What is low-carb?
Diets that promise rapid weight loss continue to trend. One of the popular dietary trends is the low-carb diet. The term low-carb is composed of "low" (meaning small in amount) and "carb", short for carbohydrates. On this type of diet, you consume as few carbohydrates as possible. The main goal behind low-carb is almost always weight loss. The fact that a low-carbohydrate diet also brings positive health aspects seems secondary to those seeking weight loss. To understand the principle of low-carb, let's first take a quick look at what a reduced amount of carbohydrates does in your body.
Low-carb diet: What exactly happens in the body?
To understand what a lower intake of carbohydrates means for the body, let's briefly outline—without going into deep detail—the mechanisms of metabolism. Carbohydrates consist of various sugar molecules; the other dietary components are fats and proteins. Our body, especially the brain, but also all organs and cells, need energy to function properly. This energy is obtained from simple, short-chain sugar. Carbohydrates serve the body, so to speak, as fuel for energy production. This energy is then stored by the liver and muscle cells in the form of glycogen. If we consume too much energy, food, or calories that the body cannot use, the glycogen is converted into fat and stored in other areas of the body (for example, the stomach, arms, or legs). If we now intentionally supply our body with significantly fewer carbohydrates than it is used to, it has to find another way to obtain the required energy. And it accomplishes this by calling upon fat cells, as our body can convert fat reserves back into energy. As a result, excess fat is broken down and we lose weight.
So how many carbohydrates am I allowed to eat on a low-carb diet?
You cannot make a blanket statement that low-carb only works if you consume only x amount of carbohydrates. In principle, any reduced amount of carbohydrates is fine. There are many different low-carb diets and eating plans (e.g., Glyx diet, Atkins diet, LOGI method, keto diet), which are all based on the low-carb principle but recommend or specify different daily amounts of carbohydrates. The average person consumes about 250 to 300 grams of carbohydrates per day, which corresponds to approx. 50 percent of their energy intake. There are now several low-carb methods, such as the Atkins diet or the keto diet, that work with a very extreme form of carbohydrate reduction. Atkins aims for a benchmark of only 20 grams of carbohydrates, and the keto diet targets a maximum of 50 grams per day. Both diets also recommend a very high intake of healthy fats from fish, oils, nuts, etc.
This type of diet should not be pursued as a long-term dietary change, as the body now has to painstakingly draw its energy from available fat sources. More moderate approaches are followed, for example, by the Glyx diet or the LOGI method: both focus on an increased intake of foods with a low glycemic index. Foods that have a high glycemic index (which includes classic carbohydrates like pasta, potatoes, rice, and sweets) should be avoided. However, both are easy to implement in everyday life and offer plenty of variety.
Benefits and suitable foods for a low-carb diet
In summary: Low-carb is generally a good thing. The diet can help you lose weight and also has positive effects on your health, as long as you don't make it too extreme. If you are aiming for a massive carbohydrate reduction or even avoiding carbohydrates altogether for training or other reasons, you should not establish this as a permanent way of eating, but rather as a temporary measure lasting a few weeks. At the beginning, you may frequently experience a feeling of 'deprivation' or even get the impression that you aren't getting truly full. As is so often the case, it is all a matter of proper adjustment as well as choosing the right foods. Many people are so used to bread, pasta, and potatoes that they will certainly find it difficult at first to do without these and other high-carbohydrate foods.
Here are a few tips for you to provide some guidance:
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Eat few carbohydrates (no short-chain ones like white flour products or refined sugar, more long-chain and thus higher-quality ones like whole-grain products) and when you do, choose the right ones. Good proteins and fats are allowed and welcome: fish and meat, dairy products, seeds and nuts, good oils like linseed oil or nut oils.
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Vegetables, vegetables, vegetables: as much as possible, as colorful as possible. However, please enjoy potatoes, corn, peas, kidney beans, and legumes in general in moderation, as they contain a relatively high amount of carbohydrates.
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No sugar, no syrups or concentrates, and no alcohol. Instead: plenty of water and unsweetened teas. Be careful with juices: these contain a lot of fructose, so it's best to avoid them.
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Fruit isn't nearly as bad as some claim. You just need to be careful with fruits high in fructose, such as grapes, bananas, or dried fruit. But berries are absolute top tier and completely fine on low-carb.
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Plan your meals ahead of time. Watching your friends eat bread rolls on an empty stomach when you're out and about is no fun and might make you abandon your low-carb plan faster than you'd like.
The benefits of a well-thought-out and varied low-carb diet are:
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Positive effect on metabolism and weight loss.
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Can improve health parameters such as: better fat metabolism, improved inflammatory markers, improved blood sugar levels, and triglyceride levels.
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Can increase performance.
Science is not entirely in agreement when it comes to a low-carb diet. However, a balanced low-carb diet, where carbohydrate intake is not nearly or completely stopped, offers more advantages than disadvantages. Extreme forms such as the Atkins diet or the ketogenic version of low carb, in which carbohydrate intake is reduced significantly, also carry drawbacks like severe fatigue, headaches, increased uric acid production due to excessive protein, etc.
If you would like to try out the principle of a low-carb diet for yourself, you should take it slow, read up on the subject beforehand, and not aim for a radical elimination of carbohydrates right away. Take a gradual approach and simply see if it works for you and if it feels good for your body. After all, low-carb does not mean "no carbohydrates at all," but rather "fewer carbohydrates." A complete elimination is not recommended and will very likely lead to nutritional deficiencies in certain areas. But as mentioned: give it a try for yourself.
