LOW CALORIE VS LOW CARB

I have lost 5.9 pounds (2.68 kg) in the last two weeks, with a total loss of 28.8 pounds (13.06 kg)! Although, I’ve lost a pound a day over the last two days (see chart below), so I have a feeling it will go back up slightly to even out. Either way, I’m more than satisfied with my current progress.

At 200 pounds, I will be halfway to my goal. Hopefully I’ll be below that by my next health journal entry. It’s so close but seems so far away!

This week, I thought I’d discuss my thoughts and comparisons between two pretty common diets: low carbohydrate and low calorie. I’m currently on a low calorie diet, but I did try low carb several years ago. I’ve been reminiscing about the past lately and recalled my experiences restricting carbs.

I attempted a low carb diet long before I thought of trying low calorie. I religiously stuck to the diet, a variation of Atkins and South Beach, for approximately 3 months.

I know, 3 months is hardly long enough to achieve any significant results, but it is certainly long enough to form the necessary perspective and comparisons.

Methodology

Low Carb

Low carb, as you may have guessed, is a diet in which you restrict the number of carbohydrates you eat.

It is not ‘no carb’. That would be impossible. It annoys me when people say they’re on a no carb diet. Vegetables, and especially fruits, have carbs. So unless you’re eating nothing but meat all day, then you’re ingesting carbs. And you’re going to get scurvy if all you eat is meat. Heck, even cheese has a small number of carbs.

Okay, rant over. It just drives me crazy for some reason.

Basically what it boils down to is eliminating bread, pasta, rice, starches, sugar, etc. from your diet. At the beginning of the diet, you are not permitted to eat most fruit either, save for several berries. You’re then able to reintroduce certain fruits over time.

The idea here is that you lose weight because carbohydrates take the longest to digest and are most often stored as fat.

Low Calorie

You can probably fathom, even without reading my other journals, that low calorie means eating less calories. Breaking news, right?

With the low calorie diet, you have to look at your own weight and calculate how many calories you need to maintain your weight. Then you reduce that number based on how quickly you want to lose.

As a general rule, removing 500 calories a day results in a loss of 1 pound per week. Removing 1,000 calories a day equates to a 2 pound loss per week. Too much more than that isn't recommended because you won't get the required nutrients and you're body may go into starvation mode.

Foods Allowed

Low Carb

I already mentioned that you are not permitted to eat any type of bread products, including pasta, rice, or sweets. For someone who has the sweet tooth of a 5 year-old, that latter was very difficult for me.

The former became equally difficult over time. After about a month of not eating any type of bread, I felt as though I could smell bread from a mile away. I wanted it all the time! I would walk into work (I worked at a hotel at the time) and I could smell it in banquets, from the kitchen, restaurant. . . anywhere there was bread, which was everywhere.

During the first couple weeks, I was also not allowed to eat most types of fruit. Needing something sweet, I ate an inordinate amount of cherry tomatoes to satisfy my craving. I quite like cherry tomatoes, so it was a good substitute which was allowed by the diet.

Eventually, I could eat other fruits. But some of my favorites, pineapple and watermelon, had to be eaten in moderation.

Meat and cheese could be eaten to my heart’s content. Bacon? Of course! Hamburger patty with cheese? Sure! Steak? Why not! How about this block of pepper jack cheese? It’s your intestines! I never quite understood how I could eat so many high fat items and still lose weight.

You can eat as much bacon as you want on this diet, which is one of the reasons why I think it's flawed. Sure, you may lose weight, but how balanced and healthy are you going to be? I would often go to In-N-Out to get a low carb burger or two. It’s just a burger with lettuce instead of a bun. It was never the same for me without the bun.

As long as it is low carb, you can eat as much as you want.

Low Calorie

You can eat pretty much anything you want with a low calorie diet, in moderation.

For me, moderation has meant removing certain food from my diet. While I can technically eat pecan pie or fried chicken, eating any significant amount would result in me not being able to eat anything else that day. I didn’t eat either of those things all that often, but I did on occasion.

I can eat bread, which is great. I do love bread. Since beginning this diet, I haven’t eaten any fresh baked or artisanal bread, however. It’s much more difficult to calculate the calories than it is with sliced bread.

I have two go-to breads right now: San Luis Sourdough which is amazing and I think my local market stopped carrying it which upsets me to no end, and Oroweat Oat Nut. The oat nut bread is higher in calories than the sourdough, but the slices are bigger and it has more health benefits. I can’t eat most other sliced breads, including other Oroweat varietals, without upsetting my stomach for some reason.

Obviously you can eat pretty much as many vegetables as you can stand with this diet. Fruits have to be moderated to an extent, but they are much lower in calories than any type of processed sweet or bakery item.

You do have to be careful about the number of calories you ingest, because certain foods or portions can be deceiving. In that regard, it is more difficult to track than a low carb diet.

Hunger

Low Carb

I was ALWAYS hungry on this diet. Like, always.

I never quite felt satisfied. I tried all sorts of tricks to satiate myself: sliced turkey wrapped around cheese, cream cheese on celery, cinnamon apples (cinnamon is supposed to be an appetite suppressant). None of it worked.

I felt that I had to eat a ton of food before I was no longer hungry.

Low Calorie

This is where low calorie wins for me. I’m never hungry. I normally eat small meals or snacks throughout the day, with a bigger dinner, and I’m always satisfied.

When I start to feel hunger pangs, I eat something to hold me over and I’m fine.

Eating fruit or an occasional small sweet prevents my inner 5 year-old from getting out and wreaking havoc at the store. All in all, low calorie has been much easier on my hunger levels than low carb ever was.

I actually weigh more today than I did when I tried the low carb diet. So it wasn’t me being bigger at the time, because I wasn’t.

Results

I lost a small amount of weight during the few months that I did low carb, but nowhere near the results I have had with low calorie. And after I stopped, I immediately gained the weight back.

Granted, if I start eating the way I used to, I would gain weight after doing low calorie, but it’s different.

I feel that it’s impossible to maintain a low carb diet forever, at least for me. The problem is that you will gain as soon as you begin eating bread again.

On a low calorie diet, I will eventually start eating over 1,300 calories a day, but knowing where my maintenance limit is makes it easy not to go over. Even if I go to 1,800 - 2,000 calories, which is more than enough on most days, I won’t gain anything.

The biggest issue will be counting calories. It can be a pain and I understand not having the patience to do that constantly throughout the day. Eating out is also an issue with low calorie, but the results and the way I feel make it the better option for myself.

Why Did I Stop Low Carb?

I broke my diet when I went to Burbank for an event with two of my friends. One of my friends suggested we go to Philippe's to eat. Philippe is home to the original French dip sandwich. As in, they invented it in 1908.

I had never been before (and haven’t returned since, although I want to), so I was looking forward to it. And it was delicious. You can’t imagine how amazing it was to eat an awesome sandwich on fresh baked bread.

We also got a pecan pie. I had never had pecan pie before. I now make an incredible one that I’m not allowed to eat. Anyway, this was a first for me. The pie is already really high in sugar, but I hadn’t eaten any real sugar in months. I was practically bouncing off the walls. I was literally bouncing in giddiness. It was SO GOOD.

After that day, I struggled to get back into the diet, but I was never able to. After stopping, it was so much more difficult to start back up again. I didn’t attempt any other diets until my most recent one.

Conclusion

What has been your experience with different diets? What worked for you?

Thanks for reading along. I hope you found it insightful if you’re thinking about trying one of these. As always, I included my daily weight and caloric intake totals since my last journal below. I’ll see you in two weeks!

Daily Breakdown of Weight and Caloric Intake

Date	Pounds	Kilograms	Caloric Intake
7 August 2016	207.1 lb	93.94 kg	1371 calories
8 August 2016	207.7 lb	94.21 kg	1222 calories
9 August 2016	206.6 lb	93.80 kg	1318 calories
10 August 2016	207.6 lb	94.17 kg	1221 calories
11 August 2016	206.1 lb	93.49 kg	1186 calories
12 August 2016	205.6 lb	93.26 kg	1353 calories
13 August 2016	205.1 lb	93.03 kg	1399 calories
14 August 2016	204.4 lb	92.71 kg	1219 calories
15 August 2016	204.4 lb	92.71 kg	1219 calories
16 August 2016	204.3 lb	92.67 kg	1347 calories
17 August 2016	203.7 lb	92.40 kg	1265 calories
18 August 2016	203.9 lb	92.49 kg	1250 calories
19 August 2016	203.3 lb	92.22 kg	1189 calories
20 August 2016	202.2 lb	91.72 kg	1270 calories
21 August 2016	201.2 lb	91.26 kg	---