News Flash: the fat you eat on a low carb diet doesn’t end up on your thighs.
Of all the diet foods you’ll find in your local supermarket, none is more popular than the “low fat” variety. From soups and snacks to decadent desserts, nearly every food staple has a high profile, low fat variant. Shoppers in search of a quick and seemingly easy entrance in to the world of dieting figure that the most obvious approach is to simply change out all of their usual food products with low fat varieties. After all, fat is what we’re all looking to burn, so removing it from our diets would be the most obvious approach.
Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth.
Since the dawn on the low carb diet in the 1960s, dieters have been consuming hefty amounts of dietary fat along with protein while restricting their carbs — and dropping fat and pounds by the cartload!
The fact of the matter is, the idea that the fat we eat in our diet becomes the same substance that leads to love handles, spare tires, and flabby thighs is a scientific misnomer, trotted out by countless diet-guru charlatans and carpet baggers. Even recognized institutions, such as the AMA and the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office have spread the misinformation about dietary fat. For decades, the low fat farce has been ingrained into the U.S. mainstream, so that a majority of Americans believe that the fat on their bacon strips gets eaten and becomes the stuff that makes our bodies jiggle.
How Carbs and Sugar Become Body Fat
If you’ve ever had the unfortunate experience of flipping through the cable channels and witnessing someone getting their fanny liposuctioned on reality T.V., then you know that, even by mere sight, there’s a big difference between dietary fat and body fat. It is true that the body stores fat in a way of stockpiling reserve nutrition and energy. But body fat is not created by eating dietary fat — it is manufactured by converting carbohydrates and sugar into body fat.
In this way, a dieter can go to the grocery store, stock up on every low fat product on the market today, and still gain weight. This is because any carbohydrates that you eat over your own personal Critical Carbohydrate Level — or CCL — is not purged by your body, but rather is retained as dietary fat. This is metabolism 101.
Of course, if you restrict your calories in a day to 1200 or less and exercise like a fiend, you can eat as many grams of carbohydrates as you want. The problem is, millions of Americans have found that the hunger and convenience associated with low calorie diets and daily exercising just doesn’t fit their lifestyle. Simply put, Americans want to eat more and exercise less while still losing losing weight.
That’s why the low carb diet is a perfect option.
Why Low Carb is Healthy and Low Fat is Dangerous
As Dr. Atkins outlined in his groundbreaking Diet Revolution, we humans aren’t built to eat copious amounts of sugar and carbohydrates. While we are indeed omnivores, our diet is meant to be comprised mainly of protein and fat, with carbs, sugars, and starches being added in sparingly. This comes as a surprise to many Americans, especially considering that we all learned about the food pyramid in school — the carbs and starches at the bottom of the pyramid were the most abundant, and low carb staples, such as proteins, meats, cheese, oil, anf at, are all meant to be eaten in small quantities.
The low carb diet basically turns the food pyramid on its head.
On the other hand, restricting dietary fat has been shown to be a dangerous game in the world of dieting. The fact, our bodies need dietary fat in order to create the good kind of cholesterol that keeps our cardio system functioning properly. A lack of fat in our diet has actually been proven to raise bad cholesterol levels in many people, all while doing absolutely nothing to help lose weight.
Low carb diets can be tough for people to sign on to, given the fact that the science behind low carb dieting flies in the face of what the mainstream medical community has told us for years. But when you consider the fact that nearly two-thirds of the American population is currently overweight, one has to start questioning the validity of the traditional food pyramid and the myths about fat, meat, and carbohydrates.
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Michael Nace is a low carb blogger for Linda’s Diet Delites.