Low-Carb Diets: 3 Reasons Why They Don’t Work
I know you’re curious, but first, you should know that the word “diet” is misleading. A “diet” isn’t something you do to lose weight; a diet describes how you eat. Regardless of what your diet is called, it’s important to know that the foundation behind losing weight (fat) is to consume less calories than you take in. There are many urban legends behind the low-carb diet, and we’ve got some science to explain why they’re true or false.
1. Carbs aren’t evil, but too much of them are.
If your body is an engine, carbohydrates are like jet fuel; it’s your body’s favorite source of energy because it’s more intense and quicker burning than fat and protein, which are the other macronutrients you consume daily.
And much like your car, driving with the pedal to the metal will burn your car’s fuel pretty quickly, leaving you with no fuel. This explains why you crash soon after drinking sodas and other sugary drinks.
Besides the crash, there’s an ugly side to carbs. In normal amounts, which vary from person to person, carbohydrates aren’t all that bad. When they enter your body, they trigger your liver to produce insulin. Insulin is a good thing—it patrols your bloodstream, cleaning up excess sugars your body doesn’t need.
However, when you consume too many carbs (which become sugar), your body can’t produce enough insulin to keep up. The result: the insulin in your body takes the excess sugar and stores it into cells, which becomes fat.
2. Depriving your body of a consistent source of energy is bad.
We know that in excess, carbohydrates can lead to fat stores in the body, which explains unsightly love handles and other areas prone to fatty tissue. It’s why some people look to low-carb diets, hoping that by substantially reducing their carb intake, their body will burn fat for energy instead. This can be achieved, but only if you replace with them with another macronutrient.
By nature, your body will never use fat as a source of energy unless it has to; your body loves to store excess energy as fat as a survival mechanism, and will only break down those fat stores for energy when it thinks you need it to survive. This is the basis of cardiovascular exercise; moving your body to burn more energy than you’ve consumed prompts it to look to fat stores for energy, causing you to lose weight.
Knowing that your body will use fat only as a last resort for energy, there’s only one other possible source of energy it can use: protein. This is the very protein that comprises your muscles and other fibrous tissue. You can imagine why this would be bad.
3. Not all nutrients are created equal
They all perform the same basic function, though: provide your body with energy. They have other benefits, too, but they also fuel your body. The issue here is that low-carb diets emphasize the evil that is low carbs, and some often promote protein intake over fat intake. It’s important to understand that these macronutrients each provide a different amount of energy and in different intensities. Energy provided by a diet high in fat promotes consistent and sustained energy because it contains the highest amount of calories per gram. One gram of fat contains 9 calories, where protein and carbs each contain 4 calories each.
How to make low-carb diets work
We’ve learned that fat contains more energy per gram than the other macronutrients, and that the reason why it’s so hard for your body to burn fat is because it instinctively saves it for when it think it needs it to survive. We also learned why depriving your body from carbs, your body’s main source of energy, without replacing it with a viable alternative is bad.
If you want to eat low-carb, many people have tried a Ketogenic diet with some success, which requires you to use dietary fats as your main source of energy. To read more on ketosis and how the Ketogenic diet works, check out this Wikipedia article.
