If you are new to dieting or just the term ‘low carb’ you are probably wondering how it differs from the more favored diet lifestyles like low calorie or low fat. You are likely looking at the food list with its ‘eat meat’ approach and cream cheese, butter and cheese being major parts of meals and thinking ‘This doesn’t sound like anything that would really work!’.

The fact is that it DOES work for millions of people that have not had any luck with other diets, pills and fads. Let’s first talk about what a Carb really is.

What is a Carbohydrate?

Carbohydrates are the main source of energy for the body. Carbs come mostly from plant based sources in three forms being sugars, starches and fiber. Carbs are to your body what gasoline is to a vehicle. A precious resource not to be squandered – no matter how much is coming in. Your body will either use the carbs you are eating immediately for energy or store them as fat to be used later when maybe you are not eating any carbs. The problem is, these days, we never stop eating carbs. On top of that, we eat way more carbs than our body could ever think of using. And thus we end up with a lot of fat.

What’s so bad about Carbohydrates?

Carbs are not bad, just too many carbs are bad. Also, not all carbs are the same. For example Fiber carbs don’t count because your body doesn’t process or do anything with fiber. It just passes right through your system. However sugar and starch carbs -are- bad. So again, its in how many of the bad carbs you actually eat.  How many carbs should I eat then? There is no defined ‘Nutritional Guideline’ for carb intake, but most agree that between 180-230 a day is a good goal if you’re not trying to lose weight, scaling the amount based on your level of activity.  So lets look at what someone might eat in a day:

Bowl of Quaker instant Oatmeal Cinnamon Roll Flavor – 33 Carbs ( The Daily Plate )

Starbucks Tall White Chocolate Mocha – 48 Carbs ( Starbucks Nutritonal Values)

Whopper JR Combo Medium From Burger King – Whopper JR/Cheese, Medium Fries, Medium Diet Coke – 92 Carbs – Add 79 More carbs if you drink a regular coke. (Burger King Nutritional Values)

Small bag of Doritos – (The smallest size you can get) – 18 Carbs ( The Daily Plate )

Chicken Breast, Mashed Potatoes, Peas For dinner -42 Carbs

As you can see, the idea of the menu above was not to try and say a person was eating horribly, but what one could consider ‘average’. Keep in mind that any additional foods like if they had a roll with dinner, or a chocolate bar or desert after dinner would of all drastically effected this person’s carb intake.  So this subject was right around 233 carbs, which is at the maximum and a smidgen over what would be recommended for a very active person’s diet. This would be someone with a very physical job for instance.

Take a few moments now and use the internet (in another tab or window, don’t leave us!) to evaluate your daily eating habits. The Daily Plate on LiveStrong is a great tool to do this with as you can type in about any food you can imagine and get the nutritional values for it.

Whatever your carb calculation was, I am sure that it was likely not anywhere near the 20-40 carbs a day suggested for someone trying to lose weight! Even if you are currently on a low calorie or low fat diet, you will probably see that your carb intake is high. What you likely DON’T see is the scale giving you the results you want!

So how does a Low Carb Diet work?

A low carb diet works in a pretty simple way. You strictly maintain your carb intake, and may choose to exercise as well. Although it is suggested that you are careful with exercise. You should do light cardio and focus more on lifting weights. If you are a female and don’t want to ‘bulk up’, lift light weights with a lot of repetitions. However, many people find great success on a low carb diet WITHOUT exercise.  You heard right. You will get faster results and in general tone up and look better adding exercise, but its not a die hard requirement to lose weight on a low carb diet.

Induction & Ketosis

By monitoring your carb intake and reducing it to 20 carbs for two weeks, you will help your body rapidly enter what is called ‘Ketosis’. This stage is called ‘induction’ by many low carb resources, most notably the Atkins diet plan. Ketosis is a state that you will strive to maintain through out your low carb lifestyle. Ketosis is when your body has run out of carbs you have ingested, and starts using some of the ones it has packed away – fat. So you start burning fat like a furnace! When I tell you pounds will melt off, I mean it! You will really be amazed of how much you will lose in just two weeks. 8-15 pounds is not unheard of at all. You can remain in induction as long as you like but its not necessary to stay in it for longer than 2-3 weeks. TIP: Drink A LOT of water! This will help you flush more fat out and keep all your organs healthy.

You can monitor your Ketosis state with Keytone strips. These are urine strips that change color to show you how much fat you are passing out of your system.  You will want it to be between moderate and large during this stage.

After Induction

The next phase is referred to as the Ongoing Weight Loss or ‘Owl’ stage by Atkins diet. You will always want to stay in Ketosis as long as you are trying to lose weight. As long as you are in Ketosis, you’re body is burning fat rapidly and that’s what you want. After induction, you can start adding 5 carbs a week to your diet, so for example going from 20 carbs a day to 25 carbs a day for a week, the next week you would be at 30 carbs a day for a week. Monitor your Ketosis state and determine when it starts to go down. Once you go from burning moderate/large to a lower burn rate, reduce by 5 carbs a day for a week at a time until you find your ‘zone’. This will be the number of carbs you can personally eat and still stay in Ketosis and losing weight. This will differ for everyone because everyone’s activity differs. If you are committed to exercising three times a week, you will be able to have more carbs. If you work a more physical job, you will be able to have more carbs. If you are like a good deal of us and sit all day at desk jobs and have no time for working out, your carb allowance will be less.

After I lose all my weight, what then?

So after you lose all the weight you want to lose, you will be a very happy person, likely have a new wardrobe and a new outlook on life. You will feel so much better about yourself, and you will be very proud of your accomplishment as you should be! You will now enter the maintain stage, where you will remain unless you ever want to gain or lose weight. In this stage, you will follow the same increase pattern as in the Owl stage, increasing your carb intake by 5 a day for a week at a time. You will monitor your Ketosis until you find the happy place where you’re only showing trace/small. This is where you want to be. At trace/small, you’re still burning but at a very slight rate. You can go ahead and take it 5 more carbs a day further just until you see the Ketosis go to Trace/neutral if you like. This means you’ve stopped burning all together but you don’t want to go too far or you will start gaining weight. Maintain this for two weeks, checking your weight and making sure you don’t start gaining. This will be your new carb count until your lifestyle or goals change again.

So what will I eat?

Your choices of food might be really different than they are now and seem strange to you at first. You will eat a lot of meat, fish, vegetables that are high in fiber and/or low in carbs. You will eat cheese and other dairy products like sour cream, cream cheese and butter. You can eat eggs, bacon, steak, chicken breasts, some nuts, diet soda, water and some sugar free deserts. What you won’t eat is anything with sugar in it, bread, pasta, starchy foods, vegetables high in carbs and low in fiber, fruits high in carbs and low in fiber, regular soda, juice and high sugar deserts.

There are plenty of places to help you find low carb foods like AtkinsAlly, that will help you build menus that suit your tastes and  your schedule! have a look around AtkinssAlly.com for recipes that you like. Add them to your menu and be sure to rate them and comment on what you thought about them. We do our best to show you where to purchase hard to find specialty low carb ingredients and items and focus on realistic cooking, living and taste.

We wish you all the luck in the world on your low carb adventure and hope that we can provide a wonderful source of support and tools for your success.

About Low Carb Advice Alcohol Atkins Information Beans Bread Cheese Chocolate Cottage Cheese Cream Cheese Eggs Fast Food Green Beans Ham Induction Italian Jalapeno McDonalds Mexican Microwave Mushroom Pancakes Pasta Pepperoni Pie Pork Pumpkin Quick Food Ricotta Cheese Rum Sausage Side Dish Spices zucchini