How do Low-Carb diets cause weight-loss?
From my understanding, the only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume – a.k.a. caloric deficit. And if you don’t use that extra food energy, it is stored as fat. Seems simple enough. How, then, is it that low-carb diets can cause weight loss without a caloric deficit? What secret metabolic process do low-carb diets access that enable people to burn fat while consuming far more calories than they actually use? Where does all that extra food energy go then?
there are only a small number of people who actually can do a low carb diet without reducing their calorie intake and still lose weight like you stated. and it’s only a temporary thing too,usually associated with water loss from the body. people can’t overeat for long on a low carb diet and still lose weight.
it’s more important to know how carbs cause fat storage.
about 25% of people won’t have much problems with excess carbs.
the other 75% will have differing degrees of carb sensitivity and have difficultly losing stored fat without eating low carb.
below is a 3min. animated video about how too many carbs screw people up.
and so if people change to low carbs then it stops or at least slows down the problem
July 30th, 2010 at 2:49 am
there are only a small number of people who actually can do a low carb diet without reducing their calorie intake and still lose weight like you stated. and it’s only a temporary thing too,usually associated with water loss from the body. people can’t overeat for long on a low carb diet and still lose weight.
it’s more important to know how carbs cause fat storage.
about 25% of people won’t have much problems with excess carbs.
the other 75% will have differing degrees of carb sensitivity and have difficultly losing stored fat without eating low carb.
below is a 3min. animated video about how too many carbs screw people up.
and so if people change to low carbs then it stops or at least slows down the problem
References :
July 30th, 2010 at 3:18 am
Actually, there is no "secret metabolic process" involved in low carb diets. It’s simply yet another gimmick to make people reduce their overall intake. On the surface, this does not make sense, seeing as low carb diets seemingly allow you to gorge on endless amounts of protein and fat. But look closer.
Cutting out an entire food group is going to cut down your overall calorie intake. No bread, no pasta, no cookies, no cakes, no crackers, no croutons in your salad, even! Though it sounds like heaven at first, the plain old boring truth is that low carb diets suck, and eating slabs of meat (and nothing else), rashers of bacon (with no toast), and bricks of cheese (with no crackers or bread) is not actually all that appetizing. In fact, it gets quite boring, quite fast. Try it and you’ll see how quickly it becomes monotonous. Soon you are dreaming of potatoes . . . .
Ever tried the "low carb" breads and pastas? They look and taste like the pencil shavings they are made of!
Now, proponents of the low carb lifestyle will tell you that the "secret" to the diet is the magic of ketosis. Ketosis is a metabolic process that kicks in when carbohydrate is restricted in the diet. Ketones are by-products of partial fat metabolism (fat can only be efficiently metabolized in the presence of carbohydrate). These ketones build up in the blood stream and must be eliminated by the body. Pseudoscienfiically speaking, the theory is that you literally piss your fat away when your body eliminates these ketones in your urine. Sounds great!
One problem. Ketosis is a true metabolic process that really does occur if you restrict your carbs, but not at a sufficient level to promote any significant weight loss! In order to really lose weight by ketosis, you’d have to have such a high ketone load that you’d become profoundly ill. Ask any diabetic who has experienced diabetic ketoacidosis and they’ll tell you it’s no picnic. The level of ketosis needed to achieve real weight loss would in effect, kill you.
The small level of ketosis that occurs in a normal, healthy human body as a result of restricting carbs is just enough to make you feel tired, nauseaous, and headachy. Your breath stinks, you have a nasty taste in your mouth and you feel cranky all the time. I guess you could consider the nausea a good appetite suppressent. Does a plate of steak and butter sound good to you when you are queasy?
You are right. The only way to lose weight is to consume fewer calories than your body requires. There are many ways to do this – low carb is just another way of doing it.
References :
July 30th, 2010 at 3:45 am
Weight loss does happen due to low carb diet. I was at 95 KG at 5’10" height, and have reduced it to 83 Kg over a period of 200 days using ‘Aitkins’ diet.
I read a longish book by Dr. aitkins where he explained how low carb causes weight loss. Dont remember most of it after all these days, the main reason as afar as I remember was that fats are more easily assimilated by body and easily converted to energy compared to carb
Sorry for not being specific. But, do try this diet out it helped me without any major lifestyle change, since I already eat a lot of meat.
References :
http://www.atkins.com/Homepage.aspx