The case of lung cancer is simple and the message that it is prevented by simply not smoking has been clearly promulgated for many years. The case of obesity is more complicated. Even though many of us know that a carbohydrate-restricted diet is the best treatment (and the evidence supports this), this is still a controversial idea. Because of this, many people start on a carbohydrate-restricted diet and then are told by their family and friends that it is unhealthy. Not everyone is as strong-willed as I am: if someone tells me that eating saturated fat is unhealthy, they will immediately hear about the work of Krauss in the 1980′s showing that dietary saturated fat tends to decrease the concentration of the apo B protein in the blood, a very healthy effect. However, not everyone has done the research necessary to counter the negative comments often directed toward low-carb diets.

So, while I agree with the personal responsibility message, I think it is an oversimplification to claim that this message is enough: there is plenty of responsibility to spread around.

Thanks, Jimmy, for this great site and all you do to promote good health!

Rob, just how much glucose do you think the brain and other organs that require it, need in a day, whether from diet or protein converted by gluconeogenesis?

That’s after complete adaptation to a high-fat diet, of course, since it is higher before adaptation!

However, there is definitely something metabolically wrong with those of us who simply can’t lose weight (or keep it off) on a “standard” low calorie/low fat diet, while doing very well on low carb.

Or else we’re the ones who are normal and those who can eat that way, have plenty of energy, and still keep their weight under control are the ones who are anomalies.

Either way, it’s clear that our metabolisms (most specifically our insulin response system) simply don’t work the same.

My theory is that, yes, you can lose weight eating 100g/carbs per day up to a point. Eventually I believe the body becomes more effecient at utilizing glucose for fat storage over the course of time.

That’s why I think the CCL thing is bogus. At one point in time you may think 30g is your limit but over the course of time that 30g/day will start putting weight on you.

The Zero Carb Daily

Duchess, check this out: http://health.discovery.com/tools/calculators/basal/basal.html
Eating below basal can put you into metabolic starvation mode, slowing your metabolism way down as a survival mechanism.

Now that I’m doing zero carb, the ease of my daily life is really startling. No brain fog, no moodiness, no feeling vaguely unwell and achy. There’s no cooking of complicated recipes that I no longer need in my routine. Whether it’s a week of losing weight or losing inches,(it doesn’t seem to go together for me)it feels so easy, that as I look around at other obese people, I’m tempted to say to myself that they are stubborn for not doing LC or ZC.

Well, when the entire society is presented with the disease model for every little thing, this is where we end up–with an unbelievable percentage of Americans being obese–expecting the medical community to come up with something, instead of going back to the original human diet.