Medical Weight Loss Updates: Part 3 – Carbohydrates

For many years, Dr. Lazarus and the staff at CNC have utilized low carbohydrate diets to achieve weight loss. This remains a common practice among medical weight loss doctors. But what about long-term maintenance of weight loss?

Even after a successful weight loss with a low carbohydrate diet, many individuals struggle with weight regain. A common explanation is that we go back to our old habits, thus returning to our former weight. Part 1 of this series casts doubt on this explanation (read more about the energy gap here). But, really if a low carbohydrate diet was used for weight loss, the low-carbohydrate diet should be continued. Why are low carbohydrate diets helpful for long-term weight loss? Here are several explanations:

• Assuming adequate protein on the low carbohydrate diet, there is less loss of lean body weight preserving metabolism. This study was published earlier this year (Ebbeling CB, JAMA 2012).
• It takes a lot of energy to process protein. In fact, more energy is used to process protein compared to carbohydrates or fat.
• With low carbohydrates available, our body’s must make glucose from protein, which also utilizes a lot of energy.
• The foods we eat suppress appetite differently in this order:
  Protein > Fat > Carbohydrates
  (Batterham RL, Cell Metabolism 2006)
  So, high protein diets are much more satiating than high fat diets or high carbohydrate diets. In fact, the more fat is present in a meal, the more fat we will eat, without even being aware of the calories we consumed.