[tormeh]

The thing with carbs is that they don't really satiate you as much as fat and protein does. You'll stabilize on a much lower weight if you (partially) remove bread, pasta, rice etc. from your diet. It requires so much less willpower to lose weight without them.

[jp555]

Agreed. But it's not the carbs themselves, it's the calories in the carbs, and the fact that most of the snacks we eat are carbs. Avoid carbs and you avoid most snacks, which makes it easier to maintain a caloric deficit.

It was the same rational in the 1980s, but FAT was the villain then. Avoid fat and you avoid loads of calories (9kcal/g v.s 4kcal/g for carbs) which makes it easier to lose weight. But low-fat or low-carb is irrelevant if you're eating a surplus of energy, it's just going to make fat from that surplus irregardless of the macro proportions.

[cschmidt]

Or perhaps it is the insulin resistance you get from eating too many carbs.

[huehue]

But carbs are also less fattening than fat (on active individuals who constantly deplete glycogen stores, if you sit at work all day chances are you won't need many) when overfeeding.