People are still under the belief that carbs make you fat. Some in the low carb crowd go as far to say that even if you ate 4,000 calories a day, as long as the diet was low carb, you wouldn’t get fat. Unfortunately, this contention is pretty much untestable because no one could eat so many calories from fat and protein due to their satiating effect.
The last part of the preceding sentence is important to understand: fat and protein have a satiating effect. What that means is that when you eat fat and protein, you tend to feel full more quickly and for a longer period of time.
The same can not be said for carbs however; particularly highly refined carbs that you find in baked goods, candy, and other types of food that we all tend to label as “junk”. Highly refined carbs tend not to have a satiating effect and often make you crave more. We are not talking about the carbs found in fruit and vegetables mind you.
Remember, these are feelings we are talking about, the feelings that particular macronutrients give us. Protein and fat make us feel full. Carbs make us crave more. Eat an 8 ounce chicken breast that gives you about 56 grams of protein, with one cup of broccoli, and you could very well feel full. This is a direct result of the protein and fiber.
This meal would only have about 260 calories. You could feel full on only 260 calories plus you’d get about 56 grams of muscle building protein.
Now try eating 260 calories of Twinkies. If you eat both Twinkies, (and who only eats just one?), you would have already eaten 300 calories because each Twinkie has 150 calories. At this point, you are probably still hungry and craving more Twinkies.
And here is the point of the whole carb issue: eating highly refined carbs from junk food makes you want to eat more of them. If you ate just one Twinkie worth 150 calories, you probably wouldn’t have much of an issue. However, most people have one Twinkie, then another, then cookies, then ice cream. The first Twinkie gets the ball rolling and leads to over-eating. It’s like drug addiction. That first toke on the crack pipe makes you crave more. Pretty soon, you’re Pookie in New Jack City, working in The Carter, stealing crack vials from the lab.
Kind of like Twinkies
In this case, it’s not the carbs that are evil. It’s the physiological effect that they have on your body, in the form of craving more high calorie food, that is the problem. If cutting carbs out of your diet enables you to lose weight, more power to you. However, you should realize that it isn’t the fact that you are eating low carb that enables you to lose weight, it’s the fact that you are now eating less calories overall because you no longer overeat.
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