Sugar and low-carb diets

Sugar and low-carb diets

Sugar is a carbohydrate, or, in other words, carbohydrates consist of sugar. That is another reason for dealing with the controversial discussion around low-carb (fewer carbohydrates) diets.

What forms do low-carb diets take and what is behind them?

In a low-carb diet, carbohydrate-rich foods such as sweets  – but also bread, pizza, pasta, potatoes and sweet fruits – are greatly reduced and more fats and proteins are eaten instead. The different forms of low-carb diet are essentially distinguished by how much carbohydrates are allowed.

Our usual diet, or the diet according to the DACH reference values, recommends 50 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent fat and 20 percent proteins. The most extreme form of low-carb diet, the Keto Diet, reduces the carbohydrates to five percent and increases the fat intake in particular.

As no carbohydrates are consumed, no insulin is secreted either. The body is in a catabolic (deconstructing) state. It now uses fatty acids to produce ketone bodies, which can be used to generate energy.

Ketosis

Have you noticed that your breath becomes musty if you don’t eat for a long time?

It means you’re producing ketone bodies.

However, the ketogenic diet should not be for the everyday. It is used as a form of therapy, for example for epilepsy. This diet also shows positive effects in Alzheimer’s and other diseases. This intense form of the ketogenic diet is not a sustainable way of eating!

The Atkins Diet is another type of low-carb diet. It recommends extreme reduction of carbohydrates in the beginning to get into ketosis, which helps to burn fat. After that carbohydrates are allowed in moderate quantities, and finally individual carbohydrate requirements are determined.

Criticism of the “low-carb” phenomenon

The Atkins Diet has fallen into disrepute because it is often understood as a “meat diet” and is therefore allegedly unbalanced. Of course the quality of each food group is decisive for the health value of that group.

If the diet states that carbohydrates must be reduced and this is understood as being mainly sweets and white bread, then it must definitely be regarded as positive. However, if it also means that fruit and vegetables are removed from the diet at the same time, this is definitely not healthy and will lead to constipation quite quickly.

The fact that people automatically think of roast pork when the Atkins Diet is mentioned, is probably because that is what people associate with the terms “protein” and “fats”. Because the category “protein” also contains very highly recommended foods like curd cheese, skyr, hard cheese, fish, poultry, nuts, linseed oil, eggs and legumes.

Basically, short-term diets should be approached with caution, because the goal should always be to improve eating habits in the long term.

How much carbs are good for you?

Vary your carb rations and design them in accordance with your requirements!

If you do a lot of sport, you can in principle eat more carbs. If, however, you do sedentary work and tend to be overweight, it’s worth reducing carbs specifically.

To start with, you should of course cut out sweets, which includes cake and white bread. Design your weekly plan to contain a varied carbohydrate component that includes potatoes, millet and buckwheat. Reduce pizza and pasta and go mainly for wholewheat varieties.

If you can also manage to stick to three meals a day without snacking in between, nothing should be stopping you from burning fat!

You will see that this also affects your appetite. Because if your sugar levels remain low – meaning that they don’t fluctuate too much – after three days you’ll notice a drop in cravings and the desire for sweets as well.

Class not mass!

If you actually want to gain mass, you should always have a healthy snack such as nuts at hand. Sweets are still not recommended for you, because they only lead to fat storage in the liver and muscles and provoke inflammation throughout the body.

Be careful if you suffer from kidney ailments! If your kidneys don’t work well any more, you shouldn’t eat too much protein. The rules for sweets remain the same in this case.