Weight Maven

William Banting, author of Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public in 1863, apparently found he was able to indulge in some carbs during maintenance after low-carb weight loss (p. 35, emphasis his):

I have … frequently indulged my fancy, experimentally, in using milk, sugar, butter, and potatoes—indeed, I may say all the forbidden articles except beer, in moderation, with impunity, but always as an exception, not as a rule. This deviation, however, convinces me that I hold the power of maintaining the happy medium in my own hands.

I found Banting’s comment interesting after reading Sanjeev’s comment at CarbSanity wondering if folks’ “first experience with Atkins worked so well they stay/stayed with it far, far past its ‘best before’ date.”

Many folks seem to do well on a ketogenic LC diet, but if that’s not you, at least you now know that the first famous LC dieter added some carbs back to his diet once he reached his goal weight.

Not only that, but it looks like Banting’s diet also included “safe” starch. From the appendix in the 3rd edition (p 48, emphasis mine):

I can now also state that eggs, if not hard boiled, are unexceptionable, that cheese, if sparingly used, and plain boiled rice seem harmless.

I plan on spending a little bit more time with Letter on Corpulence (thanks to Zoe Harcombe for the pointer). It’s an interesting historical essay and makes clear that obesity, while far more prevalent now, has its roots far before HFCS, seed oils, and the food pyramid.

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According to Nell Stephenson of Paleoista, It’s So Simple. If You’re Not Moving, You Don’t Need Starch:

Beyond that, from a very simplistic point of view, if you’re not someone who is engaged in long endurance activity, not only do you simply do not need to ‘eat starch with every meal’, you don’t need to eat starch at all. Further, if you’re someone who is not at their ideal, healthy weight, and you are not engaged in long endurance activity, you really don’t need to be eating starch.

Later in the post, she notes that she really means the “starch found in all legumes and beans that many of us grew up thinking were an important part of every meal.”

Well.

What someone “needs” in their diet is not just about the underlying metabolic processes. At the risk of repeating myself (or of repeating Dr. Yoni Freedhoff), I think Yoni is spot on:

It’s about living the healthiest life that you can enjoy, not the healthiest life that you can tolerate, because if your life is simply tolerable, you’re not likely to keep living that way. To take an extreme example, while becoming a teetotaling, vegan, shut-in, marathon runner might well help you to manage your weight, is that a life you’d be willing, or even able, to live with forever?

This is why despite still needing to lose weight (and hardly being an endurance athlete), I eat what I call moderate carb and include starch at both lunch and dinner.

And before you can say, “well Beth, you’re lucky, you’re clearly not metabolically deranged,” let me say I am (or at least was) the poster child for met syn … which included high blood pressure, very high BMI, and a starting high fasting insulin of 24. For me, avoiding starch is treating the symptom, not the problem.

So if going low-carb works for you, by all means keep doing it! But if you’re like me, if the thought of not having starch during your weight loss efforts is going to cause more problems wrt consistency (thanks again Yoni!) than it solves, then relax and include starch. You can absolutely lose weight with starch in your diet … I have!

But be honest, if adding starch causes problems (e.g., portions start creeping up or kicks in the WTF effect), then you’ll want to adjust.

Note: As someone following an ancestral approach, I generally get my starch from veggies, fruits, and white rice (see PHD).

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