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Low Carb Diet
Low carb diet is the short way of saying lower carbohydrate diet. Carbohydrates
are natural compounds that consist of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.
Carbohydrates come in many forms including rice, pasta, bread, crackers, cereal,
fruits and vegetables, and vary from simple sugars to very complex polymers.
There are two types of carbohydrates: Simple and complex. Simple carbohydrates
are Monosaccharides and disaccharides, which are sugars that include Glucose,
fructose, Galactose, Lactose, sucrose and maltose. Complex carbohydrates are
commonly known as starches. A complex carbohydrate is made up of chains of glucose
molecules. Most grains (wheat, corn, oats, rice) and things like potatoes and
plantains are high in starch.
Our bodies rely on carbohydrates, above all other compounds, for fuel during
exercise. The amount of carbohydrate that you have stored in your body will
affect your stamina and endurance during any exercise.
Carbohydrate is broken down and stored as glycogen in the muscles and the liver.
Muscle glycogen is the fuel for your muscles, while liver glycogen maintains
a normal blood sugar level to fuel the brain. Glycogen keeps the brain functioning,
as it should do.
If your body exhausts its glycogen stores your blood sugar drops, and your
brain becomes fatigued you experience mental fatigue.
So what is a low carb diet or low carb diets? Well, the low carb diet history
is a long story. Dieting normally consisted of reducing the number of calories
your take in per day, with the idea being that if you consume 500 calories a
day less than you need you will loose about one pound of weight per week.
Most diets do not limit the intake of any particular food group; rather preach
the idea of ‘moderation’. The idea behind low carb diets, and the low carb diet
information in general, is to restrict the amount of carbohydrates you eat and
increase the amount of protein and fat as the body also uses proteins and fats
for fuel. Most of theses low carb diets are high protein low carb diet. You
should also be aware that there is no low fat low carb diet, as you body needs
to substitute the carbs for the fat.
Protein is contained in foods like red meat, poultry fish and cheese. Fats
are also an important part of our diet. Many foods contain fat in different
amounts. By limiting the amount of carbohydrates the body is starved of its
number one energy source. Low carb diets are based on the basis that a diet
very low in carbohydrate leads to a reduction in the body's insulin production,
resulting in fat and protein (muscle) stores being used as its major energy
source. The aim of a healthy low carb diet is to force the body to use fat as
its main energy source, when this happens a person produces what are known as
ketone bodies to fuel parts of the body that can not use fat and protein as
an energy source, such as the brain, and red blood cells. When this happens
a person is said to be in a state of ketosis.
Ketosis is secondary process that occurs after Lipolysis, which itself is the
burning of fat stores and using them as the source of fuel. The by-products
of burning fat are ketones. The more ketones you release, the more fat you have
dissolved.
By restricting the amount of carbohydrates you eat, your body turns to fat
as its alternative source of energy. In effect, lipolysis/ketosis has replaced
the alternative of burning glucose for energy that you normally get from eating
carbohydrates. So by eating a low carb diet you are not gaining calories from
the carbohydrates (4 calories per gram) as well as using up your stored fat.
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