Do Low Fat, Low Carb, or Low Calorie Diets Work? Articles | Low Carb Lifestyle Pages

By: Ross Gallo

Do (Fill in the blank) diets work?

Strange title.

But I believe that you could insert any popular or fad diet into the above statement and be able to truthfully answer the question.

For the short term yes, for the long-term maybe, but probably not.

Think about it.

Do Low Fat diets work?

If they really did, we would be a nation of puny 98 pound weaklings. Everything is low fat, problem is when they remove the fat, something that most of us really like, they replace it with high carbs. Low fat coffee cake, come on. Beside that our body needs fat to operate, maybe not the fat we give it, but we do need fat.

Do Low Calorie diets work?

Our genetic makeup won't let our bodies starve. When we were hunters and gathers and had some lean times, when food was scarce, our bodies started to slow the metabolism down to preserve us. As you start to reduce your caloric intake you body compensates for it and starts to go into a survival mode. Oh sure you will lose weight initially but that will stop and you will be upset most of the time because you are hungry.

Do Low Carb diets work?

I will admit that it was easy for me to follow the Atkins Diet. But it was not easy for my wife to follow it. Still it was a pain in the --- not eating some of the fruits I really enjoy. I truly do believe that a modified form of this diet is the best one for most people. Not as harsh as Atkins but maybe more in the line of South Beach. You kick-start your system with the low carb diet and then transition into a sensible eating plan.

Do the Purchase our food diets work?

If you get on some of the plans, it will cost you $300 to $600 a month for the privilege of eating their food. I am not sure about you, but that is some serious change to eat. Oh, I'm sorry, with most of these plans you still need to purchase some food to supplement their food. Give me a break!

I have found some of the frozen dinners do a good job of portion control, along with following the Weight Watchers guidelines. They are reasonably priced and very convenient. I am doing this right now. Although some of these brands do leave something to be desired in the taste category, but that is something you will need to find out for yourself if you choose this plan.

So the question remains Do (Fill in the blank) diets work? For the short term yes, for the long-term maybe, but probably not.

But think about this. We did mention that we were genetically made to burn fuel efficiently.

What would happen if we changed what we eat and when we eat it and kept our body burning fuel in that highly efficient manner. Instead of a low calorie diet, we gave it the food it needed and then changed what we gave it for a few days so it started burning our stored body fat.

Then before the metabolism starts to slow down, we give it the food it needs again. We we just keep changing our food pattern and food intake to keep our furnace burning hot. But that is for another article, another day.