Wednesday 9 November 2011

Low carbohydrate diet

The concept of consuming low carbohydrate diets as a weight loss tool has been popular since decades. It involves living on a diet with hardly any carbohydrates. Only fats and proteins are consumed. Pasta, bread, alcohol and rice are replaced with meat, butter and cheese.



How do they work?

Low carbohydrate diets have the objective of compelling the body to produce energy from fat and protein. The diet achieves its goal by reducing insulin production in the body due to low carbohydrate intake.

Types 

Dr Robin Atkin’s famous Atkin’s diet, high protein diet, Stillman diet, Scarsdale diet, Hollywood diet, Ketogenic diet and the zone diet are popular low carbohydrate diets. All these diets are known for initiating weight loss.

Are they effective?

These diets lead to rapid weight loss. But, since the weight loss occurs due to muscle loss and loss of water, it is not permanent. Moreover, it may cause harmful side effects. It is generally used by movie stars who want to lose weight at a rapid rate to fit into his or her character for a particular movie.

Adverse Effects

Low carbohydrate permits This makes the body produce ketone bodies to provide energy to the brain, red blood cells and other body parts that cannot use fat to produce energy. This creates the condition of ketosis wherein the person’s breath has a nail varnish like acetone smell and he experiences side effects like nausea and weakness.

Majority of the weight loss comes from loss of muscle in case of these diets. Muscle tissues burn calories and remain metabolically active even when the body is at rest. Further, loss of muscle will mean that lesser number of calories have to be burned per day to maintain body weight. Loss of muscle thus translates into weight gain in the long run.

Important vitamins and minerals are supplied to the body by fruits, vegetables and grains which are not part of these diets. They are hence deficient in nutrients; they contain too much of protein which is strenuous and harmful for the kidneys. They can cause bone and liver disorders too. They have an adverse impact on your health in the long run. The presence of lots of saturated fat in these diets can cause heart ailments in the long term.

Balanced diet and regular exercise regimen are the best ways to lose weight. These methods take time to give results and require perseverance but they are definitely safer than low carbohydrate diets which are against all the healthy eating principles.

Muscles without getting Bulky

The main goal of body building is to put on mass without gaining extra calories. You need to intake only that much amount of calories necessary for the survival. Any excess of body fats should be often burned out.
But the underlying concept is little bit confusing. If we want to gain weight we need to consume extra calories because chemicals can be harmful for your body.

If you want to reduce excess fat you need to burn the calories. Both these phenomenon are opposite and hence the question is how they can be maintained simultaneously?

If you want to gain mass you have to consume calories. But the main question arises is that how much amount we actually require to gain the weight. Once you have achieved that limit it will be easier to stop consuming calories.

Is it possible to gain mass without gaining excess fats?

Most of us think that the easiest way of gaining mass is via consumption of more foods. The more you will eat the more weight you will be able to gain. Your body will consume the required calories and but the extra calories will be added as excess fat on your body.
But the most appropriate approach is to consume food in required amounts. One must consume only those calories that can easily be used by your body.

If a person consumes 5000 or even more calories in a day, within four to six months he will become bulky and look ugly. In this modern day of fashion trend no one can afford to have ugly looks.
Now you must be thinking how much calories are required in a proper amount by your body?
You must have heard about the man who claims to gain 20 pounds fat only in six weeks. But this is quite impossible for a new weight lifter. In a week you can gain maximum of one pound. In case if your genetics are not supporting then you can gain even less amount of fat in a week. It is necessary for you to consume calories only in a required amount.



It would be better to consume only 250 – 500 calories in a day. This amount of calorie will easily be absorbed by your muscles. Above calories can result into accumulation of excess fat on your body. If still you are consuming extra calories then reduce the amount according to your body requirement.
Every human being has a different body structure. Sometimes the body starts responding even for a small intake of calories and sometimes result is zero even after consuming a large amount of calories. So you can increase or decrease the amount according to the result. If you are getting bulky stop consuming more calories and try to reduce them.

The best approach of gaining mass without gaining excess fat is slow consumption of calories. If you can consume calorie slowly, they it will be more effective and the results will also be a long lasting type. But most of the people deny choosing this method as it is very time consuming. But this is the best approach and so from next time you must be sure to follow this method for gaining mass without inviting fats.

The Weight Trainer's Bodybuilding Diet

Food supplements are a big business in the present world. However, the supplements for either diet or body building are not requisites for a normal healthy body. As our body needs vary from person to person therefore, one solution for everybody is nothing more than a marketing trick. During the elder stages, we have different body requirements and during youth our body reacts in a different manner. Therefore, focusing on a uniform diet supplement is useless.

Before entering more into complicated details, several facts are important which should be kept in mind for the advance dietary plans. Proteins, carbohydrates and fats play an active role in our catabolic and anabolic systems. The variation in defined natural proportion may lead to some serious issues. Therefore, a healthy and balanced diet is important.

For the balanced diet, the appropriate proportion of the fats, carbohydrates and proteins is imperative. Therefore it entails the use of fruits, vegetables and meat. Food types such as saturated fats, alcohol and several other eatables with low nutritive values should be eliminated from our diet plans.
We should maintain a healthy routine of exercise, water intake, salt and sugar control with several other elements to live a healthy life. Without these influential elements it is hard to live a healthy life. Health is not only an issue of diet. It involves physiology, bio-chemistry and biology. These elements need equal attention for granting a healthy life pattern.

Dieting to many individuals mean “eating less” which is a total wrong approach. The combustion of fats is the main phenomenon behind the weight reduction. However, people do not prefer it. In the same manner, the individuals who want muscular body oftentimes think of some supplements, or some fat saturated eatables. However, this approach is very poor. The proper balanced diet either in a large quantity or less than the desired amount, both have equal harmful aspects.

For the sake of some more muscular body type, we should increase the percentage of fats by about fifteen percent. In a similar way fifteen percent more portions are more important as they are used for the building of muscles as a result of burning fats and carbohydrates. However, these percentages will work in the best manner only if the body training programs present are sufficient to uphold our daily fat burning process. Similarly in the cutting phase the reduction of fats and proteins is of vital importance. The ratios of reduction are fifteen to twenty five percent protein, twenty percent fats and up to sixty percent carbohydrates required in the cutting process.

Uniform timings for the meal also influence the body structure. Our body organs are flexible enough to fix themselves on any particular timing. If the routine is disturbed or there is a variation in the timing of the meal it affects in a negative manner as far health is concerned.

Conclusively, all the influential factors are important for the bodybuilding diet and leaving any single element behind might hinder you to attain the desired objectives. Moreover, the uniformity in the diet plans always pays if the appropriate proportion of the supplements is there. It is then becomes easier to enhance the shape, and beauty of the body.