Quote:
Originally posted by Hedgehog
Atkins challenged traditional notions of nutrition with his diet. It's natural that doctors who had the 'food pyramid' drilled into their heads in medical school will resist the idea.
The thing is, if you've had even one semester of Biochem, you can see how the Atkins diet works. Simple sugars and simple starches break down into glycogen with almost zero energy input from the body. Protein and fats require a significant amount of energy from the body to be broken down into glycogen. Therefore, you can eat more raw calories of protein and fat and still lose weight.
Remember how everyone says that you burn more calories eating celery than you get from the celery? Similar principle.
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A couple of questions:
Your statement about simple sugars and starches apply to someone that isnt working out and depleting glycogen at accelerated rates, but is most definately factual. But its only telling one aspect of the spectrum. Where does insulin the anabolic hormone in the body (even more than test) factor into what your referencing? WHy are you only mentioning simples? While the final breakdown is comparable the breakdown is different when targeting complex carbs; entirely different. What about the elevated cortisol level that will occur upon ketosis? There enough free radical production going on from just living in todays times why help it?
WHy only focus on weight? If a person starts dropping pounds (via looking at their scale to gauge progress) but are doing so in a catabolic state do you think that will last? Do you think living with ketosis with the body being in a catabolic state (it takes an enormous amount of dietary finese to be ketonic and anabolic) is a good thing? Why? A caliper and tape measure for lean mass measurements fills in the gaps, and in a majority of cases tell a much different and suprising picture.
WHat do you think the human brain's main source of nutrients and fuel comes from?