A low-carb diet is one of those diets that are specifically designed to adjust one’s eating habits. In this case, it is obviously focused on ensuring that you have a steady low supply of carbohydrates in your system. Carbohydrate-rich food is usually found on foods like pasta and bread. This diet would then replace those sugary substances with something different like protein-enriched foods, fats, and vegetables.
The science behind a low-carb diet points out the significant benefit of those who are looking to lose weight effectively. This diet plan is commonly certified by most doctors so you can rest easy knowing that you will be safe when partaking. In addition, there is no more need for you to indulge in weight loss supplements or count calories meticulously when under this specific diet. Just remember to eat foods that can make up for a complete and nutritious meal.
These are some of the tips you should keep in mind when attempting a low-carb diet, you can also take our DNA Diet test to find out more about health and how your genetic markers areinvolved in your weigh
Understand What Low-Carb Means
The basic plan in most low-carb diets involves you decreasing your intake of carbohydrates with a heaping increase of fat proportion. This specific strategy can also be called the low-carb, high-fat diet, otherwise known as the keto diet.
You may be wondering why you want to increase your fat intake, especially if you are doing this diet to specifically lose weight. The problem is that most people do not value the significance that fats can bring. Most products are fluttered with low-fat “healthy diet” meals that are usually followed through with high amounts of sugar. That is one of the key reasons as to why there is a rampant surge of obesity in America. This is one of the evidence that low-fat dietary products are not the healthiest option as it could still lead you into obesity.
Research has now proven that natural fats should not be something everyone should avoid in their diet. You should, instead, use this alongside a low-carb diet to further increase the health benefits while ensuring that you are losing weight in the process. The simple math in this diet plan is that you cut your sugar and starch intake to as low as possible and you can counter that with an equal amount of natural fats.
The reason for that process on why it is effective is that sugar and starches tend to raise your blood sugar to unhealthy levels. That insulin will then store all those leftover fat, thus, making you more obese. However, when you remove the sugar out of your system then you will notice an increase in fat burning and better blood sugar levels.
One aspect you should consider when introducing this diets is how sentitive your are to some items or foods. Knowing your body is the best solution to find out what is for your and your body. If you had migraine, constipation or skin rashes after eating some foods, take our Food Intolerance Test.For vegetarians we also offer aVegetarian Food Intolerance Test
Traditional Low-Carb Diet
As it says in the name, this diet refers to simply resorting to the most basic form of low-carb dieting. That is to just simply limit or even remove carbohydrates completely from the system.
This diet plan is mainly focused on replacing as many carbs as possible while amping up the protein intake in the body. That would mean you need to emphasize your meals with increased heapings of fish, eggs, meat, seeds, vegetable, nuts, fruits, and healthy fats.
However, you also need to cut down on almost all your carbohydrate intake for the remainder of the diet. That includes certain ingredients such as grains, sugary drinks like colas, potatoes, and high-sugar junk foods.
Follow this recommended daily carb intake survey to adjust the number of limited carbohydrates you can ingest in a single day.
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100 to 150 grams
This range of carbohydrates is mainly used for those people that want to do some weight maintenance that you can couple with high-intensity workouts without suffering from fatigue.
You will have more opportunities to add some potatoes or fruits in your diet to help maintain enough sugar to power through the day.
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50 to 100 grams
This range is perfect for those seeking to lose weight in a more consistent manner.
You will be restricted from your food intake and would most likely just relegate to fruits and vegetables.
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Below 50 grams
This range is built to fast-track your weight loss to absurd levels
You will usually just result in just vegetables and a tiny bit of fruit just enough to not let your blood sugar collapse.
Ketogenic Diet
A keto diet is a form of a meal plan that would force your body into a metabolic state called ketosis, hence the name keto diet.
The diet will push your body by restricting your daily carb intake to such low levels that your insulin levels will plummet completely, thus, releasing large amounts of fatty acid to use as fuel to burn for energy.
This would push your body to stop chasing after carbohydrates for nutrients and energy and instead would rely on a substance called “ketones” The ketones are this water-soluble molecule that can pass through the barrier between the blood and the brain to help supply energy to your brain when forced upon certain harsh conditions. Those harsh conditions are the goal to achieve if you want to attempt a keto diet.
You can even find variations of this form of diet that can range from simple to extreme. Some of the more determined individuals would resort to cutting down protein intake because high-protein would resort to lower production in ketones.
This keto diet was originally formulated to treat chickens and various small farm animals with diagnosed epilepsy. Studies have shown that humans that undergo this form of diet would see vast improvements in their neurological disorders and metabolic issues such as type 2 diabetes.
A ketogenic diet would commonly involve extremely high amounts of protein-coupled with high-fat foods. However, your carbohydrate intake should never exceed 50 grams a day. In fact, a great range of carb intake should be around 20 to 30 grams a day only.
There are 3 common variants of maintaining a decent amount of carbs in your system while still following a ketogenic diet:
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SKD – Standard Keto Diet
This is the conventional ketogenic eating pattern wherein you measure the number of carbs you can take in a day beforehand
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TKD – Targeted Ketogenic Diet
This would be the type of keto diet wherein you add bits of carbs in your system while on your workouts to maintain a high-energy and high-intensity routine
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CKD – Clinical Ketogenic Diet
The diet would mainly revolve around you maintaining a strict ketogenic on most of your days but allocate at least 1 or 2 days a week of high-carb diet to regulate your body’s natural nutrient supply.
LCHF – Low-Carb, High-Fat
This form of diet is one of the simplest forms of a low-carb diet and is more geared towards healthily losing weight rather than restricting certain attributes of your system.
The low-carb, high-fat diet is as standard as it sounds due to its main difference between other diets is that this greatly emphasizes the reliance on the whole, unprocessed foods.
Foods such as meats, fishes, shellfishes, eggs, healthy fats, vegetables, dairy products, nuts, and berries are the main key components in making sure that this diet would function right. However, do note that you should stave away from any and all processed foods.
The carbohydrates range for this diet should be maintained around 20 to 100 grams per day.
Low-Carb Paleo Diet
Paleo diets refer to eating foods that were available during the Paleolithic era, hence the name Paleo. The paleolithic era mainly comprises of foods before agricultural and industrial revolutions.
Studies have shown that a return to this diet is beneficial to one’s health due to the significantly vast improvements one can have from just returning to your roots. The reason for such an improvement is that humans were originally exposed to just those limited food sources, thus, our bodies are naturally inclined to process and absorb that food with relative ease.
Some of the benefits this diet can provide are a reduction in blood sugar, less rate of heart disease productions, and weight loss.
The diet is mainly composed of meals from fish, meat, seafood, eggs, vegetables, fruits, tubers, nuts, and seeds. You need to strictly remove processed foods, added sugar, grains, legumes, and dairy products.
This diet is the most common and most embraced form of a low-carb diet. However, there are several iterations of this diet to suit different people’s fancy. Some of which include the primal blueprint and the perfect health diets, all of which are a form of the traditional paleo diet.
Atkins Diet
The Atkins diet is formulated to promote a low-carb eating plan instead of just following a single style of carbohydrates-restricted diet.
Atkins diet is divided into 4 different phases:
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Induction
The beginning phase should be focused on maintaining under 20 grams of carbohydrates per day for the next 2 weeks
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Balancing
You can slowly add-in more nuts, and other various low-carb vegetables into your diet
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Fine-Tuning
Your target weight should be getting closer and closer, which would be an ample time for you to increase your carb intake until the weight loss slows down to an easier pace
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Maintenance
This is the part where you can now ingest healthy carbs back in your system as your body can now tolerate the weight gain
This form of diet has had its fair share of demonizers throughout its inception. However, modern-day science has proven that this form of the low-carb diet is beneficial to the human body as long as ample amounts of fiber are taken to balance out the other food restrictions.If you want to improve your digestion, take right now the Gut Microbiome Test
Eco-Atkins Diet
Low-carb diets are not just reserved for a certain group of people. There are still plenty of options for those people that have specific dietary requirements. One of which can cater to the vegetarian market.
The eco-Atkins diet is essentially a vegan version of the Atkins diet.
This would substitute the various meat and fish products with something plant-based that are still high in protein and natural fats. Soy, gluten, nuts, and plant oils are just some of the examples you can use for an eco-Atkins diet.
A proper Eco-Atkins diet should generally contain 25% calories from carbohydrates, 30% from protein, and 45% from fat.
Do note that this diet would consist of higher amounts of carbs than the traditional Atkins diet but is still significantly lower than any other vegan diets available.
Consistent use of this diet has shown an improvement in weight loss and vast improvements in preventing heart disease from advancing.
Zero-Carb Diet
Low-carb diets are great for those seeking to lose weight fast and effectively. However, there are those people that want to go to more extreme lengths.
You can try and attempt the zero-carb diet which essentially means you completely erase all carbohydrates in your diet. A complete wipe.
A strict diet of only meat, fish, eggs, animal fats such as butter and lard, and only a few pinches of salt and spices for flavorings.
However, this type of diet is generally frowned upon by the science and health community due to its lack of sufficient vital nutrients in your diet. Please exercise extreme caution when attempting this diet plan.
Mediterranean Low-Carb Diet
This low-carb diet is commonly praised by most healthcare professionals for its potential benefits including preventing the growth of heart disease, breast cancer, and even type 2 diabetes.
As the name implies, a Mediterranean low-carb diet consists of meals derived from Mediterranean countries during the 20th century.
This diet is mainly focused on foods such as fatty fish rather than other traditional red meat. In addition, you would need to replace your butter and lard animal fats with extra virgin olive oil instead.
A Mediterranean low-carb diet has higher limits when it comes to carbohydrate-rich foods like whole grains compared to other low-carb diet options.
This also has the highest reported likelihood of better heart disease management than most low-carb diet plans, although, further research is still needed to fully understand the capability and extent of this diet for health beneficiaries.
General Tips For Low-Carb Diets
A low-carb diet should be something that can complement your lifestyle. Thus, you should not choose a diet that would completely hinder your life or cause serious health concerns for the sake of weight loss.
Health should always be a priority and that the best form of diet is something that you can healthily maintain for long periods of time. Remember that the proper diet for you may not be for everyone so just do what suits your goal right the most.
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