“Cookie Cutter” Low Carb Diet Plans
Explained

by Jenny
Mathers

Most diet plans, including low carb diet plans
are best taken with a grain of salt, because although one may
work for your best friend, it may not work for you. For those
with serious weight problems and have co-existing issues such as
hyperglycaemia (high blood sugar levels) or like some of us
hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar levels) etc., the popular diet
plans usually will not be able to cater to individual needs.

We are all individuals and as such we need to feed ourselves as
individuals, having said this some diet plans will be more
beneficial for the general population that others. To assess
which particular diet plan will be beneficial, you can follow
these guidelines. They are very much common sense points, and
provide a good framework which many nutrition professionals
would broadly follow, and within which you can divide the scammy
diet plans from those that can offer you safe and healthy diet
ideas.

1. Diet offers sufficient balance and a variety of
   carbohydrates, protein and fats.
2. Diet does not exclude one
   particular food group, and encourage excessive consumption of
   another.
3. Diet encourages exercise to complement sensible
   eating habits.
4. Diet encourages awareness of portion sizes.

5. Diet does not encourage unrealistic quick weight loss.
6. Diet is backed up with medical research data.

In
addition to these points, I’ve broadly outlined the low carb
diet plans, which seem to be occupying the minds of dieters and
researchers alike, as well as the research for and against
pertinent to the low carb diet plans.

Low Carb Diets

A lot of the diet plans these days center around the low carb
diet plans. These low carb diet plans are considered by some
diet fads, others consider it the new wave in healthy eating.
Diets such as The New Atkins Diet Revolution maintain that obese
people are insulin sensitive and carbohydrates make them gain
weight. Low carb diet plans such as The Zone lay down specific
proportion of carbohydrates, protein and fats that should be
consumed in order to lose weight and while fats are reduced, the
main source of energy comes from the consumption of protein.

Low carb diet plans such as Sugar Busters, believe that sugar is
your body’s most heinous weight loss enemy and since
carbohydrates are the foods that are processed into sugars –
carbohydrates should be limited. The Scarsdale Diet also is a
low carb, high protein diet and offers a 2 week crash dieting
plan.

Popular diets such as the South Beach Diet and the Carbohydrate
Addicts Diet are also low carb diet plans that have become
popular with dieters who have tried and failed at the Atkins
diet. All these diets see themselves as the worlds answer to the
obesity problem.

To be fair, there are significant and many research papers that
support and argue against the low carb revolution, as yet the
wider medical community has not fully made it’s mind up as to
whether the diets are something that is favourable in the long
term.

Recent research by Layman et. al., and Saris have found that the
low carb and high protein diets provide little benefit to
dieters. Researchers found that when protein was moderately
increased and carbohydrates proportionately decreased, insulin
levels stabilised but no significant weight was lost. Saris in
his review concluded that it is probable that a low carb, high
fat diet will increase the likelihood of weight gain.

While there is a lot of evidence against the low carb
philosophy, there is also a lot of evidence to support it.
Research published in May, 2004, found that when patients on a
low carb diet were compared with patients on a low fat diet,
those patients who had consumed a low carb diet had a greater
weight loss, decreased triglyceride levels and increased levels
of HDL’s – in other words their cholesterol levels had improved.
To put the icing on the cake research has just been published to
support the long
term efficacy of eating a low carb diet.

Despite the evidence to support low carb diet plans, mainstream
medicine still does not recommend them. The main points of
contention with the low carb, high protein diets is that they
don’t offer balance and variety and could prove dangerous for
people at risk of heart disease. Particularly with low carb diet
plans such as the scarsdale diet, they are not realistic and
cannot be maintained in the long term causing yo-yo dieting and
no one wants that !

References:

Wim HM Saris Sugars, energy metabolism, and body weight
control Am J Clin Nutr 78: 850S-857S

Donald
K. Layman, Harn Shiue, Carl Sather, Donna J. Erickson and Jamie
Baum Increased Dietary Protein Modifies Glucose and Insulin
Homeostasis in Adult Women during Weight Loss Nu
trition.org

Yamashita T, Sasahara T, Pomeroy SE, Collier G, Nestel PJ.
Arterial compliance, blood pressure, plasma leptin, and
plasma lipids in women are improved with weight reduction
equally with a meat-based diet and a plant-based diet.
Metabolism. 1998 Nov;47(11):1308-14.

Yancy WS Jr, Olsen MK, Guyton JR, Bakst RP, Westman EC. A
low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet versus a low-fat diet to treat
obesity and hyperlipidemia: a randomized, controlled trial.
Ann Intern Med. 2004 May 18;140(10):769-77.

Copyright © 2004 Jenny Mathers. All Rights Reserved.

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