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Hey Folks at ADBB. I wrote this short article to help explain some of the science to new people.
Tell me what you think. I posted it on my blog.
How a Low Carbohydrate Diet Works.
When you are overweight, you have an excessive amount of adipose (or fat) in your body. The trouble for your body is that this fat inhibits the job of insulin.
Insulin is a hormone that is secreted by the pancreas. It responds directly to the ingestion of glucose via carbohydrates. It has a number of roles. One of them is to assist glucose energy to enter the wall of your cells. Another role is to convert excess glucose to fat. Insulin has been nicknamed the ‘fattening hormone’. If you want to store fat, then insulin excretion is required.
When you are overweight, you have an excess of fat cells. These fat cells block or inhibit the job of insulin, in particular it’s role of getting the glucose into the cells, so the cells can use the energy to power the body. With excessive fat on your body you create a resistance to the insulin, hence the term ‘insulin resistance’.
Now that you are insulin resistance, the pancreas responds by producing more insulin. But because obesity is an unnatural state for the body, the pancreas produces an excess of insulin. What happens then, with an excess of insulin produced, Glucose is converted too quickly into ‘fat storage’, and when that occurs your body signals ‘hunger’. Low blood sugar which is caused by too much insulin, which is caused by too much body fat, makes you hungry and physically crave carbohydrates.
This is why large obese people are hungrier, and have a bigger appetite. Instead of it being a moral reason, it’s actually a physiological reason.
So then the obese person uses usually eat more, and that meal usually involves carbohydrates.
All carbohydrates, no matter what the source, high GI or low GI are converted to the same amount of glucose in the blood stream. The advantage of Lower GI Carbohydrates is that they are absorbed by the body slower. However it is important to note that every amount of carbohydrate eaten requires a reciprocal insulin response. Therefore total carbohydrates should be a concern to the dieter also. Everything we eat is eventually metabolised. This is why Diabetics have a rise in blood sugar many hours after eating a food that is low GI but high in total carbs.
Diabetes is a condition where the pancreas cannot (due to certain causes) make enough insulin to deal with the glycemic load, or total carbohydrates. Diabetics are given external insulin to deal with their carbohydrate intake. As you have seen above, excessive fat on the body creates a need for more insulin; this is why it’s advisable for Diabetics to lose weight. Exercise also assists Diabetics in helping insulin reach the body’s cells.
There is a dangerous condition that can occur in diabetics called keto-acidosis. This is when the blood glucose level is so high that the body cannot produce adequate insulin to cope. There is an excessive amount of sugar in the blood. What the body starts to do is to break down the cells, and the level of acid becomes very high. This is highly dangerous.
This condition should not be confused with ketosis. Ketosis is a normal process of the body. Ketosis occurs when the liver has been depleted of its stored glycogen. The body then starts to break down the ‘fat’ cells using them for energy. This occurs in starvation, but also on a Low Carbohydrate Diet. Ketosis can be described as Fat Burning.
In a low carbohydrate det such as the Atkins diet, there is a very low amount of carbohydrate ingested. The body then reverts to fat burning or ketosis. Dietary intake of protein and fat is adequate enough that muscle is spared. Fat is utilised as the chief source of energy. By ingesting fat in a Low carbohydrate diet you stimulate ketosis and assist the fat burning. A bit like when you want your car to burn a certain type of fuel; you put that fuel in the engine. When you eat carbs the body burns carbs, when you eat fats (in the absence of carbs) you burn fat. The source of this fat comes from both dietary intake and the body fat of the person.
Carbohydrates are a preferential fuel for the body over fat. This means that if you are eating carbohydrates the body utilises this. When you eat over a certain amount of carbs per day, you are no longer burning fat, but carbohydrate or rather glucose.
What about low calorie high carb diet?
By default a low calorie diet is a low carb diet, because it is low in everything.
The burning of fat and protein is inefficient compared to carb burning, so it takes more metabolic effort to burn them. Thus metabolism is raised. A lot of ketones are excreted by the body, and they are not stored as fat. This process continually encourages the release of your fat stores. This accounts for why a person can eat a high caloric amount on a low carb diet, but still lose weight.
To function properly, the brain requires about 130 grams of glucose each day. Most low carb diets are well below 130 grams. So the body synthesises glucose from the protein eaten, through a process called glycogenesis. This is a perfectly healthy process of the body.
It is not a requirement of the body to ingest carbohydrates. It is not essential for life, whereas protein and fat are.
How to do a Low Carb Diet.
My plan is the Atkins diet, so this information is based on that particular diet.
All carbohydrate intake is restricted. Participants have to keep a track of their daily carb limit until they have learnt to selectively eat low carb or no-carb food.
A lot of things have carbohydrates, natural foods like vegetables, tubers and fruit have a carbohydrate amount. Even spices have a carbohydrate amount. Processed foods like bread and dairy products have some as well. Highly processed and packaged foods have added sugar. Usually a processed low fat product will have a high carbohydrate amount to compensate.
Milk has a sugar called lactose, and fruit has a sugar called fructose. These sugars are to be avoided.
The Atkins diet has four phases.
Induction (First two weeks) – carbs are limited to 20 grams or less
Ongoing Weight Loss – carbs added slowly back to the diet to a level where you are still losing weight. Ie. 30-40 grams
Pre-Maintenance – This would be when you have only a few kilos left to lose and you are transitioning to Maintenance – carbs are increased, fat is slightly modified.
Maintenance – you have reached your weight loss goal. Carbs are now at a critical level where they are neither making you gain weight, or lose weight.
If you have a lapse, you go back to the Induction level.
Calories are not the focus of the diet, because when you are in ketosis, on a Keto-genic diet (low Carb) your hunger is reduced almost to zero, or what we think of hunger is reduced. There is still a natural bodily hunger. I believe that what we think of as hunger is artificially induced by carbohydrates.
Dr. Atkins advises portion control by sticking to three moderate meals per day. If you eat excessively on this diet your weight loss will be slower.
What about cholesterol?
Cholesterol is usually reduced on a low carb diet, as well as diabetes and also a range of other issues.
Cholesterol levels have been linked to cardiovascular disease. But Cholesterol is essential for the body and performs an anti-inflammatory role in the body. High levels of insulin in the body encourages Atherosclerosis, this is why Diabetics are at risk of heart disease, because of their medicine (insulin) that they inject.
When you take cholesterol drugs to lower your total cholesterol, this does not mean you have cured yourself from heart disease. It is not that simple. There are a range of other factors that contribute to heart disease. Cardiovascular heart disease prevention requires a more holistic perspective that deals with a number of lifestyle factors. Your Medical Doctor can advise you on these.
When low carb dieters eat a high intake of saturated fats they actually lower their total cholesterol levels in the longer term, because they have reduced their insulin levels that were encouraging inflammation or heart disease, therefore addressing a cause of heart disease, not the associated anti-inflammatory substance called cholesterol.
When someone switches from a lifetime of high carbohydrate intake to a low carbohydrate diet there is an adjustment or detox period. As carbs are highly addictive and have a powerful effect our our bodies, it is not pleasant to withdraw from them. In the first 48 hours a lot of water is lost. When you eat carbohydrates you tend to retain a bit of water. People feel feint and light headed, fatigued, irritable, and horrible. Most people who attempt the diet experience this, get disheartened and abandon their efforts. They then form a negative opinion of the diet. You then get the phenomena of people who said they have tried the Atkins diet, felt terrible, so they abandoned it, and it wasn’t for them.
The reality is that they were going through the detox period that can take weeks, and sometimes months.
Low Carb Products?
Originally low carb diets concentrated on whole and unprocessed foods. But you can’t make any money just selling food. So a lot of companies created products that they deemed ‘Low Carb Products’. A majority of these products use sugar alcohols that cause gastric distress and also stall or stop weight loss altogether. They usually have a warning label ‘Excessive consumption may have a diarrheic effect’.
These products should be avoided completely, although they may assist people initially to wean themselves off their high carb comfort food. These products are not real food. Many dieters found that these products stall and stop weight loss, especially when you are 6 months to one year into the diet. As their popularity decreased many companies developed financial troubles (like the Atkins Corporation) when the low carb food craze ended.
A low carb diet is done with wholefoods and low processed foods. This is the best for health and weight loss.
Many things other than Obesity are treated with a low carbohydrate diet like: Diabetes, Heart Disease, Epilepsy, Hypoglycaemia, Food Intolerance, and chronic fatigue syndrome to name a few.
In applying the low carb diet there are a lot of cultural and mental challenges; due to the fact that society favours the high carbohydrate diet. This can have an impact on compliance, and participants need to be aware of this before they begin. Because it is so different, it can be labelled as ‘controversial’, and there have been a lot of negative remarks from health professionals who have made their careers preaching low fat and high carbohydrate diet regimes.
Therefore the low carbohydrate participant will have to prepare to educate and think for himself/herself. This can be done over a gradual process. Choosing a particular diet plan like the Atkins diet and submitting to the discipline within the program assists greatly in the early transition stages.
It is important to have at the outset the goal of ‘Long Term Compliance’. Anyone who abandons the diet to eat ‘Junk Food’ again will of course regain the weight and more. This occurs on any diet & exercise regime. So it is important to understand the reality of the diet before you start.
Tell me what you think. I posted it on my blog.
How a Low Carbohydrate Diet Works.
When you are overweight, you have an excessive amount of adipose (or fat) in your body. The trouble for your body is that this fat inhibits the job of insulin.
Insulin is a hormone that is secreted by the pancreas. It responds directly to the ingestion of glucose via carbohydrates. It has a number of roles. One of them is to assist glucose energy to enter the wall of your cells. Another role is to convert excess glucose to fat. Insulin has been nicknamed the ‘fattening hormone’. If you want to store fat, then insulin excretion is required.
When you are overweight, you have an excess of fat cells. These fat cells block or inhibit the job of insulin, in particular it’s role of getting the glucose into the cells, so the cells can use the energy to power the body. With excessive fat on your body you create a resistance to the insulin, hence the term ‘insulin resistance’.
Now that you are insulin resistance, the pancreas responds by producing more insulin. But because obesity is an unnatural state for the body, the pancreas produces an excess of insulin. What happens then, with an excess of insulin produced, Glucose is converted too quickly into ‘fat storage’, and when that occurs your body signals ‘hunger’. Low blood sugar which is caused by too much insulin, which is caused by too much body fat, makes you hungry and physically crave carbohydrates.
This is why large obese people are hungrier, and have a bigger appetite. Instead of it being a moral reason, it’s actually a physiological reason.
So then the obese person uses usually eat more, and that meal usually involves carbohydrates.
All carbohydrates, no matter what the source, high GI or low GI are converted to the same amount of glucose in the blood stream. The advantage of Lower GI Carbohydrates is that they are absorbed by the body slower. However it is important to note that every amount of carbohydrate eaten requires a reciprocal insulin response. Therefore total carbohydrates should be a concern to the dieter also. Everything we eat is eventually metabolised. This is why Diabetics have a rise in blood sugar many hours after eating a food that is low GI but high in total carbs.
Diabetes is a condition where the pancreas cannot (due to certain causes) make enough insulin to deal with the glycemic load, or total carbohydrates. Diabetics are given external insulin to deal with their carbohydrate intake. As you have seen above, excessive fat on the body creates a need for more insulin; this is why it’s advisable for Diabetics to lose weight. Exercise also assists Diabetics in helping insulin reach the body’s cells.
There is a dangerous condition that can occur in diabetics called keto-acidosis. This is when the blood glucose level is so high that the body cannot produce adequate insulin to cope. There is an excessive amount of sugar in the blood. What the body starts to do is to break down the cells, and the level of acid becomes very high. This is highly dangerous.
This condition should not be confused with ketosis. Ketosis is a normal process of the body. Ketosis occurs when the liver has been depleted of its stored glycogen. The body then starts to break down the ‘fat’ cells using them for energy. This occurs in starvation, but also on a Low Carbohydrate Diet. Ketosis can be described as Fat Burning.
In a low carbohydrate det such as the Atkins diet, there is a very low amount of carbohydrate ingested. The body then reverts to fat burning or ketosis. Dietary intake of protein and fat is adequate enough that muscle is spared. Fat is utilised as the chief source of energy. By ingesting fat in a Low carbohydrate diet you stimulate ketosis and assist the fat burning. A bit like when you want your car to burn a certain type of fuel; you put that fuel in the engine. When you eat carbs the body burns carbs, when you eat fats (in the absence of carbs) you burn fat. The source of this fat comes from both dietary intake and the body fat of the person.
Carbohydrates are a preferential fuel for the body over fat. This means that if you are eating carbohydrates the body utilises this. When you eat over a certain amount of carbs per day, you are no longer burning fat, but carbohydrate or rather glucose.
What about low calorie high carb diet?
By default a low calorie diet is a low carb diet, because it is low in everything.
The burning of fat and protein is inefficient compared to carb burning, so it takes more metabolic effort to burn them. Thus metabolism is raised. A lot of ketones are excreted by the body, and they are not stored as fat. This process continually encourages the release of your fat stores. This accounts for why a person can eat a high caloric amount on a low carb diet, but still lose weight.
To function properly, the brain requires about 130 grams of glucose each day. Most low carb diets are well below 130 grams. So the body synthesises glucose from the protein eaten, through a process called glycogenesis. This is a perfectly healthy process of the body.
It is not a requirement of the body to ingest carbohydrates. It is not essential for life, whereas protein and fat are.
How to do a Low Carb Diet.
My plan is the Atkins diet, so this information is based on that particular diet.
All carbohydrate intake is restricted. Participants have to keep a track of their daily carb limit until they have learnt to selectively eat low carb or no-carb food.
A lot of things have carbohydrates, natural foods like vegetables, tubers and fruit have a carbohydrate amount. Even spices have a carbohydrate amount. Processed foods like bread and dairy products have some as well. Highly processed and packaged foods have added sugar. Usually a processed low fat product will have a high carbohydrate amount to compensate.
Milk has a sugar called lactose, and fruit has a sugar called fructose. These sugars are to be avoided.
The Atkins diet has four phases.
Induction (First two weeks) – carbs are limited to 20 grams or less
Ongoing Weight Loss – carbs added slowly back to the diet to a level where you are still losing weight. Ie. 30-40 grams
Pre-Maintenance – This would be when you have only a few kilos left to lose and you are transitioning to Maintenance – carbs are increased, fat is slightly modified.
Maintenance – you have reached your weight loss goal. Carbs are now at a critical level where they are neither making you gain weight, or lose weight.
If you have a lapse, you go back to the Induction level.
Calories are not the focus of the diet, because when you are in ketosis, on a Keto-genic diet (low Carb) your hunger is reduced almost to zero, or what we think of hunger is reduced. There is still a natural bodily hunger. I believe that what we think of as hunger is artificially induced by carbohydrates.
Dr. Atkins advises portion control by sticking to three moderate meals per day. If you eat excessively on this diet your weight loss will be slower.
What about cholesterol?
Cholesterol is usually reduced on a low carb diet, as well as diabetes and also a range of other issues.
Cholesterol levels have been linked to cardiovascular disease. But Cholesterol is essential for the body and performs an anti-inflammatory role in the body. High levels of insulin in the body encourages Atherosclerosis, this is why Diabetics are at risk of heart disease, because of their medicine (insulin) that they inject.
When you take cholesterol drugs to lower your total cholesterol, this does not mean you have cured yourself from heart disease. It is not that simple. There are a range of other factors that contribute to heart disease. Cardiovascular heart disease prevention requires a more holistic perspective that deals with a number of lifestyle factors. Your Medical Doctor can advise you on these.
When low carb dieters eat a high intake of saturated fats they actually lower their total cholesterol levels in the longer term, because they have reduced their insulin levels that were encouraging inflammation or heart disease, therefore addressing a cause of heart disease, not the associated anti-inflammatory substance called cholesterol.
When someone switches from a lifetime of high carbohydrate intake to a low carbohydrate diet there is an adjustment or detox period. As carbs are highly addictive and have a powerful effect our our bodies, it is not pleasant to withdraw from them. In the first 48 hours a lot of water is lost. When you eat carbohydrates you tend to retain a bit of water. People feel feint and light headed, fatigued, irritable, and horrible. Most people who attempt the diet experience this, get disheartened and abandon their efforts. They then form a negative opinion of the diet. You then get the phenomena of people who said they have tried the Atkins diet, felt terrible, so they abandoned it, and it wasn’t for them.
The reality is that they were going through the detox period that can take weeks, and sometimes months.
Low Carb Products?
Originally low carb diets concentrated on whole and unprocessed foods. But you can’t make any money just selling food. So a lot of companies created products that they deemed ‘Low Carb Products’. A majority of these products use sugar alcohols that cause gastric distress and also stall or stop weight loss altogether. They usually have a warning label ‘Excessive consumption may have a diarrheic effect’.
These products should be avoided completely, although they may assist people initially to wean themselves off their high carb comfort food. These products are not real food. Many dieters found that these products stall and stop weight loss, especially when you are 6 months to one year into the diet. As their popularity decreased many companies developed financial troubles (like the Atkins Corporation) when the low carb food craze ended.
A low carb diet is done with wholefoods and low processed foods. This is the best for health and weight loss.
Many things other than Obesity are treated with a low carbohydrate diet like: Diabetes, Heart Disease, Epilepsy, Hypoglycaemia, Food Intolerance, and chronic fatigue syndrome to name a few.
In applying the low carb diet there are a lot of cultural and mental challenges; due to the fact that society favours the high carbohydrate diet. This can have an impact on compliance, and participants need to be aware of this before they begin. Because it is so different, it can be labelled as ‘controversial’, and there have been a lot of negative remarks from health professionals who have made their careers preaching low fat and high carbohydrate diet regimes.
Therefore the low carbohydrate participant will have to prepare to educate and think for himself/herself. This can be done over a gradual process. Choosing a particular diet plan like the Atkins diet and submitting to the discipline within the program assists greatly in the early transition stages.
It is important to have at the outset the goal of ‘Long Term Compliance’. Anyone who abandons the diet to eat ‘Junk Food’ again will of course regain the weight and more. This occurs on any diet & exercise regime. So it is important to understand the reality of the diet before you start.
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