A low carbohydrate diet can help you lose weight quickly. However, as with any restrictive elimination diet, a diet devoid of carbohydrates can cause significant harm to the body. What are the concepts of a low-carbohydrate diet and how do you use them to lose weight without jeopardising your health?
A low-carbohydrate diet, as the name indicates, focuses on reducing carbohydrate intake. When using it, you can restrict the daily intake of sugar-containing foods. And I’m talking about a major reduction. How do you put together a low-carbohydrate diet, and can it help you lose weight?
What Exactly Is A Carbohydrate?
Carbohydrates can be found in a variety of foods, including cereals, grains, and fruits. They are one of the most important nutrients that your body obtains from food. Easy sugars (glucose, fructose, sucrose) are separated from complex sugars (starch, cellulose, and glycogen). They are a source of energy for us.
However, if we consume too much of them – beyond the 55 per cent recommended by nutritionists – we risk being overweight. Since their extra energy is transferred into adipose tissue, they have issues.
What Would You Eat on a Low Carbohydrate Diet?
Low-carbohydrate diets are not zero-carbohydrate diets. However, you should be mindful that carbohydrates can be contained not just in cereal items (bread, pasta, groats, cereals, etc.) or candy, but also in bananas, dairy products, legume seeds, and in trace quantities in most vegetables.
Low carbohydrate diets are based on the following observation. Limiting carbohydrate-containing items so that they have much less energy than the recommended 55 per cent. You will lose a lot of weight in a day if you raise the amount of fat in your meals at the same time.
Limiting the number of carbohydrates in one’s diet lowers insulin levels in the blood, which leads to the accumulation of excess fat in the body.
The diet can be categorised as follows, based on the number of carbohydrates consumed:
- Low carbohydrate diet- when less than 10% of energy comes from carbohydrates. And the maximum intake is 65 g in men and 50 g in women. This is most commonly used for neurological problems (such as epilepsy or Alzheimer’s) or severe problems with maintaining the correct amount of sugar in the blood low – carbohydrate – 10 to 15% of energy comes from carbohydrates. And the maximum consumption is 65 g in men and 50 g in women. Most often used for neurological problems (such ( depression, etc.).
- medium carbohydrate diet – 15-30% of energy from carbohydrates, with 100-200 g for men and 75-150 g for women – if you have good health and maintain a constant weight. You should probably eat like this high – carbohydrate – over 30% of energy from carbohydrates, which are then eaten a lot – generally advised against, it only makes sense if you have a very high physical activity level.
These are often referred to as LCHF (low carb high fat) diets. The amount of protein in this diet increases as well, but not as much as in high-protein diets (20-30 per cent).
A low carbohydrate diet does not provide specific instructions about how to prepare meals or how many calories to eat. The key is to feed the body small amounts of carbohydrates and to compensate. The calorie deficit caused by carbohydrate restriction by your intake of healthy fats.
