Carb Carnival

Switching To A Low Carb Plan?

Being on a carb conscious diet can be tough -- especially if you love bread, rice, pasta and sugar. Imagine going to a fast food restaurant because you're in a hurry and you're hungry. You can't even get a healthy sandwich because of the bread. Sure, in excess, carbs can make you gain weight. But instead of cutting them out of your diet completely, why not try limiting your carb intake first and making sure that the carbs you do eat are the right ones?

Switching your carb intake on a new diet

If you're thinking of starting a low carb diet and you're researching some of your options, you'll notice that some low carb diets have you cutting carbs out of your diet almost completely. This is especially true of the first two weeks of a low carbohydrate diet. And even after that first two weeks, you're very limited. But diets like the South Beach diet recognize the fact that your body needs carbs to function properly. The South Beach diet does limit your total carb intake during the first two weeks, but then you are encouraged to incorporate healthy carbs back into your diet. What's tough for most people is knowing what healthy carbs are.

Healthy carbs are called complex carbohydrates. These carbohydrates take longer for the body to digest, so you feel full longer. Complex carbohydrates include whole wheat or whole grain bread, whole wheat pasta, brown or long grain rice, fruits and vegetables. The bad carbs are the ones that are most likely to cause weight gain, particularly in the amounts that people tend to eat them. These are called simple carbohydrates, and it doesn't take long for your body to digest them. That's why you typically get a burst of energy when you eat these foods, then find yourself dragging again later. Simple carbohydrates include and high sugar foods (like desserts) and sugar drinks, white bread, regular pasta and white rice.

Check your carb count with the food pyramid

The Food Pyramid offers good guidelines to follow for a healthy diet. However, on a low carb diet, three of the five food groups are virtually eliminated. If you eat 6 ounces of whole grains, 2 1/2 cups of vegetables, 2 cups of fruit, 3 cups of milk and 5 1/2 ounces of meat every day, you should be in good health. This will also prevent you from becoming obese. (You'll notice desserts and fats are limited. Desserts should be eaten in very limited quantities--maybe only once a month--and fats should be the healthy ones, and should come from fish, nuts or healthy oils like canola oil or olive oil.

So that's your low carb rundown for the day. Take out of it what you will.