Low Carb, High Carb: What's it All About?

There's a great scene in the Woody Allen movie, Annie Hall. Both Woody's character and his girlfriend, played by Diane Keaton, are in psychotherapy with different therapists, and the scene is a split-screen where you see both characters with their respective shrinks. On the left side, Woody is saying to his shrink, "We hardly ever have sex." The therapist asks, "Well, how often do you have sex?" and Woody moans, "Only three times a week." Over on the right- hand side of the screen, the Diane Keaton character is complaining to her shrink, "He wants to have sex all the time!" Her therapist asks, "Well, how often do you have sex?" and she wails, "All the time! Three times a week!"

Which brings us to low carb diets.

I'm frequently asked about high protein / low carbohydrate diets, and the thing I'm always struck by is that, when I ask those questioning me how they define "high protein," the answers sound a lot like the scene from Annie Hall. What constitutes "low" or "high" protein (or carbohydrates) really depends on what your reference point is. Time and again I hear speakers and writers, especially in the mass media, misrepresent folks like Barry Sears (he wrote "The Zone") as advocating a "high protein" diet. Why is it misrepresentation? Because Dr. Sears recommends a distribution of about 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent protein and 30 percent fat. Is that a "high" protein diet? Well, if you're a government agency or a traditionally trained dietitian, and you believe that folks should consume about 12 percent of their calories from protein, sure it is. I prefer to think of it, as Dr. Sears does, as a "protein-adequate" diet. In fact, if you notice, the main source of calories from his diet is from carbohydrates (40 percent when I last looked).

The dietary guidelines I recommend on the Shape Up programs do not really constitute a "low carb diet," although the American Dietary Association zealots might disagree. To them, anything less than a recommendation of 55-60 percent (sometimes even more) of your daily calories from carbohydrates is too low. Personally, I think they're nuts.

Why? Because, unless you're one of the lucky ones in the American populace whose metabolism operates flawlessly, who is not struggling with a weight problem, who is eating whole and unrefined foods, who is getting adequate intake of fiber, who has no discernible food intolerances or sensitivities, who is exercising daily and who seems to process a highly grain-based diet effortlessly, and unless you have no serious disturbances in insulin metabolism or blood sugar levels, you're gonna have a problem with the typical American high carb / low fat diet. Why? Because, in the rage to hang horns on the villain and banish fat from the American diet, we have replaced it with, in my opinion, far more carbs than our Paleolithic digestive systems were ever designed to process. Furthermore, those carbs are not the "good" kind that well-meaning nutritionists talk about when they urge us to eat more of them. They're processed, refined, full of hidden sugars and bleached flours, devoid of nutrients and loaded with calories. These foods may be low in fat, but they're making us sick and they're making us fat.

The dietary guidelines in the Shape Up programs were designed for weight loss, but they were also designed for health. Sure, there are people who will need more calories than are recommended (or less), who will be able to eat more starches or fruit than are on the recommended list (or less), but that's what individualizing and customizing a plan is all about. Sure, the percentage of calories coming from carbohydrates is a bit less than the nutritional zealots would have you believe you should be eating -- but if the "official, government-approved" version of what you should be eating was working so well for you, you probably wouldn't be reading this column in the first place.

So, the next time someone asks you if you're on a "low carb" diet, think of that scene in Annie Hall.

And then ask them, "Compared to what?"

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