The underlying principles of low carb diets are based on the role of insulin in our body. There are three basic units the body uses for energy: Fats, Proteins, and Carbohydrates.

All three can be converted to blood glucose. However, while fats and proteins are converted slowly, carbohydrates are converted quickly causing quick spikes in the body’s blood sugar levels. These spikes in blood sugar levels cause the pancreas to create and release insulin until the blood sugar level returns to normal.

Meanwhile, insulin, a hormone produced in the pancreas that lowers our blood’s glucose levels is released into the blood as soon as the body detects that blood sugar levels have risen above its optimal level.

Insulin is a very efficient hormone that runs the body’s fuel storage systems. If there is excess sugar or fat in the blood insulin will signal the body to store it in the body’s fat cells. Insulin also tells these cells not to release their stored fat, making that fat unavailable for use by the body as energy.

Since this stored fat cannot be released for use as energy, insulin very effectively prevents weight loss. The higher the body’s insulin levels, the more effectively it prevents fat cells from releasing their stores, and the harder it becomes to lose weight. According to many authorities, over the long term, high insulin levels can lead to insulin resistance and cause serious health problems like obesity, accelerated aging, increased food allergies and intolerances, overworked immune system, heart disease, diabetes, and even cancer.

Carbohydrates, especially simple carbs like sugar and starch, are quickly turned into sucrose by the body entering the blood stream quicker thereby causing the release of large amounts of insulin. The fewer carbs are eaten, the less insulin is produced by the body, and the fewer calories are stored as fat. Less fat storage equals less weight gain and fewer carbs eaten equals less insulin in the blood and the body using its fat stores for fuel.

The premise behind every low-carb diet plan is that a body that produces less insulin burns more fat than a body that produces lots of insulin. Some plans encourage a period of extremely low carbohydrate intake so that the body will enter a state of ketosis and more quickly burn fat stores.

These are usually called induction periods. The length of extreme carb control varies from seven days to however long it takes you to reach your ideal weight. After this period of extremely low carb dieting, maintenance levels of carb consumption are followed to prevent weight gain. The amount of carb you can safely eat will depend on your unique body system. And you will probably have to experiment to find out what level of carb intake is best for you.

No matter what your carb intake, it will be lower than the norm and you will still eliminate white flour and white flour products and certain other sugary and starchy foods. This is why these diet plans are known as low-carb lifestyles.

Low-carb success requires that you be willing to give up simple carbs for the long-term.

For more low carb information and a FREE copy of the ebook “30-day Low Carb Diet Ketosis Plan”, please subscribe to our ezine Low Carb eGazette.

This article is for informational purposes only. You should consult with your physician before starting any diet.

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Insulin levels are influenced by your diet. When you consume a cookie for example the sugar in the cookie is absorbed by your body rather quickly thus causing your blood sugar to rise. A rapid rise in blood sugar can active an insulin response in the body. Insulin is also known as the fat producing hormone. What this means to you is that even if your calories are low and you follow a low fat diet you can still gain weight.

There are numerous studies, primarily done as research for controlling diabetes, on this subject. What has been developed is a rating system that tells you how quickly foods will cause your blood sugar to rise. If you are overweight or insulin resistant then when your blood sugar goes up rapidly you run the risk of activating an insulin response. Once the insulin is released it will often result in your blood sugar dropping to normal levels. Again if you are overweight or insulin resistant chances are good that your body requires more insulin to stabilize your blood sugar than normally needed. Then what often happens is your blood sugar will drop too low causing headaches, mood swings and cravings for sugar.

The problem with elevated insulin levels is that your body will be in fat producing mode instead of fat burning mode. High insulin levels cause your body to retain water, form plaque in your arteries and gain weight. If you want to manage your weight you will need to manage your insulin levels. One way to do this is to use the “Glycemic Index” as a guideline. We have rated foods from 140 to under 20. The higher the number the faster your blood sugar will rise. One surprise will be potatoes rate in the 100-140 range while peanuts rate fewer than 20. People will often eat the potato and avoid nuts. They think low fat, low calorie, they should lose weight. The reason they may not lose weight is because they are over producing insulin, resulting in weight gain.

Coaching Assignment: Your assignment this week is to avoid an insulin response. Become familar to the Glycemic Index and avoid any foods over a rating of 59. This will be a challenge for you. So many of traditional diet foods will be on the chart rating higher than you might expect. But for one week follow a meal plan that will consistently rate fewer than 59. See how you feel, notice how your body responds. Most people feel less bloated and have more energy.

Rosa Smith-Montanaro is the CEO of http://www.MindOverPlatter.com a virtual weight loss and wellness community. She is the author of the book Mind Over Platter® and the recipient of Best of the Web’s 2004 eBusiness Executive of the Year. Rosa speaks nationally about the power of the mind and how to use it to create a healthier, happier and harmonious life. She can be reached at MindOverPlatter@aol.com

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It seems that almost every day a new association between diet and health is discovered. Certain food groups have been shown in reliable studies to decrease the risk of various conditions; for example, the high lycopene content of tomatoes helps to prevent prostate cancer, and calcium-containing foods such as yoghurt and broccoli delay the onset of osteoporosis.

Other foods have been shown to cause, or aggravate, particular conditions. People with high blood pressure are routinely advised to cut down on salt intake. Gout sufferers are all too aware of the impact that some foods, especially drinks like beer (even alcohol-free beer!) have on their joints.

The problem with these food-health relationships, is that they are not very specific, or predictable. How many tomatoes must you eat, and for how long, for it to have a protective effect on your prostate? Assuming, of course, that you are a man and therefore would have one of these. And how much yoghurt and broccoli should you eat to help delay the onset of osteoporosis? Nobody seems to know the answers to these problems, and so it is generally recommended that we eat as much of the protective food types as we can, while avoiding the less favourable things like salt and saturated fats.

Recommendations like these seem to be a bit too vague for my liking. In this era of precise measurements and percentages, it could be expected that someone would be able to prescribe a daily or weekly portion of the particular food group required to decrease the risk of having a condition by a precise percentage. But this is just not possible. Confounding factors such as genetics need to be taken into account; if you have a family history of an illness you may have a genetic predisposition to having the condition yourself, no matter what you do. And genetics is generally too complex a subject to be able to make very accurate predictions. So any recommendations regarding eating certain foods to prevent disease should read something like this: ” Eat such-and-such food, and you may be able to make a slight difference to your overall risk of developing the condition, unless your genes say otherwise, and who can tell if this is the case?” Some prediction!

However, there is one condition where lifestyle and diet will always have a predictable impact on its severity and course, and that is insulin resistance.

“What?” you say. “Never heard of it.” And most people haven’t heard of it, despite the fact that it is one of the most prevalent conditions in the world today. It is more common than diabetes; in fact, insulin resistance is the cause of type 2 diabetes, and has been estimated to affect about one in four people.

So what is insulin resistance?

The answer is not a simple one: insulin resistance is a complex entity, which involves a spectrum of conditions ranging from excess weight around the waist, to type 2 diabetes mellitus. It is the single cause of conditions such as metabolic syndrome, polycystic ovarian syndrome and type 2 diabetes, and is strongly associated with high blood pressure, cholesterol abnormalities, gout, and most frighteningly, sudden death, especially in middle-aged women. In short, it is a medical time bomb.

Its origins are not always clear-cut either. Insulin resistance tends to run in families - although not everyone in the same family is necessarily equally affected. A brother may never show any symptoms of the illness, while his sister may have significant weight problems and go on to develop type 2 diabetes at the age of forty. Or vice versa. Why this happens is not always apparent, although diet and lifestyle do play very significant roles in the progression of the condition.

Insulin resistance may also be “acquired”; in other words it develops in an individual with no family background of insulin resistance and its associated conditions. This usually occurs in people who are overweight for whatever reasons. It has been estimated that half of all people who are significantly overweight have insulin resistance!

It may be because of this very obvious association between insulin resistance and excess weight that, despite the fact that insulin resistance is largely a genetic disorder, it is very responsive to dietary and lifestyle changes, especially those that result in significant (i.e. more than 2-5 kilograms) weight loss. Fantastic news for those who are not very fond of taking tablets!

In fact, exercise and diet were shown by the Diabetes Prevention Program to be almost twice as effective as metformin (a drug that is known to reduce insulin resistance) at reducing the risk of progressing to type 2 diabetes, which is more or less the end result of insulin resistance. And these benefits occur whether the person affected was overweight or not at the beginning of the lifestyle modification program. Strangely enough, some people with insulin resistance do not have a weight problem by ordinary standards. Instead, they may have a completely normal body mass index, and the only sign of underlying insulin resistance may be a slight thickening around the waist area.

Nevertheless, the end result of the appropriate dietary modification is the same… an improvement in symptoms, and a longer, healthier life. In a world where people are becoming more interested and involved in taking control of their bodies and their health, this is excellent news. A do-it-yourself cure that really works!

Having said all this, just a word of caution. Weight loss should be approached carefully. Conventional low calorie, low fat and high carbohydrate diets do not work very well for people with insulin resistance, and crash diets work well for nobody. An appropriate diet, a bit of mild exercise, and a slow, gentle loss of weight are all that is needed to make a huge difference to your health. And to the health of those around you. Please remember that family members of people with diabetes are likely to have insulin resistance too, and need to be made aware of this possibility. With insulin resistance and diabetes, prevention is always better than cure!

Dr. Guin Van Niekerk qualified as a medical doctor at the University of Cape Town in 1997. It was while working a few years later as a general practitioner that she developed a strong interest in insulin resistance and its associated conditions. She subsequently ran a small metabolic syndrome clinic for her patients and discovered that the concept of insulin resistance was largely unknown to the public.

Dr Guin Van Niekerk is also the author of “Why Fat Sticks: An Introduction to Insulin Resistance” For more information go to www.insulinresistancesite.com

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