The human body is designed to utilize fat, protein, and carbohydrates for energy, repair, and growth.
When you go on an extreme diet like ketogenic, super low fat, or any other number of diets you’re training your body to overreact when you add a food group back in.
This is the reason that people see a ballooning or rebound effect after taking out carbs and then adding them back in.
Think of this as a boomerang. The harder your throw it or the more extreme you go the faster and harder the boomerang comes back at you. Making it more difficult to catch and more likely to take your head off.
The adverse effects on your body, like gaining a bunch of weight back rapidly, has less to do with the carbs and more to do with how you trained your body to react to them.
The best option for most people barring any medical restrictions on nutrition is creating metabolic flexibility.
The best source of energy for high-intensity activity and mental functioning is carbohydrates.
The best source of energy for low-intensity and recovery activities is fat.
The best source of energy and materials for tissue turnover, building, and recovery processes is protein.
We want to be able to utilize each food type for it’s given purpose.
Cutting one out or reducing to a ridiculously low or high level usually isn’t the best option.
Not to mention that eliminating a food group is mentally challenging in today’s abundance of food.
A balanced, customized, and sensible approach to nutrition will ensure metabolic flexibility and sanity.
Brett “Metabolically Flexible” Denton