Dieting is one of the most common ways of weight loss that is adopted by people across the globe. It is common knowledge that for weight loss you need to reduce your calorie ingestion and at the same time burn off extra calories by exercise. The low calorie ingestion plan is referred to as dieting in common parlance and if you want any meaningful and lasting loss in weight, you would opt for dieting.

For some time now, low-carb and also low fat dieting has gained prominence. One of the most popular diets around is the Atkins diet which espouses the shunning of carbohydrates. People around the world have adopted low carb diets as these have shown results in terms of weight loss. However there are certain facts about low carb diets that one must be beware of.

First, low carb diets may help one to lose weight, but these do not help in any meaningful reduction of extra flab or fat. The reason that one loses weight on low carb diets is that the body retains as much as 2.4 grams of water for every single gram of carbohydrates consumed, which means that if you cut out the carbohydrates, you also cut out the water retention substantially. This is rather hypocritical and less than real weight loss method.

Second, it has been found that low carb diets also affect the muscle glycogen levels, which are sources of energy for the body. When the glycogen levels dip, the body feels rather tired and becomes slow in responses and rather sluggish. This is certainly not very good for your healthy body functioning.

The third de-merit of low carb diets are that these also impede the agility and ability of the brain to function optimally. The brain requires adequate amounts of energy to function at its best and it’s quite obvious that if you deprive the brain of the requisite energy, it would function sub-optimally. As the brain controls all your thoughts and actions, limiting its effectiveness by consuming less carbs is not really a great idea after all!

There are many who say that extra carbs get converted into fat. This is true, but it’s also true that any food ingested in excess also gets converted into fats and not just carbs. The real issue in this case is of moderation and avoiding excess food in any form and not just carbohydrates. Merely demonizing carbohydrates is not quite the smartest thing to do.

Carbohydrates are essential to the body for various vital nutrients which cannot be gained from other food types and sources. In fact studies have also shown that consuming moderate amounts of carbohydrates keeps the body fit, increases immunity and also does not prevent fat loss.

If you want to be fit, do not avoid carbs. Rather, what you need to do is to have a whole grain carbs as well as carbs with fiber. These are rich in nutrients and do not leads to weight gain. Also, be clear that for any diet to be effective in every way, it must be balanced with just the right amount of carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, fluids and proteins. Eat healthy and stay healthy!

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