Low Carb Diets
Tips For Your Low Carb Diet
The low carb diet is a little different than other diets. Other diets are usually a meal plan, which will get you to consume less calories on a daily basis. The low carb diet is different because, you do not reduce overall calories, you only reduce carbs. In theory, you can eat as many proteins and fats that you want. Although that is not our opinion, we prefer low carb diets that will keep you eating quality proteins and especially staying away from saturated fats. As always, exercise will speed your results. In addition our CBlock can be used 15 minutes before any meal in order to block approximately 30 grams of carbs. This can allow you to cheat a little bit. Also, if you are seriously dieting we always suggest a cheat day or meal once a week, this is the perfect time to use CBlock and it will also help you to keep your sanity.
What are carbohydrates?
First, let us look at carbohydrates. Simply put, carbohydrates are nothing more than a complex type of sugar -- complex because they are contained in a kind of wrapping. Carbohydrates are found in almost any kind of food, even vegetables -- not just bread and pasta.
Carbs are stored in muscles and the liver, which the latter then converts into glucose to fuel the brain. A common belief regarding carbs is that they make people fat. It is this conclusion that causes strife between dieticians. Carbohydrates do make people fat, but then again, so does protein if consumed in excess. It's all about numbers or calories.
Low Carb Diets
Unlike the currently FDA approved food pyramid diet, which actually emphasizes carbohydrates, low carb diets remove most carbs from one's daily intake of food.
The regimen limits any and all foods that contain carbohydrates. In a sense, the diet claims to offer a kind of liberty with no real limits to how much a person can eat, as long as one doesn't consume carbohydrates.
Low carb diets are not necessarily protein diets -- which are also popular nowadays -- but can be, since its followers are free to consume protein if they choose to do so.
How it Works
Today, low carb diets are popular among people who want to lose weight fast. The main philosophy revolves around a condition called "ketosis" -- a state in which fat is primarily used to fuel the body. Ketosis occurs when a person fasts, excessively exercises, or dramatically reduces carbohydrate consumption.
Consuming large amounts of carbs raises blood glucose levels, which are balanced out with insulin. But insulin also acts as a storage hormone, which conditions the body to store future carbs as fat in adipose cells in case of starvation. Furthermore, insulin also incites the cells not to release the stored fat.
Low carb diets prevent this. The less carbs you eat, the less insulin you produce. Low carb diets claim to allow their followers to eat anything they want, even fatty foods, because the body does not store fat on account of the aforementioned insulin fact. Simply put, since there are no carbs to use as fuel, the body burns fat.
Following the diet, one should eat between 10-60 grams of carbohydrates a day. Low carb diets base their claim on ketosis, but this state does not have to come exclusively from carb suppression. Exercising while following the low carb diet will help speed up the process.
