Mindconnection Brainpower Informational eNewsletter 2023-11-19

A common strategy for reducing body fat is to "cut carbs". While this appears to be effective, it's a flawed strategy. I will explain why, and then outline a correct strategy.

First, if by "cut carbs" the person means to reduce highly processed foods such as pretzels, bagels, bread, cane sugar, HFC, etc., those are things you should not be eating anyhow. I have absolutely none of these in my diet. They serve no purpose, they damage your health, and they are not satisfying. Going from having them in your diet to not having them in your diet will of course result in lower body fat unless they are replaced with an equal amount of other calories.

It's also worth noting that "low fat", uh, "foods" are nearly always heat-damaged foods that have had their fat replaced with sugar and/or detergent. That's right, detergent. Fat is creamy and satisfying, if you remove it from, say yogurt, you need to replace it with something that kind of do a similar job. If you read the ingredients label and then look up each ingredient, you will almost certainly find a surfactant (detergent) has been added. Low fat dairy has the added "benefit" of being sterilized (robbed if its digestion-aiding enzymes and other nutrients), so don't drink low fat milk and don't eat low fat cottage cheese, yogurt, or cheese. Also, these taste so bland and are so unsatisfying that a person consuming them almost certainly is adding sugar somewhere.

Why cutting carbs makes no sense

The idea of "macronutrients" has been hyped up in the bodybuilding world. It's a simple way to look at food. It's too simple. For one thing, no whole food falls into the category of fat, carb, or protein (only highly processd foods do).

For example, what about a banana? Bodybuilders say it's a carb. Yet, it has the same 20 amino acids that a steak does. And that would make it a protein. What about an avocado? It's a great source of healthy fats, plus like any other plant food it has the same 20 amino acids as any piece of meat does. And it contains carbohydrates.

Let's set this science aside for a moment and assume you actually can divide foods up this way. Perhaps you identify the major micro and that would make meat a protein and kale a carb (even though kale is high in protein). So following the "low carb" path, you cut back on fruits and vegetables. And oats, rice, and sweet potatoes. What happens as a result? You don't have the fuel to truly push your workouts. That's major flaw number one, because you reduce the adaptive response which, due to the higher testosterone it provides, makes you leaner. So you cut carbs and get both fatter and weaker.

What is the normal response to this? Eat more protein! The problem here is if you have a whole food diet (you ditched the highly processed junk), you get plenty of protein in your diet already. Maybe all you need. Scarfing down protein drinks to help make up for what is a carb deficiency means you get excess protein. Your body cannot store protein. So your body breaks down protein, and that process uses up at least some of the nitrogen you need to build muscularity and vascularity. In addition to breaking the protein down into amino acids (good), your body converts the excess into carbohydrates which then get converted to fat and stored in the liver and other places.

What to do instead

You want to reduce total calories, not play games with macros. That said, you will find the highest calorie density in fats. So we do play the macro game just a little. Avocadoes, olive oil, and nuts are commonly eaten fats in the body building world. Fats are twice as calorie dense as carbohydrates. So reduce foods high in fat, but keep eating them because you need the fat. But we don't focus on fats. Or any other macro. You can eat smaller sweet potatoes rather than cutting them out (because they are "carbs"). Definitely reduce the amount of protein supplementation you do.

Am I advocating portion control? That is very hard for most people, including me. So that's not what I aim for. Even though I meal prep and have a lot of control over portion size during that process, I don't quite seem to get the meals much smaller. That's partly because I use many different ingredients. So what you do is eliminate an ingredient temporarily; that will make the meal a little smaller and you won't really notice. For example, during my leaning down phase I run out of avocadoes so a few meals that normally get prepped with them don't get prepped with them. I like a banana every afternoon. Even though it's only 90 calories, skipping a banana every now and then helps me reduce overall calories. The same with skipping a protein shake. You don't have to work hard at this or skip consistently to see results in a reasonable time. All you're doing is snipping at the edges, the way a sniper helps fight a guerilla war by taking out a few troops here and there.

What about skipping entire meals? That's a very bad idea. Eat all six. Remember what I said about excess protein? If you spread your protein out over six meals (or eight, as some ultra-athletes do), you have less to absorb and any one time and therefore less to create uric acid and less to convert to fat.

Get your "carbs" because you need the energy. And also because the foods classified this way have the highest nutrient density and you cannot be healthy without them.

Mindconnection eNL, 2023-11-19

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