Posts Tagged ‘Whole Grains’

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The Secret to Low Carbohydrate Diets

Saturday, August 29th, 2009

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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Author Valerie Paxton is co-founder of medical supplies superstore www.AllegroMedical.com“>AllegroMedical.com. Allegro offers more than 45,000 medical supplies and lifestyle products including categories dedicated to Weight Loss Help and Exercise/Fitness.. Visit The Secret to Low Carbohydrate Diets.

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The Secret to Healthy Weight Loss Diets

Monday, August 24th, 2009

Losing weight is seemingly simple – expend more calories than you take in and you will lose weight. As millions of dieters can tell you, though, losing weight isn’t as easy as it sounds. In order to use more calories than you consume, you either have to eat fewer calories, burn more calories through exercise, or a do combination of both. The problem with this is that eating fewer calories often results in hunger and lack of energy.

A diet that will provide nutrients and energy, as well as a satisfying amount of food, is one that will result in permanent healthy weight loss. So what is this diet?

The secret is the concept of calorie density. The best foods for weight loss are bulky and high in nutrients while being low in calories. This is why vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and legumes are excellent foods to eat for weight loss. They contain a large amount of water and fiber to satisfy hunger, and they also contain a lot of nutrients to provide energy and promote overall health.

On the other hand, the foods dieters should avoid provide very few nutrients, contain little water or fiber, and are high in calories. Fat and/or sugar are what make foods calorie dense and nutrient poor. We all know which foods these are! Ice cream, hamburgers, deep dish pizza, and cake are just a few examples.

If you want to be satisfied and feel healthy on a weight loss diet, you have to eat foods that contain a lot of water, fiber, and nutrients. Eating these foods will make you feel great! And when you feel good and see the scale moving in the right direction, it can be easier than ever to keep losing weight.

The reason many diets fail is that they just plain make you feel miserable. They rely on nutrient-poor, fiber less foods like meal replacement shakes and bars. These diets are destined to fail because they can’t be sustained over the long term. No one can eat like that forever!

Diets that do work are ones that make you feel so good you want to keep it up. Eating nutrient-packed vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and legumes along with low fat meats and dairy products (if you so desire) is healthy, satisfying, and will result in reaching your perfect weight and optimum health.

Thomas writes articles and guides for people who want to lose weight. Take a look at newest Weight Loss Tips and Articles on my blog.

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A Simple Low Carb Diet Plan

Monday, August 24th, 2009

At last estimate as many as 30 million Americans are following a low carb diet. Advocates contend that the high amount of carbs in our diets has led to the increase in such health problems as obesity and diabetes.

Some diets restrict carbohydrates to a point where the body becomes ketogenic. Ketosis is a physiological condition in response to chronic starvation and causes most of the body to utilize fatty acids as an alternative source of energy.

Most of us don’t need to reach such an extreme. Most of us just need to follow a few simple rules.

And most often these rules won’t mean total abstinence from the foods you love. Just a small deviation from your normal dietary routine. Better choices when it comes to which breads you choose and which snacks you choose too.

It’s not totally off limits to snack, just know that what most people consider snack food’s definitely out of the question.

With that in mind here’s a few ideas as to what should and shouldn’t be included in your low carb diet plan.

Cut out the processed fats including hydrogenated fats, polyunsaturated oils that have been heated, and fats that are combined with junk carbs. Processed fats are the culprits that put on flab and clog your arteries.

Cut the simple carbs like sugar, fructose, bleached flour, cornstarch and fruit juice. Stick with the whole fruit instead, with its fiber intact.

What you want to include are natural proteins, vegetables and whole fruits along with complex carbs such as whole grain breads.

Simple carbs are converted into fat which is stored by the body. This is exactly the problem that causes weight gain. Your body stores the fat for use later, when it thinks you are starving.

Complex carbs, on the other hand, are used for energy. These are good carbs. Yes, there are good carbs too.

This gives you a well balanced low carb diet that doesn’t completely rob you of energy producing carbs. Also by eating high fiber whole grains you’ll keep your insides clean and healthy and you’ll be more regular.

Personally, I like to snack on cheese and pepperoni slices. You get a good amount of protein and fat and virtually no carbs.

Drink plenty of water, excercise regularly and make a low carb diet a part of an overall lifestyle and you’ll surely lose weight, look better and improve your overall health.

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Michael J. Harris is an avid weight lifter who believes in a good low carb diet plan as a part of an overall healthy lifestyle. Visit his blog at Low Carb Diet Tips

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Do Low Carb Diets Work?

Friday, August 21st, 2009

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.

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Low Carb Diet – Eat More, Not Less

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

A good low carb diet can actually have you eating more food than you’re eating right now.

Think about it, when most people want to lose weight what’s the first thing they do? They tend to stop eating or cut way back on their food intake.

Well my friends I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be that way.

A healthy diet should consist of eating less of the foods that contain calories from simple carbohydrates (sugar and processed flour) and more whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables and good sources of protein. This is the basis of a good low carb diet plan.

In fact, a good diet should have you eating more instead of less! Not more food, but more often in smaller portions.

Your body’s a truly wonderful machine geared towards one important goal. Survival. When you cut way back on your food intake your body feels threatened and automatically assumes that you’re starving.

This built in survival mechanism dates back to the stone age and is simply nature’s way of keeping you alive for as long as possible. Long enough to get to your next meal.

To combat this condition the body will start breaking down muscle tissue to use as energy and saves its fat stores for the last ditch effort to save itself from what it thinks is immanent death. Fat is just that, a storage material.

This is not good because first, by using muscle tissue for energy you’re losing precious lean mass which is metabolically active. This means that you need energy to support muscle which helps to keep your metabolism running at a higher pace. Higher metabolism means more calories burned even in a resting state.

Fat, on the other hand, doesn’t need any energy to support it. It’s simply “dead” weight.

Secondly, the body will start storing more fat because it’s preparing itself for the worst. Your survival is your body’s most important concern so it’ll do whatever it can to stay alive.

So what can you do if you want to eat less without starving yourself and sending your body into this defense mode?

Eat smaller meals more often throughout the day.

This works on two levels.

By eating more often you won’t get hungry as quickly and your metabolism will stay raised because you’ll be digesting food more often. Digesting food uses calories just like any other physical activity.

So here’s a simple low carb diet plan that anyone can follow. Eat four or five small meals a day, each consisting of a small portion of protein along with some fresh fruits and veggies.

Try to eat every three hours or so to keep your metabolism and energy up. This’ll help you stay away from those snacking binges too.

Also, drink lots of water. Water will help to cleanse your body and make you feel full.

So you see, with a little planning and by adhering to a low carb diet plan eating more can actually be better!

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Michael J. Harris is an avid weight lifter and adheres to a low carb diet plan as part of his routine. To find out more about how a low carb diet can help you visit his low carb diet blog.

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