Site navigation and social media links
The Health Benefits of A Low Carb Diet
Nutrition | February 06, 2017
Low carb diets have recently become very popular. I’ve been eating this way for a long time now. I want to share with you the 5 health benefits of eating a low carb diet. Maybe these benefits will inspire you to see if this way of eating will work best for you.
- Faster Weight Loss
A 2014 study conducted by the National Institutes of Health, found that low-carb diets were more effective for weight loss, and, as demonstrated by 148 participants, also reduced their risk for cardiovascular diseases. When we eat foods that contain sugar and carbohydrates, we trigger the release of the hormone insulin. Insulin is known as the “fat-storing hormone” because one of its functions, is to signal the cells in your body to store as much energy as possible. Carbohydrates, like fats, are a source of energy for your body. This energy from carbs is then stored as glycogen from the glucose found in carbohydrates. By eating a low carb diet, you keep your body’s glycogen stores low, and this can prevent triggering insulin and storing fat. When you have less insulin circulating in your bloodstream, your body is forced to use up all of its glycogen stores, and then reach into your stored fat (body fat) for fuel.
- A Natural Treatment For Diabetes
It seems like the cost for diabetes medications continue to climb every year, there’s a simple, effective, low-cost strategy that has been proven to work with diabetes: reduce the amount of sugar and carbs that you eat. A low carb diet is recommended by many doctors as a natural treatment for diabetes. Researchers from the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Hypertension at SUNY University of Brooklyn, have pointed out that a high-carbohydrate diet increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and obesity. Low-carbohydrate diets have been credited for improving the control of blood pressure, hypoglycemia and insulin levels.
- Helps Suppress Appetite
What is the single worst side effect of dieting? Hunger. It’s those hungry and craving feelings that usually cause us to quit on a diet. One of the best things about eating low carb is that it leads to a reduction in appetite. When people cut carbs, they fill up on proteins and fats instead. These foods can be super satisfying since they help to turn off your hunger hormone “ghrelin.” When you spike your insulin levels by eating sugar or carbs, you trigger cravings for more sugar and more carbs. Later on, when you blood sugar drops, ghrelin increases, making your appetite increase along with it. Fats and proteins, on the other hand, are known for the exact opposite. They help keep your insulin levels low, satisfying ghrelin, and allow you to go longer between meals.
- Better Brain Function
Your brain is largely made up of fat. It requires a steady stream of healthy fats for it to work optimally. The more carbs and sugar someone eats, the less healthy fats they consume. This is an issue since your brain needs these healthy fats to perform correctly, control your mood and regulate your hormones. Sure, at first when you eat a sugary or high carb meal, you may feel awake and alert. But, quickly after, you start to crash, and you may feel grumpy, moody and tired. Fats, your alternative fuel source to carbs, doesn’t do this. Instead, eating healthy fats support your brain to have better memory, moods, and energy.
- A Happier Stomach
Less sugar and carbs means a happier and healthier digestive system for you! Many people suffer from bloating, IBS, leaky gut, candida, and many other uncomfortable digestive issues. Research from a 2008 study published in the Journal of the American Gastroenterological Association, showed that patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) report symptom improvements after initiating a very low-carbohydrate diet (VLCD). It doesn’t matter if you eat processed carbs or whole grains. All carbs are eventually broken down into sugar by your body. When you go low carb, you’re eating less sugar, and now there’s less sugar feeding the “bad bacteria” in your gut, that can aggravate these digestive symptoms. Plenty of quality proteins, healthy fats, and vegetables, are considered fat-burning foods that actually help nourish your digestive system and reduce bacterial growth.
Private Member |
kraków, poland
But we don’t get enough micro- and macronutrients, vitamins which we can get from carbs like oatmeal, brown rice, wild rice, quinoa, and others cereals.
Private Member |
felgueiras, porto, portugal
Carbs are not the vilain of our healthy problems, but overeating is. I tried everything about diet and now I know that flexibility is the best way for me because you learn to choose better foods , to improve the nutrient partioning (nutrient/timing) during the day, don’t craving anything and have a good relationship with food. Like you said before, “always earn your carbs with your workout” and that was the best advice ever!
Private Member |
usa
I’ve been researching the percentage ratios of carbs/protein/ fat. Not sure if is should be 40/30/30 like the Adkins diet or 30/40/30. Do you count, Zuzka, or do you just consciously eat less high carb foods and more high protein foods and keep your fats reasonable and only the healthy kind? That’s what I try to do but I’m not always successful at it. Although I do steer clear of junk food, deep fried foods, white bread and flour, processed food and sugar.
Private Member |
uk
Hej zuzka
Could you recommend some good books in that area? Thanks a lot!! 🙂
Private Member |
Keto diet is amazing for most of these comments, Zuzka has done Keto and speaks very highly of it. I have epilepsy and its the best diet recommended for that too, it doesn’t cure epilepsy (except from some cases where children have been cured) but it relieves certain symptoms some adults have as a result of medication. There have been numerous studies done on high fat diets for epileptic children (referred to as the modified Atkins diet), since the early 1900’s and as long as they are good fats (not like the typical modern day Atkins diet) then scientists have proven our bodies drastically benefit from high fat low sugar diets.
For me, I’ve noticed a massive change in myself since lowering my sugar and increasing fats like adding coconut oil, avocados, whole eggs, salmon etc. into my main meals. There are also tons of recipes online that are so yummy that i don’t miss my previous diet at all.
Theres a recent film on Netflix called ‘That Sugar Film’, very interesting and humorous.
Thanks as always Zuzka, your an inspiration.xx
Private Member |
Hi Sam! for Keto you have to get very high in fat,like 80% of your intake to be fat. So you have to eat more butter than veggies. Do you count macros or ketones? What massive changes did you notice? I tried Keto, I enjoyed it, but I didn’t notice any big change in my body. I am interested though in your experience! 🙂
Private Member |
Hi hun, I count macros, I try my best to stick to 5% Carbs (which is hard to get used to), 15% protein and 80% fats. i find it hard to fit in eating breakfast so i usually have a bigger brunch which is normally a fry up of eggs, spinach, cheese, bacon fryed in coconut oil (also good ingredients for omelette). Beans, tomatoes and toast are off limits. I have a really sweet tooth so it was so hard at first and i had a really bad headache for 3 days but my hunger decreased, and i became much more determined to sort out my fitness too. I use myfitnesspal to help me track my macros and grams of food. The biggest change straight away was clarity. Its hard to describe really but being on medication most of my life, I never really understood what it could feel like to not have that ‘misty’ feeling. I actually don’t know how I’ve dragged myself through life prior to keto! Also, i lost about half a stone in a month and I dont get a bloated feeling any more. I do have to drink a lot more water though and i also take udos choice fish oil which really helps my skin. The other interesting thing was that before keto I absolutely had to finish what was on my plate! Now I struggle to eat a whole plate of food like I used to, so my portion sizes have decreased and I snack a lot less.
Personally i think the key is to make food interesting. I am a super organised person so i really went to town with making a spreadsheet tracking all my nutrients in the meals i was eating and linking recipes to websites. Sounds a bit ott doesn’t it! But it helped me keep on track and it meant i had a shopping list as well as a meal planner for the week. My husbands meals are almost the same most of the time but he adds rice, pasta or bread. Hes fit so he uses up a lot of calories, so for him it doesn’t really make a difference adding basic carbs into things. I don’t miss them though. If you want to chat Im here almost every day x
Private Member |
Hey, thanks for the answer!! So you don’t count calories, just macros, but you eat anyway less than before, so you dropped weight, right? Well, I am an emotional eater and I can continue eating even when I feel full.. I couldn’t drop weight on keto and what annoys me is that if I eat smth more than the precise amount I m kicked off keto and I feel like sick again. As long as you are strict with it, you feel good, but one has to be very careful.. by the way, do you drink bf coffee? Do you eat mainly animal fat? And don’t you drink alcohol at all? Neither eating fruit like apples for example, right? How long have you being doing this? I have many questions 🙂 :/
Private Member |
So your best off going to a Keto calculator for help with macros and calories. I don’t tend to count calories as the focus because i calculate grams per macro. For example I am 5ft 3 and weigh 125 lbs (+/- 3 lbs), i have an office job so activity is sedentary and i work out every day for 20-30 minutes. A calculator tells me to keep within 1402 kcal Daily Calorie Intake, 20 grams Net Carbs (6%, 80 kcal), 53 grams Protein (15%, 210 kcal) and 124 grams Fat (79%, 1112 kcal). I lost about 10 lbs over a couple months without exercise. If you look online for keto recipes then you should be given the break down of macro’s underneath it so this will help you track them (make sure you bookmark the ones you like). On a daily basis i live mostly off of eggs, coconut oil, cauliflower, butter, lots of cheese, spinach, full fat sauces (be careful with the ingredients) and meats like bacon, fish or chicken. I love making egg muffins and frittata’s (BACON CRUSTED FRITTATA MUFFINS or CRISPY STUFFED BACON BASKETS or BACON, RED PEPPER, AND MOZZARELLA FRITTATA), so easy to have for any meal of the day, plus when you make them, the muffins are at leat 12 portions and the frittata is 6-8. LOVE them. i found that when i started i was wondering if i would be hungry too however, when you are eating whole foods and higher fats it is seriously hard to over eat. Being happier with your goals and making them realistic should change your emotional eating habits, give it a chance making sure you do it properly for a month, be prepared for planning well and if you really don’t like it then thats cool but if you do it properly, you will love it too. You will feel so much better about yourself and sugar is the enemy when it comes to emotional eaters, it has a direct effect on your brain and emotions and emphases any of your feelings in peaks. See sugar as the enemy and understand what it does to you should help you with your decision. Seriously, watch ‘That Sugar Film’ it will help you. And no i HATE coffee! :o)
Private Member |
melbourne, victoria, australia
what about cons? Is it for everyone?
Private Member |
I think doing keto scares a lot of people because of having to work out the %’s and grams but thats only for a short period of time and then you get used to understanding which recipes you prefer to eat and how much you can have without having to track as in depth as at first. A lot of people i know also think it must cost more money than a usual shop but in my experience in the UK, thats not true. Appetites decrease and you feel better for it so you don’t end up buying as much food as before. I don’t think its for everyone because of peoples schedules and limitations with access. Although i definitely think it would be good for people to truly understand what fructose and sucrose does to peoples bodies and brains at least! Theres not enough information about it out there that makes it easy for people to understand and help incorporate it into their lives, especially for people that aren’t about to access websites.
Private Member |
melbourne, victoria, australia
Thanks Sam, I guess as you’ve said, it’s all about knowledge and nutrition education, constantly updated.
Private Member |
To fully be in ketosis (burn fat for fuel) one has to not only cut carbs but decrease protein as well since the body can turn protein into glucose. Once you drop carbs to 20grams/day your brain thinks it’s starving and will turn to the protein you eat for fuel/glucose since it cannot learn to burn fat for fuel over night. It’s best to slowly cut back your protein to 50grams/day while keeping the fats highest in nutrition for your brain (animal fat) high to adapt as quickly as possible (~6 Tblsp of animal fat & ~6 Tbsp plant fat) Beef Talow & ghee are 2 of the best fats to add to the healthy plant fats (coconut oil, avacado) to keep hunger at bay & adapt as soon as possible which can take about 4 weeks once macros are all dialed in. & yes, you can gain wait while adapting. Until your body accepts burning fat for fuel, some of the protein you eat can be treated like sugar in your body & be stored as fat along with some of ‘all that fat your eating’. Keto is not for the faint of heart. Get ready for emotional termoil while your body switches fuel sources. Your brain will resist since it’s exhausted & depleted of fuel. But don’t quit before the miracle! Once you adapt, you’ll feel clear headed, emotionally stable, no body/joint aches & pains which means more gains from your workouts! It’s all worth it but is totally brutal til you get there! It’s very hard to suffer for the promise of feeling amazing! But it IS Amazing! I promise! 😉
Private Member |
uk
What about the negatives? Low carb is not a universal law that applies to everyone. Too much meat and too much fat. Hard on thyroid, hard on adrenals, too much stress on the body. No need to avoid carbs in order to be fit and healthy. I would eat carbs with every meal to keep the metabolism up and running and keep the thyroid happy.
Private Member |
brooklyn, ny, usa
All I can say is going low carb, in my case grain free (paleo/primal) and cutting down fruit and pretty much all sugar tremendously was a huge help in everything.
I suffered from PCOS and infertility forever, when I went Paleo at age 38 I was able to conceive a child after literally 8 years (and fertility treatments) of trying. MY PCOS is much more manageable and I have shorter cycles.
But I think the most amazing aspect of this type of eating was the improvement in my mental health. I had suffered depression and anxiety since about age 10 (I am now 43) and tried everything to help that, therapy, drugs, holistic remedies, everything. Nothing helped me EXCEPT going Paleo. Literally within a week my depression was gone and has stayed pretty manageable for 5 years. I do get depressed and anxious on occasion but not like before where I would be crying in bed for days, weeks, and contemplating suicide. Now I get sad but I can get through it.
I really believe that I never had a mental disorder or a “chemical imbalance” as every dr. wanted to tell me. I think had I had knowledge when I was younger things would have gone so differently.
What’s amazing is that I thought I had a healthy diet for years, vegetarian with lots of whole grains and beans, tofu, fruit, vegetables. Definitely not healthy for my body or mind, apparently. I think aspects of it were healthy but way too much carb.
As far as weight loss, I have trouble losing weight generally, I think it’s many factors, hormonal, age, etc., but I do better on low carb. I don’t get low blood sugar or shaky when I’m not eating many carbs and when I do eat them I am definitely more bloated. I wish weight would fall off as I do everything “right,” with diet and exercise but it’s not the case, but I do know that if I were eating a typical diet with more grains, high fruit, I’d be gaining weight, despite exercising.
Not the case for everyone but low carb/grain free has been a miracle. Just my two cents 🙂
Private Member |
Hello Zuzka I saw your video 15 Minutes to Fit wondered omelette that there ‘in the video what’ and ‘recipe thanks