Weight Loss: Carbs? Or No Carbs?
Dietitians just plain don’t like low-carb or high-protein diets.
Whether it’s The Atkins Diet, The Stillman Diet, The Scarsdale Diet or Eat Yourself Thin Like I Did by Nancy Moshier, a popular, new book that recommends a low-carb regimen, medical experts say these diets are not part of long-term weight maintenance.
“All of these diets, they are warmed-over versions of The Atkins Diet,” says Heather Holden, RD, LDN, clinical dietitian at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. “Low-carb, high-protein, it doesn’t matter what you call them, they don’t work in the long run.”
But some aspects of Eat Yourself Thin are useful, says Holden. In particular, the book’s focus on calorie counting can be useful.
How Many Calories Do You Need?
—————————————————
“The best thing about the book is that it teaches people how to calculate an approximate basal metabolic rate,” says Holden. “That’s the number of calories your body needs every day to maintain a constant weight. The number is different for everyone.”
The book, says Holden, tells readers to establish their ideal body weight and then multiply that number by 10 to arrive at the daily calorie intake. For example, if your ideal body weight was 130 pounds, you would multiply that 130 by 10 to get 1,300 calories per day.
“That is a very rough estimate of what you need to eat each day at your ideal weight,” says Holden. “So that gives you a place to start. If you weigh 160 pounds, and your ideal weight is 130 pounds, then you start a calorie diary to see how much you’re eating each day. Then you can get a better idea of how much you can eat every day to start working off weight to get closer to your ideal weight.”
That much, she says, is useful. But the book goes on to tout the wonders of low-carb eating as the best way to maximize loss of body fat.
“That’s the part you want to avoid,” says Holden. “Low-carb diets provide quick weight loss but do not help you maintain weight loss.”
The American Dietetic Association (ADA) says that both low-carb and high-protein diets are bad.
“These diets are not safe, they are not healthy, and they are not a good way to try to get healthy,” says Leslie Bonci, RD, nutritionist with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Sports Complex and a spokesperson for the ADA. “They provide short-term, rapid weight loss by causing the body to shed water weight and muscle. But that is no way to keep weight off for very long, and it’s dangerous to your body chemistry.”
Dangerous Process
—————————————–
According to the ADA, low-carb diets and others like it trigger short-term weight loss through a process called ketosis. This process kicks in when your body is in short supply of carbohydrates, a prime source of energy for the entire body, but especially for the brain, which operates exclusively on carbohydrates.
During ketosis, your carbohydrate-depleted body grabs other sources, including ketones from stored fat or protein, to satisfy daily energy needs. This leads to ketoacidosis, a state similar to that seen with type 1 diabetes. This type of diet can have a negative long-term impact on health.
“Next time you talk to someone on one of these diets, pay attention to their mental state, how alert they seem,” says Holden. “The lack of carbohydrates tends to make them seem a bit fuzzy mentally because the brain is not getting enough fuel. Is that any way to diet?”
New Research Supports It
————————————-
But a study in the July 2002 issue of the American Journal of Medicine showed that the most famous of low-carb diets, the Atkins diet, does work.
Study participants lost an average of 20 pounds while on the Atkins diet for six months, but they were not followed longer to see if they kept the weight off. Most people also had improved cholesterol levels at the end of the study, even though the eating plan permits unlimited quantities of cholesterol-rich foods such as eggs and meat.
The study was funded by a grant from the Robert Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine. Duke researcher Eric Westman, MD, says he became interested in studying the Atkins diet after several of his patients lost large amounts of weight on it.
But though researchers were impressed by the weight loss, they say more study is needed to pronounce the carbohydrate-restricting diet safe.
Safe Dieting
————————
Here’s how the American Heart Association says to take weight off, and keep it off.
Be active: try walking 30 minutes a day most days of the week.
To lose weight, most women should eat 1,200-1,500 calories per day.
To lose weight, most men should eat 1,500-1,800 calories a day.
A loss of one to two pounds per week is considered a healthy weight loss.
People who lose weight gradually are more likely to keep the weight off.
Eat no more than 30% of your total calories from fat.
Include at least five servings of fruit and vegetables in your diet each day.
Examine your eating habits — keep a written journal of what and when you eat.
Weigh yourself only once a week.
Eat breakfast to curb binge eating.
“There are still a lot of things we don’t know about food and nutrition,” says Holden. “Nutrition is a relatively young science, but we do know that you can trick the body’s mechanisms in the short run. In the long run, however, those short cuts catch up with you in the form of weight gain.”
Source: WebMD
You may reprint or publish this article free of charge as long as the bylines are included.
Original URL (The Web version of the article)
————
Weight Loss: Carbs? Or No Carbs?
About The Author
—————-
Michael Lewis has been collecting articles and information on Weight Loss and HGH (Human Growth Hormone and related health benefits. He has created and edits numerous websites about this subject. Michael is a staff writer for ageforce.com and several otherwebsites. If you would like to contact Michael you can e-mail him at [email protected] If you would like to know more about Weight Loss, HGH (Human Growth Hormone) and related health topics please visit us at AgeForce.com.
By: admin
About the Author:
The Evil of Carbohydrates (?)
In recent years, carbohydrates have been labeled as the nutrition ‘bad guy’ because of the increases in insulin that occurs during metabolic processes. The secretion of insulin is dependent primarily upon the concentration of blood glucose – an increase of blood sugar brings about an increase in the secretion of insulin. Therefore, one function of insulin is to lower glucose.
Conversely, the body increases blood glucose levels by secreting another hormone called glucagon.
If blood glucose levels remain high, and that energy source is not burned shortly after it is consumed, the excess glucose is shuttled off to the muscles for storage. If the muscles have reached their limit in storage capacity, and the body does not require extra glucose to sustain body activities, the excess converts to fat.
Also, as insulin efficiently clears the blood of excess sugar, blood sugar levels oftentimes dip below normal and will produce the infamous ‘sugar blues’ or a ‘downer’, followed by a possible craving for more sugar consumption. Lastly, while insulin levels are high or active, the body will not burn fat as energy since the body is attempting to utilize as much blood sugar as possible. (Note that fat is not used as a primary energy source while eating an energy-sufficient, healthy diet and fat is used more heavily only during periods of fasting and extensive aerobic-type exercise.) Hence, ‘high-fat-low-carb’ advocates claim that we should not want:
1) Excess carbs to turn into fat (what do they think happens to excess fat and protein kcal?);
2) To feel groggy with low energy from the insulin ups and downs associated with high carbohydrate (sugar) consumption; and
3) High carbs in the diet since they prevent us from burning body fat. Although these factors are true, the extent or magnitude of their validity varies in accordance to a number of conditions, such as:
i) How active is the individual?
ii) How many kcal is the individual ingesting (including carbs) per meal?
iii) What comprises an individual’s food and carbohydrate intake?
HOW ACTIVE ARE YOU?
The more active a person, the more carbohydrate he or she should consume. Also, the greater the physical activity, the less insulin the body produces since muscles become insulin sensitive after exercise and glucose tolerance improves as a result. The Food Guide/Pyramid recommends about 50% of kcal in the average individual’s diet to be in the form of carbohydrate. Therefore, if a person is very active, the amount should be increased to about 60% since nearly every activity uses a great deal of blood glucose and muscle glycogen for energy, but only a smaller percentage of fat. In fact, athletes who consume a high-carb diet (60%) can maintain higher-intensity exercise longer than those following a low-carb diet (
By: admin
About the Author: