Carbs Vs Fats
What’s the best for weight loss?
We’re going to get into this topic today and it’s a controversial topic within not only the fitness industry but also when you speak to people it could be a topic of conversation and without giving anything away too quickly, most of you have probably got an idea in your head of what you believe already but if we pulled everybody who’s reading this, well there’s at least one 3rd of a group of people who might have lost weight on a low carbohydrate diet and another 3rd of a group who might have lost weight on a high carbohydrate diet, there’s also probably a mix of people who have lost on both low carbohydrates and low fats at one time. This may paint a picture that it’s not either-or, but we shall go through it now.
Fats vs carbs for dieting
There’s nothing that tends to divide the nutritional sphere quicker and with more emotion than the age-old argument of fats or carbohydrates. One side of people are saying that you eat carbohydrates and they naturally make you fat and then other people are saying that fats are the devil that will cause heart disease.
Often at times, it’s very hard to find a balanced approach in the middle. There are good trainers out there who are very much balanced when it comes to this and they have been educated through some great resources but there are also still people that swear that one of these things are making you fat.
So who do we believe when it comes to this and does it actually come down to who we believe or does it come down to what the science actually says?
We don’t need to “believe anyone” as this is a topic that’s been studied a lot and now I’m going to show you some meta-analysis that has been conducted. These are the most powerful studies that we have because they take a whole group of studies like maybe 30, 40, 50 individual studies that have been done and then they look at all of the evidence as a whole and we can also get a really good idea of the outcomes of what the science says.
Fats vs carbs for dieting 1
The first study that we’re going to talk about was done by Wu in 2012. In this study, they looked at weight loss over 6 months.
Dietary interventions for weight loss and maintenance - Preference or Genetic personalisation?
So in this study, they looked at the following -
Low carbohydrate
Low GI diets which are basically slow-digesting carbohydrates
The Mediterranean diet
They said that weight-loss diets such as low carbohydrate diets, low gi/low glycemic load diets and the Mediterranean diet may be alternatives to conventional low-fat diets. People used to say that fats were bad and that you’ve got to eat low fat however they looked at it and they actually said, no this is actually not the case as we can actually have low carbohydrate diets especially for short term weight loss but have greater variability of long term effects.
The first one looked at it and taking a little bit of the author’s notes they said the following-
“The difference in weight loss among these named diets is only 1-2 kilograms or less which appears to be of little clinical significance. Thus overweight and obese people can choose many different weight-loss diets on the basis of their personal preferences’.
Now, what is the bottom tier of the nutritional pyramid? It’s Adherence.
So let’s say that low-fat diets, so high carbohydrate/low-fat diets are actually best for weight loss and they give you an extra 2 kilograms over 6 months so this is about 4 lbs. Now if you are an individual who really does not like carbohydrates and you actually really enjoy fattier foods then do you think that us putting you on a low-fat diet is going to help you over the course of 6 months? Well maybe you could stick with it for say 6 weeks but over 6 months you’ve got to be eating a diet that you enjoy and so therefore 1-2 kilograms and especially 1 kilogram of weight loss over 6 months is not a lot at all.
If I said to you now, here’s the perfect diet in the world and you’ll lose an extra kilogram but you won’t enjoy any of the meals then you won’t enjoy the rest of the 6 months and you’d say well actually no I’ll take the extra 1 kilogram of body weight as I want to enjoy the meals that I’m eating, so therefore at this point, there’s very little difference.
Fats vs carbs for dieting 2
The second study that we’re going to look at now was a study by Johanson in 2014 -
Comparison of weight loss among named diet programs in overweight and obese adults.
They collected data from 59 studies and they looked at weight loss at 6 and 12 months with obese participants on named diets, you’ll also probably recognise some of these diets here now too -
They gave the people 3 basic groups in which they had -
A low carbohydrate group - So any individual that had been on an Atkins diet, the South Beach diet or the Zone diet (this diet is popular with crossfit) and basically these we’re diets that had carbohydrates under 40% of their overall caloric intake
They had a moderate group so these were people that had been on diets such as the Biggest Loser, Weightwatchers, the Jenny Craig diet and this group had more moderate carbohydrate intakes which was at 55 to 60%
There was another group which had low fat diets which was the Ornish diet and the Rosemary Conely diet which was at a 60% carbohydrate intake.
Obese indivudals, over 12 months and within 59 studies, so we’re looking at thousands of participants here on named diets so some was on low carb diets, some we’re on moderate carbohydrate diets and some was on low fat/high carbohydrate diets.
What did they conclude?
“Significant weight loss was observed with any low carbohydrate or low fat diet. Weight loss differences between individual named diets we’re small. The ideal diet is the one that is best adhered to by individuals so that they can stay on the diet as long as possible”.
There were thousands of participants over 59 different studies and it didn’t matter if they were on a low carbohydrate, a low fat or moderate carbohydrate. The best diet was the one that they can stick to. This is one of the biggest takehomes that we can have as any low carbohydrate or any low fat diet had significant weight loss as long as they could stick to it so this would be where you decide what is the diet that you can stick to.
Fats vs carbs for dieting 3
This is our third study that we’re going to look at and it is one that was done in 2017 by Hall and Guo.
The study was body weight regulation and the effects of diet composition.
So during this study they took 32 controlled feeding studies and additionally this is super important because what they do in normal studies is where people are doing their normal everyday life and then every 3 days or so they’ll report back, similarly to what you’d do with your PT as you’d be saying ‘this is what I’ve eaten and this is what I’ve had’.
As we know with under reporting and as we know with people’s preferences, people may get it wrong as they might say ‘yeah I’ve been on the low carbohydrate diet and yeah I’ve only had 1,500 calories’ when in fact they may have been eating 2,500 calories and this can skew results however in feeding studies they pretty much lock you up in what is basically a scientific prison where you are on a ward and there is no other food within that ward apart from the food that you are given by the people doing the experiment so we know that the food that they are having is very accurate.
They took 32 controlled trials over the course of about 12 years and with each of the protocols they had the same amount of calories if they were on a low carbohydrate or a low fat diet and they had the same amount of protein. Also remember how important it is that we have the same protein because higher protein groups always tend to beat lower protein groups when it comes to weight loss.
What did they find in this study? They said the following..
“For all practical purposes a calorie is a calorie, between controlled isocaloric (same calories) diets varying in the ratio of carbohydrate to fat” so basically calorie balance is what matters so a calorie is a calorie between same calorie diets that vary and the amount of fat and carbohydrate that they have, so as long as you are in your calorie budget for whatever that may be such as for weight gain, weight loss etc, well it pretty much came down to were you eating to it and it didn’t matter if you was eating more carbohydrate or more fat either. What does this tell us?
If we can get you within the right calorie budget for your goal and then we can find a diet that gives you enough preference that you can stick to that diet, then we’re going to be on target and then we can also start combining this with more long term approaches to dieting which means you’ll be on the right path to success.
Hopefully over the course of these blogs from when we’ve said about macronutrients and in this blog now about fats vs carbs that you can then see that actually lots of this talk about fats or carbs being better or worse is actually quite a pointless topic and especially when it comes to fat loss, as it comes down to what you prefer and what’s going to allow you to stick to the diet.
As we come to the end of this blog I will end it with the following -
Fats and Carbohydrates are both essential for optimal health and performance even though carbohydrates are not essential in order to live.
Once we cover our basic needs in terms of you eating enough carbohydrates to train hard and to function and that you’ve got enough fats in order to promote all of your hormones etc then we’re good to go and you can basically eat which ones that you enjoy
As long as we eat within our calorie budget and avoid extremes you are free to eat the diet that you prefer and you can stick to.