[testuser312]

Also, 30% of calories from carbs (on the so-called low-carb diet) is not really low-carb. As mentioned in another comment, for a 2,000 calorie diet, that's 600 calories from carbs! Most low-carb diets aim way lower than that because they aim at reaching a state of ketosis, where your body is essentially burning fat instead of sugar for energy. This might be something like 20-50 grams per day, depending on a lot of factors like specific carbs consumed, etc. This is the stage where a lot of the health benefits including increased energy, no afternoon crash, weight loss, etc. come in.

I realized recently that I was getting fat (4 inches of waist size increase in just a couple years), so for the past couple months, I've tried restricting my calories. At first, I tried cutting out things that are just ridiculous like beer and bread. In the past week or so, I've gotten more 'restrictive' and have been trying to eat almost exclusively meat. I'm not counting calories or anything like that, I just eat until I'm full and then I stop. I have lost 20 lbs in the past two months, and I feel much better overall. I have way more energy than I did before and I fart a lot less.

I can understand if it sounds extreme, but look at the standard American diet. Since the food pyramid was introduced, with a base of grains, people have gotten nothing but fatter, more diabetic, more heart attacks and stokes, etc. While there are essential fats and proteins, there are NO essential carbohydrates. I'm not sure if I'm going to stay on this diet forever, but it doesn't seem like the mainstream diet is very healthy, so I'm going to listen to what my body tells me and use reason to try to get out of this mess.

[lucidguppy]

I've done both keto and whole-foods-plant-based diets.

Both lose weight - but I feel a lot more energy on a starch based diet. Whole plant foods contain the right amount of fat (10%). Who cares about farts when I never get constipated. With a little exercise and a starch based diet I was able to lose 80lbs. When I started introducing fats and added refined sugars - the weight came back. The fat you eat is the fat you wear.

Long term ketosis is not optimal health.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22850317

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11108325

Look at cheese consumption and it tracks national weight gain. We're taking in way more fat today than long ago.

http://www.pcrm.org/images/media/blog/cheese_consumption.jpg

But we're taking more calories overall - so people get to blame whatever they want.

Starches powered all civilizations up to the 20th century. Only when we started consuming lots of meat and purified sugars and white flour did we really gain weight.