Sorry I missed this earlier Adrienne.  I use this email for work and home
and
this one got left at the office.

Adrienne Smith said:
>  ...he claims that starches work better than simple sugars for the
> carb-up phase.  This is confusing to me because I thought that all carbs
> whether simple ie fruit or complex ie yams, brown rice,etc all turn to
> glucose in the body.  If in fact starches are superior for the carb-ups,
> then how is this compatible with pale..

Though he recommends starches over simpler sugars for the carb-up, you can
certainly carb-up with simpler sugars :)  I would not take his
recommendation
for starches to mean that all other sugar sources are bad.  I think the
advantages of starches for this diet include a more controlled increase of
blood sugar and also a dense source of carbos.  Remember, for the normal
diet
he is generally targetting somewhere around 100g+ of carbo for this meal and
for the body builders diet, on the order of 200g+  Fruits are abit of a
mixed
bag as the concern with fruits is the fructose content.  Fruits also contain
lots of other sugars, but it is the fructose that is the worry.  The nature
of
frutose metabolism is that it cannot be used by the body directly but must
be processed in the liver first.  This has the effect for this type of
macro-nutrient cycling of filling liver glycogen preferentially, which is
bad.
Well, somewhat bad. In a normal 'high' carbo diet, it is 'spill over' of
blood
sugar from the liver that leads to glucose --> body fat.  The 'glycogen
depleated'
liver in a low carber acts as a 'buffer' before excess carbs are converted
to fat.
(That is abit simplified, but I think fairly accurate.)

> Also, Wade, have you found fat loss success with NHE?  I tried
> it a few years back and found the water retention following the carb-ups
> really uncomfortable plus the carb-ups seemed to kick-start more carbo
> cravings.

I lose weight on the NHE diet.  I find it simple enought that it is not as
controlled
as say the Zone (which I had success with) and the few carb up meals a week
give me
more variety that I enjoy.  I DO notice the water retention but it doesnt
bother me
(other than I think I've gained 10lbs over night.. :)) and I've never had
carbo cravings
after, I guess I'm lucky.  My biggest challenge is not overeating at my
meals.  This
happens to me on occasion when I have forgotten to snack or missed a meal
here and
there.  When I find myself salivating before a meal, I'm in trouble :)
Fagin warns
about this 'hormonal hunger'.

> I'm
> grappling with how can a diet that supposedly the best way to eat for fat
> loss cause lowered thyroid function?

I hate to say that with my current diet it is not a concern and I havent
followed up
on this in the literature.  My thoughts are more along the line that the
weight loss
portion of these diets are meant to be temporary.  After you reach your
goals, you
increase your carbs to some balance point.  I'm guessing that these carb
limits give
you enough to raise your thyroid.  Tho the reduction in thyroid is
'significant' in
long term low carbers, I don't think it is seriously abnormal or cause for
great concern.

  Wade