Lose Weight With Less Carbs

Weight is a huge issue for all the people, we are obsessed with the idea of a perfect figure & a healthy body. Doing physical workout or light exercise is a good enough way to stay fit but losing weight & become fit is a whole another story. Weight loss is a process can’t happen overnight, there is one extremely important point to be taken care of- to prepare a diet plan that suits you.

There is right now several diet regimes (Atkins, Keto, Paleo) that a person can follow with or without the help of nutritionist; one of these is Atkin diet. Atkins has been around for decades since the 1960s, almost everyone has heard of it & many have applied it themselves. It was then known as “diet revolution” & was it wasn’t even accepted by mainstream doctors as an appropriate diet for losing weight.

Atkins Diet

Dr. Robert Atkins, a cardiologist gave a low carbohydrate diet for weight loss; fad diet. Atkins diet limits the carbohydrate intake of a person, without any restriction for fat or protein in the meals. The main cause of putting on weight is refined carbohydrates (sugar, high-fructose products, flour). The modern-day research proves that it helps improve ‘good cholesterol’ & is quite effective when it comes to losing weight as compared to other diet plans.

The Four Basic Rules for Atkins Diet regime:
·To lose weight at a regular rate
·To maintain the weight loss with time
·To achieve good health
·To have a permanent plan to follow to prevent weight gain

Biomechanism of Low Carb diet

Our bodies generate energy in the form of ATP (Adenosine triphosphate; the energy unit of the body) by processing the carbohydrates in the body. The body burns glucose this way, but when there is scarcity in supply of an efficient amount of carbohydrates it switches to another source of energy which is stored as fat in our bodies. This process changing the energy source is called ketosis; due to low insulin level (low glucose), the body extracts it from fat cells.

The whole process causes the body to burn more calories as it takes more time to process fat than to carbohydrate. Although it is advised not to increase the consumption of saturated fats more than twenty percent of all the calories taken. The level of hormones is disturbed when you start with low carbohydrate diet; level of insulin goes extremely down when there is a reduction in carbohydrate intake. As insulin is responsible for fat storage in body, so low level of insulin facilitates the removal of fat from body or increases the rate of fat burning in the body.

We shall discuss in detail about the process of Atkins diet in next article.