Low-carb diets support thread

Musings About Obesity #2: Supply vs Demand
I'm having an interesting experience regarding calories. Since breaking my leg 10 days ago, my activity level has dropped precipitously. I wondered whether I would gain weight because of this, but now I doubt it. Within a day or two, my appetite has reduced so that I am taking in noticeably fewer calories.

This is the way our bodies are supposed to work. Once we are finished growing, our appetites should pretty much automatically adjust based on our calorie expenditure, so that the two are in balance. In fact, I've been kind of amazed at how stable my weight is since losing a modest amount through low-carb eating over ten years ago, despite varying activity levels over that time. As I've written, it would be great if it would come down more, but if that meant it would be totally unstable again and make me prone to weight gain, I probably would not want to make that trade.

So, what happened a few decades ago that our bodies started to be less able to regulate our weight? There are a few different theories. One prominent one is that there was just a lot greater access to food, so people started ignoring their bodies' satiety signals and began to shovel in the food. This explanation doesn't work well for me. I was there during that period, and the people I knew (me included) were going on diet after diet, frustrated with their weight regain. It didn't feel as though we were consuming mass quantities of food, but clearly we were eating more than we needed, and there were constant voices in our heads encouraging us to eat. We went to therapy, we went to Weight Watchers, we exercised, and we overate.

Perhaps the most striking response that many people report having when they reduce carbohydrates is that these voices finally shut up. Indeed, in study after study of low-carbohydrate diets, people spontaneously lower their calorie intake. What is amazing to me is that this is not remarked on more. Here we have an intervention where people reduce the calories they are eating without even being asked, and they report not being hungry! You'd think obesity researchers would be doing handsprings over this, and trying to nail down the cause of this miraculous phenomenon! But time and time again, it is passed by with almost no comment at all.

Consider if the advice to avoid weight gain or promote weight loss stopped focusing so much on the supply of calories we're providing our bodies, and instead shifted to focusing on how we might eat in a way to reduce our bodies' demand for calories. You'd think a way of eating like that would be much more sustainable, wouldn't you? Well, this way is sitting under the noses of researchers, and I'm surprised they aren't studying the heck out of it! Instead, they mostly don't even seem curious.

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

The 4lb gain will not be fat.