Saw an interesting BBC doco on the Atkins thing recently - it summarised a few studies that had been done on reduced carbohydrate diets. I\'m not meaning to start any kind of argument, but just wanted to point out that there had been no supporting evidence for any change in how your body processes the food, and the primary finding was simply that protein is more satisfying as a food - so you need to eat less of it than other foods.
Most of the positive results from Atkins-style diets were based on that - essentially when people\'s actual diet was recorded (over the course of several months in a UK study, and over the course of a year in Denmark) it was found that the protein folk ended up eating a low-calorie diet. Nothing to do with biochemical changes, just how your body works on a regular basis - lower calorific intake than output will result in weight loss. So really, you could eat a low-calorie balanced diet and have the same result.
I\'m also a fattie trying to lose weight, currently 95kg - 209lb- was 105 18 months ago, could stand to lose at least 20 more, have plateaued for some months now. I tend to go for fewer carbs in the evening since they\'re a fundamental source of energy for the body and brain and I do less of everything at night
I make sure I have some before going to the gym though, otherwise I\'m likely to snooze off in the middle of a set of squats
Personally I\'m more in favour of all-round balance than eating more of one particular nutrient group - it\'s also an opinion biased by a couple of bodybuilders I\'ve known who for the months leading up to a comp would go hardcore protein, and complain of serious mood alteration and fatigue which went away pretty much as soon as they started eating normally again. The body is designed a certain way, to use particular food-groups as fuel and the idea of altering that too much does make me a natch uneasy.
I think perhaps it might be more valuable to look at the *type* of carbohydrate you\'re eating than cut it out altogether - stuff with a low GI, things that releases energy *slowly* rather than in a sugar spike which then crashes and makes you need more food... which one tends to crave in the form of sugar (because of that quick burst of energy when you feel down)... which then makes you crash again! it\'s a rotten cycle of crap eating which I\'m really quite familiar with due to my own lousy dietary habits.
So yummy wholegrain/seed bread rather than boring old white bread, brown rice over white rice, that kinda thing. I know white bread tends to be the cheapest bread (which is important if you\'re on a student budget as I used to be), but given that the wholegrain bread is likely to be more satisfying throughout the course of the day it\'s likely you\'ll eat less overall so the increased cost may not be such a big deal.
But hey, different things work for different people
My own goal is to lose fat percentage at a regular but slow rate (to avoid yucky things like loose skin, bleurgh) - so there are a lot of weights in my workouts. Yay weights! Actually it\'s about half and half weights and cardio, so I\'ve hopefully got my bases covered.
Slackness is the problem right now - it\'s easy to eat crap and skip workouts. Particularly when my husband likes to sleep in and eat chippies. Argh. Can\'t... resist... pizza...
My biggest weakness is definitely the fatty salty stuff, it\'s easy to get a sweet alternative but kinda hard to replace the taste of melted cheddar
God, that was a long post wasn\'t it? Hopefully something in it was useful to someone
