Oh ok I see. Smaller meals/doses means smaller mistakes, right? Interestingly, my endo and my regular doctor want me to have more than 30-45 carbs a meal. I am 29 and very underweight (always have been). They told me to add a piece of fruit or something to each meals to have about 50g per meal. Thankfully, for now my lipid panel is amazing.
I’m not on Dr B’s but my understanding of the diet is that you limit your carb intake to the point that you induce a state called ketogenesis. When you cut carbs out of your diet, you’ll constantly draw on your own stored carb reserves for your baseline glucose requirements. You’ll also draw on dietary protein for glucose production and, If you can maintain you protein intake so as not to induce muscle wasting, you end up burning a lot of dietary fat and any stored fat. In the process of burning fat you go into ketogenesis and you’ll produce ketones that can be burned as well.
The upshot is the list benefits that Gerri described.
I’m a skinny guy too, well, more lean these days than skinny. I’ve put on a fair amount of muscle mass on a moderate level of carbs in my diet, 150-300 grams a day. I think the key to what Gerri said is excess carbs. I blow through 200 grams of carbs a day in my weekly exercise program and daily routine. I don’t eat excess carbs so my lipid profiles are great.
Like Gerri says though, my BGs will never be as steady as a low carbers. I’ll suffer through peaks and valleys but I keep 75% of my readings within 80 - 120 and can limit my peaks to below 180 and above 60 90% of the time. The 10% of the time I can’t is frustrating as hell but it’s the price.
My personal feeling is that low carb consumption is not strongly linked to depression.
I think that good tight bg control can have a positive effect overall emotionally.
But the way we feel about our bg control (or lack of) can also get caught up in a nasty negative feedback loop with our emotions if we aren’t careful.
I know Dr. B strongly pushes for having A1C’s in the 4’s but don’t feel bad if you don’t get there. That’s an extremely aggressive goal (meaning that it is likely unrealistic). You can still get lots of benefits even if you don’t reach his magic normal A1C of 4.3 or whatever it is.
Yes, exactly.
Advice becomes standard even when there’s no science to back it up. ADA guidelines (30-45 carbs per meal, plus snacks) are what we’re all told. Everywhere you’ll hear the same propaganda. You’ll also hear other nonsense that your brain will starve without x number of carbs. About 58% of protein is converted to glucose & a small percent of fat. Somehow, healthcare people never learned this.
Being very underweight (I’m thin also) isn’t great. They want you to add more carbs for weight gain. Add more protein to put on some weight.