This is Part 2 of a two-post article exploring what makes the Carb Diet work. For Part 1,. In this part, I’ll be addressing questions 2-4 from part 1. Specifically, these questions are:
What makes this different from the Atkins (or other low-carb) diet?
Why can’t I have dairy?
No fruit either? You’re kidding right??
What makes this different from the Atkins (or other low-carb) diet?
This is a very common mistake of assumption that people make when I explain the diet to them. This is NOT a low-carb diet. Hence the term SLOW carb diet. Allow me to explain.
At its core, the Slow Carb Diet consists of meat, vegetables, and legumes at each meal. There is no portion limiting or calorie counting, and the person following the diet is free to adjust the ratio of these three items to find a balance that works well for him or her individually. So where are the carbs? From the legumes, mostly. Here’s an example using data from nutritiondata.self.com. We will assume that you’ve decided to forgo the sandwich with whole wheat bread for lunch and will have black beans instead. The impact on your carbohydrates consumed would be the following:
2 Slices of Whole Wheat Bread
47 grams of carbohydrates
1 Cup of Black Beans
41 grams of carbohydrates
In this case, the net impact of your substitution would be that you eat 6 grams less carbohydrates in your meal. You could easily adjust the serving size of black beans to get the ratio of protein/carbohydrates/fat you’re looking for in your meal.
So if you’re getting a similar number of carbohydrates, what is the difference? The difference, as Tim explains in the book, is the TYPE of carbohydrates you are eating. Once again, I consulted my friend Dr. Tobon, MD, a resident physician in Physical Medicine & Rehab/Sports Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, FL. He confirmed that the type of carbohydrates a person eats makes a big difference in terms of the body’s response. According to Dr. Tobon, the following benefits are realized when eating slow carbs from legumes and vegetables rather than fast-digesting, simple carbs found in many typical dishes.
- Digesting the type of carbohydrates you are consuming in the Slow Carb Diet requires more energy to process. This means that you are burning MORE calories simply by digesting the food you ate! The net caloric impact on your body, as a result, is lower than if you had eaten simpler, quicker-digesting carbs.
- Because slow carbs take longer for your body to digest, the release of sugar into your bloodstream is slower as a result. This helps us achieve the steady blood sugar level that we are looking for. The benefits of maintaining a consistent blood sugar level were discussed in Part 1.
As you can see, there are numerous benefits to consuming slow-digesting carbs rather than their simple, processed counterparts. Not only will you burn calories more quickly, but you will maintain a consistent energy level while you’re at it.
Why can’t I eat dairy?
The simple answer is: that drinking milk breaks the rule of not drinking calories, and because other dairy products are calorically dense, adding a lot of calories to each meal they are included in. But there’s much more to it than that.
To understand further, I went back to Dr. Tobon. I learned through our discussion that there is plenty of medical evidence to support the reduction or elimination of dairy in a person’s diet if they are attempting to lose weight. He explained that from an evolutionary perspective, the ability to digest dairy into adulthood is a relatively recent genetic acquisition. Simply put, many people just don’t tolerate dairy all that well, because evolutionarily speaking, we are only meant to consume it during childhood. Dairy consumption has been linked to gastritis, colitis, and allergies. For many people, the digestive issues caused by the consumption of dairy simply make it impossible (or nearly so) to lose weight.
The other part of the equation is related to the chemical composition of lactose. Lactose = galactose + glucose. Both galactose and glucose are simple sugars. As a result, your body breaks down lactose into simple sugars within the bloodstream when you consume it. This leads to a spike in blood sugar, release of insulin, and energy (fat) storage. This is counterproductive.
No fruit either? You’re kidding, right?
This is consistent with the rest of the diet, in that fruit is restricted due to its high sugar content. Eating fruit = eating lots of sugar, which will result in the insulin spike we are trying to avoid. So, the fruit is out.
This is one area where Dr. Tobon was not necessarily in total agreement. While he agrees that consuming fruit will have an impact on your blood sugar, he also points out that fruit is full of vitamins and minerals that are beneficial to one’s health. As a compromise, he suggested that a piece of fruit each day should have minimal impact on the effectiveness of the diet. P haven’t tried reimplementing fruit back into my diet, but may begin to have one piece per day as suggested by Dr. Tobon, after my day’s workout.
Conclusion
I hope the last two posts have helped to shed some light on what makes the Slow Carb Diet effective, while also dispelling some common misunderstandings. At less than twelve weeks in, the Slow Carb Diet has already been the most effective and easy-to-follow eating plan I’ve ever followed. Thousands of others are finding the same thing. If you are on the fence about trying it out, I hope I’ve helped convince you.