10 Things I Learnt By Not Eating Starch for a Year
Even though I had seen him just three months ago, there was something different about him. I frowned as I tried to figure out just what had changed. Then I realised what it was — his paunch was gone.
“How’d you do it?” I asked, absentmindedly rubbing my own growing tummy. My carbo baby had been with me since 1998, the year I joined the army. I haven’t been able to shed it since.
“Just cut the carbs,” he grinned, showing me his long-hidden abs.
How odd, I thought. I’d received the exact same advice just days earlier, when I asked my cousin-in-law how he’d lost so much weight in such a short time.
Just cut the carbs? Could it be so simple? I decided to experiment.
In the course of the following year, I tested lots of diet and nutrition principles that I’d always taken for granted to be true. Since then, I’ve come up with a new set of beliefs based on the results of my experiments.
The Four Food Groups
The first lesson I learnt is that food is broken down into four food groups:
- Proteins
- Fats and oils
- Sugars and starches
- Vegetables and fibre
Groups 3 and 4 are traditionally classified as carbohydrates, but they serve different functions in the human body. I found that calling it a low-carb diet leads to confusion and misunderstanding about what it really is. So I’m going with “low starch”.
Under normal conditions, the human body prefers to use sugars as its primary energy source. Consumed starches are broken down into sugars for this purpose. The body keeps about 24 hours worth of sugars for use as energy. Any excess is converted to fat and stored in the body for emergency use.
This is the second lesson I learnt: That body fat comes mainly from eating too much sugars and starches, not from eating too much fat.
When the body’s store of sugar is depleted, such as through exercise, the body’s next choice of energy is protein. Stored fat is the last choice as an energy source.
This is the third lesson learnt: That exercise burns sugar first, then protein, and finally fat, which is why exercise alone doesn’t help us grow slim unless we change what we eat.
Fibre, which is group 4, isn’t used by humans as an energy source. However, it still plays a vital role in our diet.
If the human body does not have sugar in its system for a period of time — I estimate to be about 48 hours — it shifts gear and goes into fat-burning mode. (There’s a scientific term for this, but I’m keeping things simple.)
This fourth lesson learnt is: In the absence of sugars and starches in the diet, the body goes into fat-burning mode and uses fat as its primary source of energy.
In fat-burning mode, there are two sources of fat to burn — stored body fat and consumed fat. The body tends to use consumed fat first, followed by stored fat. So even if you’re not exercising, your body is still burning stored fat after the consumed fat is depleted.
This means that while exercise enhances the fat reduction of the low-starch diet, I found that it’s not necessary to exercise to experience results.
The low-starch diet hinges on keeping the body in fat-burning mode all the time. Some sugars and starch is allowed and I usually keep it to about 20 — 25% of my calorie intake.
It is, however, not necessary to track calories long-term on this diet. Tracking is just to get a feel of the proportion of which food groups are being consumed. I’ve found that all that is necessary to maintain this diet is to make a conscious choice to eat more fat and oils.
The first reason to increase fat intake — although it may seem counterintuitive — is because fat is now your primary source of energy, you got to eat to have energy. The second reason is that it fills you up so that you don’t feel hungry.
The fifth lesson I learnt is that eating fat does not make you fat. Which would be common sense, since eating starch doesn’t make you starchy nor does eating vegetables turn you into a vegetable. So why should eating fat make you fat?
It took me about four weeks to get used to this change in diet. In the first two weeks I experienced constipation, which almost made me feel like giving up. I increased my fibre and water intake to counter this and after a while, my body got used to it.
The other thing that was difficult to get used to was finding low-starch food to eat. I eat out most of the time and I became aware that almost every food stall sells starch. There are whole shelves in convenience stores and supermarkets that sell nothing but starch.
This makes sense, and it taught me my sixth lesson: sugars and starches are cheap sources of energy, which is why they’re so prevalent in our foods. It’s also got the highest profit margins for food manufacturers. It therefore made sense also, that if I cut cheap sugars and starches from my diet, I was going to have to pay more substantially more for my food. I did, by about 60%. (See, I also track my expenses.)
Over time, it became easier to decide what not to eat than to decide what to eat. I narrowed down my list of foods to avoid to these five items: rice, noodle, pasta, potato, bread.
By the end of the first month of the experiment, I had lost 4 kg. A friend then introduced me to MyFitnessPal. I used the app to track my food intake and weight. I stopped actively tracking by the third month because my intake and weight had stabilised by then. In all, I lost about 8 — 9 kg in about 6 months, but weight is just one indicator of health.
What was much more exciting was that the fat loss. I regret not actually tracking the circumferences of my body parts.
The first sign of change was that I had to get a whole new wardrobe because my clothes simply didn’t fit anymore. Shirts became too baggy, and pants just slipped off my waist when I took off my belt. I had to punch new holes if I wanted to keep using my belts, because I bought them when I was much fatter.
One evening while showering, my wedding ring slipped off my finger and that’s when I realised that fingers store fat too! I started seeing veins popping up on my forearms. These used to be hidden under layers of fat.
While waiting outside a shop for my wife, I inspected my legs and found a big vein staring back. I had never seen it before.
Not all the changes were pleasant, however. Cycling started to hurt my butt more after I lost the padding on my bum. My once comfy shoes started giving me blisters because they were now too loose — feet store fat too! Walking inside air-conditioned shopping malls made me feel cold and reminded me how much insulation I’ve lost.
A few months before starting this diet, I missed a step and sprained my left ankle. It took five days before I recovered enough to get back on my feet. Three months into the diet, I sprained my right ankle. It was a worse sprain than before judging by the swell, and it took me longer to get treatment. But I was up and walking again by the third day. I attributed it to weighing less than I used to.
My wife who works in the healthcare industry was skeptical about my diet. She believed that my dietary choices would lead to high blood cholesterol. I nodded along while sucking up the gooey yolk from my sunny-side-up swimming in butter. It was my fourth egg of the day.
My seventh lesson is that eggs are wonderful foods. It contains just 2% carbs. Butter also makes for a perfect snack. When itching for something to eat, I often scoop out a slab of butter and let the saturated fat melt in my mouth.
At my wife’s insistence, I went for a blood test about six months after I started the low-starch diet. The results were normal, except for a borderline low HDL. Alas, I do not have an earlier record to compare against.
Somewhat convinced, my wife decided to try the low-starch diet too, but she loves her carbs. I love them too, but I’ve found that it’s easier to eat no starch than to eat a little starch.
The key to keeping the body in fat-burning mode is not to exceed a certain level of starch intake. When that happens, the fat-burning mode turns off and the body goes back to its regular programming. This means that if your body isn’t having enough sugar, it will send signals to your brains asking you to take more. We know this as cravings.
The eighth lesson I learnt is that willpower is overrated. I’ve decided that it’s easier to not be tempted in the first place by not eating starch than to fight off cravings which I almost always lose to. I’m not known for my willpower.
Desserts, however, taken in moderation seem to be okay. Fat burning mode continues, even after eating a pint of Awfully Chocolate ice-cream. I don’t know why.
During the year, I also visited Taipei for its famed Ay Chung Mee Sua. It’s all starch, but really yummy starch. Since we travelled all the way there, I decided to give it a go. Oddly enough, on my first tasting, it was nothing spectacular. But on my second day, with fat-burning mode turned off, Ay Chung Mee Sua tasted fantastic!
It would seem that when on a low-starch diet, my tastes also changed, and that’s my ninth lesson. Not only that, I’ve observed that I’m much more receptive to my body’s needs. I can feel when my body needs more fibre, water, fat or meat and can respond accordingly. It’s as though consuming a lot of starch has dulled my receptivity to my body’s needs.
As I review this year-long experiment, I would say that among the various diets around, the low-starch diet ranks high in long-term sustainability. After all, you can eat as much bacon as you want… and still grow slim!
I intend to keep up this low-starch lifestyle. It’s never been easier to maintain my weight and waist size.
If you’d like to try out this experiment, I want to caution you on four unpleasant things you’re likely to encounter:
- Constipation in the first two weeks.
- Inability to feel full or satiated after a meal. This will last about two to four weeks. Just eat more fat to feel fuller.
- Halitosis and body odour. I’m told I smell more like meat. Some breath mints and deodorant should help.
- Insistent advice from well-meaning friends, such as, “It’s unhealthy, you must eat some starch to have a balanced diet.”
This brings me to the tenth lesson: This diet will make you, and the people around you, question the truth about everything you’ve ever known about the modern-day balanced diet.
As a final note, there is one book that I’ve found extremely helpful in understanding the origins of the low-starch diet and its mechanics. It’s called “Eat Fat and Grow Slim” by Richard Mackarness.
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