Low Carb or Low Fat?

For years, we were taught to eat several servings of breads, grains and other carbohydrates that are not becoming taboo in other diet plans. And suddenly, other people seem to be losing weight by eating the foods we were always told to stay away from. What’s going on?

Low carbohydrate diets have become increasingly popular and have spawned a new generation of ideas about losing weight. But this doesn’t make older theories about losing weight null and void either. Studies show that after a year, both low carbohydrate and low fat diets have about the same success and weight loss in studied subjects. Low carbohydrate diets may work a little faster at first because they make you lose your water weight. But the best diet for you is one that will attain lasting results. There is no reason to work hard and reach your weight loss goals, only to find the pounds come creeping back.

There are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to picking between low fat and low carb diets. The first is, healthy eating is not black and white. No diet plan should completely restrict either fats or carbs. The gist of this story is surprisingly simple: we need fats, and we need carbs. While these diets may eliminate them for weight loss reasons, it is not worth gambling with your health. Furthermore, many of these super restrictive diets eliminate these foods from the eating plan, only to intake nutrients from the eliminated food groups through dietary supplements. This is unnatural and should strike a simple notion: if your body needs something that badly, why would you cut it out?

Some diet plans, like the South Beach diet, are now recognizing “good and bad carbs” and “good and bad fats”. This is truly the way to go. You don’t have to eliminate any major portion of your diet completely, while ingesting only those items that are truly good for you. The fat in an avocado is okay, the carbs in a multi grain bread are good for you too. Leaving out these foods is a perilous part of any diet.

If you still want to side with one diet plan or the other, and both are proven to help you lose weight, than the best one is the one you can stick to. If you are fond of steaks, scrambled eggs and bacon, you better go with low carb. But if you’d rather be able to enjoy a stir fry or some grits in the morning, you need to go with low fat. Low carbohydrate diets seem appealing at first because they allow so many foods that were previously considered diet no-no’s. But many people find, after a week or so on such a diet, that these foods are less than delectable without their carbohydrate counterparts.