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So What Is a Low-Carb Diet?
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Well, the answer is pretty self-explanatory, as I'm sure you've guessed. "Low-carb" means exactly that—a diet low in carbohydrates. Instead of concentrating on "low-fat," which is the what 99.9% of diets stress, a low-carb diet concentrates on restricting the consumption of carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates come from basically two sources—sugars and grains. [There are better, more detailed explanations of what a 'carbohydrate' is, but sugars and grains sums it up well enough for my purposes.] And carbohydrates are what the body turns to for quick energy, rather than feeding off the existing fat cells. What this means is this: if your body needs energy, it would much rather turn to that donut you just ate rather than actually turning to that fat cell planted firmly on your right thigh. The sugar and grain of the donut is *much* more easily converted to energy than the fat, so the body doesn't want to do any more work than it has to.
So the underlying concept of a low-carb diet is that you are *forcing* the body to turn to existing fat by taking away that quick source of energy. No donut, no easy road. The body has no other choice but to get energy from your fat cells, because there *is* no other source of energy available.
And that's really it. There are no other restrictions made on your diet, no other limitations as to quantity or eating times or even exercise. Now, of course, use common sense—if you sit down at eat 17 pounds of food every day, it doesn't matter whether it's carbohydrates or not, you're probably going to gain weight. And exercise certainly speeds the results of the low-carb diet, and should therefore be something you work into your daily routine. But you do not have to watch fat grams, or especially limit caloric intake or any other factors. All you have to do is limit carbohydrates.
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So What's the Catch?
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Sound too good to be true? Well, it is and it isn't. To explain, let's take a look at a typical person's diet. They get up, have a donut or a croissant or an Egg McMuffin for breakfast. Lunch might be a sandwich or cheese/crackers or leftover pasta. Mid-afternoon snack of a candy bar, or bag of chips, or even just a can of diet pop. Dinner is a large steak, baked potato, some corn, apple dumpling for dessert. A late evening snack of a dish of ice cream rounds out their day.
You get the general idea—substitute your favorite Whopper or pork chop or whatever else into there, and you're pretty close to everyone's regular diet. So what foods, of those listed above, would get to eat while on a low-carb diet? Exactly two: the steak and the pork chop.
Why? Because everything else listed contains either grains or sugars, or both. What's wrong with the potato, you ask? Potatoes are *hugely* high in carbos, in any shape or form. Corn? It's got a lot of natural sugars in it, making it a no-no. But c'mon, you're saying, there can't possibly be anything wrong with diet pop—it says "diet" right on there! True, a diet pop has no sugars/carbos, so in that sense it is OK. But if it still has caffeine, it is bad for this diet. So unless you are prepared to drink diet, *de-caffeinated* pop, you might as well get used to the idea of no pop.
Low-carb means cutting out *anything* made with grains or sugars—no breads, no chips, no crackers, no ice cream, no cookies, no candy and the list goes on and on. So in that sense, it *is* a hard diet to follow, considering that most people eat way more carbos in a day than they would even realize. But on the other hand, you can have as much as you want of the allowed foods. Who would have thought you could have bacon and eggs every day for breakfast if you want? On this diet, you can. 2-inch thick Porterhouse every night for dinner? It's yours.
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Carbohydrate Levels
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Most people on a low-fat diet can recite you the fat grams in just about any food you name, and can rattle off exactly how many grams of fat a person should consume under any combination of conditions. "OK, so you're 35, 5'7", currently weigh 162, live in Tulsa and it's the second Tuesday of May?—you should have 53.2 fat grams!"
But most people couldn't even begin to tell you how many carbohydrates are in a serving of 1% milk. [It's 11g, by the way—you don't get milk on this diet, my friends.] *No one* pays attention to carbohydrate intake, especially since the traditional food pyramid basically tells you to shove down as many servings of bread and grains as you can in a day.
So what is an average, 'normal' intake level of carbohydrates? The average person probably consumes anywhere from 180-400 carbohydrate grams in a day, perhaps even more if you are truly eating your 11 servings of grains. What does a person on a low-carb diet eat? Between 25 and 50g a day. That's *25* grams, people, compared to a normal intake of 8 or 16 times that. You can easily see that you wouldn't even get your three glasses of milk a day without exceeding the limit.
So the big question becomes "Is it worth it?" Will you really lose weight on such a diet, or will you just be reduced to a quivering mass in the lunch room corner, yelling "My life for a donut with sprinkles!" at anyone who passes by? Continue on to the Does It Work? section to find the answer.
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