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CALORIES STILL COUNT – THE SKINNY ON LOW-CARB DIETS
Low carb diets continue to be the craze. The premise is rather simple. Eat less carbohydrates - a lot less - and the body's fat-burning machinery cranks up its capacity to melt away body-fat. Drop the bagels, the rice, and the pasta. Skip the juice, fruit and sweets, and the body-fat will just fall off the body. That's true. Or mostly true. You see, there remains quite an important facet of losing weight that many touting a low-carb approach simply fail to acknowledge. Some continue to ignore the fact that calories still count!!!
In other words, while cutting back on carbohydrates is a viable way to lose inches and body-fat, you still have to eat fewer calories than the body needs each day to stimulate fat-loss. There is absolutely no way to get around this simple truth. Calories - the technical term for how much energy is in the foods we eat - play a huge role in losing body-fat. When you eat fewer calories, or take in less energy than the body needs, the body looks for alternative fuel sources, and in this case, that alternative is body-fat stores. And at the other end of the spectrum, if you eat more calories than your body requires (called a calorie excess), guess what? You won't lose weight!
Any diet that is low in calories will lead to weight-loss. Period. If anyone wants to argue with that simple fact, they're either kidding themselves or woefully misinformed. Still, there are some advantages to a low-carb diet that are also lower in calories.
Typically, when an individual starts a low-carb diet they ARE cutting calories. As such, they lose weight. Hum…what a concept! However, when beginning a low-carb diet the weight-loss is 90% water loss. That’s right – water, not body-fat. Why? Glad you asked. For every one gram of carbohydrate that our bodies retain they also retain three grams of water. So what has happened is very simple. A low-carb diet is started which is INITIALLY lower in calories than one has been eating AND dramatically lower in water-retention abilities. A person will lose a lot of weight fast in this scenario! But after approximately two weeks the body WILL adjust to the diet and will require a lower amount of CALORIES to continue losing weight. If the proper adjustments are not made the body stops losing weight.
Low-carb diets are unique in one aspect. Carbohydrates cause the body to produce a hormone called insulin. For many dieters, insulin could be deemed an enemy because it has been touted as the "hunger hormone." High insulin surges - the result of eating carbohydrates - can significantly spike the appetite creating the illusion that you may not have eaten enough. Simply stated, carbohydrates - because of their effect on insulin levels - can make you feel hungry. And what do hungry people do? Eat! In fact, research has shown that rats injected with extra insulin and fed a high carbohydrate diet become so hungry - so aggressively hungry - they don't stop eating until their stomachs explode! HOWEVER, most people have these insulin surges simply because they don't eat frequently enough. The single most important benefit of low-carb diets is that they control the release of insulin, and that would NEVER be necessary if people would commit to eating 4-6 small meals instead of 2-3 large ones. Eating several small meals per day provides the body with a constant supply of nutrients, a faster metabolism and controls the release of insulin WITHOUT REDUCING CARBS. This is an irrefutable fact that proponents of low-carb diets refuse to admit.
The other downside to insulin is that it exerts a storing effect in the body, allowing the foods you eat to more-readily be stored as body-fat. How so? Insulin influences other hormones and enzymes that virtually seal off body-fat stores preventing them from being burned and also upgrade the body's ability to make new body-fat. That being said, whichever low-carb plan you choose, make sure it is also lower in calories! That means when cutting carbs, you'll also have to keep a close eye on your intake of dietary fat in order to keep calories under control. You can’t expect to lose weight by eating outrageous amounts of butter or inhaling Fred Flintstone-sized portions of steak and meat. You have to practice proportion control. When following a low-carb plan, you certainly can eat some higher fat foods like cheese, beef, and small amounts of bacon or ham, but you always have to remember to eat fewer calories than your body needs in any given day.
You must keep in mind that every gram of fat contains nine (9) calories as opposed to four (4) calories found in a gram of carbohydrate. Based on these numbers, do you really think you can pound down gram after gram of fat and still lose weight? Hell No!
What happens when you follow a low-carb diet that's packed with too much fat? Because insulin is controlled - by eating few, if any, carbohydrates - you feel less hungry, but weight loss will not occur unless you slash those calories. As far as I can see, that's the new problem many low-carb dieters are facing. They chop the carbohydrates from the diet but eat copious amounts of fat or even too much protein, negating the calorie deficit, and thus they fail to lose weight. At best, they ultimately hit a plateau with their weight-loss. It’s inevitable!
So how many calories do you need? I'll state that the inactive individual can establish a good calorie range by taking their desired body weight and tagging a zero at the end. For example, the 200 pound person who wants to weight 150 pounds would simply add a "zero" at the end of his desired weight of 150, which gives us 1500. That's a desirable calorie target that you'll need to follow in order to create a calorie deficit allowing you to lose weight. Carb-wise, you'll have to limit them to 50-70 gram a day or less as carb intake on low-carb diets also varies from person to person.
One way to keep calories under control while following a low-carb plan is to rule out large quantities of these foods in which are high in fat content:
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Foods to Avoid |
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Instead, Choose: |
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Salmon |
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Flounder, Scallops, Shrimp |
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T-Bone Steak |
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Round Steak, Eye of Round, Flank Steak |
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Butter |
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Butter Spray |
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Whole Eggs |
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Egg Whites mixed with whole veggies |
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Bacon |
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Turkey Bacon |
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Ground Beef |
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Extra lean ground beef, ground turkey breast |
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Whole Chicken |
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Skinless chicken breasts, thighs, legs |
The other trick to controlling calories is to eat plenty of low-calorie vegetables which yield but a negligible number of carbohydrates. I know a lot of people still can't mouth huge portions of veggies - but the key to enjoying them is in the preparations. Be creative. One way to get your fill - without getting your fill in calories - is to steam them and then sprinkle them with Butter Buds or spices. When you are following a low-carb diet, you CAN use spices that contain salt and not expect to see the water retention accompanied with higher-carbohydrate diets. That's because low-carb diets help control a water-retaining hormone (we talked about this earlier) which also allows sodium and water to flow out of the body.
A Quick Take on the Carb Controversy
Lately, there has been a lot of bickering back and forth about the positives and/or negatives of eating a low-carb diet. Please, don’t base your decision on whether its right for you from what you hear in the major media. For that matter, don't base any decisions on what you hear in the major media, but that's another story.
Recently, I read the following quote, "These Atkinesque diets urge people to eat endless amounts of meats, eggs and cheese, but tell dieters to steer clear of any bread, pasta, rice or juice."
And therein lays the biggest misperception of low-carb diets. In fact, calling it a low-carb diet is a misnomer. The purpose of these diets is not to eliminate carbs from your diet! Diets such as Atkins diet are more accurately described as eating the exact amount of carbohydrates each day that is the appropriate amount for your specific body and that allows you to prevent gaining body-fat.
There is a HUGE difference between that description and saying you basically shouldn't eat carbs. On any low-carb diet, you should practically eliminate carbs for about two weeks (20 grams or less per day) and then gradually add back carbs to your diet until you find the right amount specific to you. In fact, Atkins diet has you eating salads from day one. (By the way, lettuce and vegetables ARE carbohydrates).
For some people, 100 grams of carbs a day may be right for them while others may be able to eat 400 grams of carbs in a day and still considered to be on the Atkins diet. The Atkins diet, like any low-carb diet, is actually a person-specific diet with regards to carb intake. Of course, the type of carbs you eat is also very important and something we can explore in further detail in a later issue.
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