I was reading this interesting post by Michael Eades this weekend. The post discusses how people on a low-carb diet can still have trouble losing weight if their overall calories are too high. What interested me more though was this paragraph by Eades in the comments section:
"When insulin levels stay down, the fat cells open, but fat doesn’t really come out unless it needs to. With enough dietary calories to provide for energy needs, the fat stays in the fat cells. The other side of this equation says that if insulin is down, fat won’t go into the fat cells either. So people can consume large amounts of calories on low-carb diets and not gain weight either, which is what is happening to the subjects in your links."
I think this is so neat because it contrasts with the normal calorie in-calorie out model. Usually, they say if you cut calories you'll lose weight, and if you increase them you'll gain. But when you add hormonal effects into the picture (via insulin), you get a situation where things are different on either side of the equation.
I can certainly vouch for the fact that if you eating in a way that keeps insulin low (Paleo or low-carb) that extra protein and fat calories do not necessarily lead to weight gain. I wrote about this a couple months ago.
As for decreasing calories when in a low-insulin state, I think there's more to the story. I will write about this in the next post.
