Do no carb diets work?

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  • wonderwomn27
    wonderwomn27 Posts: 40 Member
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    I TIRED THAT, I GOT DIZZY , AND HEADACHES I NEEDED MY CARBS!! GOOD LUCK! :)
  • cnelson1974
    cnelson1974 Posts: 235 Member
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    I don't feel it would be sustanable.
  • Frances4646
    Frances4646 Posts: 22
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    I'd say a low carb diet is often effective as some carbohydrates can be higher in calories. I swap veg like courgettes for pasta and cauliflower grated for rice as it reduces the calories alot, but if you can fit in the calories it is worth eating carbohydrates sometimes as they are filling and good for energy. Without any you may feel sluggish and tired.

    I usually don't have carbs for dinner if I can help it, except for maybe brown rice, bulgar wheat or sweet potato. I usually have a pitta or slice of rye bread with my diner, perhaps ryvita crackers or pretzels as a snack and crumpets or porridge for breakfast. These are really the only carbs I eat and I usually only have 2 portions a day (ie. either a carb breakfast and snack, but not for lunch or dinner, OR carb breakfast and lunch but not for snacks or dinner).

    Although fruit and veg are kind of classed as carbs I would never exclude them! The are so low calorie and filling and have so many essential nutrients. And they can be good for cravings. When ever I crave a dessert I have low fat yoghurt and hot berries or microwaved-no-cinnamon-baked-apple.

    Although I will say sugar (from non-fruit sources) is something you should definitely consider cutting out.
  • fatchiick
    fatchiick Posts: 105
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    They work.. I first started on a low carb diet at 290 pounds i havent been 290 poounds since.. lowest i got was 215.. highest 260, since then... I was only on for a couple months initially then years later I tried again for 8 months and couldnt lose.. i finally went off... I ended up getting very sick and eventually had surgery and in general low carb makes you feel awful.. i wouldnt never want to do one again..
  • JanieJack
    JanieJack Posts: 3,831 Member
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    What's wrong with carbs? Are they like communism? Even that started out as a fine idea.

    lol!
  • red_road
    red_road Posts: 761 Member
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    of course they work but if you feel too deprived you're more likely to fall off the wagon. I eat whatever I want, just less
  • tsaiwins
    tsaiwins Posts: 7
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    Absolute worst idea to go no carbs. There is so much misguided advice given on these forums it makes me shake my head :(. Anyways going with no-carbs will cause you have to have metabolic damage, your initial loss will be mostly water as you have depleted any glycogen you have from the muscle. Your metabolism will shut down as it adapts to your no-carb diet. Then what room have you given your body to lose fat when your already doing no carbs and low calories? You probably already have metabolic damage, exacerbating it is going to make it so you eat 1k calories and still can't lose body fat. This is the problem many people have because they rush into a diet and have no knowledge of what they are doing. You are doing your body a disservice.
  • princess3479
    princess3479 Posts: 13 Member
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    For the past year or so I have been on a low carb diet. I did not cut out carbs completely but what I did was I stopped eating the very starchy carbs like pasta, rice, peas & corn, etc. Up until recently I have just started incorporating rice into my diet but I only eat half a serving. I haven't ate pasta in over a year but instead I now make spagetti squash! What works for one person may not work for another but adapting a low carb diet has significantly decreased my stomach bloating & problems I use to have!
  • elisa123gal
    elisa123gal Posts: 4,306 Member
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    low carb works for super overweight people..because it is really just a way to get them to limit their diet intake to just one kind of thing. They lose weight because they are so overweight. I know this because my husband loses on it..he is very overweight and it works for him because he loves meat and cheese and that's all he eats..taking the decision making and will power out of calorie restriction.
    However he plateaus after he gets down to a more normal weight..those last 30 or so pounds.

    For me.. I maintain doing low carb..never lost a pound and did it for six weeks. That's because I only have 20 pounds to lose and you have to realize it is just calories in and calories out.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,411 MFP Moderator
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    The only benefit of low carb is a little less water retention. There is zero advantage in terms of fat loss. I say just cut the processed foods out of your diet. Have a moderate deficit and weight train with some cardio. This will provide results.
  • lovechicagobears
    lovechicagobears Posts: 289 Member
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    I'm on a low-carb diet because of my insulin resistance, but even I still eat 80-100 carbs per day. I find the weight loss stops if I go over 100 for any length of time, and it starts again as soon as I get back down to 80-100. A lot of people give me flack for "going low-carb", but I have to eat this way for the rest of my life if I want to prevent Type 2 diabetes. There's a chance the insulin resistance will go away once I get down to a healthy weight, but I don't see any reason for that to give me license to go back to eating way too many carbs and flooding my system with glucose.

    I wouldn't go NO carb, since carbs are found in so many healthy foods, like veggies and fruits, but you can certainly lower your carbs to 35% of your daily intake and gauge the results after a couple weeks. It isn't healthy to stay below 20 carbs per day for much longer than an induction period.

    The problem with Atkins was that people saw lots of weight loss during induction and decided they'd just keep eating under 20 to keep losing lots of weight, giving no thought to how that was harming their body. That's why so many gained the weight back; they never learned to gradually increase their carbs up to 80-100 per day, so when they went off the diet, they went right back to eating lots of breads, pasta, potatoes, and sugar.

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