Chapter 3 – Which Low Carb Diet Is Right For Me?
Now that you know what low carb dieting is and whether it’s safe, we must ask ourselves “Which one is actually for ME?
There are many things that can qualify a diet to be low-carb. The most popular plans have a range of carb levels and food choices different from one another. Although they are different, all of them cut out most sugars, starches, and gluten.
By doing some research, you may find various diets; such as the Atkins diet, the No White Diet, or the South Beach Diet. All of these are great, but they also have different levels of difficulty to say the least.
The Atkins diet allows you to eat a lot of vegetables and then in later phases add in carbohydrates like fruits and whole grains. It’s a harder diet at the beginning since you are pushed to eat lean proteins more than fruits or the usual sandwich we are so used to. After the starting phases, you can add in more variety of foods, snacks, and carbohydrates. This would be a great diet for a stay at home mother, who might have more time to prepare the food and actually sit down and eat meals instead of grabbing the first thing that comes to hand in a grocery store.
The No White Diet, on the other hand, is great for everyone! Basically, you just stop eating anything that is white or that has white ingredients, which nowadays is easier to find. You get to eat healthier by cutting sugars, white flour (pasta, bread, cake, donuts, etc.), white rice, and white potatoes. This alone cuts back in the carbohydrate percentage of your diet, but is quite easy to accomplish. You learn to create healthier recipes and of course to eat healthier foods in the store. You now have the ability to buy whole wheat/gluten-free bread or sugar-free and whole-wheat muffins! You get to keep some amazing white foods in your diet though, such as tofu, cauliflower, and onions, which are low in carbohydrates and actually very good for you!
Now in saying these things about the 2 mentioned so far, there are 3 significant points I would like to emphasize:
1. The long-range success rate for low-carb and other types of diets is comparable.
2. Despite their acceptance, little data exists on the long-term efficacy and safeness of variations of the low-carbohydrate diets.
3. Rigorous low-carb diets are generally not sustainable as a routine way of eating. Boredom most often overcomes willpower.
Now, strict low-carb diets like the Keto diet, generate ketosis which is an unusual and potentially stressful metabolic state. This leads to very quick fat loss but under some circumstances this may cause health related complications.
The Low Carb diet you choose should be a blueprint for a lifetime of better eating, not just a hasty weight loss plan to reach your goal. If you can't see yourself eating the prescribed foods longer than a few days or a week, then chances are it's not the proper diet for you. To this end, following a somewhat low fat diet with a healthy balance of fat, protein, carbohydrate and other nutrients is beneficial.
If you do resolve to follow a low-carb arrangement, bear in mind that certain dietary fats are associated with reduction of disease. Foods high in unsaturated fats that are free of trans-fatty acids such as olive oil, fish, flaxseeds, and nuts are preferred to fats from animal origins.
Even promoters of the Atkins diet now say men and women on their system should curb the amount of red meat and saturated fat they eat. Atkins representatives are telling health professionals that just 20 percent of a dieter's calories should come from saturated fat (i.e. meat, cheese, butter). This switch comes as Atkins faces contention from other popular low-carb diets that call for less saturated fat, such as the South Beach diet plan.
Another alternative to "strict" low-carb dieting would be to give up some of the bad carbohydrate foods but not "throw out the baby with the bath water". In other words, foods high in processed sugar, snacks, and white bread would be avoided, but foods high in complex carbs such as fruits, potatoes and whole grains, retained.
I would suggest further research into the diets mentioned and deciding what is best. Whatever plan you do choose should fit right into your lifestyle and allow you to be yourself while still losing weight through inhibiting carbohydrate intake.