Carbohydrate & Weight Loss

Below is an excerpt from Part Two of

The 2004 Multi-Diet

by Anderson A. Anonymous, M.D., Ph.D.

More On… Carbohydrate

Only fat makes you fat…
but carbohydrate can prevent you
from ever losing that fat.

Background

As with other nutrients on the Multi-Diet, managing carbohydrate means consciously controlling both the type and the amount that you eat. The body uses carbohydrate almost solely as a source of energy (Calories). Therefore, on the Multi-Diet we want to restrict carbohydrate so that the body will have to use mainly stored fat for energy instead.

However, “restrict” does not mean “eliminate”—which is not really possible and would be undesirable anyway. The Multi-Diet is not an ultra-low-carbohydrate diet. Once you have gotten your required amount of protein and fatty acids (and the Calories that inevitably go with them), all other Calories up to your daily Calorie limit can and should come from carbohydrate. But it should be the right type of carbohydrate. This means “low-glycemic-index” carbohydrate.

When Multi-Dieters work with carbohydrate, we are primarily trying to manage two things: energy (Calories) and insulin (metabolism). Research has recently given us simple ways to do each. We discuss them in the next two sections.

For dieters, carbohydrate is the least “essential” of the vital nutrients. But it is not totally superfluous. Although you can survive indefinitely without carbohydrates if your diet contains sufficient protein and fat, The Beast will be wide-awake and very unhappy about it. This is due to the requirements for carbohydrate in the metabolic functions discussed earlier in Part Two in more on… energy metabolism & storage. Therefore, on the Multi-Diet we do not eliminate carbohydrate. We do, however, restrict it—both as to amount and as to type. Carbohydrate quality is usually less critical than carbohydrate quantity as long as you observe the basic Multi-Diet principle: Neither too much nor too little nor the wrong type.

Carbohydrate Quantity:
Calories vs. Protein-Sparing

To keep carbohydrate intake restricted to a reasonable amount of energy, we use our own Multi-Diet variant of the “carbohydrate-by-difference” approach to energy measurement.

1. First make sure you get enough protein.
2. Then make sure you get enough EFAs.
3. Then make up your daily Calorie limit with carbohydrate.

Below is another calculation table to help you “work your own numbers” on carbohydrate.J

Note that eating less than the amount of carbohydrate you calculate in Table 20 is probably Ok—as long as you get at least 200–400 Calories (50–100 grams) of it per day.

Table 20: Your Carbohydrate Calories Your Carbohydrate Calories (Maximum Daily)
Your Daily Calorie Limit (from Table 12)	____ kcal
Minus Calories from Protein (from Table 17 – this will vary depending on your selection of protein food)	____ kcal
Minus Calories from Essential Oil (from Table 18)	160  kcal
Equals Calories from Carbohydrate (max)	____ kcal
(Note: You can divide carbohydrate calories by 4 to get carbohydrate grams—but for Multi-Diet purposes you don’t need to know this.)

A Carbohydrate Minimum

You need a minimum amount of daily dietary carbohydrate because certain tissues in your body (e.g. certain blood cells) must have glucose for energy—they cannot use anything else and will die if they don’t have it. In fact, if there is insufficient glucose available from dietary carbohydrate, your body will make the glucose they must have out of muscle protein—and we don’t want that. The amount of dietary carbohydrate required to prevent this is believed to be fifty to one hundred grams per day (200-400 Calories). This amount of dietary carbohydrate is therefore usually said to have a “protein-sparing” effect. (See more on… energy metabolism & storage.)