Low Carb High Protein Diets
Eating Low Carb for Weight Loss
There is a convincing theory, based on the fact that our bodies developed thousands of years before any grains and artificial sugars were available, that we are better adapted to eating low carb than high carb foods. Large amounts of grain foods didn’t enter our bodies until the around 10,000 years ago. Our bodies are much, much older than that.
What did our distant ancestors eat? They ate meat and fish, the whole animal, every bit of fat, blood, flesh and marrow. They gathered greens, fruits, and nuts in the wild. Sometimes they found honey and sometimes they found fermented fruits and had a party! But mainly it would have been meat, especially in the winter. Inuit, who had a perpetual winter, ate only meat, blood, fish and fat and they did very well on it.
The High Protein Low Carbohydrate Atkins diet has been popular since the first book “The Atkins Diet Revolution” was published in 1970s. There have been updates since the ’70s and it is still very popular. In fact it is more popular than ever.
Atkins isn’t the only high protein, low carb diet around. There are many others including “Neanderthin”, “The Carbohydrate Addicts Diet”, “Protein Power”, “The New Low Carb Way of Life”, “Sugar Busters” and the latest one The Dukan Diet . These vary in how much carbohydrate they recommend that you eat each day.
Many people swear by low carb and say that they have lost weight easily and quickly and that it is much easier to stick to than low fat and low calorie diets.
Others, usually dietitians and the medical profession, warn against it saying it is not a healthy way to eat.Some say you are just losing water. If you have ever met anyone who has lost pounds and pounds of weight on a low carb high protein diet you will be a little skeptical of this. How could you lose half your body weight and keep it off as many do, if all you lost was water?
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Low carb eating either works or doesn’t work. It surely can’t be too hard to check the results, including long term results. It is hardly a matter for speculation.
Two studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2003 vindicated the Atkins type diet. One study found that people on the high-protein, high-fat, low-carbohydrate Atkins diet lose twice as much weight over six months as those on the standard low-fat diet recommended by most major health organizations.
The 132 men and women in one study started out weighing an average of 286 pounds (129 kilograms). After six months, those on the Atkins diet had lost an average of 12.8 pounds (5.8 kilograms), those on the low-fat diet 4.2 pounds (1.9 kilograms).
Not only was the low carb diet about 60% more effective than the low fat diet but it was not found to be unhealthy. Eating all that cheese, bacon, eggs, butter and other foods containing saturated fats had no ill effects. Maratos-Flier (one of the researchers) said:
“Their blood pressure didn’t go up. Their cholesterol didn’t go up. Their triglycerides went down and their insulin level also went down,”
What do you think about low carb? Would you recommend it to someone who wanted to lose weight?
