The Athlete

Calories, not Carbs

A lot of people are counting the calories and the carbs on food labels. Between the two, which one should you be taking a closer look at? Low carb diets tend to promise that you will not have to count calories at all. Low calorie diets tend to be well balanced, but take a little longer to reach your target weight.

One of the main reasons that people think that their diets are not working anymore is because their diet simply plateaus. If you start out with 2,000 calories a day and you start to lose some weight, everything seems to be going good. Then suddenly you stop losing weight and you are still taking in 2,000 calories a day. You start to automatically think that the diet is failing. That is not true; your 2,000 calories a day has just become your maintenance level and is not affected by your metabolism. If you plan to keep losing weight you will have to cut back on some more calories. Then your body will readjust to a new calorie intake and you will start losing weight once more.

How would you go about configuring how many calories you should consume? There are two ways of configuring your calorie intake to maintain your weight. If you kept a good record of how many calories you consumed for a couple of weeks, you could see how your weight changed during that time and have a rough estimate of how many calories you should be taking in. Within two weeks, if you have gained or lost some weight you can adjust the calorie intake a few hundred in one direction or the other. Soon enough you will know your calorie maintenance level. The name low carb diet seems to be appealing to many Americans these days. One reason is because you don’t have to count calories.

Portion sizes are extremely important when it comes to a low carb diet according to 83 percent of primary care physicians. What if you restrict calories and carbs? If you have thought of restricting both, calories and carbs, you are in for a major disappointment. Restricting them both will be a no win situation. You may lose more weight, but you will lose more water. Those who were just on a low calorie diet didn’t lose as much water, and had a balanced diet. In the long run of low calorie low carb diets after about 8 weeks, more pounds were lost as well as cholesterol and insulin production than those who were on just a low calorie diet.

Being on a low carb diet can deplete potassium in your body and you will probably be advised by your healthcare provider to take a potassium supplements. You will also be very dehydrated and dehydration is most likely accompanied with a potassium life.

By being on the low carb diet you can lose a great amount of weight and not have to count calories. By not counting calories you can save you some time and money. By counting calories you may have a healthier well balanced diet along with fitness you can then more calories and have a healthier life style.