The truth about low-carb diets

Although there are many advantages to living in the twenty first century perhaps one of the drawbacks is that we don't use up the calories as our forefathers did because we spend our lives working on computers instead of labouring in the fields and our homes. Because so many of us worry about our weight a huge diet industry has grown up to satisfy us.

Back in the 1970s a Dr Atkins put forward a radical new idea which came across a brick wall in the diet and medical world. Instead of eating a diet that consisted predominantly of carbohydrates he suggested that if we ate a diet consisting almost entirely of proteins and fats we would lose weight. Despite all the negative comments, his diet has been proved to be highly effective and stores are now stocking low carb snacks because there is such a huge change going on in our eating habits.

An additional problem to our increased weight is the number of cases of diabetes that are being diagnosed in people of all ages. It's not part of our general knowledge that too much sugar in our diets will produce too much insulin and in addition to this converting our food to fat it's likely to give us diabetes.

Our bodies work on their own and out of our control. They still tend to worry that they won't be given another meal and so they store carbs away without our permission. And where are these carbs stored? Always where you don't want them to be stored and in most cases on the stomach or the hips!

So, what do we do? Most people look at all the advertising around and decide to go for the 'low fat' alternatives which look fantastic. Unfortunately they're high in sugar and increase our insulin levels and therefore our fat.

Where can you start? You need to start educating your mind and body to know and understand what is right and what is wrong. Discover which foods will convert straight to energy and not be stored as fat. You'll find that vegetables, meats, eggs, nuts, legumes and cheese will be the most effective. There are also many foods on the market that advertise themselves as 'low carb' and are a good way to launch into a new diet.

For two weeks you'll have to be totally devoted to your diet and never cheat. It's during this time that you will be educating your body! It's going to be a huge shake up for it as your carb intake won't be exceeding twenty grams per day but your determination will pay off! Your body will learn to burn fat rather than carbs and once the weight starts to move you should feel motivated to keep going.

Once your induction is over you can have the occasional cheat. This can really help to kick start your body if you've reached a plateau. The thing you should try to stay away from at all costs is processed sugar.

Consume lots of fiber as this will help flush out the waste in your body regularly. You can do this by drinking psyllium husk.

Water will also help to flush out some of the carbohydrates and will stop you from feeling hungry.

There will be moments when you desperately need a snack, so try to be prepared by keeping some healthy snacks at hand. It's possible either to prepare veggies to munch during the day or you can buy snacks that will keep that you know are permissible.