Let me share with you my personal experience with a low carbohydrate diet - why it didn't work and what eventually did.
Like so many people around this world of ours, I struggled, and still do, with weight loss issues. Its not that I am overly obese or overweight but like so many men, I suffer from the good old large belly syndrome. My wife wanted me to lose weight and get back to the body that I had when I first met her. So I looked into what options there were. Turning on the television shopping channel and you are completely inundated with all sorts of whiz bang exercise gadgets and gizmos with beautiful tanned models telling you that all you have to do is purchase this machine and you'll have a body as great as them. Their sales pitch always goes something along the lines of just an hour a day in front of the television and you'll be feeling the results in days. I tell you what results I normally feel from these gadgets - I feel exhausted and soon I feel ripped off because after a few weeks, I give up as the initial novelty wears off, the day to day activities get in the way, and I don't see any real results. So then you turn to diet plans instead. And we all know one of the most commonly marketed diet plan is the low carb diet. There was so much marketing buzz about this plan that I had to try it.
There are many different low carb diet plans on the market but I think the best known and most talked about plan is the Atkins Diet. Essentially all of these plans have the same basic message - limit the amount of carbohydrates that are consumed, as carbohydrates turn into fat. The focus of these plans is that you need to count the number of carbs that go into your daily diet and limit the amount according to your own body type or to a set amount as dictated by the diet program. The Atkins diet also involves a two week induction process that basically says no carbs at all and also eliminate all fruit and vegetable intake. The theory behind this is that your body then goes into a state called ketosis where, unable to get energy from carbohydrate, existing fat stores are burnt as a source of energy. After this initial phase, the diet then moves into somewhat less severe phases of weight loss and weight maintenance, but still operates in a mode of restricted carbohydrate consumption.
On paper and in theory, these programs probably do work. It makes sense that by cutting out the foods that turn into fat, you will be able to reduce your fat stores and thus lose weight. But the issue is, theory does not equal real life. The reason why so many people, including me, fail with low carb diets, is that our bodies are used to the kind of energy that we get from carb intake. What basically happened to me is that during the induction period, when I stopped eating any carbohydrates, no sugar nor fruit nor vegetables, I basically felt completely flat and listless and had no energy at all to do anything. By the end of week one I was completely ready to give it all up. I pushed on, but by the mid week two, I couldn't take it any longer and binged on carbs and fruit for a few hours. I then felt guilty and decided to restart the two weeks all over again. Needless to say by the end of week three, I was completely out of it and unable to really function properly. I didn't feel like even getting out of bed which then impacted my family and work life.
I basically didn't even make it out of the initial induction period and it made me depressed! I felt like I had failed and had a lot of negative thoughts about myself and food altogether.
This is essentially the reason why low carb diets, especially the Atkins diet, simply don't work. Whilst in theory they should work, they do not take into account practical life and every day living nor the impacts it can have on people. If I was living in a glass bubble where I didn't actually have any responsibilities nor did I have to go to work, this diet may have worked. But most people I know lead fairly hectic lives that require energy to sustain themselves.
It wasn't until someone pointed me to an alternative diet plan that I was able to pick myself up out of this rut and start feeling better for myself. What attracted me to this new diet plan was the fact that I didn't have to go into this unpractical state of consuming no carbs nor did I have to count calories nor purchase some fancy dietary supplements. The new diet was also based on proven results with all sorts of people and was scientifically proven to work. It also allowed me to eat more meals a day and allowed me to eat most of the things I normally eat.
The diet plan is based around the fact that our bodies do one of two things when you eat food, it either fires up fat burning hormones and thus burns off the fat in the food you are eating as well as fat stored in your body, or it fires up fat storage hormones which basically means you add more fat to your body. The diet plan focuses on an eating plan that optimizes the production of your fat burning hormones. The plan not only consists of what foods to eat it also involves a set time to eat. Contrary to popular belief, three meals a day is not a healthy eating plan - five to six meals a day is! (although obviously these meals are smaller than what most people eat during their three meals a day structure).
This revolutionary diet plan is based around a notion called Shifting Calories. This is because your metabolism always burns calories based on your eating habits during the past few days because it assumes that you'll continue to eat in the same general way. If you shift your calories and shock your body by eating different things on different days, then you can start to increase your metabolism and fat burning hormones thus burning away more fat. Whilst it may sound complicated, let me assure you the diet plan is very easy to follow.
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Like so many people around this world of ours, I struggled, and still do, with weight loss issues. Its not that I am overly obese or overweight but like so many men, I suffer from the good old large belly syndrome. My wife wanted me to lose weight and get back to the body that I had when I first met her. So I looked into what options there were. Turning on the television shopping channel and you are completely inundated with all sorts of whiz bang exercise gadgets and gizmos with beautiful tanned models telling you that all you have to do is purchase this machine and you'll have a body as great as them. Their sales pitch always goes something along the lines of just an hour a day in front of the television and you'll be feeling the results in days. I tell you what results I normally feel from these gadgets - I feel exhausted and soon I feel ripped off because after a few weeks, I give up as the initial novelty wears off, the day to day activities get in the way, and I don't see any real results. So then you turn to diet plans instead. And we all know one of the most commonly marketed diet plan is the low carb diet. There was so much marketing buzz about this plan that I had to try it.
There are many different low carb diet plans on the market but I think the best known and most talked about plan is the Atkins Diet. Essentially all of these plans have the same basic message - limit the amount of carbohydrates that are consumed, as carbohydrates turn into fat. The focus of these plans is that you need to count the number of carbs that go into your daily diet and limit the amount according to your own body type or to a set amount as dictated by the diet program. The Atkins diet also involves a two week induction process that basically says no carbs at all and also eliminate all fruit and vegetable intake. The theory behind this is that your body then goes into a state called ketosis where, unable to get energy from carbohydrate, existing fat stores are burnt as a source of energy. After this initial phase, the diet then moves into somewhat less severe phases of weight loss and weight maintenance, but still operates in a mode of restricted carbohydrate consumption.
On paper and in theory, these programs probably do work. It makes sense that by cutting out the foods that turn into fat, you will be able to reduce your fat stores and thus lose weight. But the issue is, theory does not equal real life. The reason why so many people, including me, fail with low carb diets, is that our bodies are used to the kind of energy that we get from carb intake. What basically happened to me is that during the induction period, when I stopped eating any carbohydrates, no sugar nor fruit nor vegetables, I basically felt completely flat and listless and had no energy at all to do anything. By the end of week one I was completely ready to give it all up. I pushed on, but by the mid week two, I couldn't take it any longer and binged on carbs and fruit for a few hours. I then felt guilty and decided to restart the two weeks all over again. Needless to say by the end of week three, I was completely out of it and unable to really function properly. I didn't feel like even getting out of bed which then impacted my family and work life.
I basically didn't even make it out of the initial induction period and it made me depressed! I felt like I had failed and had a lot of negative thoughts about myself and food altogether.
This is essentially the reason why low carb diets, especially the Atkins diet, simply don't work. Whilst in theory they should work, they do not take into account practical life and every day living nor the impacts it can have on people. If I was living in a glass bubble where I didn't actually have any responsibilities nor did I have to go to work, this diet may have worked. But most people I know lead fairly hectic lives that require energy to sustain themselves.
It wasn't until someone pointed me to an alternative diet plan that I was able to pick myself up out of this rut and start feeling better for myself. What attracted me to this new diet plan was the fact that I didn't have to go into this unpractical state of consuming no carbs nor did I have to count calories nor purchase some fancy dietary supplements. The new diet was also based on proven results with all sorts of people and was scientifically proven to work. It also allowed me to eat more meals a day and allowed me to eat most of the things I normally eat.
The diet plan is based around the fact that our bodies do one of two things when you eat food, it either fires up fat burning hormones and thus burns off the fat in the food you are eating as well as fat stored in your body, or it fires up fat storage hormones which basically means you add more fat to your body. The diet plan focuses on an eating plan that optimizes the production of your fat burning hormones. The plan not only consists of what foods to eat it also involves a set time to eat. Contrary to popular belief, three meals a day is not a healthy eating plan - five to six meals a day is! (although obviously these meals are smaller than what most people eat during their three meals a day structure).
This revolutionary diet plan is based around a notion called Shifting Calories. This is because your metabolism always burns calories based on your eating habits during the past few days because it assumes that you'll continue to eat in the same general way. If you shift your calories and shock your body by eating different things on different days, then you can start to increase your metabolism and fat burning hormones thus burning away more fat. Whilst it may sound complicated, let me assure you the diet plan is very easy to follow.
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