by Ricardo d Argence

Studies have shown that low to no carb diets actually help in weight losing, in fact, it is said to be even more effective than low fat diets. But, do you know that there are quite some negative effects that results from this kind of diets?

If I cut carbs will I lose weight? First, you must understand that not all carbs are the same. They have all been banded together but some carbs are necessary for a healthy and fulfilled lifestyle. How can one differentiate between a good carb and a bad one? Well. lets go back to basics. Sugars, or simple carbohydrates, are one of the two basic types of carbohydrates. Next, the Starches, also referred to as complex carbohydrates.

These carbs take time to be digested, that’s the big difference. Simple carbohydrates are digested rapidly, whereas digestion takes place more slowly for complex carbohydrates.

A lot of these simple carbohydrates come from processed foods such as pizza, chocolate, cakes, foods that contain or more accurately have added sugars. These will give you a quick burst of energy. Misunderstood by many is the fact that you can get the same results by eating apples, bananas, grapes, raisins. Simple carbs but much healthier because they contain other nutrients and vitamins needed by the body.

Going on low carb diet means stopping the intake of carbohydrates and it helps in not putting on weight, but actually everyone must have at least 45% -65%of carbohydrates depending on each individual.

A Metabolic Disorder called ‘Ketosis’ occurs when your body over a period of time becomes malnourished of carbohydrates. If your body is too weak to handle a low-to-no carbohydrate diet, consequences such as constant fatigue, lack of energy and insomnia may result. Nevertheless, you can remedy the situation by eating foods high in carbohydrates, at which point you will gain back all the weight you lost.

Just picture this cycle as you read. You will need to compensate the weight loss with the low energy level. Your body cannot sustain extremely low carb diets on a long term basis, and if you continue to follow their strict regulations you will find your health negatively affected, eventually leaving you in poor health.

So, will low to no carb diets help me? Reducing carbohydrates from your diet will enable you to lose weight only if you cut the right kind of carbohydrate and if you make other diet and lifestyle changes at the same time.

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Posted by Ricardo d Argence, filed under Atkins Diet. Date: December 1, 2008, 1:44 pm | Comments Off

by Rowena French

The most popular weight loss programs across the past twenty years have been concerned with a low carb or low fat foods. The fundamental reality about all eating programs devised to assist us to lose weight however, is that regardless of their focus, diets only bring about weight loss if they include calories loss.

Are you ready to figure out how many calories that you should take in each day? There are several ways to decide what your ideal calorie intake should be. Some are complicated and involve calculating your Base Metabolic Rate and then adding the amount of energy you normally put into physical activity and adding in how efficiently your body processes food.

Doctors and other specialist health workers can accurately determine the total calories you need to eat every day to remain healthy. However a less complicated way of working this out is accessible to anyone owning a calculator. Before finding your daily calorie intake in this way, you need to recognize your level of activity to begin with.

You are sedentary if you sit at a computer all day and do no more physical activity than walking around the grocery store. The best way to figure out how many calories you need to take in on a daily basis is to take your weight and multiply it by 14, so if you weigh 150 pounds, you would multiply 150 x 14 and get 2100, and need to take in 2,100 calories each day to maintain your weight. To lose weight through calories loss your intake will need to be less than this.

You are moderately active if your life includes daily brisk walking or even if you workout a number of times each week. The variable in your calculation is the number 17, which you multiply by your weight and find for example that if your weight is 150 pounds, you need to consume 2550 calories a day. If your goal is to lose weight you will need to factor a calories loss into your diet and eat less than 2550 calories daily.

If you commute to work on a bike, or run for an hour each day you lead an active life. Your ideal calorie count to maintain your healthy body is calculated by multiplying your weight by 20. If you change aspects of your diet to include a calories loss you can and expect to lose weight in this way.

Keeping details of what you eat and how many calories this contains across each day can be recorded in a food diary. Many people find that these commercially produced books are a helpful tool to manage their weight loss, especially as the act of recording the calories they consume gets them to pay closer attention to exactly what they eat. Notation in food diaries also helps identify those foods most calorific that can be eliminated or reduced to allow sufficient calories loss for a healthy weight loss.

There are plenty of calorie counting websites that have the same information for free and will help you manage your calories loss and the impact of this on your overall weight loss. Counting calories may take a little time at the outset but you it becomes a lot easier and will help you control what you eat so you can lose weight and keep it off forever.

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Posted by Rowena French, filed under Atkins Diet. Date: October 30, 2008, 8:08 am | Comments Off

by Christine G. Shannon

The Cabbage Soup Diet is something you have probably already heard of by this time. Most people lose some weight in the first couple of weeks. Unfortunately, most people lose interest in this diet after a short time and quickly regain the weight. This is similar to the results seen in other low to no carb diets. If a diet is to be effective over the long term, it has to offer enough variety to be enjoyable.

Because it is also called a fat-burning soup diet, it contains ingredients in the soup, which would be considered fat-burning. Besides the soup, there is not much else that can be eaten other than low carb or no carb fruits and vegetables.

When taking a closer look at the recipe for this cabbage soup or fat burning soup, it is clear that this can be considered a low to no carb diet. The soup includes fat burning vegetables like onions, peppers, tomatoes and cabbage. You can also substitute other cruciferous vegetables such as cauliflower or broccoli for the cabbage. Spices and hot sauce can be added to liven up the soup.

Carbohydrates, which the body turns to sugar and burns or stores the unused to fat cells, is restricted in this diet. It is based on the vegetables, which burn more calories in your metabolism, than they have in them. This principle works in losing weight, however, most people cannot stand to eat the soup for more than a couple weeks before losing interest in the cabbage soup diet.

Here’s how the cabbage soup diet works: you can eat all the soup you like whenever you’re hungry. Other than this, there are different things which you can eat depending on the day of the week. On day one, you can have fruit (except for bananas), on day two you can have vegetables except for peas, corn and beans. On day two you can also have a baked potato with dinner, to trick your body into thinking that you are still eating carbohydrates.

Day three is soup, along with fruits and vegetables. On day four, you can eat soup, skim milk and bananas. Day five adds tomatoes and lean meats; on day six, you can also have lean meats and leafy vegetables. On the last day, you can have brown rice along with your soup. This is not a diet which many can stick with for long - it does not offer a lot of variety or meet your protein needs over the long term.

Just like all of the other low to no carb diets, the cabbage soup diet severely curtails carbohydrate intake. The diet doesn’t restrict how many times or how much you can eat, as long as you eat the soup or other allowable item for the day.

While the cabbage soup diet doesn’t restrict how many times a day you eat, and is like other low to no carb diets, the best diet is one that would include fat burning foods, as well as a variety of nutritional food, allow you to eat numerous times a day, that you could lose weight on and stick with long-term, like FatLoss4Idiots program that is highly recommended in the link below.

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Posted by Christine G. Shannon, filed under Atkins Diet. Date: October 21, 2008, 8:01 pm | Comments Off

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