Weight Loss: Busting 4 Myths Related to Low-Carb Diets

No carbohydrates on your plate in the evening – and you lose weight. Does that really work? We examine four myths for their truth content.

Why Should I Stop using Carbohydrates in The Evening?

There are many good reasons to avoid carbohydrates in the evening. These include:

• Protein helps us to build muscles and accelerates fat loss.
• Protein-rich food made from fish, eggs, vegetables and meat is a good choice
• Just as important for a healthy diet to lose weight: Vitamin C and fibre. For example, there are many of these in cabbage varieties such as Brussels sprouts or broccoli.

[mks_highlight color=”#dd3333″]Myth 1[/mks_highlight]

The less carbohydrates the better you lose weight

No bread to go with your salad! Saving carbohydrates (“carbs”) is the trend. The German Nutrition Society (DGE) recommends that we cover half of our energy requirements with bread, potatoes, pasta or rice. In fact, women eat only 41 percent. Is that a problem? “No,” says Professor Hans Hauner, “there is no fixed lower limit.”

Nevertheless, the nutritionist from the Technical University of Munich recommends a carbohydrate-rich diet, because otherwise there is a lack of important dietary fibre. In addition the body provides itself the energy, which it needs. “Who saves with the coal hydrates, eats often automatically more fat. An exchange trade between Carbs and fat without advantages for figure and health thus.

Also for ecological reasons Hauner advises against a diet largely without carbohydrates. In order to produce one kilogram of meat, seven kilograms of grain must be fed. “If everyone ate like this, the earth would collapse.”

[mks_highlight color=”#81d742″]The Truth[/mks_highlight]

Whether low carb (little carbohydrates) or low fat (little fat) – with both you lose weight equally well.

[mks_highlight color=”#dd3333″]Myth 2[/mks_highlight]

Eating spaghetti after 15 o’clock makes you fat

This fairy tale haunts all kinds of diet forums. Nobody knows exactly where it comes from. It cannot be scientifically justified either. Fact is: Our metabolism ticks after an internal clock. And: Many sleep badly when they have eaten too much late in the evening. Which is also true: “After a carbohydrate-rich meal, the insulin level rises, which temporarily inhibits fat burning,” says Professor Susanne Klaus of the German Institute of Human Nutrition in Potsdam-Rehbrücke.

Many diet gurus knit the thesis out of this that carbohydrates make you fat in the evening and that it is better to drive without carbs. “That’s nonsense,” says nutritionist Professor Hans Hauner. “Our body burns all nutrients around the clock, whether fat, protein or carbohydrates. Even when we sleep”. If you want to lose weight, you are still well advised not to eat carbohydrates in the evening, or at least only a few – and to eat protein instead. This makes you full and fat is burned even better.

[mks_highlight color=”#81d742″]The Truth[/mks_highlight]

We generally gain weight when we eat more than we consume and not because we eat spaghetti in the evening and not for lunch.

[mks_highlight color=”#dd3333″]Myth 3[/mks_highlight]

Stinging on noodles and potatoes is not healthy

Whether we eat many carbohydrates or no carbohydrates in the evening is quite irrelevant in terms of health. This is the conclusion of the current carbohydrate guideline of the German Nutrition Society, which has evaluated countless studies on this subject. Cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes: “There is no correlation between the amount of carbohydrates we eat and the risk of these affluent diseases,” concludes Professor Hans Hauner.

Instead of pondering whether we eat too many carbohydrates, we should pay attention to what they are when we want to lose weight. Fruit juice and lemonade? Here, stinginess is the order of the day: the sweet drinks quickly raise the blood sugar level, do not satiate and provide plenty of calories. They can even increase the risk of diabetes, as studies show.

On the other hand, we should eat vegetables and wholemeal products more often: Whole grain in particular provides many complex carbohydrates, which the body slowly breaks down, as well as valuable fibre. “They have been shown to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, obesity, obesity and colon cancer,” says Hauner.

[mks_highlight color=”#81d742″]The Truth[/mks_highlight]

75 percent of women in Germany eat too little fibre. That should change urgently. But without carbohydrates there is no such thing.

[mks_highlight color=”#dd3333″]Myth 4[/mks_highlight]

Better cheese pure than cheese bread with carbs

This is preached by Hays’ Food Combining, the motor vehicle diet or Insulin Food Combining. The thesis: protein should be eaten without carbohydrates, as both cannot be digested together. Fermentation processes would otherwise disturb the acid-base balance, which would be unhealthy and make you fat. “Completely illogical,” says Susanne Klaus from the German Institute of Nutrition Research.

Assuming that the digestion was right, that would be great in terms of diet and slimming. We could eat meat with potatoes and not use half the calories. But it doesn’t work! The thesis of the disturbed acid-base balance is also refuted: “In healthy people the pH value can drop for a short time due to a diet, but the body quickly compensates for this”, says Klaus. Regardless of whether we eat carbohydrates and protein separately or not.

[mks_highlight color=”#81d742″]The Truth[/mks_highlight]

You can save yourself the trouble of separating carbs and protein.