The zero-carbohydrate diet

The zero-carbohydrate diet is a regime that we could define as “borderline” , or an extreme version of the Paleo diet and the ketogenic diet . In fact, the zero-carbohydrate diet does not include the intake of any type of carbohydrate, not even vegetables, but only meat, fish, very fatty cheeses and bordering on cream. There are two versions of the zero carbohydrate diet : the first is the one I described to you. Only animal proteins (but no dairy products), no vegetables, no carbohydrate sources, use of fat for seasoning. The other version is the more extreme one, but quite popular in a close community of people, including bitcoin tycoon Michael Goldstein, and blogs like Zero Carb Zen , Empirica ,My Zero Carb Life : YOU ONLY EAT MEAT. And nothing else. Possibly various types of meat, various fatty and less valuable cuts and cuts, but there are those who also eat only steaks. According to supporters of this moderately ketogenic and protein diet, you can get to the Holy Grail of wellness, of top physical fitness, by eating only foods of animal origin, and specifically only meat. In support of this thesis, the fact that dude, caio or sempronio have been following this diet for a few years and have thus solved their health problems, in addition to losing weight. Stories that leave some time they find, as my vegan neighbor might say the same, and my uncle has been doing better since he excluded dairy. The interviews of these people fill the blogs, they are almost their official source: but they remain stories, not scientific studies. And there are few scientific studies behind these extreme diets, starting with one apparently very popular among the promoters of the zero-carbohydrate diet, of 1930 . The day before yesterday, in practice.

Another topic that is the most popular is to consider how the Eskimos eat, some African tribes in the hinterland, others in the pole and so on: in their diets there is a massive consumption of meat and they are all very well. Too bad that we forget two things, which have to do with the context: the human being as an omnivore specializes in the diet that the environment can offer him. Those living in coastal areas will eat more fish; those who live in agricultural areas will eat more cereals and vegetables or legumes; those who live in areas of the extreme North of the Earth, where no leaves grow that God wants or does not want, have no vegetables available.Removing a diet from the historical, sociological and in general environmental context and then making it the mainestream makes no sense, it says nothing, it does not help to establish whether or not one diet is superior to another.
The second thing to consider is that there are and have also existed tribes that instead ate carbohydrates for seventy percent of their diet, such as the Kitavans. So playing the game of aboriginal diets doesn’t count

But are there any real weight loss benefits of the zero-carbohydrate diet? The answer is no.
– Unintentionally, Kelly from the blog My Zero Carb Life proves it: going from a ketogenic diet to a zero-carbohydrate diet based on meat only, Kelly, who lost weight on the ketogenic diet, would have gained 10 kilos in 6 months by eating only meat . The reason is obvious: she ate twice as much as she should have eaten. Once she has halved her total daily calories, she has lost weight. So are you telling me that calories matter when you want to lose weight? Yes.
I know, it’s shocking news. – At the moment, there is no “metabolic advantage” of ketogenic diets

at most there could be (not necessarily, but it could) a health disadvantage, since even Robb Wolf, one of the gurus of the Paleo diet, would have advised those who follow the paleo not to go below 100 grams of carbohydrates per day. Especially women. Long-term and recent scientific studies also explain that reducing carbohydrates does not give any advantage in terms of greater weight loss. In his latest book, Wolf includes rice as a paleo food, and recently the paleo community stated that ordinary potatoes are also fine.
– You risk diabetes even if you eat mainly meat. A new study talks about it here.Researchers think there is a link between iron in red meat and insulin resistance, but in general, it is good to remember that insulin sensitivity worsens if you eat a carbohydrate-free diet, simply because the body loses affinity for it. carbohydrate metabolism, specializing in lipid metabolism (see point below) especially in the long term.
– Eating carbohydrates reduces the body’s ability to oxidize fats: however, this does not mean that NOT eating carbohydrates will lose “body fat”. Otherwise vegans or better still fruitarians would all be obese. Basically we are talking about a zero-fat and very high-sugar diet, the exact opposite of the zero-carbohydrate diet.
Lipolysis (i.e. fat burning) is not equivalent to the loss of net body fat , but to the release of fatty acids for energy purposes. This information only tells us what source of energy the body is using, but it does not give us any guarantee that we will lose the belly fat . This thing of confusing lipolysis with body fat loss is a commonplace that Lorenzo Pansini debunks very well in this article: Burning fat does not mean losing weight.
The more you eat carbohydrates, the better your carbohydrate metabolism, and the less you need fat as a source of energy.On the contrary, the more fat you eat, the less carbohydrates you should eat to get to what is called “fat adaptation”, or the full use of fat as an energy engine.
But if you don’t keep track of how much you eat you get fat in one way or another , it’s simple.