Carbohydrates, Insulin, and Fat Storage Realities

The conversation moved towards this next pet peeve of Luke's. The idea that carbs magically and inevitably get converted into fat and that they spike insulin, which also makes you fat. The thing is that when you eat things like carbohydrates, if you're overeating carbs, they still have to be converted into fat. And there's a lot of energy that goes out during that process. So you're losing a lot of calories trying and turn it into fat. So you've got a lot of people doing the ketogenic dieting right now and you have knuckleheads telling people you can have all the fat you want. That's simply not the case. If you're over consuming calories, fat's going to make you fat fastest. And I think you don't even need to know biochemistry to understand this concept that if you're overeating calories and you're in a hypercaloric diet, you're eating more than you're expending and you're eating tons of that as fat. Well, fat doesn't have to be converted into anything. It just turns into fat and goes right on your fat ass. When it comes down to it, I love Luke's perspective because it is never reductionist. Reducing physiology and biochemistry to a soundbite is something common in the fitness industry. But if something sounds too simple, it's been oversimplified.