4 Reasons Why Very Little Carbohydrate Diets Increase Your Fat Loss

Today’s post is from Jimmy Smith of JimmySmithTraining.com. In this post you’ll learn a lot about why eating low carbs can help you burn more fat. Enjoy!

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One of the more popular diets in the fitness industry is how beneficial low carbohydrate diets might be for weight loss. I certainly see the benefits of low carbohydrate diets and think that everyone, regardless of goals, should think about low carb diets as a way of life. I’m not too convinced that these type of diets are the best to burn fat though. I’ve written about how helpful a low carb diet may be to burn fat before but I also think it’s helpful to look at the other side of the coin. What about no carb diets?

If you look at the most popular diets such as the zone diet, the atkins diet, the abs diets and the sugar busters diet you see one common trait. They all almost completely eliminate carbohydrates. Now, I’m not sure why each diet does it their own way but I do know how our body responds to a no carb diet.

Low Carbs Equal Less Fat Loss?

Now I might get some heat for this but it needs to be said. For some people, low carbohydrate diets will wreck their fat loss. Yet they keep hammering away with all types of low carb foods and low carbohydrate approaches because no one will tell them what they need to know.

1. Carbohydrates are the only non-essential nutrient to our body. It’s actually true that we can live off of not eating another carbohydrate for the rest of our life. Now is that easy to do or advisable? No, I don’t think anyone should try it but it is possible. If our body doesn’t need something then why put it in? Just think about that next time you want to eat a bunch of carbohydrates to gain some lean muscle. We don’t need them.
2. Our body can produce about 100 grams of glucose without any carbohydrate intake. This is done through a process called gluconeogenesis where protein is pulled from our body to make the glucose that the brain needs to work. Once we get into ketosis (the body using fat for fuel), we need even less and only about 80 grams of glucose per day for the brain to function.
3. Research has shown that upwards of 80% of glucose that is used for energy during high intensity exercise actually comes from protein breakdown. If you have adequate protein intake then you don’t need to worry about breaking down muscle tissue.
4. Carbohydrates cause blood sugar to rise and spike which lowers growth hormone and IGF-1 causing muscle wasting hormones to rise. When this happens whatever fat and carbohydrate intake that we have will be pushed towards being stored as fat, not muscle.

It’s also important to note that many of these low carbohydrate diet studies are done without supplying their subjects with adequate healthy fat intake, which completely changes our natural hormone environment. Do I completely recommend this approach? It depends on the individual but don’t think you need to just diet with a low carbohydrate diet, change things up.

About The Author

Jimmy Smith, MS, CSCS provides the latest techniques in training and nutrition for fat loss on his website.