Low Carb Diet Plan - The Science Behind The Low Carb Diet
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 body's 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 blood's 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 body's 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.
About the Author
Michael Harris has put together a complete low carb package.
Visit http://www.lowcarbdietsecretsrevealed.com to discover
the real facts about low carb diet plans and how to choose
the one that's right for you.
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