Low carb diet

Increasingly popular for weight loss, a low carb diet is predominantly based upon the theory that consuming fewer carbohydrates ensures that the body produces less insulin - which means you use fats and protein (which is stored within the body) to provide energy.

Therefore, a low carb diet encourages your body to burn fat and protein to gain energy! Low carbohydrte diets can achieve excellent weight loss results for some.

Examples of famous low carb diets include the Atkins, the Zone, the Scarsdale and Ketogenic diets. You can find reviews of these and more within our pages.

The body is in a state of ketosis when low carb diet is introduced. This means that the body is being forced to use up fat stores as opposed to carbohydrates as the main source of energy. This can result in tiredness and nausea. By almost completely reducing your carbohydrate intake (such as bread, pasta and rice) and increasing the amount of fat (such as butter) and protein (meat, fish and poultry) that you consume in your daily diet, you can actually burn calories simply through metabolism - in essence you can lose weight just by eating!

Calories from certain types of food differ. Carbohydrates contain calories that are used up almost immediately by the body whereas fat and protein calories take longer to break down and this means the body actually burns up more calories through metabolism. They can be helpful for weight loss and most people that try them agree that the results are promising and weight loss is rapid. These diets are ideal therefore if you're trying to lose weight quickly for a special event, for example.

Although this may seem like a great initial solution to your weight problems, it isn't all so straightforward. Health issues may arise for various reasons. Essential vitamins and minerals, required by the body for functionality and important processes are often lacking from such diets. These deficiencies can lead to diseases such as anaemia and scurvy. The kidneys and liver are also required to work much harder than usual due to all the extra protein in the diet. The problem is also that most of the weight loss is predominantly through water loss and lean muscle. Upon reverting to a more regular diet, people tend to struggle to maintain constant weight control. This is basically due to a decrease in lean muscle which is necessary for maintaining the metabolic rate. Long term testing is yet to be done so the prolonged effects on the body remain undetermined..

Our opinion:

You will lose weight this way. However, the majority of your weight loss will come from loss of water and muscle tissue, not fat, which unfortunately for long term weight management is what you need.

Examples of diet plans :

» Atkins diet
» Zone diet
» Ketogenic diet
» Scarsdale diet