Low-Carb Diets: Culture Fixture or Food Fad?

At any given moment, 25 percent of adults are on a diet. In the battle to lose weight, carbohydrates have been singled out as the main enemy. That is why low-carb diets like the Atkins diet, South Beach diet and Zone diet have become so popular.

At first glance, a low-carb diet seems to be a God-send for obesity-plagued America. But what you need to remember is that carbohydrates are NOT unhealthy. Carbs give your body energy and are found in highly nutritious foods like fruits, milk and vegetables. Like all nutrients, carbohydrates get stored as fat if you consume too many of them.

If you don't consume enough carbohydrates, your body will turn to its stored energy in the form of muscle or fat cells. In a low-carb diet, only about 15 to 20 percent of calories come from carbs, meaning the other 75 to 80 percent of energy must come from proteins and fats.

Proteins and fats are important in a balanced diet, but if you are cutting down on carbs, you may consume more protein and fat than what your body actually needs to keep you full. Digesting protein gives an extra work load to your kidneys and takes calcium from the body. A high-protein diet may also have you eating too much saturated fat.

It can’t be denied that a lot of people have lost weight while on a low-carb diet but will it help dieters keep the weight off in the long run and keep them healthy?

A growing body of medical evidence supports the notion that short term low-carb dieting will help achieve weight loss and would be beneficial in fighting heart disease and diabetes. However, studies on long-term effects have barely started.

Dieters on a low-carb diet lose weight because they don’t have too many food choices and end up eating less. They achieve weight loss not because they are avoiding carbs but simply because they are consuming less food.

American obsession with dieting is ironic because we are still the most overweight population in the planet. As such, there is no end in sight anytime soon for the prevailing “low-carb culture” because it would take years before conclusive long-term studies on low-carb diet health risks would be available.

Dr. Joseph Mercola agrees that it is primarily carbohydrates that contribute to increased weight again and lead to a number of illnesses and disorders. His revolutionary no-grain diet is designed to help dieters beat carbohydrate addiction to stay slim for life.

The no-grain diet includes:

• The 3-Day Diet – a food plan for eating every 2 hours to help you get rid of grains, sweets and starches from your system
• The 50-Day Diet Plan – a longer food plan for eating 4 to 6 meals a day to help you normalize your cholesterol levels
• The Lifelong Maintenance Plan – Specific food guidelines that allow you to introduce certain grains back to your diet
• The Emotional Freedom Technique – a psychological acupressure method which will teach you how to beat carbohydrate cravings and addiction for life

Dr. Mercola stresses that the key to a successful weight loss program is understanding that what may work for you may not work for others because we all have different dietary needs based on our unique Nutritional Types.

The no-grain diet is not a quick fix; it’s an eating plan that you can follow for a lifetime.

13 Reasons Why You Should Skip the South Beach Diet

The South Beach Diet, much like its predecessor, the Atkins diet, has helped promote the merits of a low-carb diet and also helped debunk the dangerous myth that low-fat dieting is safe and effective.

But for Dr. Joseph Mercola, the South Beach Diet’s benefits ends there. An osteopathic physician with over two decades of clinical experience, he minces no words when he says, “I would never recommend the South Beach Diet to any of my patients.”

Dr. Mercola says he can write a whole book to explain just how misguided Dr. Agatston’s eating program is but here are the 13 main reasons why you should skip the South Beach Diet:

1. Gets the "good" carbs wrong – Dr. Agatston promotes the concept that there are good carbs that you should be consuming and bad carbs you should avoid. But he gets the "good" carbs wrong and promotes both whole grain breads and fruits – which can seriously impair the health of millions of Americans with sub clinical gluten sensitivity. Unless a person has normal insulin levels, it’s best to avoid ALL grains and sugars.
2. Dangerous levels of mercury and PCBs in the diet – Eating a lot of fish is a major part of Dr. Agatston’s regimen, which means you could potentially be ingesting dangerous levels of mercury and PCBs that can cause neurological disorders and other serious diseases. It would also cost over $90 a week for a dieter to follow the South Beach Diet’ recommended fish intake.
3. Commercially pasteurized milk is good – Many people are unaware that they have problems with food allergies caused by pasteurized casein from commercially pasteurized milk, problems which usually disappear completely, if they switch to raw, organic milk.
4. The saturated fat myth – Dr. Agatston still believes in the dangerous myth that saturated fat is bad for you. The truth is, some high quality saturated food, such as virgin coconut oil, needs to be part of a truly healthy diet.
5. Artificial sweeteners are good for you – The use of aspartame/NutraSweet, which has been associated to a number of diseases like cancer and diabetes, is encouraged by the South Beach Diet.
6. Misguided advice on trans fats – Dr. Agatston clearly contradicts himself when he states that trans fats are dangerous but says that French fries and potato chips are healthier than baked potatoes because of the "fat in which they're cooked." These foods tend to be very high in trans fats and are among the unhealthiest foods you can consume.
7. Synthetic margarines are better than real butter – The process of producing synthetic margarine completely distorts the physical structure of its fats, making it nearly as dangerous as margarines that contain trans fats. As mentioned above, some saturated fat, such as those found in raw organic butter and virgin coconut oil, are necessary for optimal health.
8. Lack of nutritional insight can cause cancer – Dr. Agatston further displays his lack of nutritional awareness by promoting peanut butter as a good source of monounsaturated fat and the antioxidant resveratrol, when peanuts are probably the crop most heavily-sprayed with pesticides, and are very susceptible to contamination by afflatoxin, a carcinogenic mold spore.
9. The use of statin drugs to lower cholesterol – Dr. Agatston actually takes a statin drug to lower his cholesterol levels, apparently unaware of the many dangers associated with cholesterol-lowering medication, when there are natural ways to lower cholesterol.
10. The South Beach Diet is another one-size-fits-all diet – Dr. Agatston ignores the fact that we have different genetic requirements for optimal health. Some people thrive on a high carb diet while others need the low-carb, high-protein diet that Dr. Atkins advocates.
11. Too little exercise requirement – Dr. Agatston's advice on exercise, an important part of any weight loss program, is highly debatable. He says 20 minutes of exercise per day is enough, which is only applicable if one is already in shape. Many Americans have developed a serious exercise deficiency and will need higher levels of exercise to significantly produce a metabolic response that will continuously burn fats, especially while one sleeps.
12. Lack of guidance on the glycemic index – Like the Atkins diet, the South Beach Diet promotes the use of the glycemic index, which is too flawed to be of any value.
13. Does not address the emotional issues associated with weight gain – Most people on fad diets like the South Beach Diet will not permanently lose weight because they do not tackle the emotional challenges that come with dieting, such as cravings, food addictions, self-image issues and the other self-sabotaging behavior.

Six Reasons Not to Go On the Atkins Diet

The late Dr. Robert Atkins first introduced his popular low-carb diet, the Atkins diet, in 1972. At that time, his low-carb approach clashed with the popular low-fat, low-calorie diet fad.

The Atkins diet helped correct the misinformed and potentially dangerous “fear-of-fat” mentality and helped many people achieve their weight loss goals.

When you consume too many carbohydrates, you burn some of the carbs for energy while the rest get stored as fats. Eating fewer carbs will force your body to use fat as its primary energy source. The Atkins diet aims to transform your body to burn fat for fuel instead of carbs.

But while Dr. Atkins’ work with nutrition is groundbreaking, it has its share of shortcomings because low-carb diets are bound to fail at some point. Aside from promoting a “one-size-fits-all” diet, labeling all carbohydrates as bad and using the glycemic index, here are more reasons why the Atkins diet is not an optimal eating program:

1. Ketosis – In almost all cases, the Atkins diet induces ketosis, which means that the body mainly uses fats for energy because it doesn’t have enough carbohydrates to burn as fuel. As a result, the body produces ketones – breakdown molecules generated during fat metabolism. Patients on the Atkins diet often develop a strange breath odor that can be mistaken as alcohol because of a type of ketone called acetone. Prolonged severe ketosis is potentially dangerous because it can affect a dieter’s blood acidity, which can lead to kidney and liver damage.
2. Unnecessary Counting of Carb Calories – The Atkins diet asks dieters to use a "carbohydrate gram counter" to monitor their carb calories, which is unnecessary if you’re eating the right type of carbs and foods for your unique Nutritional Type. Your body naturally tells you when it's time to start and stop eating. Counting carbs is also inconvenient and time-consuming.
3. Recommendation of Sucralose (Splenda) – Dr. Atkins advocates reduced sugar intake but he recommends the use of sucralose-based artificial sweeteners like Splenda. Splenda side effects range from headaches and digestive issues to serious kidney and liver problems.
4. Nut Intake – Low-carb diets like the Atkins diet and the South Beach Diet recommends that you eat nuts, which provide health benefits but are high in omega-6 fats. An omega-6-rich diet is a big contributing factor to many chronic degenerative diseases.
5. Insufficient Exercise – Dr. Atkins’ program only allots 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise. Most overweight people need an hour to increase the mitochondria levels in their muscles, which in turn, will speed up their metabolic rate, allowing them to continue burning calories while at rest and even while sleeping.
6. Food Quality – The Atkins diet does not give enough importance to the quality of food. Steak and burgers from factory-farmed animals are fine, as well as commercially-pasteurized milk and common fish, which are often contaminated with mercury and other dangerous chemicals. For Dr. Joseph Mercola, grass-fed beef, organic raw milk, and mercury-free fish like wild Alaskan salmon, are superior food choices.

But while the Atkins diet has its flaws, it doesn’t diminish the fact that Dr. Atkins is one of the foremost nutrition pioneers of the 20th century.

Dr. Mercola attempts to refine Dr. Atkins’ groundbreaking work to the next level with his revolutionary No-Grain Diet, which would help you eat healthy, burn excess pounds and overcome the post-diet “yo-yo” effect that prevents you from keeping the extra weight off.

Why Low-Carb Diets are Bound to Fail You

A low-carb diet is an eating program that advocates a drastically reduced consumption of carbohydrates. In order to achieve weight loss, you must burn more calories than you consume. Depriving your body of carbohydrates will force your body to reach out to stored fat for energy, causing you to lose weight.

The late Dr. Robert Atkins almost single-handedly educated Americans about the low-carbohydrate diet concept when he introduced the popular Atkins diet, the most well-known low-carb diet. The main principle behind the Atkins diet is that carbohydrates increase the rate of insulin in your body, which promotes the storage of fat.

While Dr. Atkins work helped establish the link between obesity and insulin, here are 4 reasons why the Atkins diet won’t help you keep off weight in the long run, nor help reduce your risk of diseases:

1.       The Atkins diet is a low-carbohydrate, high-fat and high protein diet. However, it’s a single program designed for the entire population and is basically a “one-size-fits all” diet. But one man’s food may be another man’s poison. One-third of Americans actually need a high carbohydrate diet, and, following the Atkins diet means they would be depriving their bodies of the ideal fuel that they need.

2.       Dr. Atkins labeled all carbohydrates as bad. Vegetable carbohydrates are different from the carbohydrates that come from grains, and as such, do not need to be restricted to effectively achieve weight loss. Some people actually need two-thirds of their food to be vegetable carbohydrates; so in essence, they are on a high-carbohydrate but no-grain and no-sugar diet.

3.       The Atkins diet and the South Beach Diet make the same mistake of advocating the use of the glycemic index, a tool which helps you select foods that would have a minimal effect on your blood sugar levels. However, it is an unreliable and inconsistent tool because glycemic index values just have too many exceptions. Fructose, for example, has a low glycemic index, when in reality, too much of it is a prescription for obesity.

4.       Low-carb diets like the Atkins diet, will not address the emotional factors behind a person’s poor eating habits. For Dr. Joseph Mercola, one of the keys to effectively losing weight and living a truly healthy life is by overcoming the emotional challenges that are sabotaging your food choices.

The No-Grain Diet is a healthy way to achieve weight loss. It explains why restricting grains and sugars is one of the most important things you can do to achieve good health. But before trying any specialized diet, here’s a reminder from Dr. Mercola: there is no perfect diet for everyone or every condition. Diet needs to be modified to fit a specific person based on his or her own unique genetic requirements.