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At this point, everyone has heard of low carbohydrate diets.
Often authors and gurus who promote these diets point out the quick weight loss on this type of diet.
Many also claim that the weight loss is effortless.
Some promote the idea that low carbohydrate diets offer a metabolic advantage.
Sometimes, the metabolic advantage is claimed to be so great, that weight loss will happen at any caloric intake!
In reality, this theory doesn’t work out so well.
Yes, low-carb, high-fat diets can induce quick and drastic weight loss at the beginning.
However, most of this loss is water weight, induced by a diuretic effect of the diet.
And losing all that water weight has an important negative effect.
The body uses water to store the glycogen — the energy your body stores for later.
So losing pure water weight with low carb diets depletes glycogen stores quickly.
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Plus, after the first two weeks, weight loss slows dramatically.
Weight loss slows to a similar rate to higher carbohydrate diets that contain equal amounts of calories.
As for the metabolic advantage, there are no studies to prove it to date.
There is some research that suggests that there may indeed be a diet that can raise your resting metabolic rate.
But it’s not a low-carb diet.
Oddly enough, the diet that may truly have a metabolic advantage is a low-fat diet.
This study used rats.
In this case, using rats gave the researchers greater control over the studied diets than they would have in a human trial.
They fed all the rats a diet that was equal in calories, protein, carbohydrate, and water.
The only significant difference in the diet was the type of fat that the rats got.
The control group got sunflower oil, which contained a lot of polyunsaturated fats (called “essential fatty acids” in the study).
And the experimental group got coconut oil, which contained almost no polyunsaturated fats.
There was a striking difference between the two groups, as you can see from the chart.
The rats on the coconut oil diet weighed significantly less, even though they ate a bit more food.
They also retained less water than the control rats.
Researchers also measured the amount of brown fat in both groups of rats.
Brown fat is a type of fat that generates heat, unlike normal white fat.
The rats in the coconut oil group had less brown fat than the other rats.
Yet, despite having less brown fat, they generated more total heat than the control rats.
Apparently, the brown fat that they did have worked much more efficiently.
On top of that, the rats eating coconut oil had a higher resting metabolism.
And you know that the best way to lose weight and keep it off is to increase metabolism.
This study casts serious doubts on any claim of a metabolic advantage of a low-carb diet.
So, is a low-carb diet good for you — no, it’s not.
In fact, it may be that a diet low in the polyunsaturated fats that holds a true metabolic advantage!
How would you apply these results to your life?
First, you would want to limit all fats in your diet, as all fat contains some polyunsaturated fat.
The same diet would be high in carbohydrates and protein.
Both of these have a higher thermic effect than dietary fat.
As coconut oil is highly saturated, it should be the primary fat you use for cooking.
And you should always pay attention to energy levels and calorie intake when making any changes to your diet.
I expect you’ll see a big improvement in how you feel after you switch!
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0300962989905483
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