Hello my name is Gerald, I’ve known about Dr Mosley for years and watched all his documentaries and have his book,, nice guy.

Vegan high carbers online such as Dr mcDougall say that carbs don’t convert to fat in the liver (Lipogenesis de novo) or the conversion is slight, its fat that is the culprit in diabetes, cholesterol etc.
Dr Mosley kind of follows the Mediterranean low carb type of diet, which I agree with more.

So, who is right? Carbs don’t convert to glucose to fat in the liver or they do or there is another mechanism at play here.

My understanding from the fantastic Gary Taubes book “Why We Get Fat” (and what to do about it) is that the amount of carbs you eat directly impacts how much insulin you produce. As one researcher put it, “carb drives insulin drives fat”. As insulin is the “fat storage” hormone, it drives your body to quickly pack away all you eat into the fat cells, both locking up your “fuel” source and leaving you with lowered blood sugar which drives further hunger/eating. The process is amazingly fluid and active and fat is being stored and un-stored all the time/every minute. The low carb diet lets your body access the fat that is stored because it lowers insulin.
As I understand, the liver “packages” extra calories in the form of fat onto triglycerides to transport them to your cells for storage. The triglycerides are created from carbohydrates. This is why low carb lowers your triglyceride levels.

Gerald, Dr Mosley doesn’t ‘kind of follow the Mediterranean low carb type of diet’. That is the diet. The 8×800 is designed to reverse T2 diabetes and for many of us it has. This may be diabetes in remission or completely reversed. Time will tell. Each of his 3 Mediterranean diets have evidence of lost weight, lower BGLs and in most cases lower readings on other medical markers such as BP and cholesterol. The rigour of the science of this was debated endlessly on this is in December. Search it maybe, but at the risk of opening another ferocious debate I don’t get why people come on this site which is funded by the developers of this diet and then question it. The BSD does work if followed.

Hello all, I am a daily reader but seem to be a weekly poster. Week three starts today. I have lost a further .9kg this past week. Disappointed by this as I expected more but onward and upward. 3.9kg in total so far.
My biggest issues revolve around – drinking water. I am trying to get at least 2 ltrs in a day but seriously I am up 3-4 times a night. This is a real pain.
The other issue is constipation. This is becoming a real issue and I am resorting to laxitive meds. I am adding a tablespoon of psyllium husks (10calories) to meals and eating lots of berries and green veg but no joy. ANY tips would be gratefully received.
As I said, I am a daily reader and am constantly inspired by others positive attitudes. I have not ‘cheated’ so far, not feeling excessively hungry and am prepared for hiccups.
Another hot one coming today so for those in Victoria – stay cool and hydrate!!
cheers

Abbado – Drinking water would help and Psyllium husks as well, exercise as well like brisk walking daily. Your weight loss is good though
Jenni From The Block – I question everything, its the way I am. Infact a lady on youtube says that vegan high carb diet will reverse fatty liver and she is convinced and has the studies to ‘prove’ it, I have shown her conflicting studies. When I say a Mediterranean type diet thats exactly what I mean, being Sicilian I know what Italian people have eaten for centuries, what people have done is take what they believe to be the healthiest parts of what people in this area have eaten and I agree with the MD, its cool. The point is that Drs like McDougal say that eating high carb diet reverses diabetes, fatty liver, arthritis etc if you don’t use any oil or very tiny amounts, and so I don’t blindly accept what people say but question, could it be they are both right? Its not as simple as one size fits all diet but the low carb MED diet seems to work for me better than the high carb.

CaliforniaGirl – I also think this way, the vegan guys say that insulin is the key that unlocks your cells and its intracellular lipids or fat in the cells that causes a problem and the pancreas keeps having to pump insulin in an attempt to get into the cells with the fat in them, terrible explanation – sorry, but roughly this is what I read and so they say, no no – fat is the culprit, fat makes you fat, makes your liver fat, makes you diabetic etc., I listen and keep researching when I can, but will start the BSD ASAP 😉

Gerard, no one is saying it’s one size fits all but don’t use this forum to push other diets. This is a BSD site. It takes away form the purpose of the BSD funded site to support us in following it.

Hi Gerald,
Carbs convert to glycogen in the liver. Glycogen is glucose chemically combined with water, and it is used for short term energy storage. Before your body starts to burn fat you need to use up the glycogen in your liver, and you will do that on a low carb diet. Fat is bad because it inhibits the action of the pancreas and you can develop fatty liver disease if you eat too much fat. However, diabetes is defined by too much glucose in the blood, and this diet directly attacks that problem.

Hi Abbado,
Losing .9kg a week pretty good, and it seems that a lot of people on this forum lose at about that rate. That is fat that you will hopefully never see again! As for the constipation fluids seem to be the best thing, especially during the afternoon before your main meal. Another thing that I found that helped was eating sugar free mints, sweetened with sorbitol and manitol. These sugar alcohols carry through to the large bowel and feed the bacteria there which seems to help keep things moving.

Great synopses, Californiagirl and Jande.

Gerald, the fact of the matter is that on 800 calories or thereabouts, there’s a limit to how much fat you can eat and still eat other things. The BSD is not a low carb, high fat diet and it’s definitely not a high carb low fat diet. It’s a low calorie, low carb diet. There have been a couple of interesting online FutureLearn courses recently and you might find them useful. One is Know Your Abdomen and the other I’ve done recently is the Science of Nutrition. I know other people on here have done courses on diabetes. Have a look at FutureLearn. There’s a lot available. Good luck.

Wow there’s a lot of knowledge here. Its good that there are so many studies but in my life I have to keep things very simple or I fall off this wagon and the next.
What works for me, is what I stick to.
It works for me to incorporate fats into my diet. Takes the edge off the hunger, and for the first time in years, I’m not fat. So it’s not making me fat 🙂
As for higher carb, from experience of mini binges since I went low-carb… I feel ill. Period. And feel flatter and happier when I come off it.

Jande, Snoop and Baristagirls, it’s so nice to hear from you, and good to know that you are still keeping up with the
community!
Best of luck to you Gerard! I didn’r read your post as “advertising”, but simply the plethora of misinformation out there.
I wish you every success on the BSD. This site is full of true “believers” in this WOE. I hope you will soon be one of
them 🙂

Allie, the post is 2.5 years old

You’re right! I wonder how it turned up on recent topics??? Clearly I have brain fog this early morning, and need a large
mug of caffeine to start my brain. And to think that you’ve probably been out already doing laps in the pool! I’m sorry
that you had a bad hypo last evening…It does sound like your O/H knows exactly what to do though. Glad that you
are safe! Do you think that it was caused by being in a calorie deficit? I don’t think there is anything better than
swimming for general toning, so you must be looking fantastic!