Does alcohol make you gain weight or is this a myth? And if so, how does alcohol make you gain weight.
Let’s delve in into these 2 questions and get some insight right here.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could drink as much as we like and not gain a gram of weight? Sadly, that’s not the case. It is a wish but it’s probably not going to happen.
But the human body is an adaptive entity. Sometimes it succeeds. At other times it doesn’t. Hence, some questions are not easily answered with a Yes or No.
Does alcohol make you gain weight?
Common sense tells me alcohol leads to weight gain but the evidence is not quite as simple as you would imagine it to be.
Scientific research does sometimes lead to findings that will leave you bemused. Part of the problem with science is that there are vested interests. Scientists may pretend to be objective with their research but when you look closer with a microscope, you will find elements of bias.
These biases are either from long-held beliefs or interests overhanging on the shoulders of researchers from sponsors.
Hence when you look at systematic reviews like this one and this one you are left scratching your head as to what to believe when it comes to alcohol and weight gain.
Systematic reviews pool a huge number of studies together and tries to make sense of the subject. They don’t always resolve issues. Sadly.
The point I am making is; the research findings regarding the connection between alcohol and weight gain is quite conflicting. Some studies will tell us there is a definite link and others will tell you the opposite.
That’s the nature of science.
If you look closely though, regardless of the fact that, there is no clear trend, the association between alcohol and weight gain is not in doubt when you are talking about heavy drinkers.
It is light to moderate recreational alcohol users that a definite link to weight gain cannot be established without reasonable doubt.
Of course, the occasional drinker need not worry about piling on the pounds from alcohol. That has to be put into context though.
Would you describe the person who binges every now and again as an occasional alcohol user? Probably not…considering the level of consumption.
The research also appears to show that men are more likely to gain weight from alcohol compared to women.
And the weight gain from alcohol appears to affect the mid-rift more than the rest of the body. This is important because belly fat is a bad health indicator compared to fat elsewhere in the body.
If that beer, whisky, gin or wine is contributing to the bulge in your waistline, then you may want to reconsider. I will touch on what to do later on in this article.
Now, getting back to the question of whether alcohol consumption leads to weight gain. Well, it all depends on a number of factors.
In fact, the interplay of factors is one reason why the research into weight gain and alcohol produces mixed results. Consider these factors as confounders.
What are these confounding factors?
What type of alcohol you drink
The frequency of your drinking
How much you drink on each occasion
What type of food you eat when you drink alcohol
Additional factors will include:
Your age
Your level of physical activity
Your sex
Your general diet
Your genetics
Your overall health
When you are young, you could get away with drinking (within reason) because your metabolism is on fire and you’ll burn off the alcohol very quickly.
You still had one thing to worry about though. The Hang Over. Oh yes, the dreaded hangover. Weight gain was not the overriding issue then.
But hangover does not respect age. If anything, hangover in later years gets worse largely because your body now finds it harder to process the alcohol compared to years gone by.
Also being older now means there’s a new concern in the horizon. Weight gain.
Want evidence?
This longitudinal study looked at 7,941 participants who engaged in episodic heavy drinking in adolescence and the findings were quite astonishing.
They found that 41% of the participants transitioned from normal weight (using the standard BMI parameters) to overweight category.
36% of the participants who were overweight at the beginning of the study became obese at the conclusion of the study.
In that study, folks who were already obese, episodic binge drinking had a 35% chance of staying obese. Not just that, the obesity got worse over time.
This study measured only a short alcohol journey from adolescence to adulthood. It becomes obvious what kind of potential weight management issues can occur when alcohol is consumed for a longer period.
And most people who consume alcohol do it for years on a regular basis even in episodic fashion like these study participants.
So, how do you gain weight from using alcohol?
Like I said before, it’s not a given that you will gain weight just because you drink especially if you are a casual drinker.
The regular alcohol drinker though is at risk of piling on the pounds. Of course, the alcohol content of the drink matters too in all of these.
Creamy cocktails are the worst when it comes to calorie content. Beers might be low in calorie content but you tend to drink larger quantities. So, calories even out eventually.
Here are 4 reasons why alcohol makes us fat.
1. Alcohol prevents fat burning
Whilst this piece is about weight management issues as they relate to alcohol use, need I remind us that there are other issues like pancreatic cancer, liver disease and even cancer that are attributable to alcohol.
Quite why some people will develop these medical problems inclusive of obesity and others don’t, when they use alcohol is difficult to understand. I would hazard a guess that these differences in outcomes for alcohol users must be due to genetics arguably.
Ultimately genetics dictate how our bodies deal with alcohol. Which means some people are genetically protected and other aren’t.
There are two main pathways for alcohol metabolism involving two enzymes. These two enzymes are aldehyde dehydrogenase and alcohol dehydrogenase.
These enzymes make carbon dioxide and water as final by-product from alcohol. Between the alcohol you drink and the carbon dioxide and water end products, there are two intermediate metabolites – acetaldehyde and acetate.
Acetaldehyde is a potential carcinogen but I digress there.
Let me get back on track…
Our bodies don’t like those two intermediate products – acetaldehyde and acetate. Your body will do all it can to get rid of those two toxic substances as quickly as possible.
Therein lies the problem.
In attempt to get rid of the acetate and acetaldehyde, your body ignores the fat you already have. Fat burning is ignored.
Not just that. Your body also ignores the calories from the food you ate with your alcohol. Calories from the food you ate earlier in the day aren’t seen as a priority either.
In effect, your body burns the acetate and acetaldehyde from the alcohol in preference to using up your fat stores or calories from your food.
This metabolic prioritisation of acetate and acetaldehyde burning as a preferred energy source is one reason why alcohol use may lead to weight gain.
2. Alcohol has calories and the calories in alcohol do matter
It’s very easy to have a blasé attitude about the calories in alcohol. After all, it is liquid and it tastes nice.
It tickles our pleasure centres. It becomes easy to get carried away. Drinking just a little bit more than we need to.
Truth be told; alcohol has calories. You can ignore the calories in alcohol at your own peril.
In fact, ethanol which is what alcohol is, has been touted to have relatively high energy content.
The calorie value of alcohol (ethanol) is 7.1 calories per gram. This 7.1 calorie energy content of alcohol is higher than what you get from regular carbs and protein. Proteins and Carbs dish out 4 calories per gram.
The calories in alcohol are “hidden”. Not only that, drinking is a pleasurable pastime. How on earth are you supposed to keep track of the calorie input from alcohol when all you are after is; pleasure from your drink.
Can you ever remember ever picking up a bottle or can of alcoholic beverage and say to yourself “hang on, I need to check how much calories are in here” before drinking it?
Only the folk keeping an eagle eye on their calorie intake might do that. That happens within the context of a weight loss journey. For the rest of the population, that never happens.
For instance, did you know that:
5 oz of 12% wine will give you 120 calories
12 oz of regular 5% beer will provide you with 150 calories
Now, one other thing to remember is that; the alcoholic beverage may come with other added ingredients. These added ingredients will contribute to the total calorie output from the alcoholic beverage.
We are talking sugars and fats as you will find with creamy drinks like Bailey’s original Irish cream. Alcohol manufacturers are getting more creative by mixing and matching all sorts of ingredients to make their products stand out.
Examples are Bailey’s chocolat luxe Irish cream, Bailey’s strawberries & cream, the ever-present spirits mixed with sugary ingredients (alcopops) loved by the younger generation.
Just like 7 ounces of 40% rum mixed with cola will reward you with 155 calories. 57 calories out of the 155 is coming from the cola whilst the remaining 98 calories are derived from the alcohol in the rum mixture.
We are also bad judges of how much we are drinking. This problem of poor guessing of alcohol quantity is worse, the heavier we drink.
People who drink heavily underestimate alcohol quantity more than casual or light drinkers. This is a psychological problem and it arises because underestimation makes us feel better.
Why admit to yourself how much you really drink when a lie is so much more believable.
You might think this does not apply to you but it does. Sometimes you might do it unwittingly. For instance, 5 ounces of wine makes one serving, but who pours himself 5 ounces?
Most people I know will serve themselves more than 5 ounces at a time. But it is still easier to convince yourself that you are having one serving when you are indeed having a serving and half.
Here is something else.
The more often you drink, the higher the quantity you tend to drink in one sitting. Maybe your body develops tolerance to the alcohol or your body goes on a pleasure-seeking ride where it demands more and more.
The implication of all of these is that; you actually consume a lot of calories from your alcoholic beverage more than you think.
And because you are not accounting for these calories, they have to end up somewhere. Your fat stores unfortunately.
Alcohol stimulates hunger and appetite
I have been told that as far back as 6th century, drinking an aperitif was one of the in-vogue practices to stimulate appetite at the time. I have not been able to confirm it but it’s not hard to believe.
Why?
Well, think of what happens when you go to a restaurant for a meal. What’s the first thing you are asked to order once you are handed the menu list? Alcohol.
I supposed modern day restaurants borrowed the idea from as far back as the 6th century. Clever idea. Drink alcohol first and you will get hungrier.
This systematic review tells us that consumption of alcohol tends to lead to short term passive overconsumption of energy.
The reason behind that is; alcohol use makes us overeat in the short term because alcohol enhances the feeling of reward we get from eating.
Take 26 men, give them breakfast and ask them to come back for lunch after they have rated their hunger and desire to eat before lunch. Give some of them an alcoholic beverage and the rest non-alcoholic beverage before buffet lunch.
Now measure the amount of food consumed at lunch with alcohol and without alcohol. The researchers found energy consumption to be significantly higher when alcohol was consumed compared to without.
Similar results were obtained in this experiment . It was the turn of the ladies this time around. The women participants in this study also consumed more food when alcohol was drunk before lunch than when alcohol wasn’t drunk prior to lunch.
One conclusion from that study was that alcohol increased rated appetite once the women tasted the food suggesting alcohol does enhance the perceived reward from food.
One more experiment performed on mice that had been given wine over 3 days seeks to find a neurological explanation for how alcohol stimulates hunger and appetite, making us eat more.
Agrp neuronal cells are found in both mice and humans. That experiment which showed the mice to eat more following wine consumption tells us that the appetite-stimulating effect of alcohol is mediated via the hypothalamus where these Agrp neurons are located aplenty.
Once alcohol stimulates these Agrp cells in the hypothalamus, a short-circuiting neuronal pathway is activated making us to eat, and overeat, regardless of whether we are full or not.
There are lots more studies that seem to point the finger at alcohol as an appetite stimulant. Not just that there is also the suggestion that alcohol does suppress satiety leading to hedonic eating.
The net result is an excess of positive energy balance from alcohol use. The use of alcohol therefore makes weight gain and obesity more of a reality than a myth.
3. Alcohol makes us choose the wrong foods
The issue of alcohol enabling us make wrong food choices stems from the neuronal stimulation I talked about earlier.
Talking about choosing the wrong foods when we drink, let me put a popular misconception to rest.
The popular idea seems to be that if you take caffeine with your alcohol, your tolerance level for the alcohol beverage will be a lot higher. Simply put, you won’t get drunk easily when you combine alcohol and coffee (caffeine), right? Wrong.
So, wrong the FDA has put out a warning about this. The FDA actually declared the presence of caffeine in alcoholic drinks as an “unsafe food additive”.
Manufacturers of such products have been forced to withdraw those caffeinated alcoholic drinks from the market.
This has wider implications.
Because there’s the popular belief that if you drink coffee with your alcohol, you won’t get drunk easily. Not only is this not true, it is actually a dangerous thing to do as the FDA has warned.
In fact, the opposite is true. You will probably drink more than you’d like to when you mix alcohol with coffee, getting more intoxicated and you are more likely to have alcohol-related accidents. Don’t do it!
Okay, back to the idea of alcohol making us choose the wrong foods.
I have a friend who goes out for drinks every now and again. She’s not an alcoholic, I should add. Her main complain to me was that, without fail, she will stop on her way home to buy some chocolate and get herself pizza too every time after the drinking session.
She feels guilty afterwards.
Sound familiar?
Well, there is a science behind it. It’s not her fault.
You remember I talked about how your body likes to metabolise alcohol first because your body wants to get rid of the acetaldehyde and acetate, right?
That same metabolic activity also stops the liver from releasing glucose from inside it. The net effect is that alcohol gradually lowers your circulating blood sugar levels.
Low blood sugar levels lead us to make wrong food choices. We tend to crave high-calorie foods when our blood sugar is low. The pizzas, the chocolates, the cakes, the French fries, the doughnuts, the muffins, the bagels etc.
Sound familiar again?
This has been tested in research here. The study was MRI Scan-mediated. The researchers looked at the activity of the brain when our blood sugar is low and also when the blood sugar is normal.
Food cues were also tested to rate our desire for high-calorie foods when blood sugar is low and when normal too.
They found our desire for high-calorie foods to be higher when our blood sugar was low and our hunger ratings was higher too. Desire for low calorie foods like vegetables, fruits and tofu was low.
The researchers also found on MRI Scan of the participants that different areas our brains responded differently to food cues in low blood sugar states and normal blood sugar situations.
When blood sugar was normal, the brain areas that control impulses were activated. But when blood sugar was low, areas of the brain that trigger desire and reward were activated.
So, going by that research, it’s no wonder you want to reach for those processed high-calorie foods after a drinking session.
Of course, the story here is about how alcohol makes you gain weight. If alcohol pushes you to go for those high-calorie foods, along with all the other reasons, I have outlined, it becomes clear that alcohol is not as innocent as it looks or tastes. Alcohol can make you gain weight.
Alcohol can wreck your weight management plans. Alcohol can make you fat. Especially if you make it your best friend forever.
Can you lose weight with intermittent fasting? Okay, hold on a minute, this question is like asking me this: can you lose weight without eating. Do you agree both questions are similar?
Food is what provides you with your energy needs. Food is what keeps you alive and kicking. In the same vein, food is what makes you gain weight. Yes, there may be other factors involved in weight gain like being on certain medication, not being physically active etc, but at the very core of weight gain lies your food intake.
Your food intake is the equivalence of your energy intake. So, if you deprive yourself of that energy intake, something has got to give. What’s that? Well, simple, you will have to draw on your energy stores – your fat.
Fat in your body is your ‘Savings Bank Account’. What happens when you run out of money in your ‘Current Account or Checking Account’, you tap into your savings, right?
Same thing happens when you do intermittent fasting. Not eating when you are fasting means you are going run out of “money” soon in your current or checking account. Your ‘Current or Checking Account‘ is your Glycogen stores. Glycogen stores are your go-to everyday spend money.
When you exhaust your glycogen stores when you don’t eat, you will have to draw on the “money” in your savings pretty soon – the FAT bank.
Because even if you lie there and do nothing at all, your body still needs energy to perform basic functions like breathing, talking, texting, your heart beating, thinking, reading that book or watching that television. All of those activities that happen spontaneously to keep you alive require energy. In fact, your body needs energy to burn energy i.e the metabolic process needs energy to power on.
That energy need constitutes the basal metabolic rate which has to come from somewhere if you are not eating – Your fat stores.
Simple answer to the question of whether you can lose weight on intermittent fasting is; Yes, you can lose weight with intermittent fasting, emphatically.
I will go as far as saying, you can lose weight without dieting. Why do I say you can lose weight without dieting? Well, you can, using intermittent fasting.
Because strictly speaking, intermittent fasting is not a diet. Intermittent fasting is a weight loss tool NOT a diet. So, by doing fasting like the 16/8 intermittent fasting, you can lose weight without dieting. Can I repeat that. Intermittent fasting is NOT a diet.
If you think about it there is an element of calorie restriction with intermittent fasting and calorie restriction inevitably leads to weight loss, right?
If you are depriving yourself of calories for any extended periods, such that your body doesn’t over-commit, then it stands to reason that you should lose weight.
Can you lose weight with intermittent fasting – The Science
This review looked at a lot of studies and reached the conclusion that intermittent fasting or alternate day fasting is an option for achieving weight loss and weight maintenance.
This study looked at 240 participants who were on the Ramadan fast. They found significant reductions in both weight and BMI during the fasting period. For some reason the men in the study had more reductions than the women. Maybe the women needed longer time to match the weight reduction seen in the men.
Another study examined what kind of weight could be lost with alternate day fasting over a 12-week period. In it the average weight lost by the subjects in the study was 11 and a half lbs in addition to a fat mass reduction of 7 lbs. They concluded that alternate day fasting was an effective method for weight loss.
If you really want to explore the potential of weight loss, then you may want to know what effect intermittent fasting has on glucose metabolism. In all my research, one thing that was consistent with practically every study was that fasting had a consistent capability to reduce fasting blood glucose and fasting blood insulin levels.
What does this mean?
Put simply anything that helps your body deal with insulin load and makes your body cells more insulin sensitive is a joy to behold.
High blood insulin levels encourage weight gain through fat preservation. Lower blood glucose levels on the other hand prevents prediabetes and type 2 diabetes.
This study of healthy Ramadan fasting Male volunteers recruited to see the effect of fasting on glucose, insulin resistance, adiponectin (a protein that’s involved in the development of insulin resistance) as well as insulin resistance. These parameters were measured just before the fast began and 4 weeks later into the fast. See arrows in diagram below.
Key to graph above
A = Blood Glucose
B = Fasting Plasma Insulin
C = Insulin Sensitivity
D = Insulin Resistance
In the one month of Ramadan Fasting, it wasn’t surprising that the participants in the study dropped their body weight. In response to their weight loss, their adiponectin levels dropped and there was a correlation with the amount of weight lost.
More importantly, there was a consistent increase in insulin sensitivity and a reduction in insulin resistance as plasma insulin and blood glucose levels were lowered on account of the fast. The conclusion from that study being that intermittent fasting has a positive impact on metabolism.
The video below explains more…
How much weight can you lose on intermittent fasting?
Naturally how much weight can be lost on intermittent fasting would vary from person to person as well as your personal discipline. The key here is to be careful with your meals in your feeding days. The last thing you want to do when you are doing intermittent fasting is to over-compensate or over-indulge in the days you are not fasting.
Just eat sensibly and avoid processed foods too, because foods that are overly processed will have refined sugars and trans-fat all of which are unhealthy.
More importantly, refined, heavily processed foods tend to spike insulin. Remember, one objective of intermittent fasting is that, you drive down insulin levels to draw on your fat stores.
As expected how much weight was lost on intermittent fasting also varied in the research studies. I have already mentioned this study earlier. In it the participants lost an average of 11 lbs and a half of weight over the 12-week period of the intermittent fasting.
This meta-analysis of different weight loss on intermittent fasting studies also revealed that participants can expect to lose 3 – 7% of body weight during fasts lasting between 3 – 12 weeks.
Those are figures extracted from research studies, but of course you could lose more or less weight compared to those individuals who have been studied. The other thing to realize is those studies only ran for a small duration and they do not include exercise or any workout whatsoever.
If you add a workout routine to your intermittent fasting, heaven knows how much weight you will shed. I expect the weight loss to be exponential.
How much fat does intermittent fasting burn?
Just like overall weight loss, the amount of fat loss on intermittent fasting will vary between individuals. Factors such as age and sex have been known to play some role in terms of how much fat one could lose when you undertake intermittent fasting.
A study on Ramadan fasting showed a fat loss of between 2.3% – 4.3% over 20 days of Ramadan fasting. In that study waist and hip circumferences fell in most subjects, except females aged 36-70 years. You could argue in that study the measurements were taken only after 20 days and more encouraging results would be had in the women if the study was more prolonged.
This study from the Human Nutrition Research Unit (HNRU) at the University of Illinois, Chicago looked at the effect of alternate day fasting on a variety of parameters one of which was how much fat can you lose on intermittent fasting.
They recruited subjects aged 35–65 years; BMI between 30 and 39.9 kg/m2; weight stable for 3 months prior to the beginning of the study. They found that alternate day fasting after a period of 8 weeks reduced fat by nearly 12 lbs in the participants.
Another study looked at the rate at which we burn fat on intermittent fasting. In this study the alternate day fasting model was also employed. What was found in the study was a swinging pattern in the way fat was burnt or oxidized. On the days the subjects in the study ate, fat oxidation slowed down and similarly on fasting days, fat burning accelerated. Overall fat oxidation was increased by an average of ≥15 g/day on fasting days.
This study gives a very good window to what is happening in our body. When you intermittently fast, you raid your fat stores because there’s no fresh supply of calories. Not only are you raiding your fat stores during intermittent fasting, your rate of fat burning actually goes up which translates to a more efficient way of fat loss.
It’s clear that if you don’t eat, you are giving your body a break. Not only that you are going to exhaust your glycogen stores very quickly. Do you know how long it takes for your body to use up its glycogen stores? 8 – 10 hours, that’s how long.
Yes, withing 10 hours, certainly by 12 hours, you would have exhausted your glycogen stores. What does your body do next? It turns to the fat stores because intermittent fasting drives down insulin levels.
And insulin is what holds the key to the fat stores. Once insulin levels have been driven low, your fat stores become accessible preserving your body’s resting metabolic rate.
That’s the beauty of intermittent fasting. The weight loss or should I say, fat loss associated with intermittent fasting is better than you will see with dieting or exercise.
So, if you are thinking of weight loss without dieting or weight loss without exercise, intermittent fasting is your best bet.
And you know what, intermittent fasting is free. You only need to learn to do it properly and you are on your way.
A friend asked me the other day; do you count count calories on intermittent fasting, hence this article.
A lot of the intermittent fasting plans do not come with counting calories as part of the deal. That’s part of the attraction to intermittent fasting (IF) as a weight management tool.
Answer to the question: should I count calories when doing intermittent fasting? Answer: No, you don’t have to.
Is calorie counting during Intermittent Fasting important?
When you count calories, dieting just gets a little more tasking shall we say. My view about calorie counting generally is; it makes you become crazy and obsessive. You agonize over every morsel of food that goes inside your mouth.
You want to know how much calories you have in that morsel of food. It doesn’t matter whether it is fat, carbs or protein. You become quite anal about calories within. Splitting hairs, if you like.
I’m not saying counting calories during intermittent fasting is not important. But what you don’t want to do is; obsess over it and make mountain out of a molehill every time you eat. Simple visual estimation is just as good as trying to be too precise.
In fact, a lot of diets are moving away from calorie counting these days. It’s had its day…
But if you are someone whostill prefers to calorie count, then feel free to do so. There’s no “calorie counting police” watching over you at home. Use those popular apps like MyFitnessPal and similar ones to make your wish come true.
A Sensible Approach Makes More Sense
Weight loss as an endeavour is tasking enough. Adding the mathematical element of counting calories during intermittent fasting just makes it even more tasking.
Some people think you have to count calories on your eating days or eating window. You don’t have to. You can if you want to. It won’t do you any harm to count calories if it gives you further reassurance and confidence.
But for most people doing intermittent fasting, they don’t bother to count calories when they have to eat. They just eat sensibly and avoid over-indulging. You really should not try to compensate for the days or hours you skipped meals.
You won’t be doing yourself any favours. in fact, you would be making nonsense of the idea in the first place. I’d like to think you are serious about weight loss and weight stability, so why ruin it?
If you are doing intermittent fasting and not losing weight, then there’s a good chance you are doing compensatory eating. Compensatory eating is one of the reasons intermittent fasting won’t work for you. Don’t do it and indeed it’s not necessary to do it at all.
By compensatory eating, I am referring to making up for “lost time” in terms of food quantity during your eating window or eating days. It’s pointless consuming 2300 calories in one meal, for instance, just because you skipped a meal or two.
You will be turning the tide against you if you do that. You are supposed to be saving on calories when you do intermittent fasting. Remember, intermittent fasting is a weight loss tool. Use it to your advantage NOT against you.
The only plan that may require you to watch calories is the 5:2 diet. The 5:2 diet or Fast Diet as it is called requires you to consume 20% of your daily calorie requirements for 2 days of the week.
So, if your daily calorie requirement is 2500 Calories, you would have to consume 20% of 2500 on 2 days of the week i.e 500 Calories.
The remaining 5 days require you to eat normally. It is expected you to employ common sense approach and not go overboard with your meals on your full eating days.
The other intermittent fasting IF plans don’t involve calorie counting. Just eat sensibly in your “eating days” or “eating window” and you will be fine. Let’s keep it simple, folks!
Do you get used to intermittent fasting?
I will admit that when you jump straight in to intermittent fasting, it can be a little tricky because it is a new venture that your body is not used to, so your body is likely to protest.
When you first start intermittent fasting, your fasting period can produce side effects like headache, poor concentration, dizziness and of course hunger and a ravenous appetite in anticipation of your eating time.
All of those symptoms are evolutionary. It’s your body revolting and asking for the calories you are denying it. Fear not, those undesirable side effects will go away sooner than you think, so long as you stick with it – the plan that is.
As I write this article, I am currently fasting. I am 18 hours into my fast and I am not feeling it. Because intermittent fasting is something I practise every now and again. My body has become used to it.
I am not losing concentration. If anything, I am quite focused. Hopefully, this is reflected in the quality of this article. So, if you pick up any errors right here, blame it on the fast, okay 🙂 🙂 😛 That’s one of the benefits once you get used to intermittent fasting.
In time your body will get used to the routine of intermittent fasting and you will be surprised at how quickly you’ll adapt. Just give it a week or two and your body will become used to intermittent fasting.
That is why it’s always a good idea to arm yourself with a resource that will guide you on how to get used to intermittent fasting as a way of life.
For instance, Brad Pilon, author and promoter of Eat Stop Eat eases you into intermittent fasting in a gentle way. Even though he professes 24-hour fasting model, he doesn’t expect you to jump in and not eat for 24 hours straightaway.
Brad expects you gently ease your way in by fasting for the number of hours you are comfortable with and you gradually increase the fasting window as you gain more experience.
That way your body will be adjusting itself and be more adaptive to the new eating schedule. That kind of flexibility helps and no calories to count, Yippee!
Why should you take bcaas? Nice question. If you are planning on using bcaas it will be nice to establish why you should be taking the bcaas in the first place.
The amino acids that make up the BCAA have been shown to be involved in the suppression of protein breakdown and more importantly in protein synthesis in muscle cells.
The 3 amino acids that you will find in bcaa are Valine, Leucine and Isoleucine. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins.
It is important to remember that the 3 amino acids in bcaa supplements are actually essential amino acids. Essential amino acids have to be supplied by you either through food or through supplementation like bcaa.
Your body is incapable of making essential amino acids for its needs, hence you have to provide these essential amino acids, otherwise you will become protein deficient.
Of the 3 amino acids, leucine is heavily involved in protein metabolism more than the other two – valine and isoleucine. Let’s talk more about why should you use bcaas in promoting your health.
So why should you take BCAA at all?
Using bccas is one way of enhancing and meeting up with your daily protein requirements. If you work out a lot especially if muscle gain is your objective, then you need to increase your daily protein intake. Using bcaa is one way of satisfying that increase in daily protein requirement.
Protein is required to build muscle. Most of what makes up muscle is protein. BCAAs are made up of some of the amino acids amongst others, that your body needs to synthesize the proteins needed for muscle building.
I would guess that weight loss enthusiasts want to reduce their body fat, right? Well, one nasty issue that occurs when you are trying to lose body fat through dieting is that 30% of the weight you lose is muscle mass. Not what you want.
Muscle loss comes with the territory of weight loss…unless you take proactive steps to stop that from happening.
One reason why BCAA is good for you is, bcaas can help you fight that age-long problem of loss of muscle mass when you are trying to lose weight. Why because the amino acids in bcaa (valine, leucine and isoleucine) have been shown to protect against muscle loss. BCAAs preserve muscle.
Do you have to use bcaas at all?
No, you don’t have to use bcaa supplements, if you don’t want to. You can get these 3 essential amino acids from your diet. A high protein diet is good enough to supply these 3 essential amino acids in bcaa. Meat, fish, nuts and eggs are good sources of the amino acids in bcaas.
So, you don’t necessarily have to use bcaa supplements to meet your daily protein needs. However, bcaas are there for you to use if you want to. You can use bcaas to supplement your dietary protein or use them to boost your protein intake. You may want to see my article on pros and cons of BCAAs.
I should emphasize the point that BCAAs are not a substitute for dietary protein intake. Use them for what they are – supplements. And familiarise yourself with the health risks of bcaas.
Why else is BCAA good for you?
Apart from the benefits of bcaas that I outlined earlier on, bcaas are good for you in more ways than one. Let’s talk about these benefits along with scientific proof where possible.
BCAAs reduce muscle soreness
To assess the effect of bcaas on muscle soreness following exercise, scientist performed a cross-over trial that involved 12 healthy, untrained unathletic female participants.
They were given either placebo or BCAA supplement prior to performing squat exercises. If you do any form of resistance training, you will be familiar with the concept of delayed-onset muscle soreness.
Both the placebo group and the bcaa supplementation group had muscle soreness on the 2nd and 3rd day following the squat exercises. The BCAA supplementation group however experienced a lower intensity of muscle soreness compared to the dummy pill group.
Another study here seems to also corroborate the theory of reduced muscle soreness by bcaa supplementation.
BCAAs make essential amino acids available
One reason why muscle wastage occurs is the direct result of muscle breakdown and the non-replenishment of the amino acids that are needed for new protein synthesis.
When blood level of branched chain amino acids was measured in the participants of that same study above, it showed higher levels in those participants who took bcaa supplements. In contrast, the amino acid (BCAA) level was low in the placebo group. The amino acid level was measured soon after the squat exercises.
That’s not surprising. You would expect the supplemented group to have higher level of bcaa circulating in their blood. In fact, what would be surprising is if the contrary was the situation.
What that study confirms at least on the face of it is, the use of bcaa supplement does boost the availability of these amino acids should your body need them for whatever purpose. You swallow the bcaa pill or powder, they get absorbed and the amino acids in the bcaa are readily available. Not a bad investment, is it?
Something to note too is that the amino acids from bcaa are absorbed directly into the blood stream and do not have to undergo the usual liver processing that absorbed foods normally have to. I’m talking about 1st-pass metabolism. In essence, bcaas by-pass liver metabolism, making them readily available at their required target destination.
BCAAs prevent muscle damage
This study looked at markers for muscle damage following exercise. The markers are creatine kinase and lactate dehydrogenase level in the blood following exercise.
Creatine kinase and lactate dehydrogenase are muscle enzymes. High levels are seen when there is muscle damage.
2 groups of participants who were made to cycle for 120 minutes on day 7 of the study. One group had 12 gm BCAA supplementation for 14 days in addition to their normal diet whilst the other group ate normally without supplementation.
Whereas both groups had similar creatine kinase and lactate dehydrogenase for the 7 days prior to the cycling exercise, what happened after the exercise was different in the two groups. There were significant differences between pre-workout and post-workout enzyme levels in the two groups.
The bcaa supplementation group had significantly lower tissue damage enzymes in circulation for up to 5 days following the exercise. In this original study I mentioned earlier, serum myoglobin, another indicator of muscle damage was higher in the non-supplemented group.
The findings from these studies suggest that bcaa supplementation prevents excessive muscle damage during workouts.
Complex mechanisms are involved in the synthesis of proteins, not least the mTOR pathway. The thinking is that the essential amino acids that make up bcaa are important ingredients in the making of new proteins in the body.
Where is this protein synthesis more important?
The muscle cell is where. Active protein synthesis takes place in muscle cells as much of the muscle protein is being catabolised during working outs.
This experiment in rats seems to conclude that bcaa supplementation not only reduces exercise-induced muscle damage but actually promotes muscle protein synthesis.
They further concluded that bcaa supplementation is not a bad idea in sports and exercise in general.
BCAAs promote Muscle Growth and Exercise Endurance
Opinion is divided whether bcaas can help you build bigger muscle directly. This is inconclusive so far. But all is not lost.
When bcaas are catabolised (if you take your bcaas before workout), they provide you with energy during workouts. That energy is not wasted. The energy released from the breakdown of the bcaas is something you can harness.
You can draw on the released energy from the bcaa metabolism to enable you lift heavier weights and do more reps as well. The net effect is anything you do to promote volume and strength during exercise workouts will actually stimulate muscle growth.
The use of bcaas may be associated with delayed onset of exercise fatigue. This because bcaas compete with tryptophan for entry into the brain cells. Higher levels of the bcaas means less production of 5-hydroxytryptamine, a neurotransmitter that precipitates fatigue.
When you take bcaas, you make less 5-HT during the exercise routine. The net effect is your exercise endurance is improved by virtue of the high level of bcaa in your blood through supplementation.
There you are. It’s not a bad idea after all to use bcaa supplementation in your fat loss and muscle building journey, is it?
How much BCAAs should I take pre-workout is a valid question. BCAAs are becoming very popular amongst weight loss enthusiasts and in particular body builders. A lot of people now wish to integrate BCAAs into their workout routine.
And with the rise in popularity, questions like ‘how much of the bcaas should you take before workout’ arise often. I will give you the answer for both daily and pre-workout doses shortly. Keep reading. BCAA questions answered on this page include:
Generally speaking, if you want to use bcaas, it is recommended that you use between 5 – 20 gm of BCAAs per day.
It is also a good idea to split the bcaa dose up. I prefer to have the BCAAs around the workout period, because that’s when you really need it.
So, my preference is to use the BCAAs just before the workout and if I am in the mood after workout as well.
So how much bcaa should I take pre-workout?
Here is your answer to how much bcaa you need pre-workout. 10 gm of BCAA is ideal before workout. You may wish to take another 5 gm of BCAA after workout if you feel like it.
If you are incorporating intermittent fasting, here is a regime that I like. You break your fast with your bcaa supplement and that would be your pre-workout bcaa. You then do your workout, usually resistance training and follow your workout with your first meal of the day. Awesome!
Using that regime will enable you see fat loss results quicker whilst preserving your muscle mass at the same time.
See suggested schedule below:
10:45 AM -11 AM 15 minutes pre-workout. Take 10 gm BCAA supplement
11 AM – 12 Noon – Your Training hour
12 Noon – After-workout meal
3 PM – 2nd meal of the day
8 PM – Last meal of the day. Fasting begins hereon
That schedule is based on 16:8 intermittent fasting protocol. This means you fast for 16 hours and compress your eating window during the day into just 8 hours.
As you can see from that schedule, you will have 3 meals in those 8 hours. If you want to have only 2 meals, that is also fine. What’s important is that you have a good 16 hours of food-free period in a 24-hour day.
This allows your body to rest and reduces your circulating insulin levels. Low insulin levels promote fat loss.
When you then take your pre-workout bcaa, followed by your moderate intensity workout, you will be accelerating your fat loss but more importantly preserving your muscle mass.
How much BCAAs should you take a day?
Wondering how much bcaa can you take a day? Most people who use bcaas will require about 5 – 20 gm of bcaa a day.The dose of daily bcaa is highly dependent on the type of exercise routine you engage in.
Obviously the more intense your workout is, the higher the dose of bcaa you need per day.
If you doing workouts where you solicit sustained muscle contractions like push-ups, pull-ups, weight lifting especially heavier weights and other forms of resistance training, your daily bcaa requirement will be in the 20 gms a day range. The more intense the workout, the higher the dose of bcaa. See pros and cons of BCAAs.
If you are not working out intensely or your exercise regimen is mainly aerobics, then you won’t need more than 10 gm of bcaa a day.
How to dose bcaa can be an issue for some people but it needn’t be. It really doesn’t matter how often you take your bcaa. Your bcaa will still work regardless.
But generally speaking, I will advise you take your bcaa once or twice a day. You do not need to split up the dose any further than twice a day. Why would you?
It also makes sense that when you are trying to dose up your bcaa, you should be looking to have your bcaa around the time of your workout. I prefer a bcaa dosing around the workout period on a pre-workout and after-workout basis. Why is this?
Because the workout event is when you really need those essential amino acids in your bcaa supplements to provide you with those muscle protection, muscle repairing and exercise endurance benefits.
Why is it essential to take BCAAs around workout?
BCAA (branched chain amino acids) are essential amino acids that must be provided by you because your body is incapable of making them.
You have to make them available to your body usually via nutrition, otherwise your body will be starved of those BCAAs.
I should add at this point that you don’t have to take BCAA supplements if you are getting adequate protein in your diet. A high protein diet will usually source those 3 amino acids that constitute BCAA i.e isoleucine, leucine and valine, for you.
However, if you choose to have more amino acids by using bcaa supplements, you will be doing your body a huge favour as the amino acids in bcaa supplements avoid the 1st-pass metabolism that takes place in the liver after absorption from the stomach.
The amino acids in the BCAA head straight for the target tissues where they are needed.
For someone who is looking to lose fat, one problem is that weight loss does result in muscle loss too. This is one downside of weight loss as muscle is one of the most metabolically active tissue in the body. You need muscle. Plenty of it!
You want to lose the fat but you also don’t want to lose the muscle you already have. BCAA supplement will help ensure this loss of muscle tissue does not happen.
The amino acids in BCAA supplements are essential to protein metabolism. I should repeat myself again, it is the 3 amino acids (valine, leucine and isoleucine) that are needed for the protein metabolism. It doesn’t matter how you source them – from food or from supplements. Just so long as you provide your body with these essential amino acids, they will do the job.
Taking bcaas does have some other benefits apart from protecting you from losing your muscle mass. I talk more about why you should use bcaas here.
Additional benefits of using bcaa supplements include:Reducing muscle soreness after exercise
Stops muscle damage
Promotes muscle repair
Promotes protein synthesis
Increases exercise endurance
Indirectly promotes muscle gain
When to take BCAAs?
If you are wondering when you should take BCAA powder or bcaa pill, this research does throw some light on when to use bcaa.
Indeed, you can take your BCAA supplement any time you wish but as you can see from that research, if protein synthesis is something that you are after, then the best time to take your bcaa powder or bcaa pill is before your workout.
Net muscle protein synthesis is greater when bcaa pill or powder is taken before workout than after workout.
If you want to be clever, you can split the dose up. Take 10 gm of bcaa before workout and may be take another 5 gm after workout. That way you may just have replenished all of the bcaa you took before workout if all or most of the pre-workout BCAA got catabolised during moderate to intense workout sessions.
Who should take BCAAs?
I get asked often; who really should take bcaas? And my answer usually is; anyone can take bcaas, but I wouldn’t want to suggest bcaa supplements should be abused by all and sundry. Not at all.
There are people for whom taking bcaa supplements would be a good thing, given their peculiar circumstances and I have crystallized some of the categories of people needing bcaas as finely as possible below.
The people in the categories listed below may or can use bcaas:
Anyone who wants to shed fat
Anyone doing any form of calorie-restriction dieting
Anyone involved in resistance training
Anyone involved in weight training
Anyone who wants to preserve muscle
Anyone who wants to build muscle
Anyone whose diet is deficient in protein
Survivalists who embark on long sojourns into the wild
Anyone who wishes to augment their dietary protein intake
Anyone preparing for a bodybuilding contest
Anyone involved in serious sports and exercise routine both competitively and non-competitively
That list is not exhaustive. The only thing to bear in mind is bcaa supplements are amino acids in a pill format or amino acids in a powder form.
Taking them is one way of boosting your protein intake. It is not the only way. Protein supply through diet is always best, but it doesn’t hurt you to use them.
Carb and fats together in the same meal, bad idea? Will it harm my health or hinder my fat loss efforts, if I keep eating carbs and fats together in combination?
These are some of the questions I get asked and I thought I deal with them today. There’s something primal about eating carbs and fats in the same meal.
It’s a culinary arrangement that precedes our very existence. It’s ancestral. Carbs have always been around. Fats have always been around too. Our ancestors ate them. So, we are not doing anything new consuming carbs and fats in one sitting.
As I write this today, a very nice gentleman in the name of Sir Peter Hall departed this world of ours. He was a Maestro in British theatre. He set up the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Sir Peter Hall once said his idea of paradise is “rehearsing a play of Shakespeare and listening to Mozart”. Para-phrasing him a little bit there. But you get the gist. That may not be your idea of paradise. It isn’t mine either. But Peter loved that combo.
The 2017 winner of Wimbledon Tennis, Garbiñe Muguruza once said in an interview that if you add butter and sugar to any recipe or food, it will taste good. Didn’t know Tennis players knew chef’s secrets inside out.
Garbine couldn’t be more correct, if she tried.
The combination of butter and sugar is all you need to fall in love with any food. Sugar and fat will enhance any food to make it pleasing to the palate.
Now you are talking.
So unlike, Sir Peter Hall whose idea of paradise is very niche, Garbine’s recipe suggestion or should I say, tip, is most people’s cup of tea.
Why is that?
Taste Bud Dilemma
Our taste buds have been trained to like carbs and fat together. We probably weren’t designed like that.
Humans were designed to eat anything we could lay our hands on that didn’t kill us literally. Foods, we understood to be safe.
How did we know what foods were safe? Well, by an analogue process of elimination. If one of our ancestors ate this food and he ‘expired’ as a result, the community knew that’s one food to cross off the food safety list…and we avoided it like a plague.
There was no Health and Safety Executive looking over our ancestor’s shoulders. If there was, they didn’t notice.
An analogue list of safe foods that was unwritten “hung on the wall” of the community. The community had no idea what food was carb and which was fat.
They simply ate. The only requirement was a particular food did not send them six feet under.
Safe? Good.
Not safe? Avoid.
Rules were simple.
Carbs, fat…what’s that? You simply ate when you were hungry and when you could find the food. Lucky, you. Many times, you went without. Not by choice. But by availability or the lack of it.
Carbs and Fats Together: How times have changed.
Affluence means we now have food availability. The quality may be debatable but the choices are there all the same.
If you live in the kind of affluent society that we now find ourselves, you are spoilt for choice. The whole place is awash with foods. So much food our ancestors will look at us with envy.
Our ancestors may be jealous at the choices and easy accessibility (think takeouts). But I’m not so sure they will be jealous at how metabolically broken we have become with this abundance though.
Our ancestors weren’t asking the question of: would carbs and fat combination in the same meal break me further metabolically?
The reason: They ate whole foods, folks and you know something else? They actually expended energy to find the food.
They probably grumbled at the time walking 10 miles a day to forage for the food. But little did they know that exercise was a big part of why they remained metabolically competent…despite unwittingly eating carbs and fat together more often than you’ve had hot dinner.
Which is what brings me nicely to why we are asking the question of fats and carbohydrates combination being a good idea or a bad idea.
Carbs and fats together dilemma
In absolute terms, there is nothing wrong with having carbs and fats together or in combination. After all, like I said before, a combination of fats and carbohydrates provide some of the best tasting meals on the planet.
Therein lies the problem.
Tasty foods mean you are very likely going to overeat. If you overeat on a consistent basis, then you will be courting obesity. A lot of carbohydrate foods and fatty foods in general do pack a punch when it comes to calories. Agree?
How often you should be combining your fats and carbs will therefore wholly depend on where you are in your health journey.
For a start, you need to be eating whole foods regardless of whether it is carbs or fats. Whole carbohydrate foods are actually good for promoting a healthy gut microbiome.
These foods feed your gut’s ‘good bacteria’ as opposed to processed carbs that feed ‘pathogenic bacteria’ – the basis of some chronic diseases.
My point being the first thing that needs to be addressed is food quality. If we concern ourselves obsessively with eating whole foods, then worrying about macronutrients i.e carbs and fats combination should become irrelevant, within reason.
Fixing Insulin Resistance Is Key
Processed foods generally interfere with the neuro-regulation of appetite. This negates satiety. The end point being; you are always hungry compounded by poor portion control.
There is dynamism as well in the way our bodies behave metabolically. A metabolically incompetent individual may have problems dealing with low fat high carb diet because of insulin resistance, right?
Well, this same individual may later discover that low fat high carb is good for him/her once his/her insulin resistance has been fixed.
Insulin sensitivity does wonders for your body. Remember that and you will be a happy soul forever.
You may have started off with a high fat low carb to fix your insulin resistance along with your weight issues. Only to turn things around and eat low fat high carb diet in the long term. That diametrically opposes high fat low carb way of eating.
I make that point to stress the existence of that unique intra-individual metabolic dynamism that is not known to a lot of dieters and those of obsessed with healthy living.
You can’t be too dogmatic when it comes to nutrition, because there aren’t a lot of absolutes in it.
Carbs and Fat See-Saw Formula Is What Works
Here is the thing:
A good practice is to use what I call the see-saw principle depending where you are in health-seeking journey when it comes to fats and carbs combination.
What do I mean by that?
You have to dial down carbs if you are dialling up fats. In the same vein, you dial down fats when you are dialling up carbs.
One of these food groups has to dominate whilst you cut down on the other macronutrient.
One reason being, high fat high carb meals will make you overeat.
Because as mentioned before, high carbs high fat meals are tasty.
And this scenario is what got us into trouble in the first place i.e being overweight, obese or having full-blown metabolic syndrome.
Wouldn’t it be crazy if we decided to continue along the same path if we want to fix our broken metabolic competence?
Don’t be fooled by gurus telling you that only carbs will make you store fat. That’s absolute hogwash. I can tell you that any food eaten in excess without due energy expenditure will result in fat storage.
This is regardless of whether it is carbs, fat or protein. If you don’t burn it, it will be diverted to fat stores for future use.
Oh, Yes. Fat can make you fat…just like carbs can make you fat. Now there’s a surprise given the current tune in the media online and offline.
Let me repeat that. Fats can make you fat. Carbs can make you fat too.
As I write this piece, the weight loss benefits of the recent food craze called bulletproof coffee has been called into question. Obviously Dave Asprey who came up with the bulletproof coffee idea swears by it. Some celebrities appear to endorse it too.
But you have to be careful with your bulletproof coffee enthusiasm because it can derail your fat loss plan very easily. Especially if you don’t apply the carbs and fats principles that I am talking about here.
Nutritionist and Author, Zoe Harcombe made a commentary regarding bulletproof coffee to the Daily Mail. Zoe talked about the care you need to exercise when combining fats and carbs, if you want to avoid piling on the pounds. Hear Zoe:
“Based on scientific evidence, butter is not dangerous, but neither is it particularly nutritious. So Bulletproof coffee isn’t unsafe, but I’d still urge caution.
What people need to realise is that if you start adding extra fat to your diet, you had better make sure that everything else you consume is very, very low in carbohydrates.
If you think you can have a Bulletproof coffee and then devour a muffin without any consequences, forget it, you will start to gain weight. Basically, if you add butter and coconut oil to your coffee like this, you should also be eating low-carb foods equivalent to two cups crammed with green salad leaves or you’ll see an adverse impact on your waistline.
The bottom line is that although fat is satiating and thus people may feel fuller after drinking coffee spliced with butter and oil, if you want to lose weight, eating fewer carbohydrates, not more fat, is what makes the difference”
Couldn’t have put it better myself, Zoe, because that’s a real life example of how fats and carbs combo can be mis-applied when you follow the herd.
The Fight For Supremacy
The main concern:
There has been a silent war (okay, not so silent if you are a healthy living fan) between two main groups of gurus and it’s a bitter war. Both camps being pretty self-righteous and considering opposing views as noises.
No one camp wants to listen to the other because each camp has entrenched views.
I am referring to the high fat low carb Vs low fat high carb nutritional camps.
The high fat low carb believers blame carbs for all our metabolic problems, so you get advised to either totally eliminate carbs altogether from your diet or reduce carbs to less than 20 gm per day. A tall order in my opinion!
The low fat high carb camp on the other hand blame fat for all of our metabolic issues and would advise you to cut down on fats.
Well, both camps are correct in their views and both dietary approaches work by the way. So, there is no need to fight this war of attrition.
I will say this here now. Not everyone is suited to both diets. And indeed, some diets are better suited to certain conditions at different times too. Remember the dynamism I mentioned earlier on.
The high fat low carb believers seem to lay the metabolic blame squarely on the feet of insulin.
Yes, the interplay of hormones does influence what you crave, how much you eat and how the unused consumed calories get diverted to storage forms. Excess unused calories are stored as glycogen or fat.
Insulin and Other Hormones You May Be Ignoring
And insulin plays a huge role in our relationship with food and food metabolism. But it is wrong to blame insulin only for all of our problems, because other hormones get in the mix as well.
Stimulating lipoprotein lipase – an enzyme that helps store fat.
Decrease the enzyme that helps break down fat called hormone sensitive lipase.
Applying the brakes on the actual process of fat oxidation.
The view from the top floor of the high fat camp is that carbohydrates are the only influencer on insulin secretion. Wrong!
Fatty foods do influence insulin behaviour and fat metabolism too.
Have you heard the hormone called Glucose-dependent insulinotrophic peptide (GIP)? Thought not.
Well, Glucose-dependent insulinotrophic peptide (GIP) has a positive influence on insulin secretion.
Not only that GIP does promote the action of lipoprotein lipase which if you remember is a fat storing enzyme. So, GIP is a lipogenic hormone, folks. Heard anyone talking about Glucose-dependent insulinotrophic peptide hormone? Me, neither.
As it happens, Glucose-dependent insulinotrophic peptide (GIP) is stimulated by both carbs and fats.
Also, have you heard of this other hormone called Acylation stimulating protein (ASP)? Nope?
Acylation stimulating protein (ASP) is a nasty hormone that stimulates insulin secretion and insulin in turn stimulates the release of more Acylation stimulating protein (ASP) – a vicious circle.
Acylation stimulating protein also inhibits the action of hormone sensitive lipase making it another silent fat promoting hormone.
And guess what macronutrient actually causes the release of Acylation stimulating protein (ASP)?
It’s fat, folks. Fats NOT carbs.
So, as you can tell, fats don’t come out of this ‘body fat storing’ business squeaky clean…at all. Fats can be just as guilty as carbs when it comes to influencers of fat burning and fat storage.
I won’t even mention the effects of other hormones like ghrelin, cortisol and estrogens. These ones cheer on like football fans in a 60,000-seater stadium as the metabolic damage is being wreaked on our bodies.
The point being, it is not enough to blame one macronutrient for all of our obesity problems. Doing so will be over-simplifying the issue.
Having both carbs and fats combined together will potentially produce those problems. If we can avoid doing so, that would be the way forward, especially if we are trying to optimize our fat loss.
However, I do realise that avoiding a combination of fats and carbs may be a difficult thing to do in practice.
Here’s What I Suggest
If you are insulin resistant or prediabetic, it may help that you go with high fat low carb approach initially. The presence of fat does blunt the glycemic effect of carbs.
Do that for a couple of months. If you are comfortable with that, you may continue with that in the medium to long term.
Or you may turn things around and go for the reverse, once your insulin resistance is fixed. Turn to high carb and low fat after a couple of months and see if this works for you.
I do believe that plant-based approach is a better one in the long term. Whatever you do avoid processed refined carbs.
Something to remember though is; fat may flatten the glycemic index of carbs but your body still has to deal with the glycemic load. Which means fat gain will still be an issue if you have a calorie surplus.
By the way, I am living proof of that. I started off with high fat low carb strategy. Got myself insulin sensitive and now I eat high carb low fat.
The same approach applies to an individual who is trying to lose weight.
You can try the high carb low fat approach first and see if it is working for you. If it is not, then go the other way and do high fat low carb.
I have never been convinced that a high fat low carb nutritional strategy is a long-term thing. This is my personal view. Some people will disagree and that’s fine.
We have agreed that a combination of high fat and high carbs is not a good idea if you are trying to lose weight or are insulin resistant or even frankly a type 2 diabetic.
Examples of High Fat High Carb Foods
These types of foods are best avoided as they represent high fat high carb category
Bulletproof coffee with the Bagel or cake.
French fries with that full fat mayonaise.
Whole milk with granola, museli, bran flakes.
Full fat yogurt and your sweet fruits like apples, grapes, raisings, apricots, nectarines, pineapples, bananas.
Avocados or guacamole and crisps (chips), doritos, pretzels
Burgers
Pizzas
Doughnuts
McDonald Cheese Burger with fries
Burger King Double Cheese Burger with fries
Those are few examples of high fat high carb meals that will frustrate your fat loss efforts because of the way they manipulate your hormones.
Some people will find that strategic carb cycling is one way of dealing with stubborn fat loss or conquering the weight loss plateau problem. Shaun Hadsall is a proponent of strategic carb cycling.
Fibre has very little impact on those nasty hormones that wreak our metabolism. So, you can’t go wrong with fibre, folks. You can’t. You can have protein too but beware animal protein can be very insulinogenic.
So, I would rather plant proteins.
Here is a good rule of thumb
It may sound really nerdy but you can just use your visual power. You don’t have to be too precise.
==> If you are having hefty carbs in a meal, reduce your fat in that meal to less than 10 gms.
==> In the same vein, if you are having a fatty meal, reduce the carb in that meal to less than 10 gms.
Following this simple rule will create a well-optimised fat burning environment. This will make the job of fat loss an easier thing to accomplish than scratching your head wondering what the heck is going on when you aren’t getting the right results.
One last word:
If you have met your weight loss goals and are maintaining your weight or lost the fat and trying to build muscle, none of these really matter.
You can eat all the macronutrients you want, fats, carbs and proteins. Just so long as you are hitting your daily or weekly calorie expenditure goals.
In fact, there is an argument for some insulin spike if you are bodybuilding as insulin protects muscles from wastage.
Insulin actually promotes muscle growth and development. Bodybuilders have to have a ‘bulking’ and ‘cutting’ phases with carbs and fats anyway which is a whole different topic altogether.
This issue of carbs and fats combination only matters if you are in calorie surplus. If your energy intake matches your energy expenditure, the macronutrient composition matters not.
Fat will not be stored without excess calorie intake. In the same vein, excess fats or excess carbs will be stored as fat. Independent of insulin levels…even with zero insulin level.
At the end of the day, if what you are doing is working for you, stick to it, regardless of what your favourite guru may be shouting from the roof tops. The human body is a very complex entity, you will find.
The contents of the site are for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website!
Dr. Joe