myself can tell you that when I tried low-calorie diets, simply using denial (as in,'deny yourself this' and 'deny yourself that'), it never worked for me. I could say that I was scrupulous and absolutely honest about my calorie-counting but if I was and not losing weight, I really had other issues (water weight, hormonal things going on at that age, etc.). It's not because calorie-reduction doesn't work. Dieting is denying yourself something in order to reduce calories- this is true of every diet. You simply find the thing to deny that works for you.

I wouldn't say it ends up being low calorie. But I guess that depends on one's definition of low calorie. Is that 1200 calories? Is it lowER calorie than what you ate before?
I ate around 1300-1500 calories before LCing and maintained and gained the same few pounds. When carbohydrates are cut out, I eat much more fat, which has made my calorie counts go to 1600-1700 and some days up to 2000 or more. And I'm losing weight.

The claim that the things that happen to people 'health wise' as a result of losing weight would happen no matter how one lost weight is also not really true. You can't really lower your blood sugar or your insulin response to carbohydrates just because you lower your calories and lose weight. But you can if you lower your carbohydrate intake and lose weight.

By 'low-calorie', I mean that the participants in studies all start out with their calorie levels being something and they end up with their calorie levels being at a different level, that is lower. By saying that, I hope the definition is flexible enough to describe what it is and also encompass people who start out at a high level of calories, or a medium level of calories, or even what might be considered a low level of calories.

Anecodatally, if eating low-carb works for you, it works because you are eating lower-calories ('fewer calories' might be a better term, although there is a body involved that has height, etc., so BMI is a rough guide to what might be considered 'low, high, and moderate' for a person).

And if there's a difference that can be shown in an individual, you can go to clinics where they study metabolism. They will measure your caloric input and your caloric expenditure using a variety of methods and if it true that on lower calories, you gain and on higher calories, you lose, without any change in energy expenditure, congratulations - and my condolences - you are either a medical miracle, or you have something that will be diagnosed.

When people lose weight, the healthful things that happen to their bodies are multiple and individual - but predictable. They happen no matter how they lose weight. Throwing away your diabetes and blood pressure medications (that is, assuming you are not type 1 diabetic) is common when you reach a certain level of weight loss, no matter how you got there (except in the case of liposuction, for example, in which some things just don't change, even though fat has been removed).

This stuff has been studied to death for years and years.

I can kind of see where you would be coming from.. And I can see that someone eating a certain level of calories, let's say 1200, but was also consuming large amounts of refined carbohydrates would not lose weight, but then maybe upped their calories and ate whole foods, could begin losing weight. Especially if they had an intolerance to food, which is what I think is what kept me from losing and maintaining at 1200.

But it is interesting to read about what hormones do with food that is eaten. Different thigns are done with, say, sugar, than 5 ounces of beef, after it is digested.

The reason why calories are key is that if you eat a lot of carbs - say, you are a vegetarian - you will still lose weight. If I eat 1000 calories worth of carbs every day, or, more reasonably, let's say 85% of my calories come from carbs, I will lose weight. I know that I eat around 2,000 calories each day (fitday). Whether I WANT to eat that way, whether it fits my lifestyle, whether it tastes good to me, whether I choose for my own idiosyncratic reasons to eat that way, it will still happen but all those things will determine whether I can live with that diet (which restricts, like all diets restrict).

If you eat 1000kcals per day. Your experience does not automatically apply to others or even at all. Furthermore, if you don't eat enough protein, you will lose weight too, lean tissue. Is that what we're talking about?

Even if you ate mainly carbs (I use 85% of calories as an example), body building progresses to increase muscle mass (which has weight and will be reflected in poundage), based on the work of the body builder. Diet plays a part but energy expenditure and specific work to increase muscle mass is essential.

http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/?p...icle_precontest

When I say that if I eat 1000 calories a day and 85% come from carbs, I will lose weight, it's because I know how many calories I eat now. The carb part is interesting but it's the calories that count.

I also know that I am a sedentary, post-menopausal woman. If I ate like a vegan body builder, calorie-wise, but didn't match his energy expenditure (in particular, HOW he expends his energy, building muscle) I would be huge. Because, with a sedentary life style and the aging process, which also figures, I know how my body reacts to 3000 calories. Whether those calories come from protein or carbs or fat.

No, my experience doesn't apply to all others. For one thing, all others are not post-menopausal women. Neither does experience of the vegan bodybuilder who has different calorie expenditure AND intake and massively more muscle.

'Enough protein,' is a subjective term when applied to myself and to a body builder and to anyone else. But if you look at ANYONE else and they are taking in fewer calories and not losing weight, then look to their energy expenditure for the other side of the equation. Protein is not the issue here. If I don't eat enough protein, I will lose weight? Really? My experience disproves that. My greatest challenge is to up my low-fat or non-fat protein intake. I don't lose weight - far from it - when I eat less protein. Protein is more satiating, also fiber - so I struggle to up my fiber intake as well as low-fat protein, and that is very difficult!

This is my own diet. It's one I want to live with. If I want to lose weight quickly, I'd just do the cabbage soup diet. It works very well for that.

'Your experience does not automatically apply to others or even at all.'

This is funny. My experience applies to me at the very least!

Why is that funny? There have been a few people already that say they eat more calories now than they used to and are now losing weight.. I don't know what is so hard to understand about that. Maybe calories matter for you, but not for everyone else to a degree...

Not the "Atkins works because you eat less calories" myth again!
Nutritionists like to say "well you lost weight because you cut out a whole food group" Then they turn around and say "fat has 9 calories per gram ..."

BTW: when I switched to Atkins my high blood pressure went down to normal before I lost a significant amount of weight. I wasn't checking then, but my fasting blood sugar probably followed suit.

'Why is that funny? There have been a few people already that say they eat more calories now than they used to and are now losing weight..'

We just have to take the word of the person remembering their caloric intake. If they swear they wrote it down, after measuring it, knowing the food composition exactly, and they were utterly scrupulous, I'll say, OK, even to that. Just keep it up, day after day, and you lose weight.

If it's not happening at the rate you want, lower the calories that is your daily limit. Then, there's always the less-popular option, which is to just live with that level, suffer through the 'plateau' (now, THERE'S a word you hardly ever hear on this board!) and live with the diet. You will lose, much more slowly than you want. As long as you don't gain, you're ahead of the game. Considering you started out fatter!

I'm not disagreeing with the feelings of frustrations with a diet, I do differ in that I would never say it's anything but a calorie miracle if you eat more calories and, all else equal (age, time of month if you are female, any underlying medical conditions, physical activity level, etc., etc.), you lose weight. Medical science wants your story.

Here's what's funny: the 'applies even at all' part. By saying that my diet applies to me tells you that one person benefits from its application. Yeah, that is funny!

That other people say, 'Well, I went on the xyz diet and it doesn't WORK' is common. All I see is that 'xyz' didn't work for them, not that weight reduction is not calorie reduction.

Anecdote is the kind of 'I did it and I didn't see it' argument. What does it mean, other than it doesn't/didn't work for you? There's always a reason a diet does or doesn't work for a particular person and it's not magic. If you think it all works backwards - you eat a ton of calories and you lose weight and you eat really very few calories and nothing happens or you even gain weight (yeah, I've heard that, too), then get thee to a metabolic studies clinic. They exist and they'll be happy to delve into the mysteries of your individual case and write it up as a case study.

I'm not kidding about that. So many people swear that they're the exception that research scientists HAVE calibrated intake and outtake and looked to see if there's some glitchy thing going on that's going to open up a new field of research or at least make some notable research material for publication. The results are as usual. It's not that the people who are participants didn't eat 1200 calories, at least some time. They just didn't expend 1200 calories or more in order to lose. And if that's not true, then it can be reproduced that 1200 calories works the same for them as anyone else - when it's measured. If 1200 calories a day doesn't work the same for them, it's quickly shown. The next step would be medical (endocrine) tests.

I'm also not talking about going to a clinic, checking in to interview and give a food diary and then going home. There are metabolic chambers for measuring everything, from food going in to urine and everything else excreted. The participant lives in the chamber for a period of time. In such a study, people don't even exercise or move around, except for what they are told to do (ride a stationary bike for 1/2 hour, for example). That's measuring energy.

I really thought that Westman's explanation was a good one. You don't want to eat more so you don't. If you go on a diet where you don't want to eat more because you obey the restrictions of the diet, that's the diet that is going to work for you. Being able to stay on it for life is the thing.

Mike D, you said:

'BTW: when I switched to Atkins my high blood pressure went down to normal before I lost a significant amount of weight.'

I don't know what you call significant. I can tell you that at around 5% weight loss (and even that is just an average), people do experience that kind of result. Just losing 5% of weight (that could be just 10 pounds, depending on your starting weight - or less) is a great benefit.

The flip side is that the source of hypertension is important and losing weight is not the answer for many people. Not to mention the fact that diets do change certain things - in a good way - which later revert to their former values. Not trying to be a wet blanket (!), and only a doctor familiar with a person's history and other issues would have a good answer about changes when they occur, but diet does not cure diabetes, hypertension, etc. Neither does exercise. Neither do medications. There's an open question about whether it can reverse (cure, in that sense) signs of heart disease. I'm guessing not.

'Nutritionists like to say "well you lost weight because you cut out a whole food group" Then they turn around and say "fat has 9 calories per gram ..."'

That's a very loose re-telling of the story, I think. I cut out a whole food group for years - I never eat cake. I don't eat cookies. I don't eat ice cream. I don't order dessert. I guess I cut out a whole food group for a long, long time. I never lost any weight!

A diet restricts you to stay in a limit, denying amounts or kinds of things, outside that limit. Whatever that limit is, the restriction is going to have an effect. I suppose you could say that since I'm not a 'sugar person' (I'm a fatty-salty-crispy person, instead), HAD I also been a sugar-person, I would have been a lot fatter! Guess I should appreciate that.

First you say you cut restricted your diet (cut out cakes and such) and never lost weight, then you say the restriction will have an effect. I'm confused.