What makes you fat? Carbs or Fat?

[deathdroprob]

Ive noticed my body doesnt mind fats of any kinds but its hates carbs/sugar and its what makes me put on fat.
And I also crave sugar more than anything.

Anyone else?

 

[Tatyana]

Too many calories makes you fat.

You could eat only protein, but if you ate more than your body needs for basic metabolism and moving around, and it would store fat.

It is great you are looking at what is working with your metabolism.

There are a few schools of thoughts that if you have cravings, there may be a couple of issues

1. You are not getting enough WEIGHT of food, so eat more calorie poor, nutrient dense foods, so fruits and veggies

2. You are micronutrient deficient - take a multi-mineral.

3. You may have set up a bit of a 'carbs are bad' and therefore you will crave them more



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7056330.stm
Food cravings battle 'pointless'

Trying to cut out all thoughts of your favourite, fattening food may actually make you eat more, claims research.

Women who tried to stop thinking about chocolate ate 50% more than those who were encouraged to talk about their cravings.

This "rebound" effect could also apply to smokers, say the Hertfordshire University authors in Appetite journal.

Experts at Weight Watchers said a "varied diet" was the best way to lose weight


Dr James Erskine, who led the project, recruited 134 students who were asked to either suppress all thoughts about chocolate, or talk about how much they liked it.

They were then asked to choose from two brands of chocolate, believing that it was this choice that was being recorded by the researchers.

However, the quantity they ate was recorded instead.

Women who had tried to suppress their cravings ate on average eight chocolates, while those who had talked freely about it ate five.

Men did not show the same effect, with the group told to talk about the snack eating more.

'No surprise'

Dr Erskine said: "There is a lot of research into the idea that when you suppress a thought you end up thinking about it more.

"However, this the first concrete evidence of how this works in relation to food choices."

He said that the best advice to people trying to cut down on a "sinful" food was to try not to completely avoid or think about it.

Emma Hetherington, from Weight Watchers, suggested that a balanced of different food types was the best way to control weight.

She said: "The research is not a surprise to us.

"We know psychologically, if you set yourself an unrealistic goal, such as 'I'll never eat chocolate again' or 'I'll never have a glass of wine', automatically that is all you will think about."

 

[rbranum]

I have never heard of protein being stored as fat. From what I have always heard if you consume too much protein your body just passes it through. I have been losing fat just by watching my sugar and saturated fat intake...I am gaining muscle and losing fat...working great for me. I would suggest not eating sugar and anything with bad fats

 

[Tatyana]

This is another thing I have been thinking about recently.

The change in the fats in our diets over the last 40-50 years has resulted in an increase in a couple of diseases

1. Depression

2. Type II diabetes (refined carbs as well)

3. Heart disease


This is because the fatty acid profile of every cellular membrane is directly related to the dietary fat we consume.

The brain is mostly composed of lipids, so things like these processed fats and low fats have resulted in less flexible cellular membranes, neurotransmitters are not able to be released or re-absorbed as easily, insulin receptors and glucose transporters can't work as well, in general or cells don't function as they are meant to.


All cell surface receptors are glycoproteins, that is a carbohydrate and a protein. Our immune system is also highly based on receptors etc, that are glycoproteins.

I also think that this current trend to 'carbophobia' has limited the diversity of carbohydrates we actually need, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is found that there are 'essential carbohydrates' or 'glyconutrients'.

So maybe you are craving carbs as you are not getting the carbs in your diet you need.

Here is a link to a page that also lists a few things that may be responsible for some food cravings.

http://www.naturopathyworks.com/pages/cravings.php

 

[Tatyana]

I have never heard of protein being stored as fat. From what I have always heard if you consume too much protein your body just passes it through. I have been losing fat just by watching my sugar and saturated fat intake...I am gaining muscle and losing fat...working great for me. I would suggest not eating sugar and anything with bad fats

That is one of the biggest bodybuilding/dieting fallacies that exists.

Our bodies can convert ANYTHING into fat.

We wouldn't have survived for millenia and millenia living in caves, in harsh and extreme environments if we just wasted as something as precious to the body as protien.

Think about it logically, how would anything get through your digestive tract undigested?

Everything gets used, and a lot of the macronutrients are interchangeable (to a point).


A bit of biochemical pathway stuff

Glucogenic amino acids are converted to glucose, ketogenic amino acids to ketone bodies and slotted in further down the glycolytic pathway, some are slotted in the Kreb's cycle as anapleurotic reactions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucogenic_amino_acid

A glucogenic amino acid is an amino acid that can be converted into glucose through gluconeogenesis.[1][2] This is in contrast to the ketogenic amino acids that are converted into ketone bodies.

In humans, the glucogenic amino acids are - glycine, serine, threonine, valine, histidine, arginine, cysteine, proline, alanine, glutamate, glutamine, aspartate, asparagine and methionine, whereas isoleucine, phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan can be either glucogenic or ketogenic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anapleurosis

Wiki lists only aspartate and glutamate.

The TCA cycle deals with the products of glycolysis, and makes reducing substances for the electron transport chain, where ATP is made.


Anaplerotic reactions are those that form intermediates of the TCA or citric acid cycle. The malate is created by PEP carboxylase and malate dehydrogenase in the cytosol. Malate, in the mitochondrial matrix, can be used to make pyruvate (catalyzed by NAD+ malic enzyme) or oxaloacetic acid, both of which can enter the citric acid cycle. As this is a cycle, formation of any of the intermediates can be used to 'top up' the whole cycle. Anaplerotic is of Greek origin, meaning to fill up.


Different molecules in the Kreb's cycle/TCA cycle are taken out to make other things, but glycolysis can't carry on unless there are all of the intemediates.

It really is quite a gorgeous little chemical machine.

Glucose is converted to either pyruvate or lactate depending if there is oxygen or not.

Pyruvate is converted to acetyl CoA which is a three carbon molecule, and then it has more carbons added to it, then taken away again (which is why it is called a cycle, it circles around making FADH and NADH)

Acetyl CoA make loads of stuff, but if it isn't going into the TCA cycle, the intermediates still need to be there.

The body keeps these pathways going almost all the time, and they are controlled by either feedback mechanisms or hormones like insulin and glucagon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetyl-CoA

 

[Tatyana]

Metabolism simplified:


Fat has a storage tissue - adipose/fat

Carbs have a storage molecule - glycogen

Amino acids are not stored (well you can sort of call it muscle), but they are not wasted.

Our bodies also have 60-80 g/L of protein in the blood stream, 35-50 g/L of that being albumin, which does drop in malnutrition, so that is obviously used as well, but that is in starvation).

The average 70 kg person has 4 L of blood, so about 200 g floating around as albumin. We can't use it all up though as it has other important functions, like transporting other molecules and maintaining the water balance between tissues and the circulatory system.

Amino acids are used for more than just muscle, there are peptide hormones, neurotransmitters, structural proteins (i.e collagen), transport proteins and enzymes.

Enzymes are quite important, they basically make everything in the body and they have to be renewed.

If I went a bit too out there on the biochemical pathways but this is my basic analogy.

Food is like money, and let's say protein and carbs are like tenners (4 kcal/g) and fat is like a twenty (9 kcal/g).

The cells need the energy from food for the same sort of things that a full organism needs it for, eating, repairing things, reproducing, eliminating waste.

Cells can only use energy in the form of coins as they are so diddy.

The central pathways of metabolism, glycolysis, Kreb's cycle and beta oxidation (fatty acid oxidation) converts the big bills into coins.

That is it in a nutshell, and these happen in almost every cell in the body, some to more of an extent some to less of an extent.

The more mitochondria a cell has, the more these metabolic processes (changing money) is going on.

 

[ximor]

Jesus christ Tatyana. It took me an hour to read it but i get it!!

 

[killafx]

So do you guys mean that if I were to eat the same surplus of calories from protein and the same surplus from carbs, I would gain the same amount of bodyfat?

 

[ready your god for blood]

So do you guys mean that if I were to eat the same surplus of calories from protein and the same surplus from carbs, I would gain the same amount of bodyfat?

As I ahve read yes. The only reason you might be better off with the excess protein is that it may take your body more work to change that to fat than it does a simple carb. Basic science though tells you that all excess calories are stored by the body as fuel hence fat. If you get an extra 3500 calories you just stored a lb of fat.

Now for me it is much easier to eat excess calories that are carbs than it is for me to eat protein excess but that is just me.

 

[Tatyana]

So do you guys mean that if I were to eat the same surplus of calories from protein and the same surplus from carbs, I would gain the same amount of bodyfat?

Yes.

When looking at dieting or putting on muscle, it really is calories in and calories out.

There are a few minor things, for example, if you eat in excess of 1000 kcals/day and you eat them all from protein or all from carbs, obviously if you are training, then the composition of the weight you put on may be slightly better from protein than if all the calories are from carbs.

Carbs are not the baddies peeps.

In most studies on dieters where the calories are controlled, as long as people are getting sufficient protein, the fat loss is the same when their either lose calories from fat or calories from carbs.

In studies where calories are not controlled but people are told to drop carbs or fat, they lose weight because when they eliminate carbs or fat, their calories go down, not because of what they are eating.

Some people will do much better on a low carb diet. Some people are very insulin sensitive and can eat loads of carbs and still lose weight (this is actually a good thing as insulin is so anabolic).

For some they can do either.

If you are not losing weight/fat, then I would suggest that you either

1. Count the calories you are eating

2. Do more cardio to burn more calories

3. Both

It really is that simple, there is no magical combo of foods.