Lose Weight Low Carb Diets 

Many people are interested to know if there are lose weight low carb diets that they should concentrate on and also what type of workout will give them the body they want and how do they go about achieving this? Gaining the body we want requires a two- pronged approach of both exercise and diet. There is no workout that can overcome a bad diet.  

Often people look into a starting a workout program in order to lose weight, even more so than trying to improve their health or fitness levels. With exercise alone you will struggle to lose weight and will need to be combined with a better diet. 

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The ideal program will contain both elements of nutrition and exercise to lose fat, improve fitness, and lower health risk. The popular press and exercise magazines have all dealt with diets containing various mixes of carbohydrates, protein, and fats. 

They have recommended high carbohydrate, low fat, high protein, and more recently the lose weight low carb diets.

How-ever our body is very adaptable and can often meet these challenges. The problem is that we need to provide enough energy for our muscles to work effectively while not providing too much that will be stored as fat. 

We need to provide the energy for our muscles so that they have sufficient prior to exercise and enough to recover afterwards without breaking down muscle to provide needed energy. 

In simplistic terms protein is used to build and repair muscles, carbohydrates provide the energy, and fats provide the hormonal factors necessary. All of these three elements are essential to good health and in achieving a fit and active lifestyle. How-ever if we are short of carbohydrates our muscles can use fat and protein for the energy needed. 

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On a slightly higher level, our muscles get energy from adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which in the main comes from glucose. This is stored in the liver, and the muscles themselves, as glycogen. When a muscle contracts anaerobically it can utilize the glycogen stored in the muscles directly and forms ATP. Only small amounts are stored and when used up leads to muscle failure. 

With aerobic activity ATP can be created, mainly from glucose, and be available almost immediately. The body then moves to use fatty acids, stored in fat cells, to provide fuel before moving to anaerobic methods to provide energy. 

This is why many people in the fitness industry believe that the lose weight low carb diets do not combine well with exercise. In fact many marathoners will load up with carbs prior to setting out. If we do not have carbohydrates available for our muscles to use then fatty acids will have to be used to source glucose. This is a precursor to ATP which our muscles can use.  

This process is not as efficient as glycogenesis which uses glucose to provide energy. People mistakenly think that the use of these fatty acids by the body has led to genuine weight loss. 

How-ever, mostly, it is not weight loss that we are after but fat loss. By not feeding the muscles much of the early weight loss will come from the muscle loss instead of the desired drop in fat. Instead we need to maintain or grow muscle mass while reducing fat percentages.

Our long term goal is not generally to lose weight, even though we may call it that, it is to lose the weight of fat. We are looking to change the body composition so that fat becomes a lesser percentage of total weight. Not many people would complain about having too much muscle! 

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The lose weight low carb diets are not a long term strategy for a healthy body even though we may be happy with the initial results on the scales.  How-ever it will generally be at the expense of also losing muscle mass which is certainly not the goal.