The carbohydrate diet is a nutrition plan aimed at controlling the intake of sources of available energy, carbohydrates into the body. As a rule, non-carbohydrate can be used as a synonym for protein diet, in the regime of carbohydrate deficiency, proteins become the main food. Their ability to slowly break down allows you to classify a carbohydrate diet as very convenient: even small portions of food are processed long enough to ensure satiety.
A carbohydrate diet is often used by athletes for so-called drying, during which subcutaneous fat is expelled, and the muscles, thanks to abundant protein intake, become embossed and beautiful. This nutrition plan has collected benevolent reviews from those who, through the control of the carbohydrate component of the menu, got rid of excess kilos. Keeping to a carbohydrate diet is easy. It is necessary to remember only one figure – 250. This is the maximum number of calories that can be represented by carbohydrates in the daily diet. Let’s have a look at the rules you should follow to achieve the goal.
- Principle number 1: Follow the right drinking regimen on a carbohydrate diet
- Principle number 2: Check out the list of foods you should avoid
- Principle number 3: Learn how to choose the right foods
- Principle number 4: Monitor the amount of calories
- Principle number 5: Diversify your menu
- 4 Great Benefits You will Get if Keep to a Low-Carbohydrate Diet
Since a carbohydrate diet involves a selective approach to eating foods such as fruits and vegetables, the main stimulant of intestinal peristalsis, sufficient fluid intake becomes more important than ever.
- Water helps to remove undigested remains of food.
- It is also an important part of the healthy formation and renewal of cells in the body that has embarked on the path of losing weight.
- The daily volume of fluid required on a non-carbohydrate diet is from 1.5 to 2 liters of pure water.
You can also drink green tea (no more than 4-5 cups a day), you aren’t resticted to drink coffee without sugar. However, it is better not to abuse coffee, remembering its diuretic effect.
Important: Fruit juices, not only packaged, but also freshly squeezed, as well as sodas (including dietary) are banned for a predictable reason by the high content of sugars.
What foods should be avoided on a non-carbohydrate diet? In addition to the expected ban on any baking, sugar and virtually all cereals, a carbohydrate diet involves a refusal (or a significant restriction) of the following foods:
- Starchy vegetables (especially potatoes, carrots, beets, corn );
- Artificial sweeteners (despite the absence of sucrose, they cause a steady craving for sweets);
- Products marked as “diet” or “fat-free” (they contain a lot of questionable additives to improve the taste, including sugar and starch);
- Fruits (except citrus fruits and sour berries.) Some nutrition experts also allow coconut, peaches and apples to be consumed on a non-carbohydrate diet);
- Trans-fats (hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated);
- Products that have undergone tangible industrial processing (frozen ready meals, as a rule, contain a significant amount of hydrocarbon-containing additives).
Important: Having decided to keep to a low-carbohydrate diet, take it as a rule not to trust bright labels with inscriptions like “healthy food” and do not be lazy to read the composition on the package.
Decided to keep to a non-carbohydrate diet to achieve a weight loss effect, it makes sense not only to erase bread and sweets from your life, but also take into account the intake of fats. Protein rich food – meat, dairy products – usually contains and tangible portions of lipids of different quality and origin.
Nutrition specialists refer to this peculiarity of the diet of a carbohydrate diet in two ways: on the one hand, fat is needed for the body to function normally, on the other hand, protein processing itself becomes a serious strain on the body, and if one adds uncontrolled “supplies” of fat to this task, it turns out unimportant for the vessels and the cardiovascular system. Therefore, not only the quantity, but also the quality of fat obtained with food on a non-carbohydrate diet, become issues requiring special attention.
There are a variety of carbohydrate diets with a high fat content: such nutrition plans are especially popular in the USA, where a fast food culture is developed. Paradoxically, a complete ban on the use of carbohydrates in combination with permission for unlimited consumption of fat cannot improve, but rather quickly causes disruptions in digestion and provokes heart disorders.
- When choosing meat products for a non-carbohydrate diet, pay your consumer attention primarily to farm raw materials harvested from a livestock well-fed and raised in decent conditions. Supersaturated fat parts of carcasses should be avoided, choosing lean pieces.
- When cooking, avoid frying, frying in oil, preferring baking in the oven or on the grill, steaming. Although all meat products have a zero carbohydrate content index (sausages, sausages, pies, etc., containing additives are not taken into account), in order to lose weight on a non-carbohydrate diet, it makes sense to pay attention first and foremost to lean meat, avoiding mutton and lard.
- There is an opinion that in the fat-free dairy products there is more harm than good, but there is also room for choice: low-fat homemade cheese or grain curd for a carbohydrate diet is preferable to creamy, hard to assimilate varieties of the same products.
The Best Foods for a Low-Carbohydrate Diet
- Meet: beef, veal, chicken, turkey, rabbit offal and eggs liver, heart, tongue, bird eggs (chicken, duck, quail)
- Fish and Seafood: Fillet of sea fish, crabs, lobsters, shrimp
- Dairy: Cheese grain, plain yogurt, kefir, sour cream with caution – whole milk
- Vegetables: All leafy vegetables and salads, cabbage, bamboo shoots, artichokes, culinary herbs, bell peppers, zucchini, snow peas and beans, onions, with caution – mushrooms
- Fruit and berries: orange, grapefruit, pomegranate, green apples, cranberries, currants, strawberries
- Nuts and seeds: pine nuts, almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin, sesame
Important: It is known that unsaturated fats are more useful and conducive to losing weight. Saturated fats are also important for life – with them the body receives the most important fat-soluble vitamins, but with an overabundance in the diet, they provoke the appearance of cholesterol deposits.
You will have to carefully monitor the amount of calories you get from carbohydrates, and the volume of carbohydrates in grams. The amount of carbohydrates and kcal is represented in 100 g of the unprepared product. Here you will see the quantity of carbohydrates energy value in the following products:
- Dry biscuits: 336 kcal
- 1 banana: 94 kcal
- Pineapple: 30 kcal
- Beans: 60 kcal
- Honey: 324 kcal
- Milk: 58 kcal
- Plums: 43 kcal
- Persimmon: 65 kcal
- Cottage cheese: 100-250 kcal
- Bread, wheat: 226 kcal
- Rye bread: 224 kcal
- Spinach: 20 kcal
- Currant: 30-40 kcal
- Green peas: 75 kcal
- Dried peas: 316 kcal
- Oat flakes: 371 kcal
- Grapefruit: 32 kcal
- Carrot: 34 kcal
- Mandarin: 37 kcal
- Olives: 520 kcal
- Cucumber: 15 kcal
- Onion: 44 kcal
- Lemon:18 kcal
- Buckwheat: 345 kcal
- Cranberry: 41 kcal
- Strawberries: 36 kcal
- Potatoes: 87 kcal
- Asparagus beans: 33 kcal
- Yogurt: 47 kcal
- Kefir: 56 kcal
- Zucchini: 27 kcal
- White cabbage: 28 kcal
Important: Pay attention to the number of grams of carbohydrates in each product. You can choose from this amount and calculate carbohydrate grams up to 100.
There are many ready-made options for a menu of a carbohydrate-free diet. However, monotony is a scourge of any food plan that involves limiting the income of any macronutrient. It would seem that without potatoes, macaroni, flour it is difficult to make a complete diet, but with a certain amount of imagination and inspiration, you can enrich your table with tasty and healthy dishes suitable for a carbohydrate-free diet.
An example of the menu for a week:
- Breakfast: a couple of hard-boiled eggs, a slice of sausage, coffee or tea.
- Lunch: salad of cucumbers and tomato, cabbage soup without potatoes with sour cream,fried meat, tea.
- Snack: nuts.
- Dinner: cabbage salad with vegetable oil, boiled fish, kefir.
- Breakfast: cheese, tea.
- Lunch: green salad with vegetable oil, cabbage soup, a slice of sausage, coffee or tea.
- Afternoon snack: an apple.
- Dinner: cabbage boiled, a piece of fried chicken, tea.
- Breakfast: a pair of sausages with green peas, coffee or tea.
- Lunch: salad from fresh or sauerkraut, vegetable soup, chop, coffee or tea.
- Afternoon snack: orange.
- Dinner: boiled pumpkin.
- Breakfast: salad of grated carrots with sour cream, coffee or tea.
- Lunch: vegetable salad, chicken soup, boiled fish, tea.
- Snack: a couple of tangerines.
- Dinner: boiled chicken, tea.
- Breakfast: a couple of sandwiches with sausage, coffee or tea.
- Lunch: salad of fresh cucumbers, okroshka, chicken, tea.
- Afternoon snack: peanuts.
- Dinner: cheese, fish, a glass of dry red wine.
- Breakfast: three chicken eggs, cucumber, coffee or tea.
- Lunch: beet salad, fried chicken, tea.
- Afternoon snack: orange.
- Dinner: radish salad, boiled fish.
- Breakfast: sausages with squash caviar, coffee.
- Lunch: salad greens, chicken fried, tea.
- Afternoon snack: an apple.
- Dinner: cucumber salad, nuts
Original ideas for a low-carbohydrate diet:
Recipe 1: Cheeseburger without a bun
Form steaks from the shredded meat with low fat content (beef or turkey), grill on roasts or bake in the oven, add on slice cheddar for each serving. For juiciness – serve with tomato salsa or fresh salad vegetables with herbs and seasonings.
Recipe 2: Mitza or pizza-omelet
This dish looks like a typical pizza on the test, even with taste, with the difference that the flour cake replaces the lean ground meat or omelet base. Mitza is a dish, the name of which comes from a combination of words meat and pizza. To prepare an appetizing mitza, tightly ground lean beef in a hard-wearing form and lay over the vegetable filling (you can add a few mushrooms, cheese). Bake in the oven at 160 C for 30-40 minutes (depending on the thickness of the “cake”). Pizza omelette can be cooked on an open fire in a lightly greased frying pan with a lid: beat the eggs with kefir and spices, pour the mixture over the heated frying pan, add the tomatoes, slices of boiled meat, greens, cheese. This dish is also prepared for the company, cutting into triangles by the type of traditional pizza.
Recipe 3: Spinach with egg in coconut oil
Strew fresh-frozen or fresh spinach in a small amount of coconut oil of the first cold pressed, add beaten eggs and, optionally – some pancetta or low-fat brisket.
Important: It is necessary to lose weight gradually, give the body time to get used to this food system. It is especially important to strictly observe its principles in the first month. Even if you can not lose weight at first, do not panic and get upset. Do not miss meals as this diet implies that you eat according to the balanced system.
Normalization of metabolism.
Constant “snacks” sweet break the normal production of insulin and lead to the development of diabetes. Abandonment of carbohydrates gradually normalizes the production of insulin, causing the body to spend stored calories in fatty tissues, rather than demanding glucose from fast carbohydrates.
No feeling of hunger and decreased appetite.
After digestion carbohydrates from food fall into the blood in the form of glucose. After a few hours, the glucose level decreases and there is a feeling of hunger. The carbohydrate diet and rejection of carbohydrates break this mechanism and the person ceases to suffer from bouts of hunger.
Sharp reduction in caloric intake.
The restriction of carbohydrates in the diet leads to a sharp, but inconspicuous decrease in calorie intake by 20-25%. The reason is that in a normal diet, carbohydrates are not only the main source of energy, but also the main source of “empty calories” leading to weight gain.
A diet without carbohydrates means giving up gluten. The carbohydrate diet means rejecting products from wheat flour containing gluten. Despite the fact that a direct allergy to gluten occurs in only a few, more research suggests that gluten can be harmful to metabolism.