Why Do You Lose Weight With Low-Carb Diets?

Introduction

Weight loss occurs when the number of calories the body burns exceeds the number of calories taken in through the foods you eat every day. This process is mostly achieved through a healthy mixture of eating healthy foods, watching calories and exercising regularly. However, augmenting the types and amounts of foods that you can eat may also help you accelerate your weight loss. This is often the case with low-carb diets.

Energy

Your body needs energy to run its many processes throughout the day. This energy can come from a variety of places, with the most frequent being blood glucose, body fat storage and, in some cases, muscle. When your body needs energy, the first place it turns to is the glucose in your bloodstream.

Insulin

When you eat carbohydrates, your body naturally secretes insulin. Insulin is a hormone that has the ability to turn carbohydrates into blood glucose. The glucose produced then flows through the bloodstream to the many tissues of the body. As these tissues need energy to work, they absorb glucose through the bloodstream. This is an important step, as too much sugar in the bloodstream can result in the damaging effects seen by patients with diabetes. The glucose is then used in the tissues to create energy.

Carbs and Weight Loss

When you reduce the amount of carbs you ingest on a daily basis, you also decrease the amount of insulin being produced. This causes less blood glucose to be present in the blood stream. Once the tissues no longer have enough glucose to obtain their needed energy, the body turns to other places to find and produce energy. The first of these places is usually your fat storage. The body burns your fat storage in place of the glucose, causing a loss in body fat as well as a drop in pounds. It is important to be careful how much carbs you take out of your diet, as your body may also turn to muscle storage to make up the resulting deficit from a lack of glucose in the blood stream.

Balance

As with any diet, balance is necessary to insure that your body is getting enough of all the important vitamins and nutrients it needs to survive. Completely eliminating any of these important nutrients can be harmful to your health. As such, it is not recommended to completely remove carbohydrates from your diet. A low-carb diet can still be effective by just limiting and monitoring your carbohydrate intake.