Carb Carnival - Low Carb

A Couple Of Helpful Low Carb Stories For You To Listen Closely To

A low carb craze hits a lady named Carol

Carol was at work one day when she smelled bacon and eggs cooking in the breakroom.

Mmm. It was such a tempting smell, but she was on a diet and didn't want to mess up her progress. Later, she teased her friend Derek who was cooking the bacon and eggs, telling him he was going to gain weight. But Derek proceeded to tell her that he was on a low carb diet. Carol didn't know anything about low carbdiets, so she said, "That must really be some diet that lets you have bacon and eggs!" Derek said that's why he liked it.

Obviously, Carol was intrigued and wanted to know more.

Derek's explanation of his supposedly great low carb diet

Naturally, Derek was happy to explain the virtues of his new low carb diet.

He explained that most low carb diets focused on high protein intake because when your body doesn't have carbs to burn, it burns fat and protein instead, and that's how you lose weight. And that's also why he was allowed to have bacon and eggs. These are both low carb foods that are high in protein (although choosing turkey sausage over bacon would have been a better low carb food choice.)

Carol was confused though. "What are carbs? I mean, how do you know which foods have carbs and which foods have protein?" she asked.

"It's easy," Derek explained. "Meat, eggs and cheese all have the most protein. So you can have as much of those things as you need to feel satisfied. But you can't have bread or potatoes with it because those have carbs. And you can't have pasta, rice or vegetables either, except like....romaine lettuce salads. And you have to be careful what dressing you use. Tonight I'm having a steak and a salad for supper. But no dessert. That's the other thing--anything with refined sugar has carbs."

While Derek was right, he didn't seem to be aware of the health risks associated with being on a low carb diet. Carol was tempted to try a low carb diet herself, but she wanted to do some research and learn about low carb diets first. After all, what kind of diet won't let you have vegetables? She learned how a variety of low carb diets worked, and that they had side effects. She learned that when your body burns fat in place of carbs, ketones are released into the bloodstream and expelled through urine. This is called ketosis, and it has side effects, which include:

Headaches
Nausea
Lack of energy
Grumpiness
Constipation due to a lack of fiber
Bad breath
Kidney damage (if done long-term)
Possible heart disease (if done long-term)
Risk of osteoporosis - (When your body starts burning protein, it leaches calcium from your bones.)
Heightened risk of cancer due to lack of vegetables that provide key nutrients

Carol's current diet included foods from all the food groups, but in small amounts. And it limited desserts. Her weight loss was slow, and although a diet that focused on low carbs was tempting due to Derek's rapid weight loss, she also knew that the slower the weight came off, the more likely it was to stay off if she was careful. So that's what she opted for.

Six months later, thanks to these tremendous low carb recipes that she found online, she hadn't lost as much weight as Derek, but a year later, they had both lost the same amount of weight, but Carol was still enjoying foods from all categories, while Derek was getting bored with his limited selection and considering quitting the diet altogether. Try a low carb diet today.