Low Carb Diet Plan - The Science Behind The Low Carb Diet

Low carb diet plans are excellent for
losing weight, but as with all diets you
need to take care and use some
common sense when undertaking such
a diet.

With a little direction and knowledge a
low carb lifestyle can help you maintain
your weight loss.

In order to pick a low carb diet that's
right for you, you first need to
understand what carbohydrates are
and the different types of carbs.

Carbs are made up of either single
sugars (simple carbs) or bound strings
of sugar (complex carbs).

Some examples of simple carbs include
sucrose (table sugar), fructose (fruit
sugar) and lactose (dairy sugar).
Examples of complex carbs are wheat
flour or potato starch.

Carbs are one of the main nutrient
groups your body uses for energy along
with fat and protein. All three are
converted to glucose or blood sugar.

The difference is that carbs are
converted quickly, causing quick spikes
in the body’s blood sugar levels. These
spikes in blood sugar levels cause the
pancreas to create and release the
hormone insulin until the blood sugar
level returns to normal.

Insulin lowers our blood’s glucose levels.
It's released into the blood as soon as
the body detects that blood sugar
levels have risen above its optimal level.

Insulin also runs the body’s fuel storage
systems.

Eating too much of simple, refined
carbohydrates leads to over production
of insulin, which leads to the storage
of too much fat in the body.

Excess sugar or fat in the blood signals
the body to store it in fat cells and tell
these cells not to release it. Thus their
stored fat is unavailable for use by the
body as energy.

By preventing stored fat from being
released for use as energy, insulin
prevents weight loss. With higher
insulin levels, fat cells are prevented
from releasing their stores and it
becomes harder to lose weight.

Basically, what it all boils down to is
that carbohydrates, especially simple
carbs like sugar and starch, are quickly
released into the bloodstream, turned
into glucose and trigger the creation of
large amounts of insulin.

By lowering your carb consumption,
less insulin is produced and fewer
calories are stored as fat. Less fat
storage means less weight gain.

So the idea behind every low carb diet
plan is that a body that produces less
insulin burns more fat because the
body's not storing the excess glucose
as fat.

Some plans encourage a period of
extremely low carbohydrate intake so
that the body will enter a state of
ketosis and burn fat stores quicker.

Ketosis, the body's survival mechanism
during times of famine, is the process
of burning stored fat for energy when
glucose is not readily available.

When your body reaches ketosis, this
is what's referred to as the "induction"
phase.

The length of extreme carb control
varies from seven days to however
long it takes you to reach your ideal
weight.

After this period of extremely low carb
dieting, maintenance levels of carb
consumption are followed to prevent
weight gain. The amount of carb you
can safely eat will depend on your
unique body system and your level of
activity. You'll probably have to
experiment to find out what level of
carb intake is right for you.

The whole idea's to cut out refined
carbs such as white flour and white
flour products, reduce sweets and
artificially sweetened foods and consume
smaller amounts of whole grains and raw
fruits and veggies.

So as you can see, with a little common
sense and a little willpower, you can lose
weight with the right low carb diet plan.