Low carb diet plans are excellent for losing weight, but as with all diets you need to take care and use some common sense when undertaking such a diet. With a little direction and knowledge a low carb lifestyle can help you maintain your weight loss. In order to pick a low carb diet that's right for you, you first need to understand what carbohydrates are and the different types of carbs. Carbs are made up of either single sugars (simple carbs) or bound strings of sugar (complex carbs). Some examples of simple carbs include sucrose (table sugar), fructose (fruit sugar) and lactose (dairy sugar). Examples of complex carbs are wheat flour or potato starch. Carbs are one of the main nutrient groups your body uses for energy along with fat and protein. All three are converted to glucose or blood sugar. The difference is that carbs are converted quickly, causing quick spikes in the bodys blood sugar levels. These spikes in blood sugar levels cause the pancreas to create and release the hormone insulin until the blood sugar level returns to normal. Insulin lowers our bloods glucose levels. It's released into the blood as soon as the body detects that blood sugar levels have risen above its optimal level. Insulin also runs the bodys fuel storage systems. Eating too much of simple, refined carbohydrates leads to over production of insulin, which leads to the storage of too much fat in the body. Excess sugar or fat in the blood signals the body to store it in fat cells and tell these cells not to release it. Thus their stored fat is unavailable for use by the body as energy. By preventing stored fat from being released for use as energy, insulin prevents weight loss. With higher insulin levels, fat cells are prevented from releasing their stores and it becomes harder to lose weight. Basically, what it all boils down to is that carbohydrates, especially simple carbs like sugar and starch, are quickly released into the bloodstream, turned into glucose and trigger the creation of large amounts of insulin. By lowering your carb consumption, less insulin is produced and fewer calories are stored as fat. Less fat storage means less weight gain. So the idea behind every low carb diet plan is that a body that produces less insulin burns more fat because the body's not storing the excess glucose as fat. Some plans encourage a period of extremely low carbohydrate intake so that the body will enter a state of ketosis and burn fat stores quicker. Ketosis, the body's survival mechanism during times of famine, is the process of burning stored fat for energy when glucose is not readily available. When your body reaches ketosis, this is what's referred to as the "induction" phase. The length of extreme carb control varies from seven days to however long it takes you to reach your ideal weight. After this period of extremely low carb dieting, maintenance levels of carb consumption are followed to prevent weight gain. The amount of carb you can safely eat will depend on your unique body system and your level of activity. You'll probably have to experiment to find out what level of carb intake is right for you. The whole idea's to cut out refined carbs such as white flour and white flour products, reduce sweets and artificially sweetened foods and consume smaller amounts of whole grains and raw fruits and veggies. So as you can see, with a little common sense and a little willpower, you can lose weight with the right low carb diet plan. |
