BMI

The Atkins Diet is one of several types of low carb/slow carb/no carb diet that have strong advocates and critics. Often the discussions in internet fora are heated and sink to name-calling and abuse, including colorful descriptions of what someone’s head would be good for.

According to the low carb advocates, if you consume less than 50 grams of carbohydrates a day, the insulin response is very low, and this confers a metabolic advantage to the person keen of fat loss. What advantage? In the absence of high insulin levels/spikes, the body burns fat and uses it as the preferred energy source. Insulin, you might know, normally causes storage of ingested calories (carbs/fats) in belly fat depots. It is no coincidence that in the metabolic syndrome, a condition associated with diabetes and a pot belly, the insulin levels of the patient are very high. In fact, the metabolic syndrome is synonymous with insulin resistance- a condition where higher than normal levels of insulin are required to control blood glucose levels.

So, to come back to the point, low carb advocates claim that when you cut out the grains and sugars, you don’t need to bother about calories. You will lose fat anyways.

High carb advocates include formidable groups and associations, including the nutritional bodies that recommend policy to governments. They are the kingpins of the current nutritional recommendations of the food pyramid where around 60% of your food is supposed to come from carbs. The high carb advocates state that the low carb lifestyle causes cancers, kidney damage and make you weak. Most of such allegations are, however, baseless.

Low carb lifestyles are safe and do work. However, the adherence to any particular lifestyle needs motivation. People who fantasize about having a thick layer of jam layered on white bread are not likely to stick to a low carb lifestyle for long!

Whichever way one looks at it, if the goal is fat loss, the easiest way to do it is to cut out carbohydrates, which takes away a large source of calories. What is more, a diet high on protein and fat is at once more fulfilling and satiating. It helps to curb cravings and create a sharp mind, rather than one befuddled by the glucose fall after a post-meal insulin surge.

A low carb lifestyle also helps if you have the metabolic syndrome or diabetes. There are many patients of ours who are doing well merely by sticking to a low carb diet. 

The most important aspect of this diet (for the patient) is understanding it, accepting it as a choice for health and satisfaction, rather than a lifestyle of deprivation.

So, to come to the point, does a low carb diet work for fat loss? It definitely does, but whether it does so by restricting calories alone (on account of it being more satiating an filling) or by having a metabolic advantage is still not unquestionably clear. 

The current evidence definitely shows that a caloric deficit is needed for fat loss, and also shows that low carb diets achieve it, but not necessarily better than any other diet.