Low carb diets are known as the diets that let you eat well, enjoy your food and still lose weight. But, what are low carb diets?
Popular well known diets that are low in carbohydrates are the Atkins Diet, the Zone Diet and the South Beach Diet. All these diets work by restricting carbohydrates in the diet and replacing them with fats and protein using low carb recipes. Some doctors and nutritionists think that low carb diets can reduce weight, lower cholesterol and blood pressure and also treat hypoglycaemia and type 2 diabetes. A low carb diet means reducing your carbohydrate consumption to less than 10% of your daily calorific intake.
How Do Low Carb Diets Work?
When we consume a meal high in carbohydrates, our raised blood sugar stimulates the production of insulin in the pancreas. Insulin is needed by the body for blood sugar to be used but a side effect of insulin production is the depositing of fat and a feeling of hunger, so we eat more carbs and the vicious circle starts again. If we start to reduce our intake of carbs by eating low carb recipes we can reduce the body’s production of insulin and increase the body’s production of glucagon. Glucagon helps the body to burn fat.
If we dramatically reduce our intake of carbs, the body can go into a state of ketosis where fat is burned, insulin levels are reduced, blood sugar is balanced and we lose weight.
Benefits of Low Carb Diets:-
- Weight loss through fat burning
- Control of blood sugar levels
- Lower cholesterol levels and blood pressure
- Control of appetite - don’t feel hungry and restricted like with some diets.
- Lower levels of insulin
Tips for Following a Low Carb Diet
Following any new diet can be tricky at first until we have learned the basics but there are many resources online with instructions on how to follow a low carb diet and low carb recipes. Here are a few tips to make life easier:-
- Lower your intake of carbohydrates to less than 10% of your daily calorific intake.
- Drink plenty of water.
- Avoid caffeine.
- Supplement your diet with a good vitamin and mineral supplement and take psyllium husk capsules to prevent constipation.
- Look online for tasty low carb recipes, most collections of recipes will include some low carb ones.
- Cut out foods containing white four and white sugar.
- Stick to the “allowed” lists of foods and concentrate on this list rather than thinking about what you can’t eat.
- Check food labels for carb content.
- Plan ahead and prepare - go shopping, sort through cupboards and rid your fridge of foods you’re not allowed and make a recipe collection of low carb recipes.
- Buy a pocket carb counter or use an online one to help you count the carbs in foods and in your low carb recipes.
