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The Secret to Low Carbohydrate Diets

admin — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 04:24:23 +0000

My mom and I have been arguing how low carb diets work for years. She insists that the only way to lose weight is to expend more calories than you eat. I tell her that she must consider that insulin regulates the way your body stores and uses fats and sugars. So, if you know how your body works, you can use that to your advantage to lose a few pounds.

Here’s How Low Carb Diets Work:

1. You reduce your carbohydrates – i.e. bread, rice, pasta, high-starch veggies, sugar, fructose, honey, fruit, ketchup, salad dressing, gum & baked beans. Instead, you eat low-starch veggies, plus protein and fat – things like lettuce, peppers, turkey, eggs, cheese, olive oil, chicken, fish, seafood, beef & pork. This depletes your body of sugar in about two days.

2. The fewer carbs you eat, the less insulin you make. Note: Insulin is produced when your blood glucose levels rise. It controls sugar levels in your blood stream (otherwise you have a build-up of sugar in your blood, i.e. diabetes). Insulin also acts as a hormone to condition your body to store carbs as fat in case of starvation and it tells the cells not to release stored fat.

3. When you’re not producing Insulin, you go into a state of “ketosis”. Ketosis is when your body primarily uses fat as fuel since there is no fast-burning fuel (glucose) available. If you’re not burning sugar, you start burning fat and thereby lose weight. If you’re always eating candy, white bread, potatoes & pasta, plus the fat, your body continues to burn only the carbs and stores the fat. That makes you fat.

Talk to your doc before starting any diet plan. I have, and as directed I only significantly reduce my carbs for short periods of time, then re-introduce high complex carbs a little at a time (whole grains, quinoa, brown rice, sweet potatoes), always trying to avoid white rice, white breads, potatoes and refined sugars (especially high fructose corn syrup).

Go ahead and splurge on that wedge salad with blue cheese, a char-broiled steak with sauteed mushrooms, creamed spinach and grilled asparagus once in a while. Enjoy every bite. It’s all low-carb or no carb. If you’ve burned off the sugars from previous meals your body will burn the fat as energy. Yeah!

BUT, if you add a roll or two, or some potatoes, a glass of wine or dessert, your body will convert the carbs to glucose, release insulin, use the glucose as energy and store the fat. You will have consumed a gazillion calories that will stick to you like glue. That’s the danger of going off and on the carb wagon without knowing what you’re doing.

Other things that help the release of fat is drinking plenty of water and upping the cardio.

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Which Low Carbohydrate Diet Is Best For You?

admin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:43:52 +0000

We’ve heard that diet plans don’t work the same way for everyone, even if they collectively claim that they can reduce the amount of “bad” carbohydrates in our bodies. But if that’s the case, how are we supposed to know which low carbhoydrate diet plans would work best for us as individuals? The answer lies in careful study. Look into the requirements and benefits of each diet plan, and based on what you’ve learned, decide on the plan that would give you the best returns, in terms of time, money and effort.

Here are three of the more popular low carbohydrate diet regimes. Check them out and see how each one relates to your lifestyle and routines:

1. The Atkins Diet – This is currently the most popular patented diet plan in the market. The creator of this plan, Dr. Robert C. Atkins, is known as “The Father of Modern Low Carb Diets.” This diet promotes cutting back on carbohydrate intake, but stresses that different people have different nutritional needs, and therefore the diet plan must vary from person to person. The Atkins books contain information on a “carb ladder,” which details the amount of carbohydrates a person may introduce into the body, based on one’s glycemic load. The books also advocate balancing Omega-3 fatty acids and Omega-6 fatty acids. All this means you need to pay close attention to the amount of food you eat when you’re on this diet.

2. The South Beach Diet – This diet scheme, recently patented by Dr. Arthur Agatston, is thought of as a modified Atkins diet, with a few significant changes: while both Atkins and South Beach promote the elimination of “bad carbs,” the South Beach diet actively discourages eating the dark meat or butter of poultry, as they are fraught with saturated fat that produces “bad carbs.” Atkins poses no such restriction.

4. The “Caveman” Diet – This low carbohydrate diet advocates a return to our ancestral roots, in a liberal sense; it simply promotes the elimination of artificial processed foods from regular meals. In this diet you can eat pretty much anything except foods that contain sugar, salts, and seasoning. Most dairy products are not allowed either, as they are often found in processed form in this modern age. Meat, eggs, fish, fruit, most vegetables, and nuts are okay. This may seem somewhat permissive, but it is still a rather tough call if you live in a country like the United States, where it isn’t easy adhering to an all-natural organic diet scheme.

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Are Atkins Diet And Low Carb Diets Safe?

admin — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:20:50 +0000

Are low carb diets safe? How safe is Atkins diet? Are low carb and Atkins diets dangerous to your health? These are burning questions for dieters all over the world.

I have personally tried low carb diets and Atkins diet and these diets made me lose weight very quickly. However not only did I lose body fat weight, I also lost muscle weight. I had very obvious muscle and fat loss because I can visually see my reduced muscle mass in the mirror.

This certainly isn’t healthy. Furthermore, the more muscle mass that you lose, the less toned your body shape is. The end result is that you will end up thin and yet looked flabby with lose skin.

The frustrating part will be that after you are off the low carb or Atkins diet, you will very probably gain back all the weight that you have loss and even more. This is because your muscles are active and they continuously burn calories. Since you have less fewer muscle mass now, your body’s metabolism or capacity to burn calories slows down tremendously.

In other words, when you put on weight again, you are putting on body fat instead of muscles if you do not exercise. You will be fatter and less healthy than before you went on the low carb or Atkins diet. To compound matters, because of lesser muscle tissues resulting in lower metabolism and thus lesser calories being burnt, you are going to get fatter.

Since then I have stayed off both low carb and Atkins diet. Both types of diets are almost similar as they require you to cut down drastically on your consumption of carbohydrates. Atkins diet went a step further by advocating almost no carbohydrate consumption for 2 weeks before adding some carbs to your meals gradually thereafter.

Besides losing muscles, how safe are low carb diets? This is what Dr Lyn Steffen and Dr Jennifer Nettleton from the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health commentated in a Lancet report, “Low carbohydrate diets for weight management are far from healthy, given their association with ketosis, constipation or diarrhea, halitosis, headache and general fatigue to name a few.”

The doctors warned that the diet increases protein load on the kidneys and alters the balance of acid in the body. This also results in loss of minerals from the bone stores and affect bone strength. The doctors went on to say that, “Our most important criterion should be indisputable safety and low carbohydrate diets currently fall short of this benchmark.”

Dr Atkins, the creator of the Atkins diet died in 2003 after he was alleged to have slipped on an icy road and hurt his head fatally. However his medical report stated that he had a history of heart attack, hypertension and congestive heart failure.

Were Dr Atkins medical conditions related to his low carbohydrates diet is anybody’s guess. Do you want to take the risk by going on a low carb diet? I don’t think I will. If I ever want to lose weight again, I will rather go on the proven method of healthy eating and regular exercises instead of jumping on any fad diets.

Chris Chew is a fitness personal trainer of actors, fashion models, pageant contestants and celebs at Lose weight tone muscles naturally www.sgfitness.com and Be a personal trainer career www.sgfitnessonline.com/yourfitnesscareer.htm

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The Truth About Low Carb Diets

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:53:39 +0000

Low carb diets are very effective in achieving weight loss when followed. But the key word there is that they should be followed. However, there are controversies about their “healthiness”. Definitely, people get into these diets to lose weight. But what every person getting into this is not only the aspect of losing weight but also as always, keeping the weight off. But it goes beyond that. It also involves being and staying healthy and functional in whatever we do everyday. A slim person is definitely not attractive if he or she is weak from lack of nutrients and energy due to these low carb diets.

The body uses up carbohydrates first as a source of energy. If there are more carbohydrates taken in, the body stores the surplus as fat. If there are fewer carbohydrates taken it, the body is forced to use the stored fat for its energy requirement. The principle of these low carb diets is to take in food low in carbohydrates so that the body is forced to use its stored fat.

By drastically reducing carbohydrates to a small fraction of a person’s diet, the body goes into “ketosis”. The body burns its own fat to convert into energy A person in ketosis is getting energy from ketones. Ketones are little carbon fragments that are created by the breakdown of stored fat. One feels less hungry when his or her body is in ketosis. The end result is that he or she is likely to eat less even if allowed to do so. In effect, the body is transformed from a carbohydrate-burning machine into a fat-burning one, thus making fat the primary energy source. This brings us to the most fundamental fact of dieting: the less fat you have, the lighter you weigh. The end result is the desired weight loss.

There are diets like Atkins that seem to be a dream come true. It stems from its design that a person could eat as much as he or she wants from a wide variety of food that other diets steer away from. Steaks, meat, crab, eggs, all types of protein based food are allowed since the body will burn carbohydrates first and not protein or fats. Basically, it follows the same low carb principle of reducing carbohydrate intake and forcing the body to use fat towards weight loss.

But experts are concerned about the long term safety of the diet. By contemporary medical standards, the risk of heart diseases, stroke, cancer, liver and kidney problems are very extremely high. These risks have been pointed out repeated by a number of health researches on high fat diets.

Other low carb diets are cleansing in nature such as the detox diet. It helps in the health reassessment of one’s lifestyle, eating patterns and focus on foods. Here, one becomes more aware of one’s food intake. However, there are individuals, such as diabetics, people with low blood sugar or eating disorders have to stay clear of it. They will find themselves more in trouble than they are already.

Low carb diets serve their purpose. But there is no substitute for the traditional, proven healthy lifestyle of a balance diet of the basic food groups in the nutritionists’ pyramid order combined with the proper exercise. However, should a person still go through with these diets for whatever reason, he or she should be equipped with knowledge of not only the benefits but most especially the risks. Everyone wants that slim, healthy look. But everyone should also go for health in a sustainable manner.

Tom Takihi is the proud owner of the Discover Network. For more information on this topic, please visit the dedicated portal: www.DiscoverWeightLoss.info

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The Little Known Dangers of Low Carb Diets

admin — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 05:28:58 +0000

Up. Down. Up. Down. The world of a perpetual dieter is a never-ending rollercoaster. Gaining and losing weight is just another part of the daily struggle. There’s a reason the dieting industry is raking in billions of dollars a year and isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. Fad diets have been a huge selling point. We’ve all tried our share of crazy ones! Anyone remember the hot chocolate diet? Not so good. How about the yam diet? Yeah, let’s forget that one ever happened! Some plans haven’t been so easily dismissed. The low carb diet has continually gained momentum and it seems everyone has tried it at some point. However, there are little known dangers when it comes to this eating plan – some that cannot be ignored.

The low carb diet can be very dangerous to your heart. This is true whether or not you’ve ever had issues with this area of your health before. The American Heart Association was so concerned they actually drafted a paper outlining the danger. They know a low carb diet often means a high protein diet. This can lead to an increase in bad cholesterol and cause a fertile breeding ground for cardiovascular disease. This is when a heart attack could sneak in. Scary stuff. Critics of diets like this say any weight loss is temporary, which makes the entire process an exercise in futility that only leaves you with a bad heart.

If you like to use your brain (and don’t most of us?), a low carb diet should be reconsidered. The brain needs carbohydrates, or more specifically glucose, to continue working. In fact, it needs twice as much energy than any other body part. Neurons (which are the cells that communicate with one another) are constantly working and need to be re-energized on an on-going basis. This can’t happen if there isn’t a supply of glucose coming in. If you are using your brain to figure out a problem, the demand is even higher. So, the next time you’re trying to figure out your taxes or maybe even just how much money your children are siphoning out of your life, eat a granola bar!

Eating fewer carbs to lose weight can backfire. A low carb diet has been shown to result in a loss of muscle. Just like glucose fuels the brain, it also fuels your muscles. This means you’ll lose muscle tone and start getting flabby. Less muscle also means your metabolism will slow down and you’ll lose weight even more slowly than to begin with. Doesn’t that seem awfully futile? Thought so.

There’s a reason experts suggest a balanced diet to lose weight. The truth is we need a little bit of everything to keep our bodies functioning at an optimum level. Cutting out certain foods won’t do the trick. Instead of driving yourself crazy by following the latest and greatest fad diet, take a step back and aim to be healthy. You didn’t gain the weight overnight, so don’t expect to lose it overnight! Take a deep breath, eat a piece of bread and go to sleep happy!

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Do Low Carb Diets Work?

admin — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:04:04 +0000

They do work, but from my experience and from the experience of every person I know who has gone on a low carb diet and successfully lost weight, that weight doesn’t stay off unless all but a tiny amount of carbs are always avoided.

A few years ago when low carb diets were incredibly popular, I went on one just like millions of other people. I lost 40 pounds in a little over four months. But as soon as I started eating a normal amount of carbs again I gained the weight back very quickly. Every person I know that did a low carb diet had the same experience; successful weight loss but weight gain as soon as they resumed normal consumption of carbohydrates.

I’m sure there are people who have gone on a low carb diet, lost the weight, and kept it off. I just don’t happen to know any of them so I can’t personally recommend a low carb diet as a way to lose weight and keep it off for good.

But, low carb dieting did have its pluses for me:
I didn’t have to count calories, just carbs, which was much easier.

I never had to be hungry. On my low carb diet, there was always something I could eat. It might not have been something I was particularly hungry for, but I never had to deal with it being 5 pm and not having any more calories left for the day and having to be hungry the rest of the evening. Even if I had eaten my allotment of carbs for the day, there were always no carb foods like some cheeses and some raw vegetables that I could have.

I lost weight fairly quickly and steadily.
I was able to break myself of my perpetual cravings for high carb junk foods like potato chips.

But, there were cons too:
The biggest con is that I was unable to keep the weight off.

Carbs, even healthy ones like fruit and whole grains, were very limited on my low carb diet so I didn’t feel like I was eating a healthy balance of foods every day.

My low carb diet didn’t limit the types of protein I could have so I was able to eat way too much high saturated fat foods like bacon, especially during the first two weeks of the diet. I know that wasn’t healthy.

If you want to try a low carb diet, do research to find one that doesn’t limit your carbs too severely. A lower carb diet that emphasizes healthy carbs and lean sources of protein is now recommended by many health professionals. And, when you have successfully lost the weight, be careful when you start introducing more carbs into your diet so that you don’t gain the weight back that you worked so hard to lose.

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Dorrie Ruplinger has written several articles about weight loss. For a free report on how to lose 10 pounds before Christmas visit LoseWeightForChristmas.com.

Is A Fast Weight Loss Diet A Healthy Choice?

admin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:27:56 +0000

With the countless fad diets on the market pushing misleading and deceptive claims it’s no surprise that nearly everyone who wants to lose weight is looking for a fast weight loss diet plan or program. An example of fast weight loss diets include low carb diets which instruct you to limit how many carbohydrate foods you eat.

In fact, fast weight loss diets, such as the Atkins Diet and the South Beach Diet, often have phases instructing you to put your body in a a state called “ketosis” where it switches from using carbohydrate for energy to using fat by eliminating carbohydrate from your diet. Not only will you lack many vital nutrients by doing this, it is very extreme and unnecessary, and very difficult to follow through.

What no-one tells you is that it’s only realistic for your body to lose two pounds a week of fat and anything else you lose on a fast weight loss diet will be either muscle or water loss. Not only is this very bad for your health but your body uses up fewer calories as you lose muscle. Water loss also causes you to become dehydrated, since your body is 75% water.

Another side effect of fast weight loss diets is that sudden changes in your diet where you eat a lot less than normal could trigger your body’s natural starvation response. Your body will then conserve its energy and won’t let go of your body fat, which is why often dieters find their fat loss stalling despite how low their calories are.

Something else to consider is that it is very likely that you will re-gain any weight you lost on a fast weight loss diet when you complete your diet. This is due to the extremely restrictive nature of low-carb diets which can result in cravings and subsequent binges as you fall back into your old way of eating, and is also due to the muscle loss which slows down your metabolism.

On top of all this you also have fast weight loss diet programs which tell you to pay for monthly supplies of “necessary” shakes, bars and other supplements while making huge weight loss claims in return. Since 9 out of 10 dieters return to dieting after putting the weight they lost back on imagine how many customers are sucked into the hype, invested hundreds of dollars on fast weight loss diets, only to find that despite all that money they invested they’re back where they started!

The key to successfully and permanently losing the fat is not to drastically lower calories, nor to label carbs as evil and avoid them like the plague, as many fast weight loss diets advocate. Instead, you will get more effective results by changing your eating habits and eating smaller, but more frequent meals and cutting way back on processed, fatty and high-sugar foods.

Fast weight loss diet plans and programs should be avoided if you want to lose the fat safely. The only solution to permanent weight loss is to make healthy eating part of your lifestyle by replacing your negative habits, and incorporate regular exercise into your routine. This should include both aerobic exercise which helps melt the fat off and strength/resistance training which will build muscle to speed up your metabolism and avoid muscle loss, something many fast weight loss diets are guilty of.

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The Dangers Of Low Carb Diets That They Don’t Tell You About

admin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:03:09 +0000

The diet fad that began in the 1970’s preaches against carbohydrates and tells us that carbs are bad. The fact is there are good carbs and bad carbs.

Beginning nearly thirty years ago, Dr. Atkins espoused the doctrine that a high protein diet was the best for everyone. He stated that carbohydrates were the cause of people being obese and having weight control problems. Many scientists and doctors labeled him a quack until recently when it was determined there was some validity to his arguments and that a high protein low carbohydrate diet could help you lose weight.

The problem with the style of diet that most Atkin’s followers eat is that they include very high fat items like steaks, bacon, butter, cheese and other items that are loaded with unhealthy saturated fat.

The reason that the Atkin’s program works for many people is that it gives you a feeling of fullness. It is the constant feeling of being hungry that causes many people to fail in their diets. Another thing with the low carbohydrates is that they help you avoid the big ups and downs in blood sugar.

The big issue with the high protein and low carb is that there is no long term evidence to support the theory nor to show whether there are long term detriments to following such a diet. Short term studies have supported the use of these programs for a short period of time but the weight loss attained seems to be mostly from reduced caloric intake. This same thing can be accomplished with a balanced diet reducing calories.

Besides the fact that the efficiency of these low carb diets in maintaining long term weight loss is questionable the other issue is that they may cause you long term health problems. Because these diets are high on red meats, cheese and other saturated fats and low in vitamins and minerals they may increase the chances that you may get heart disease and certain types of cancer such as colon cancer. In women these high protein diets can even cause osteoporosis because of the leaching of calcium from the bones to deal with the acids that come from the body working to deal with trying to digest large amounts of protein.

You should keep you protein consumption in moderate amounts of about 4 grams per ten pounds of body weight. Try to get the majority of this from vegetable proteins instead of animal sources. Also eat balanced carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables.

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Glenn Freiboth is a Certified Health Advisor lives in Illinois and has helped many overweight and obese people lose weight and keep it off. Get Medifast diet and weight loss products at www.GetYouHealth.com

The Little Known Dangers of Low Carb Diets

admin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:32:43 +0000

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You Can Easily Use Low Carb Diets to Boost Your Metabolism

admin — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:26:44 +0000

The low carb diet craze that is going on right now is an industry that is gaining momentum and demand every day and is showing no signs of slowing down. This is an amazing accomplishment for Dr. Atkins, whose book was immediately labeled potentially dangerous when it first hit the shelves years ago and again after he died. Now, every individual who considers himself overweight, and some others are hitting the supermarkets looking for the best high protein and low diet foods that they can find.

The impact of low carb diets can be felt in just about every industry.

The thousands of success stories has people going to the gym at a record rate. They know that the Atkins and the South Beach Diet will help them lose weight, but they want to keep that weight off for as long as possible and so they automatically begin to get more active as well.

The major players in the grocery industry are now making even more space on their shelves in order to accommodate the low carb foods. Last, but not least, the low carb food manufacturers continued to thrive as their sales continue to improve at record levels. The low carb diets are even starting to have an effect on the menus at fast food restaurants. The wraps are actually very good.

No matter where you look, low carb foods are available for sale at reasonable prices. There is no simpler way to lose those unwanted pounds and keep them off. Low carb diets are here to stay. It’s up to you about whether or not you should try the low carb diet, but if you do, it has never been easier than it is now.

You know that a diet plan is in demand if places like Subway and McDonald’s is starting to accommodate it. Ever since they led the way, most other chain restaurants are now doing it as well. Some of the restaurants that offer low carb meals include: Applebee’s, Arby’s, Wendy’s, Chi Chi’s, and Boston Market

Dieting with low carb intake will help to boost your metabolism but only if you stick with it as a permanent lifestyle change. And that is the truth of it. It is simply safer that if you choose this method that you try to avoid taking any diet pills with it. All diets serve their purpose, but the low carb diet has been known to cause harm with certain people, so be sure to consult your doctor before committing to any of them.

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