What is the low-carb diet? Simple explanation!
What is the low-carb diet? I’ll give you a simple explanation…
To put it very simply: with the low-carbohydrate diet you eat and drink fewer carbohydrates every day. And the carbohydrates that you still eat and drink are healthy. So during the low-carb diet you eat much less carbohydrates and you remove the wrong carbohydrates from your daily diet, such as cookies, sweets, wrong snacks, white bread, pasta, white rice, energy drinks, soft drinks, ready-to-eat products and more unhealthy products and ingredients.
What do you leave out and what do you add in the low-carb diet?
As described above, you eliminate the unhealthy carbohydrates from your daily diet. In addition, you reduce your daily portion of carbohydrates. Instead, add healthy fats and healthy proteins to your daily menu. Why? Your body needs fuel to function. For example, your body gets this from carbohydrates (that does not have to be a lot of carbohydrates per day), but if you are going to reduce the carbohydrates, your body needs something else as fuel. Because, the engine of your body has to run somehow. And that is possible with healthy fats and healthy proteins. Your body can function well on this, in combination with the healthy carbohydrates that you still eat.
Note: Hi, my name is Muriel and I enjoyed writing this article. Because I am Dutch, my English may not be optimal, but I do my best. Sorry for that. But I hope this blog article still inspires and informs you.
Two most famous types of carbohydrates: the evil witch and the good fairy
There are 2 types of carbohydrates that are often talked about: simple and complex carbohydrates. An important difference between the two: the speed at which they are absorbed into your body! To make it easier I talk about ’the evil witch’ and ’the good fairy’. So I make it clearer to understand.
#1. Simple Carbs (The Evil Witch):
Short energy boost
Simple carbohydrates are absorbed very quickly by your body and you get an energy boost from this. You then feel good for a while, because you are temporarily bursting with energy, but there is a big adder in the grass. This energy boost is short-lived, because your blood sugar level spikes like crazy and then quickly drops to a low point again.
It looks like an addiction
And therein lies the danger! It can be compared to an addiction: to get that good feeling again, your body wants to get back to you with simple carbohydrates as soon as possible. And your body gets used to it more and more. So to reach the blood sugar peak that will make you feel good every time, you need more and more simple carbohydrates. So, for example, you are going to consume more and more candy, cookies, chips, white bread and energy drinks, because that’s where the fast carbohydrates can be found. The evil witch is going to run off with you!
Your body can hardly be poked to lose weight
And burning fat? Your body does that much less, because hey, why would your body start burning fat if it already gets satisfaction and fuel from all those energy peaks that you give your body by consuming simple carbohydrates? With all those simple carbohydrates, your body is therefore difficult to poke to lose weight. It actually thinks it is fine, but in the meantime the kilos are piling up, with all the lingering health disadvantages as a result.
#2. Multiple carbohydrates (the good fairy):
More stable blood sugar levels
You can see complex carbohydrates as the good fairy: they want the best for your body. The multiple carbohydrates ensure a more stable blood sugar level.
Your body is better at burning fat
How does that happen? Multiple carbohydrates are more complex for your body to break down and are therefore absorbed much more slowly by your body. This way you get your energy much more gradually and therefore your body is better able to use the fats in your body as fuel. And that is of course what you want: for your body to use the fat rolls and fat deposits in your body as fuel, so that you lose weight.
Better for your body
A stable blood sugar level thus offers many benefits. You are better able to stick to the low-carbohydrate diet, you feel less hungry, your body starts to burn the accumulated fat, you feel fitter and your body becomes healthier.
From prehistoric man to a stuffed person!
Let me take a big step back in history: we go back tens of thousands of years in time, to prehistoric man. The prehistoric man was a hunter and ate both fish and meat, but also plants, fruits, nuts, seeds, eggs and herbs. A menu that mainly consisted of a lot of fats, a lot of proteins and few carbohydrates. That in itself was an excellent menu.
But now we humans have become ‘STUFFED PERSONS’! And that in a relatively short time of several hundred years. The few carbohydrates that ancient humans ate have now made way for a lot of carbohydrates and a lot of WRONG carbohydrates.
As a result, your body is desperate! Your body is constantly coordinating these enormous amounts of carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates in your body.
Why does your body get confused by too many and wrong carbohydrates?
Do you need no carbohydrates at all? Yes, a small amount of healthy carbohydrates daily, that is completely fine. But with the stuffed person that is not the case at all. Because, what’s happening? If you as a stuffed person (sorry to call you that 😊) eat your daily amount of carbohydrates, your body converts these carbohydrates into glucose. Your body uses this glucose as fuel for your cells. Think of it as the fuel a car needs.
But before it can be used as fuel, your body has to produce insulin. Insulin ensures that your cells open the doors to absorb the glucose. That’s just a process that works. For example, you also first have to open the tank cap of your car and take it off to pour the petrol in it! Insulin also lowers your blood sugar peak.
So what’s wrong with the stuffed person? Because of the enormous amounts of carbohydrates and wrong carbohydrates, your body is working overtime! Your cells don’t feel like constantly keeping the doors open to absorb glucose. The same is true with the fuel cap of your car. If you use it too much, it will wear out and the fuel cap will open more and more stiffly, until it no longer opens. There you are at the gas pump with a fuel cap that won’t open anymore! In response, you turn the cap harder or you put everything on it at home, such as Vaseline or penetrating oil.
This is also the case in the body of the stuffed person: your cells no longer feel like having to constantly keep the doors open for the large amounts of glucose and they are increasingly difficult to open. In response, your body starts to produce more and more insulin, but your body becomes more and more insensitive (resistant) to it. The main place where your body can still accommodate the glucose at that moment is in your fat cells. And look there: you get fat rolls and you get fatter and fatter! Obesity is lurking, but also annoying diseases such as Diabetes 2!
It’s very simple: you are going to change your fuel type!
With the low-carbohydrate diet you will look at the fuel for your body in a completely different way. Because, just like a car that needs petrol, gas or electricity to drive, your body also needs fuel to LIVE and FUNCTION!
The low-carb diet restores the fuel supply for your body, so that it is no longer overwhelmed by too many and incorrect carbohydrates. In other words: your body goes from a carbohydrate burner to a fat and protein burner. Your body is therefore no longer flooded with large amounts of glucose. That is much healthier and much clearer for your body.
Do you understand?
I hope I have explained in nice, simple language what the idea behind the low-carb diet is. I have avoided too many medical terms, because I don’t have much use for them myself. In order to understand these kinds of processes in the body, I always like to clarify it very visually and with examples.
Did I forget things in the explanation of what a low-carb diet is? Most likely yes! But one of the most important things about the effect of the low-carb diet is: you go back to prehistoric man, as it were. So, as I wrote at the beginning of the blog article: with the low-carb diet you go back to a daily diet with fewer carbohydrates and with more healthy fats and with more healthy proteins. And the carbs that you do eat, they are healthy!
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