Are carbs subjective?

[wburg45]

Hey guys, I count my macros and I am trying to lose body fat so I set my macros up with a caloric deficit. My carb count was at 150g and I wasn't seeing a huge difference in body fat %. Then I dropped my carb count to 100g and two weeks later saw a huge difference in body fat. Are carbs subjective to different people? Why can someone consume 275g of carbs and be fine while I would most likely gain weight? Correct my ignorance or whatever is wrong here?

Weight: 172
Carbs: 100g
Protein: 200g
Fat: 75g
Calories: 2200

[AdamWW]

Hey guys, I count my macros and I am trying to lose body fat so I set my macros up with a caloric deficit. My carb count was at 150g and I wasn't seeing a huge difference in body fat %. Then I dropped my carb count to 100g and two weeks later saw a huge difference in body fat. Are carbs subjective to different people? Why can someone consume 275g of carbs and be fine while I would most likely gain weight? Correct my ignorance or whatever is wrong here?

Weight: 172
Carbs: 100g
Protein: 200g
Fat: 75g
Calories: 2200

that's only 1875 calories.

[SuffolkPunch]

Why can someone consume 275g of carbs and be fine while I would most likely gain weight? Correct my ignorance or whatever is wrong here?

If you were in a net deficit, you would not gain weight.

The only difference between people is carb tolerance - they can make some people feel drowsy and sluggish whereas others get more energy when training. But calories in vs. calories still applies.

If you don't tolerate them well then pad food out with high fiber stuff and spread the load through the day.

[Mrpb]

My carb count was at 150g and I wasn't seeing a huge difference in body fat %. Then I dropped my carb count to 100g and two weeks later saw a huge difference in body fat.

Were you using one of those electronic scales? They're very inaccurate. They'll see less hydration as loss of body fat.

Carb restriction causes loss of water and glycogen.

[Nicksosure1]

I'd also like to add that you're probably not seeing accelerated fat loss as much as less water retention due to a 33% decrease in carbs each day.

Edit: Mrpb beat me to it

[adigiro1]

piggy backing off of what was said above, but more in line with your question, visually you will look leaner on lower carbs, but you aren't losing any more weight by lowering your carbs. For every one gram of carbohydrate stored in the body (as glycogen) there is approximately 2-3 grams of water retained. So you're just cutting out water weight. Your total calories are what drive your weight loss.

But, I personally believe this is true to a certain limit. At some point you are eating too many carbs, which means you are storing an abundance of carbs. In layman terms, if you frequently consume more energy than your body uses you're likely to put on weight (e.g. carbs turning to fat). One can also say that to eat that many carbs you must consume that many more calories


Studies like these are pretty interesting:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7598063