How to eat right to lose weight: the science of a low-carb diet

A slim fig­ure is the dream of many. What pre­vents it from being car­ried out? Very often the prob­lem lies in the wrong diet. How to eat right to lose weight? What diet will help you lose weight?

Low-carbohydrate diet: rules and diet

Recent­ly, many peo­ple have been talk­ing about the effec­tive­ness of a low-carb diet, it is also called a keto diet. “I lost weight, ate right, exclud­ed car­bo­hy­drates from the diet …” — such reviews about a low-carb diet are not uncom­mon. Is such nutri­tion real­ly con­sid­ered cor­rect, and how does a keto diet affect the health of a per­son who is los­ing weight?

The essence of the ketone diet is to min­i­mize the con­sump­tion of car­bo­hy­drates. Their amount in the diet should not exceed 5%. Where­as fats and pro­teins make up the main menu. There­fore, the fol­low­ing are banned:

• sug­ar and sug­ar-con­tain­ing prod­ucts;
• bak­ery and flour prod­ucts;
• cere­als, pas­ta;
• dried fruits, fruits;
• alco­hol;
• processed meat prod­ucts
• veg­eta­bles that are high in sug­ar, such as pota­toes.

It is believed that on a keto diet you can not count calo­ries, and not lim­it your­self in food. Even you can eat after 18.00. The main thing is that these should be fats (coconut oil, but­ter), ani­mal pro­teins (eggs, any meat, fish, poul­try, seafood), greens, veg­eta­bles, sour-milk prod­ucts with a high per­cent­age of fat con­tent.

Scientists on a low-carb diet: for or against

Doc­tors con­sid­er one of the main caus­es of excess weight in men and women — a vio­la­tion of the meta­bol­ic syn­drome. A large accu­mu­la­tion of fat in the waist area clear­ly indi­cates such a prob­lem. More accu­rate med­ical exam­i­na­tions of such peo­ple can also reveal insulin resis­tance, a vio­la­tion of the metab­o­lism of car­bo­hy­drates and fats in the body.

In 2019, Amer­i­can sci­en­tists led by Dr. Park­er Hyde con­duct­ed a study on how a low-car­bo­hy­drate diet can affect meta­bol­ic syn­drome. The results have been pub­lished in JCI Insight. For three months, six­teen peo­ple fol­lowed dif­fer­ent diets. As a result, a diet with a low car­bo­hy­drate con­tent in the diet improved the con­di­tion with meta­bol­ic syn­drome: the lev­el of glu­cose in the blood returned to nor­mal, the con­cen­tra­tion of fats decreased, and the process of their oxi­da­tion improved, and the per­cent­age of bad cho­les­terol in the blood decreased.

Anoth­er study con­duct­ed by sci­en­tists from Toron­to, led by Pro­fes­sor David Jenk­ins (Depart­ment of Nutri­tion­al Sci­ences) in 2005–2006 in favor of a low-car­bo­hy­drate diet. Thir­ty-nine over­weight men and post­menopausal women took part in the exper­i­ment. For six months, part of the par­tic­i­pants fol­lowed a low-car­bo­hy­drate veg­an diet, while the oth­er was on a high-car­bo­hy­drate, low-fat diet. Accord­ing to the results, a low-carb veg­an diet with pro­tein and fat from plant foods (nuts, veg­etable oils, soy prod­ucts) helped reduce not only weight, but also the risk of car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease.

How to eat right to lose weight? Stick to a sim­ple truth — eat every­thing (fats, pro­teins, car­bo­hy­drates), but in mod­er­a­tion. The human body needs car­bo­hy­drates, fats, and pro­teins. But fast food, var­i­ous sweets, muffins, sausages, car­bon­at­ed drinks will only harm. Study sci­en­tif­ic research on nutri­tion and health, ana­lyze your diet, love your­self and your body. Go in for sports, walk in the fresh air and live pos­i­tive­ly. The results of effec­tive weight loss will not be long in com­ing.

Shut­ter­stock pho­to mate­ri­als used