Latest / No Forking Nonsense - The Nutritionist UK / Should I cut carbs to lose weight? A mum of three asks
Transcript
- 0:00@paulthenutritionist: Hello and welcome to No Forking Nonsense, the second most listened to nutrition podcast in The United Kingdom. And we've got one goal to answer your nutrition questions with no nonsense. To send your question in email podcastthenutritionistuk dot com. Give me your name, what your problem is, what your question is, a little bit about yourself, and we'll get your questions answered. Let's get stuck in to today's question.
- 0:25Hi Paul, love the show, my name's Claire, I'm 38 from Leeds, I've got two kids under six and I do resistance training twice a week when I can fit it around work and the chaos at home. Here's my question, every time I cut carb sound the weight seems to fall off me, like noticeably within a week. So now I'm wondering should I just cut carbs permanent? Is that the answer I've been missing all this time? Parts of me thinks it works, why not just keep doing it forever?
- 0:54Cheers, Claire. This is a really interesting question and the reason why it s interesting is because I have many conversations with people, clients and non clients who often question whether cutting carbs is the answer or will say to me, oh I've been on holiday and haven't lost much weight so I'm thinking, should I just cut my carbs to 50 gs a day for the next week? It's a question that I'll probably get more than any other, so Claire's very much not alone here. Let's start with the bits that's going to take the pressure off straight away. When you cut carbs and the weight drops in a week, that is almost entirely water, it's not fat and I know that's not the sexy answer but stick with me here because it's important.
- 1:40Here's what's going on, your body stores carbs as something called glycogen which we've spoken about before and in your muscles and liver is where glycogen lives and every gram of glycogen holds on to roughly three gs of water alongside it, sometimes that can go up to seven gs. So when you slash carbs, you burn through those glycogen stores and all the water gets flushed out with it and that is where the initial weight goes. Now the second you eat a normal amount of carbs again, and you will, your body will refill those stores. So the water comes back, the scale jumps up and then obviously you're going to panic and think that you've put on those weights, when all you've actually done is you've rehydrated yourself and you haven't gained fat overnight, it is literally just you replenishing your glycogen. So the weight loss is real on the scale and probably if you look in the mirror, but it's not telling you the story that you think it is.
- 2:39So the bigger question is, well why not just cut carbs forever? And the answer is, well it's going to work against you, quite specifically. So in Claire's example, she resistance trains twice a week and resistance training, or any kind of training really, literally runs on carbs. You've also got to remember that in brain, your brain literally requires glucose, which we get from carbohydrates. Carbs are what fills the muscles and gives you mental and physical energy to push hard when you're in the gym for example.
- 3:11Strip them out long term and suddenly Claire you will find your sessions are flatter, you recover worse and the very thing you are training for, which is I'm guessing holding on to muscle and getting stronger, will get harder and you will start seeing progress. And with two little ones draining your energy already, the last thing you want is to feel even more white. Then there's the real world test, You've got two kids under six, you're going to probably be going to birthday parties, you're probably going to have friends, weddings, it's summer so you're going to be going to barbecues, whatever and the odd bit of pasta because it's quick and everyone will eat it as a parent, slice the toast when you're running on no sleep and your sleep is going be impacted if you cut in all your carbs. So it's very likely that avoiding carbs is going to be very difficult to do. You need to really have a plan around your normal family life and having no plan is not a plan.
- 4:14The best diet is the one that you can actually keep doing without it ruining your week. What actually will drive fat loss isn't cutting carbohydrate because cutting carbohydrate is temporarily a measure that you can maybe see some physical results. Certainly if you have quite a high carb diet and then you cut carbs, may see yourself less bloated but that's a separate issue. The other thing, just kind of on a slight tangent, if you are someone who is feeling like you bloat after carbohydrate, firstly it's probably the volume of food, secondly you're not drinking enough water and that is something that obviously we're always banging on about. But what actually drives fat loss, as I say, is not cutting carbohydrates, it's being in a calorie deficit over time.
- 4:58But again, a calorie deficit, we want to do it gently, do it too aggressive and you won't sustain it. The thing with when you are looking to lose weight is we are always trying to do stuff slowly, patiently and quite fucking boringly. Carbs just happen to be an easy lever to pull and pulling it gives you that fast water drop that feels like proof. It's like if I said to you, I want you to only eat 500 calories for the next five days, sometimes we think we need pain to get success when actually it doesn't have to be made that complicated, as evidenced by all of my clients. But you could lose the exact same fat by eating carbs as long as your overall calories are where they need to be.
- 5:38Carbs are not ever the reason why you are overweight unless you are overeating them. You could conceivably lose weight and get lean by eating Pringles and protein bars every day. If you were in a calorie deficit it wouldn't be very happy, it wouldn't be very satisfying I should say, you'd be pretty miserable but it is doable. The reason why I'm saying that is because cutting out a food group is not the answer. So if I was you, specifically in Claire's scenario here, I would absolutely keep your carbs in, I would build them around training days so you've got fuel when you lift and I would focus on getting your protein up and your total calories sensible across the week.
- 6:25If you're in too much of a calorie deficit, you're not going to sustain it and inevitably the weekend will come along and you will put on weight. There is a version that keeps the fat coming off, keeps you strong and you can still have a slice of birthday cake without spiralling. What we always want to do when we are looking to lose weight or lose fat I should say, is to try and make it as easy as possible so your body doesn't really know that it's happening and the way that we do that is just put ourselves in a slight calorie deficit, just tiny tiny little changes whilst ensuring that we are never hungry. Remember the aim is always to eat as much food as possible whilst still losing weight. Claire, the action for you this week is do not cut carbs, in fact add 20 five-thirty gs of protein to your breakfast instead and see how your energy and your hunger change by the weekend and in time I would be very very surprised if you don't find, as long as you are doing the basics, getting your protein, drinking enough water, maximising your fibre, as in aiming to get to 30 gs a day and you are continuing to lift weights, I would be very surprised if you weren't seeing progress within the next month.
- 7:35I hope you found that useful, if you would also like to get your question on the podcast like Claire and many others in episodes to come, email podcastthenutritionistuk dot com and I look forward to answering your question next week. Ciao. Thanks for listening to this episode of No Forking Nonsense. If you would like to get your question on a future episode, email podcastnutritionistuk dot com. If you would like a free meal maker resource, click the top link in the description and don't forget to follow me on instagram paulthenutritionist.
- 8:12Chat to you next week.