Quote:
Originally Posted by ThaVirus
I’m not sure who in particular this is directed toward, but I imagine it’s not me because I am not saying there is only one way. I’m actually saying there are many ways to do it, but ultimately they all boil down to calories in/calories out.
Going low carb, high protein, intermittent fasting, paleo, etc., the idea at the end of the day is to restrict you calories so that you’re burning more than you’re taking in.
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Technically, the biggest reason low carb, high protein, paleo, and even keto to a lesser extent work is because they focus on higher concentrations of proteins and fats and less on carbohydrates. Call it a macro if you want, I'm not sure what else to call it.
By focusing on protein and less on carbs, you get quite a few benefits that flow naturally out of the way you're eating.
As has already been mentioned, eating protein fuels your body differently than eating carbs. Protein is generally dense and has much more complex chemical bonds than carbohydrates. It takes more time and energy to break down protein. So you're less hungry than if you eat mostly carbohydrates. This produces two effects mostly:
1. You eat less total calories over time (there's only 24 hours in a day and we all need to sleep). By upping protein, you are less hungry and thus eat less.
2. You burn more calories over time. Eating protein takes more energy to break down so you're actually burning more calories just digesting protein vs. carbohydrates.
I hope this doesn't sound like a lecture, it's really not. I agree with pretty much all of what you're saying.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThaVirus
I didn’t say “less filling” but that was my aim with the chips and soda talk. You can sit down with a bag of Doritos and a Coke and 15 minutes later you’ve taken in 500 calories but you’re still hungry- because that processed crap is super high cal but not filling. On top of all that, processed foods are more likely to cause cancer. It’s basically the worst combination of shit you can eat.
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Yep. Processed usually means cheaper, more "concentrated" ingredients. You'll get high fructose corn syrup instead of raw sugar, for example. Not only is high fructose corn syrup higher in calories but it's easier to digest. So just from a caloric standpoint, you're fighting a terrible uphill battle eating processed foods.
Look at your analogy from my perspective. Because of my surgery, my average meal is about 8oz - 4 protein, 4 veggies and starch.
If you were to look at a bag of regular old Lay's classic potato chips, the recommended serving size is 15 chips or roughly 1 ounce. The entire bag has 8 servings. To eat the same volume of food as the steak, I'd need 4 servings or half the bag of chips to get roughly the same "full" sensation.
4 ounces of steak is about 250 calories, almost all protein. The chips are about 75% carbs and 25% fat (mostly the bad fats too) and 4 oz. would have a whopping 640 calories. And because of the chips' caloric makeup, I'll likely be hungry in HALF the time as if I had eaten the steak. If you look at that difference over time (due to being more hungry from eating chips), you start to see how wide the gulf is.
And even if you look at the chips as a side to the steak, it's still horrible. 4 ounces of roasted broccoli has 40 calories, only 6g of carbohydrates, and almost half of that is hard-to-digest fiber.