It's very bad, it's everywhere and addictive in ways you could never realise. Sugar addiction is very related to carbohydrates. When I cut carbs (and increased fat content) I also lost all interest in sweetness and sugar. Not even diet cokes.
When I was my fittest, I had totally cut sugar/carbs out. Even complex carbs (meh, not much benefit of "complex carbs anyway). I was running on ketone or whatever the terminology is. I was swimming everyday for two hours with no problems what so ever. I was basically running on fat. This takes a while, usually 2-3 weeks to get into.
Usually when I switched from carb loaded fuel to fat. It took a day of being tired and sleepy. That's it. But it takes a bit longer to completely exercise on fat than just running normal errands.
Most "low calorie" or "low fat" branded "food" products usually have high sugar content. The low fat version of the cremé fraiche we USED to consume at home had more sugar and/or carbs than the high fat one. We consume the latter these days and gain no additional weight. We're not as easy as thermo dynamics, it's more complicated than kcal in/out. Which is why most people prefer carbs/sugar instead of fat. Since the kcal per fat grams is higher.
EDIT; That being said, I've seen the opposite in my partner who happens to be of Chinese descent and others of similar background. The only explanation I have is that their bodies are more advanced than our primal vessels :-)
I thought this was satire until I got to the end. The human body needs carbs to run. I'm really skeptical that someone can exercise for two hours without any carbohydrates in their system.
No (or low) carbs is a pretty common dieting technique, originally made famous (at least where I am) by the Atkins Diet. My simplistic understanding of it is that when carbs are not available, your body burns fat instead, starting with the fat you consume and then if necessary the fat that your body has previously stored (hence losing weight). A colleague of mine does this for a month once a year to get a bit fitter ahead of his scuba diving holiday, and it works wonders for him.
Regarding long-term use of this diet, it would seem that opinion is divided and I've no idea which side is likely to be right - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-carbohydrate_diet is probably a decent place to start if you want to find out more. But certainly, while it's suggested that long-term use may not be a great idea, there's nothing to say that it would cause problems such as not being able to exercise for two hours a day.
Please do more research. I've done it. That being said, I am sure I got VERY little carbs from cabbage, cucumbers, olives, avocado, and onions (the usual vegetables I got, and it was usually only for dinner)
A usual day would go like this
Breakfast: Eggs + Butter + Bacon and Coffe with either 40% fat cream or coconut oil and butter.
Lunch: Not hungry, if I am, I usually have some avocado.
Dinner: Beef with butter on top, spring onions and slices cabbage and some avocado
You sound either uneducated on the subject or educated with old data. Get some more recent studies under your belt. There are many swedish ultra marathon or tri-athletes who compete on LCHF. Not sure about foreign ones.
Please do more research, if you think I was joking.
I'm reading more about it now. I'm a runner and definitely interested in this. I would say that ultra marathon isn't impressive as everyone thinks and is more about finishing. I would like to see someone win a marathon on a low carb diet.
My concern is performance. But a lot of ultras aren't very competitive. It just depends who shows up.
It's not the competitiveness I am talking about. It's the pure performance in general. I took your scepticism being about how to "burn" on no carb (or extreme low < 50 g day) and I used tri-athlon and ultra maratons as an example.
That being said, I DO AGREE with carbs being rocket fuel. But 99% of the population does not need rocket fuel. 40x25 meter swimming works perfectly fine with no carbs. I did that for four weeks, just eggs and butter twice a day and vitamin shots for missing nutritional values.
5000 IU's of Vitamin D (as we have no sun in Sweden :-) )
Hit me up on Twitter if you want to do some more research, I'd gladly help you out.
There is this talk from a 50 year old ultra marathon runner where he just ran on cream. Unfortunately it's in Swedish.
But it debunks "carb loading" for long running performance, as he was just running on fat.
LCHF has a transition period and it's strongly discouraged to engage in exercise during this period as your digestive system is undergoing drastic changes.
When I was my fittest, I had totally cut sugar/carbs out. Even complex carbs (meh, not much benefit of "complex carbs anyway). I was running on ketone or whatever the terminology is. I was swimming everyday for two hours with no problems what so ever. I was basically running on fat. This takes a while, usually 2-3 weeks to get into.
Usually when I switched from carb loaded fuel to fat. It took a day of being tired and sleepy. That's it. But it takes a bit longer to completely exercise on fat than just running normal errands.
Most "low calorie" or "low fat" branded "food" products usually have high sugar content. The low fat version of the cremé fraiche we USED to consume at home had more sugar and/or carbs than the high fat one. We consume the latter these days and gain no additional weight. We're not as easy as thermo dynamics, it's more complicated than kcal in/out. Which is why most people prefer carbs/sugar instead of fat. Since the kcal per fat grams is higher.
EDIT; That being said, I've seen the opposite in my partner who happens to be of Chinese descent and others of similar background. The only explanation I have is that their bodies are more advanced than our primal vessels :-)