Eat less carbon water to burn more calories, and more maintain your slim body?

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A low-carbohydrate diet can burn more calories and is more beneficial for maintaining weight loss. How good is this low-carbon diet? Can people really never get fat?

What is the "high level" weight loss research in foreign countries? Many people may be interested in this, so let's talk about it carefully here.

How did this research work?

The study, called Framingham Food Research, was completed by researchers at Boston Children's Hospital and published in the British Medical Journal. The researchers recruited 234 overweight adults, aged between 18 and 65, with a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or higher.

After recruiting, you must first lose weight. This diet is carefully designed with a carbohydrate supply of 45%, fat 30%, and protein 25%, but the total calories supplied are only 60% of the body's actual needs.

In other words, if a dieter actually needs 2000 kilocalories of energy, then he can only eat 1400 kcal, which contains 87.5 grams of protein, 47 grams of fat and 158 grams of carbohydrates.

Through a 10-week weight loss diet, 164 of them achieved the goal of losing 10% to 14% of their body weight and entered the weight maintenance phase.

Anyone who has experienced weight loss knows that it is hard to lose weight, but it is even more difficult to maintain weight loss. Can not maintain the weight after losing weight for at least six months, you can not call weight loss success!



During the next 20 weeks, they were randomly assigned to three groups:
- High carbon water group (54 people, 60% carbon water, 20% fat, 20% protein)

- medium carbon water group (53 people, 40% carbon water, 40% fat, 20% protein)

- Low carbon water group (57 people, 20% carbon water, 60% fat, 20% protein)

Regularly adjust the total calorie intake, keep it within 20 weeks, and the weight change does not exceed 2kg.

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At this stage, the research goal was to compare the energy consumption between the three groups. In other words, there is no difference in calories burned per day for people in the three groups with little change in body weight.
(How is the energy consumption measured? The researchers used the classic "double standard water method", which is almost the most accurate method.)

By the end of the 20-week trial, 38, 39, and 43 people in the high, medium, and low carbon water groups had their weights and successfully completed the trial. The success rates of the three groups are 70.4%, 73.6% and 75.4% respectively. In fact, there is not much difference...

The analysis found that the total energy consumption of the medium carbohydrate family was 91 kcal higher than that of the high carbon water diet group over a 20-week period, while the low-carbon water diet group was 209 kcal higher. Calculations show that for every 10% reduction in carbohydrate energy supply, the daily energy consumption will increase by 52 kcal.

In other words, in the case of the same average weight, those who ate a low-carbohydrate diet burned more than two hundred kilocalories per day compared to those who ate a high-carbohydrate diet.

At the same time, the levels of ghrelin and leptin were determined, and the levels of ghrelin were significantly lower in the low carbohydrate group and the level of leptin was significantly higher than in the high carbohydrate group. This means they are less likely to eat too much food.

The researchers then concluded that

If this difference persists and we don't see any decline during the 20 weeks of the study, it means we can lose 20 pounds (9.7 kg) in 3 years without changing the total calorie intake.

It sounds exciting, no extra exercise, no need to eat less, lying down can be thin... Is it a myth?

What is the problem with this conclusion?


The biggest problem with this study is that the experimental result is the energy consumption measured by the metabolic data, not the actual measured body weight change data.

What was measured in this study was the difference in calorie burned by the three test groups at the same body weight (calculated by the formula), and then the difference in calories was used to estimate future possible changes in body weight.

But... If you really increase the energy consumption of more than 200 kcal per day (about 1 hour of walking) and last for 20 weeks, then people in the low carbon group should be thinner, and the success rate of weight loss after losing weight should be A lot higher than the other groups.

However, in fact, in the 20-week experiment, the researchers did not observe that the subjects in the low-carbon group had significant weight loss compared with the other groups.

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Therefore, the theoretical speculation is very different from the actual situation.
Moreover, the practice in this trial is difficult to promote in real life.

In the study, subjects insisted on eating strictly controlled calories for 20 weeks; but in real life, we are almost impossible. Even in this study, about one-third of people did not stick to the end. The completion rates of the three groups in the trial were: high carbon water (38/54 people), medium carbon water (39/53 people) and low carbon water group (43/57 people).

In addition, the study of this study lasted for 20 weeks (5 months), which is relatively long in the study of low-carb diets, but weight loss and weight control are actually a longer-term process. In life, too many people succeeded in losing weight on a very low-carbohydrate diet in the short term, and later rebounded.

For example, the US reality show is called "The Biggest Loser", and the contestants' body mass index (BMI) is mostly over 40, which is a serious obese person. They have to lose weight as much as possible by diet and exercise in 30 weeks. The champion with the largest weight loss will receive a $250,000 prize.

Some scholars have followed these winners for a long time and found that their basal metabolism is much lower than that of normal people. After one or two years, most of the weight rebounded, and some even became fatter than before the show.

Will a high-carbon water diet be fattening?

In fact, if we look at more research on the relationship between diet structure and weight, we will find that a low-carbohydrate diet does not help to lose weight. For example, a meta-analysis showed no significant difference in energy consumption between low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets.

Hyperglycemia and decreased insulin sensitivity are not conducive to weight loss, which is the theoretical basis for promoting a low-carb diet. In this study, the investigators specifically stated that those who had the highest insulin levels of 30% at the initial test (lower insulin sensitivity, more sensitive to carbohydrates), increased calorie consumption on a low-carb diet The effect is more obvious. Compared with the high carbohydrate group, it can increase by 308 kcal per day.



However, in the discussion section of the article, the researchers also said that another 12-month DietFIT (Diet Intervention Examining The Factors Interacting with Treatment Success trial) did not find high carbohydrates and low carbohydrates. Diet patterns affect insulin secretion. Because in this study, good nutrition education and behavioral guidance were conducted, participants significantly reduced the amount of white grains and added sugar, reduced highly processed foods, increased vegetable intake, and reduced blood sugar load. To avoid the adverse effects of "hyperglycemia" on weight loss.

- To put it bluntly, carbohydrate itself is not a devil. It is a high-glycemic reaction that is not conducive to weight control and prevention! Eating three grains of whole grains, vegetables, and protein in a reasonable mix is ​​beneficial to health and harmless.

Will a low-carb diet be healthier?

If you really want to use a low-carbon water diet, you should also pay attention to possible risks.

Be aware that carbohydrates are an important source of energy for the human body and are clean energy, with a 50%-55% ratio being reasonable.

Previous studies have shown that people with 50-5% to 55% carbon water have the lowest risk of death and high or low carbohydrate intake, which is associated with an increased risk of death. In particular, the ketogenic diet of extremely low-carbon water may cause serious side effects such as acidosis, kidney stones, osteoporosis, and the safety of long-term low-carbon weight loss has not been recognized.

Besides, for most Chinese, a low-carbohydrate diet is not happy for a lifetime. Unhappy things, it is difficult to stick to it for a long time. Recently, animal studies have found that high-carbohydrate diets are more conducive to cognitive ability... Future research in this area deserves attention.


In short, there is no shortcut to losing weight. The fundamental path to losing weight is to control the balance of total energy, maintain the vitality of the body, and consistently adhere to healthy eating habits and exercise habits.

Otherwise, after losing more than ten kilograms or even tens of kilograms, it will rebound back soon, and it is impossible to live peacefully with everyday food. What is the point?