Helen’s Diet Blog

Do you know the actual weight gain occurs not due to fats, but due to carbohydrates? The primary sources of carbohydrates include fruit, sugar, bread, and vegetables. Your body takes very little time to digest carbohydrates and convert them into the blood glucose. As a result, your sugar level rises immediately after having a carb-rich diet. To deal with excess sugar in your blood, your pancreas starts producing insulin in large amounts.

On the other hand, your blood glucose remains the same after having a fat-rich meal, causing no effect on the insulin levels in your body. The main function of insulin is to maintain and store fat in the body. So, it is important that the level of this hormone is not altered in the blood. Insulin eliminates the excess glucose from your blood stream by first converting it into starch or glycogen. The glycogen is stored in your muscles and liver, but excess of glycogen is stored in the form of fat in your body, which causes weight gain.

Though the glucose level in your blood comes back to normal after 90 minutes, but the level of insulin remains the maximum. With insulin present in your blood, the process of converting glucose into fat continues, which reduces the glucose level in your blood below normal. As a result, you feel hungry and start craving for snacks rich in carbohydrates. Ironically, you are consuming fat, but you still yearn for more food. In short, you are trapped in the vicious cycle of feeling hungry and gaining weight. You may find it really difficult to overcome this cycle and avoid overeating.

So, how to cut carbs from your diet? That’s a difficult situation for many. The one way is to consume a low-fat or a low-calorie diet and starve yourself. The other way involves you to reduce the intake of starch and sugar- which are responsible to produce glucose in the body. Many dieticians prefer the latter plan due to two main advantages associated with it. Firstly, there is no need to starve yourself, and secondly, with proper intake of fats, your body will not search for glucose and can use the stored fat, which results in weight loss.

If you want to lose weight, just reduce your intake of carbs. Instead, include lots of fresh vegetables, fruits, and cereals in your daily diet to ensure that you get all essential vitamins, and minerals.