Weight Loss: Carbs? Or No Carbs?

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Title —– Weight Loss: Carbs? Or No Carbs?

Weight Loss: Carbs? Or No Carbs?
—————————————— Dietitians just plain
don’t like low-carb or high-protein diets.

Whether it’s The Atkins Diet, The Stillman Diet, The Scarsdale
Diet or Eat Yourself Thin Like I Did by Nancy Moshier, a
popular, new book that recommends a low-carb regimen, medical
experts say these diets are not part of long-term weight
maintenance.

“All of these diets, they are warmed-over versions of The Atkins
Diet,” says Heather Holden, RD, LDN, clinical dietitian at
Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. “Low-carb,
high-protein, it doesn’t matter what you call them, they don’t
work in the long run.”

But some aspects of Eat Yourself Thin are useful, says Holden.
In particular, the book’s focus on calorie counting can be
useful.

How Many Calories Do You Need

—————————– “The best thing about the book is
that it teaches people how to calculate an approximate basal
metabolic rate,” says Holden. “That’s the number of calories
your body needs every day to maintain a constant weight. The
number is different for everyone.”

The book, says Holden, tells readers to establish their ideal
body weight and then multiply that number by 10 to arrive at the
daily calorie intake. For example, if your ideal body weight was
130 pounds, you would multiply that 130 by 10 to get 1,300
calories per day.

“That is a very rough estimate of what you need to eat each day
at your ideal weight,” says Holden. “So that gives you a place
to start. If you weigh 160 pounds, and your ideal weight is 130
pounds, then you start a calorie diary to see how much you’re
eating each day. Then you can get a better idea of how much you
can eat every day to start working off weight to get closer to
your ideal weight.”

That much, she says, is useful. But the book goes on to tout the
wonders of low-carb eating as the best way to maximize loss of
body fat.

“That’s the part you want to avoid,” says Holden. “Low-carb
diets provide quick weight loss but do not help you maintain
weight loss.”

The American Dietetic Association (ADA) says that both low-carb
and high-protein diets are bad.

“These diets are not safe, they are not healthy, and they are
not a good way to try to get healthy,” says Leslie Bonci, RD,
nutritionist with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Sports Complex and a spokesperson for the ADA. “They provide
short-term, rapid weight loss by causing the body to shed water
weight and muscle. But that is no way to keep weight off for
very long, and it’s dangerous to your body chemistry.”

Dangerous Process
—————————————————— According
to the ADA, low-carb diets and others like it trigger short-term
weight loss through a process called ketosis. This process kicks
in when your body is in short supply of carbohydrates, a prime
source of energy for the entire body, but especially for the
brain, which operates exclusively on carbohydrates.

During ketosis, your carbohydrate-depleted body grabs other
sources, including ketones from stored fat or protein, to
satisfy daily energy needs. This leads to ketoacidosis, a state
similar to that seen with type 1 diabetes. This type of diet can
have a negative long-term impact on health.

“Next time you talk to someone on one of these diets, pay
attention to their mental state, how alert they seem,” says
Holden. “The lack of carbohydrates tends to make them seem a bit
fuzzy mentally because the brain is not getting enough fuel. Is
that any way to diet?”

New Research Supports It
——————————————————— But a
study in the July 2002 issue of the American Journal of Medicine
showed that the most famous of low-carb diets, the Atkins diet,
does work.

Study participants lost an average of 20 pounds while on the
Atkins diet for six months, but they were not followed longer to
see if they kept the weight off. Most people also had improved
cholesterol levels at the end of the study, even though the
eating plan permits unlimited quantities of cholesterol-rich
foods such as eggs and meat.

The study was funded by a grant from the Robert Atkins Center
for Complementary Medicine. Duke researcher Eric Westman, MD,
says he became interested in studying the Atkins diet after
several of his patients lost large amounts of weight on it.

But though researchers were impressed by the weight loss, they
say more study is needed to pronounce the
carbohydrate-restricting diet safe.

Safe Dieting
——————————————————- Here’s
how the American Heart Association says to take weight off, and
keep it off.

Be active: try walking 30 minutes a day most days of the week.

To lose weight, most women should eat 1,200-1,500 calories per
day.

To lose weight, most men should eat 1,500-1,800 calories a day.

A loss of one to two pounds per week is considered a healthy
weight loss.

People who lose weight gradually are more likely to keep the
weight off.

Eat no more than 30% of your total calories from fat.

Include at least five servings of fruit and vegetables in your
diet each day.

Examine your eating habits — keep a written journal of what and
when you eat.

Weigh yourself only once a week.

Eat breakfast to curb binge eating.

“There are still a lot of things we don’t know about food and
nutrition,” says Holden. “Nutrition is a relatively young
science, but we do know that you can trick the body’s mechanisms
in the short run. In the long run, however, those short cuts
catch up with you in the form of weight gain.”

Source: WebMD

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