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Posts Tagged ‘low carb diet’

There is a big push out there for low carbohydrate diets.  The Atkins diet is probably the one that really started this fad and there are millions of individuals who have tried it at some point or another.  Some people have actually lost a considerable amount of weight by eating very low carbohydrates every day.  Just because they lose weight, however, does not mean that they are going to keep it off.  It also does not mean that it is healthy.  As a matter of fact, ketosis, which is the driving force behind Atkins is a very dangerous condition for your body to be in.  Diabetics would give anything to be out of ketosis permanently.

That doesn’t mean, however, that carbs should not be taken into consideration as far as our health and weight are concerned.  Quite the contrary, carbohydrates have a lot to do with these things.  The key to the whole matter is not to eat low carbohydrates during the day, it is to feed your body with slow carbohydrates.  If you successfully do this, not only will you be healthier but your body will seek out its natural, trim weight.

Slow carbohydrates are in abundance as long as we take advantage of them.  The best way to find out which ones we should use is by looking at the glycemic index.  All this is, is an indicator of exactly how quickly the sugars are released from the carbohydrates into our system.  The higher on the scale, the faster the carbohydrates enter our bloodstream.

Eating too high on the glycemic index all of the time can have a devastating effect on our body.  What happens is that the pancreas will release insulin into our blood in order to compensate for all of the extra sugar.  This is not healthy for us and leaves us feeling sluggish and foggy headed.  It also adds fat cells to our body which is something that none of us want to have happen.

You can counter these unhealthy effects by eating foods that are low on the glycemic index.  If you make wise carbohydrate choices like this, you can throw the Atkins book away and all of the unhealthy effects that go along with it.  In fact, you would be surprised at how easy it is to incorporate this healthy way of eating into your lifestyle.

I’m sure that you have heard of the success stories of individuals who have gone on low carbohydrate diets, such as Atkins.  To be certain, you can lose a lot of weight whenever you limit your carbohydrates to an extreme degree.  There are several different problems that come along with his weight loss, however.  In the first place, it is difficult to maintain this weight loss for any period of time.  Typically, you will end up bouncing back from the weight that you lost whenever you go back to eating carbs again.  There is another danger, however, with low carbohydrate diets that you should be concerned about.

The reason why you lose weight whenever you are on a low carbohydrate diet is because you are forcing your body to burn fat instead of carbohydrates for energy.  In order to do this, you put your body in a state that is typically known as ketosis.  In fact, this is heralded throughout the Atkins diet book as being a wonderful advancement in weight loss.  What you aren’t told, however, is that along with the ketosis and the fat loss also comes some organ loss because your body is eating them for fuel as well.

Ketosis is a state that is what many diabetics have to deal with on a regular basis.  That is why they have the strips which allow you to see if you’re actually in ketosis or not.  Those strips were not made for individuals on the Atkins diet, they were made for people that were truly sick with diabetes.  Ask any diabetic if ketosis is a good thing and you will get a much different answer than somebody who lost some temporary weight on this form of diet.

Instead of a low carbohydrate diet, why not go on a slow carbohydrate diet?  You can do this by only eating carbohydrates that are on the lower half of the glycemic index.  You will still have plenty of energy throughout the day because you are getting the natural sugars but they will be released slowly into your system and easily assimilated by the insulin your pancreas produces.  Not only will you be healthier as a result, you will lose weight naturally and easily while you are eating in this way.  It is a diet that is not only healthy, it is easy to sustain throughout your lifetime.