Here - it's a really interesting and useful piece:
WHEN YOU EAT CARBOHYDRATES (carbs), your body releases insulin into your blood stream. The insulin tells your cells what to do. It tells most cells to absorb the sugar out of the blood and tells your fat cells not to release any fat to burn (because there are carbs already in the blood to burn).
One of insulin's jobs is to take sugar out of the blood ? the sooner the better, because sugar in the blood damages the body. The reason diabetics have such bad health problems (blindness, circulation problems, etc.) is because of the damage sugar does when the person can't make enough insulin.
When you eat something with a lot of sugar in it, the body kind of panics and usually overdoes it. Too much insulin is released to mop up the sugar. It takes all the sugar out of your blood. Then your blood sugar is too low, so you crave more sweets.
So insulin saved the day, keeping that sugar from damaging your body, but in the process, it makes your body store fat and prevents you from burning fat.
A low carb diet, like the Atkins or South Beach Diet or Protein Power all vary in how much to limit carbs, but the rough average is thirty carbs a day. At that level, you don't put very much insulin into your system, so your body burns any fat you eat as fuel, and if you need more, your fat cells freely release fat into your blood stream to be burned as fuel.
But when you eat a large amount of carbs ? a hundred grams, two hundred grams, or more (most Westerners get about 300 grams a day) ? your body releases insulin in huge amounts, which makes it almost impossible to burn fat. And makes it really easy to gain weight. Some people don't gain weight, of course, even though they eat lots of carbs, and we'll get to that in a minute. But first understand this basic process. This is why people lose weight so easily and quickly when they cut carbs: Because carbs increase insulin, which leads to storing fat and preventing fat from being burned.
Two other ways of dealing with this problem are to eat less and exercise more. Weight Watchers and other groups are built around limiting calories. Another way is to eat very low fat. Then when insulin is released, there isn't much fat around to store, and if you eat little enough, your fat cells have to release fat so you can survive. People obviously can lose weight this way. But it is difficult. It requires discipline. One of the reasons Weight Watchers is successful is their support. People help each other stay on the program. It would be difficult to keep at it otherwise because it is so hard. Why is it so hard? Because you're eating carbs, which cause you to crave more carbs, and then you deliberately limit how much you eat. So you feel hungry. And anyone who has tried to eat less for a long time has discovered it is very difficult. It's like running uphill. What you're eating is making you want to eat more, and then you make yourself eat less. It's tough. It can be done, but it's tough.
As anyone knows who has tried simply limiting calories or eating very little fat, it is very difficult to sustain it. You can do it for awhile, but then you can't stand it any more and you eat a lot. You lose weight only temporarily because you can't keep it up for any length of time without a lot of support or self-discipline. It's too hard to sustain. And whatever you do to lose weight has to be sustainable or you'll just gain it right back.
One of the reasons a low carb diet works is that protein and fat satisfy your hunger. When you eat protein, you do not crave more protein. If you had a huge plate of chicken, you would not continue to eat it after you had enough. You would eat a certain amount and then you wouldn't want to eat any more. You don't need a cheering section to keep you from eating any more. You're done. You're satisfied.
With carbs, you can never get enough. You can be full, topped off, completely stuffed, and you could still go for some ice cream! Eating carbs makes you crave more carbs.
Don't get me wrong: Limiting yourself to thirty grams of carbs a day is still difficult, but much easier than eating low fat or low calorie. Your tongue still wants carbs, but the rest of your body feels fine. And after awhile, even your tongue calms down ? you aren't craving anything at all. And your fat cells steadily release their fuel to be burned. Instead of getting more difficult over time, low carb eating actually gets easier as the lust for carbs subsides.
We shouldn't really call low carb eating a "diet." You want to find a way to eat that you can maintain for your lifetime, not for a little while. And ideally it would be something you can do without having to rely on a tremendous amount of self-discipline, because it is likely you will sometimes falter. You can almost count on it. Face it, we're human. We weaken sometimes. Then you'll lose weight and gain it back, lose weight and gain it back. That's demoralizing and it's not healthy.
With Weight Watchers or another program that relies on emotional support to maintain, it will work, but you're still eating too many carbs to be good for your health. We'll get into that a little later on this page.
Let's recap a little bit before we go on. Insulin has three effects you don't want:
- Converts sugar in the blood to fat in the cells ? tells the body to store all the fat it can while the sugar is available
- Tells the cells not to burn any fat, since there are plenty of sugar molecules to burn
- Makes you crave more carbs
This really should not be called a "low carb diet." It should be called a low-insulin diet. All you're trying to do is keep your insulin low. You could call it a high fat diet or a high protein diet or even a high fiber diet (if you're doing it right). Fat doesn't cause your body to make insulin. Protein doesn't either. Only carbs do.
When there is very little insulin, your body has to burn fat. That becomes its main fuel, and your body actually gets better at burning fat the more it has to do (because your cells make more fat-burning enzymes and fewer sugar-burning enzymes).
If you want to lose weight quickly and keep it off, and also not hurt your health but actually improve your health, a low-insulin diet is the best way.
One of the most important factors about a low insulin diet is that you won't lose muscle. As long as you're getting enough protein, you could lose a hundred pounds, and you won't lose muscle. In fact, if you're exercising, this way of eating will make it easier to gain muscle. This is not true with programs like Weight Watchers. Yes, you can lose weight by eating less but half the weight you lose will be muscle, and that's no good.
Most people have been eating so many carbs for so long, they can't imagine eating a low insulin diet. But it's not as bad as you'd think and there are a lot of nice surprises. But the first couple days are difficult. Then it gets easier. At first you'll crave carbs, of course. But if you eat all you want of low carb food, after a few days, you'll stop eating so much and your weight will start dropping. Every once in awhile you'll miss carbs, but as you get used to the new way of eating, you'll think about it less and less. Most of the time you'll be really contented. Satisfied. Never hungry. And not nearly as obsessed with food as you used to be.
Because of the benefits of a low-insulin diet, and because it is much easier to sustain for a long time, the low-insulin diet completely crushes a high-insulin diet in any head-to-head competition.
Taken from [[WHEN YOU EAT CARBOHYDRATES (carbs), your body releases insulin into your blood stream. The insulin tells your cells what to do. It tells most cells to absorb the sugar out of the blood and tells your fat cells not to release any fat to burn (because there are carbs already in the blood to burn).
One of insulin's jobs is to take sugar out of the blood ? the sooner the better, because sugar in the blood damages the body. The reason diabetics have such bad health problems (blindness, circulation problems, etc.) is because of the damage sugar does when the person can't make enough insulin.
When you eat something with a lot of sugar in it, the body kind of panics and usually overdoes it. Too much insulin is released to mop up the sugar. It takes all the sugar out of your blood. Then your blood sugar is too low, so you crave more sweets.
So insulin saved the day, keeping that sugar from damaging your body, but in the process, it makes your body store fat and prevents you from burning fat.
A low carb diet, like the Atkins or South Beach Diet or Protein Power all vary in how much to limit carbs, but the rough average is thirty carbs a day. At that level, you don't put very much insulin into your system, so your body burns any fat you eat as fuel, and if you need more, your fat cells freely release fat into your blood stream to be burned as fuel.
But when you eat a large amount of carbs ? a hundred grams, two hundred grams, or more (most Westerners get about 300 grams a day) ? your body releases insulin in huge amounts, which makes it almost impossible to burn fat. And makes it really easy to gain weight. Some people don't gain weight, of course, even though they eat lots of carbs, and we'll get to that in a minute. But first understand this basic process. This is why people lose weight so easily and quickly when they cut carbs: Because carbs increase insulin, which leads to storing fat and preventing fat from being burned.
Two other ways of dealing with this problem are to eat less and exercise more. Weight Watchers and other groups are built around limiting calories. Another way is to eat very low fat. Then when insulin is released, there isn't much fat around to store, and if you eat little enough, your fat cells have to release fat so you can survive. People obviously can lose weight this way. But it is difficult. It requires discipline. One of the reasons Weight Watchers is successful is their support. People help each other stay on the program. It would be difficult to keep at it otherwise because it is so hard. Why is it so hard? Because you're eating carbs, which cause you to crave more carbs, and then you deliberately limit how much you eat. So you feel hungry. And anyone who has tried to eat less for a long time has discovered it is very difficult. It's like running uphill. What you're eating is making you want to eat more, and then you make yourself eat less. It's tough. It can be done, but it's tough.
As anyone knows who has tried simply limiting calories or eating very little fat, it is very difficult to sustain it. You can do it for awhile, but then you can't stand it any more and you eat a lot. You lose weight only temporarily because you can't keep it up for any length of time without a lot of support or self-discipline. It's too hard to sustain. And whatever you do to lose weight has to be sustainable or you'll just gain it right back.
One of the reasons a low carb diet works is that protein and fat satisfy your hunger. When you eat protein, you do not crave more protein. If you had a huge plate of chicken, you would not continue to eat it after you had enough. You would eat a certain amount and then you wouldn't want to eat any more. You don't need a cheering section to keep you from eating any more. You're done. You're satisfied.
With carbs, you can never get enough. You can be full, topped off, completely stuffed, and you could still go for some ice cream! Eating carbs makes you crave more carbs.
Don't get me wrong: Limiting yourself to thirty grams of carbs a day is still difficult, but much easier than eating low fat or low calorie. Your tongue still wants carbs, but the rest of your body feels fine. And after awhile, even your tongue calms down ? you aren't craving anything at all. And your fat cells steadily release their fuel to be burned. Instead of getting more difficult over time, low carb eating actually gets easier as the lust for carbs subsides.
We shouldn't really call low carb eating a "diet." You want to find a way to eat that you can maintain for your lifetime, not for a little while. And ideally it would be something you can do without having to rely on a tremendous amount of self-discipline, because it is likely you will sometimes falter. You can almost count on it. Face it, we're human. We weaken sometimes. Then you'll lose weight and gain it back, lose weight and gain it back. That's demoralizing and it's not healthy.
With Weight Watchers or another program that relies on emotional support to maintain, it will work, but you're still eating too many carbs to be good for your health. We'll get into that a little later on this page.
Let's recap a little bit before we go on. Insulin has three effects you don't want:
- Converts sugar in the blood to fat in the cells ? tells the body to store all the fat it can while the sugar is available
- Tells the cells not to burn any fat, since there are plenty of sugar molecules to burn
- Makes you crave more carbs
This really should not be called a "low carb diet." It should be called a low-insulin diet. All you're trying to do is keep your insulin low. You could call it a high fat diet or a high protein diet or even a high fiber diet (if you're doing it right). Fat doesn't cause your body to make insulin. Protein doesn't either. Only carbs do.
When there is very little insulin, your body has to burn fat. That becomes its main fuel, and your body actually gets better at burning fat the more it has to do (because your cells make more fat-burning enzymes and fewer sugar-burning enzymes).
If you want to lose weight quickly and keep it off, and also not hurt your health but actually improve your health, a low-insulin diet is the best way.
One of the most important factors about a low insulin diet is that you won't lose muscle. As long as you're getting enough protein, you could lose a hundred pounds, and you won't lose muscle. In fact, if you're exercising, this way of eating will make it easier to gain muscle. This is not true with programs like Weight Watchers. Yes, you can lose weight by eating less but half the weight you lose will be muscle, and that's no good.
Most people have been eating so many carbs for so long, they can't imagine eating a low insulin diet. But it's not as bad as you'd think and there are a lot of nice surprises. But the first couple days are difficult. Then it gets easier. At first you'll crave carbs, of course. But if you eat all you want of low carb food, after a few days, you'll stop eating so much and your weight will start dropping. Every once in awhile you'll miss carbs, but as you get used to the new way of eating, you'll think about it less and less. Most of the time you'll be really contented. Satisfied. Never hungry. And not nearly as obsessed with food as you used to be.
Because of the benefits of a low-insulin diet, and because it is much easier to sustain for a long time, the low-insulin diet completely crushes a high-insulin diet in any head-to-head competition.
Taken from www.youmeworks.com/whylowcarb.html