Millions of people are on diets but as they are not following a healthy low carb diet, they fail to lose weight. One of the reasons many people fail is down to the regime they follow rather than any personal weakness.
Faddy diets mislead people with their false expectations. For example, people who follow high protein plans are told that they will lose pounds in days. Well they do but as most of it is water loss, it cannot be sustained, the weight goes back on and the person feels they have failed. So they move onto the next program.
The laws of dieting are fairly simple. To lose one pound of fat, you need to achieve a deficit of 3600 calories. This doesn’t mean you starve yourself and don’t eat anything all day. Quite the contrary. What it means is the difference between the amount of calories you consume from food and the amount you exert by way of physical activity must leave a deficit of 3600. So in other words, you need to get more active and eat better foods.
Low carb dieters will lose weight slowly but that is the best way as you have more chance of keeping the pounds off. The two main diet killers are feeling deprived and finding the diet too difficult to follow either because you have to count calories or eat unusual foods not found easily at your local store. Neither of these problems are experienced when you follow a healthy low carb plan.
Carbohydrates are the primary source of energy for your body. They are found in vegetables, grains, fruits, legumes and dairy products. Your body converts them into glucose, which is spread via your blood stream to the organs of your body including your brain. You simply cannot function without carbs. But not all carbohydrates are created equal and unfortunately most of us are eating too many white flour based ones. These have very little in the form of nutrients. One of the ways to turn flour white is to take out all the good stuff!
The problem is that most of what we eat has become so processed our bodies digest it very quickly. This makes us feel hungry again very quickly hence the deprivation felt by some people when they are on a diet. They are genuinely starving but forbidden from eating. In order to follow a healthy low carb diet, you need to eat foods that release energy slowly leaving us feeling full for longer. These are not white pasta and rice but whole grains and food as close to its natural source as possible. Our aim is to keep our insulin levels low to inhibit the formation of fat and encourage the conversion of fat back into energy.
A healthy low carb diet will therefore include low calories foods, a lack of saturated fats and plenty of low GI foods.
