Low Carb Diets Versus Moderate Carb Diets – What Is What?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last few years, you likely have heard about the ‘low carb diet’. It’s in every fitness magazine, on the news, all over commercials, and almost every website dedicated to health makes some mention of this type of diet plan.
Face it. Low carb diets are hot. Some may even call them sexy – as in they are what you want to lose body fat.
But how low do you have to take your carbohydrate intake to make it low carb?
30% carb content of your diet?
Less than 100 grams of carbs a day? (which is generally the cut-off point for moving into ketosis where the body switches to ketones as a fuel source)
Or, do you need to basically exist on a diet of eggs, steak, cheese, and chicken to make it low carb?
Moderate Carbohydrate Diets
Moderate carbohydrate diets are those that typically contain 30% or more total calories coming from carbohydrates. Since this means that the diet is either isocaloric (an almost equal proportion of each macronutrient) or the largest contributer to the diet is carbs, it’s not going to fall into the ‘low carb’ category.
The benefit of this type of diet is that it’s more appropriate for those who are doing an hour or more of physical activity daily. This is because you’ll be supplying more glucose, which is the body’s preferred source of fuel for physical activity.
Also, this type of diet will allow for a great deal more variety in food choices since foods sucha s cereals, pasta, bread, oatmeal, potatoes, and fruit are not eliminated. They may be controlled, but they are still allowed.
Low Carbohydate Diets
Next you have the low carb diet category. This can span anything from 6% total calories coming from carbs to the 30% mark (5% and lower is reserved for ‘very low carb diets – see below).
This diet tends to provide better hunger control than moderate carbohydrate diets (since higher carb intakes naturally tend to make you feel more hungry), typically promotes maximum health due to the fact that the vast majority of your carb intake will likely come from fruits and vegetables which are highest in nutrients, and doesn’t go low enough in carbs that you are required to start doing carb-ups.
This type of diet is what I would recommend for most individuals looking to maximize their fat loss. It’s simple to follow, produces terrific results, and will still allow for the odd high-carb food that you crave every so often.
It’s basically moderation wrapped into one nice little diet plan.
Ketogenic Diets
Then you have ketogenic diets. A ketogenic diet is virtually like a low carb diet only on speed. It calls for you to lower carbs so low that you may even have to start counting vegetable carbs. Users of this diet often cannot eat foods like peanut butter, certain nuts, some variations of cheese, and fruits are definitely out of the question, all because they contain too many carbs.
Basically, when on a ketogenic fat loss diet, carbs are the enemy. Anything that contains more than a gram you need to watch very carefully and should probably eliminate.
These diets will really help control hunger to a maximum extent but you really need to ask yourself if they are worth it.
You can’t eat fruits – and some types of vegetables. This means your nutrient intake could be low.
You aren’t taking in any glucose. This means the intensity of your workouts will more than likely suffer (although weekend carb-ups can help off-set this to some degree).
You may get carb cravings stronger than you can handle. Not to mention while the thought of a high-fat diet may be appealing right now, it will tire over time.
In my opinion, unless you have strict medical conditions that require you to use a ketogenic diet, you’re better off without. Lower or moderate carb diets will be far better off, especially from a long-term health standpoint.
You could certainly carb cycle, where you will eat very low carb on certain days and higher carb on others, but very low carb for longer periods of time isn’t typically the smartest move for most people.
So, keep this in mind for reference sake. Next time you come across a ‘low carb diet’, you can assess just how low it is and whether it’s something you want to venture onto.
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2 Responses to “Low Carb Diets Versus Moderate Carb Diets – What Is What?”
July 3rd, 2009 at
[...] Low Carb Diets Versus Moderate Carb Diets – What Is What … Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last few years, you likely have heard about the ‘low carb diet ‘. It’s in every fitness magazine, on the news, all over commercials, and almost every website dedicated to health makes some … Read the original: Low Carb Diets Versus Moderate Carb Diets – What Is What … [...]
July 5th, 2009 at
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