Weight loss has a variety of health benefits, including lowering blood pressure, treating diabetes and improving your overall sense of wellbeing.
Scientific evidence points to two specific changes in diet that are best related to losing weight:
Eating less or calorie restriction
Eating fewer carbohydrates, which is often referred to as cutting carbs
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Why might eating fewer carbohydrates lead to weight loss?
The body has many systems that regulate how much weight you gain, but there is one major “storage” hormone in the body—insulin. Insulin’s functions are quite complicated, but one of its most important responsibilities is to help store the energy we eat for use later on. The more you store, the more fat you accumulate. Insulin secretion is triggered in the pancreas whenever we eat carbohydrates and, to a lesser extent, high amounts of protein. Other nutrients, like fat, do not trigger insulin secretion in the gut. This relationship between eating carbohydrates and increased insulin secretion is straightforward.
The fewer carbs you eat, the lower insulin levels stay. This leads to less energy stored in the form of fat.
There are two major pieces of evidence that demonstrate the relationship between carbohydrates and weight gain: 1) Diets that focus on carbohydrate restriction have the most consistent track records for effective, long-term weight loss when compared to other diets. The key here is "long-term," because almost all calorie-restricted diets lead to weight loss over short periods of time. 2) Weight gain is a common experience for a diabetic patient who begins therapy with insulin. This happens because the injected insulin helps store circulating sugar by pushing it into the fat cells to be used during fasting.
Simple carbohydrates: what are they, where do you find them?
Carbohydrates can be categorized by how easily they are digested. Simple carbohydrates are a group of foods that can be broken down very quickly by the body to be used almost immediately as energy. Simple carbohydrates are often further described as being either natural or processed. An easy way to recognize a processed simple carbohydrate is to think of them as man-made. You can avoid processed simple carbohydrates simply by limiting foods that cannot be grown in a garden or on a farm. Naturally occurring simple carbohydrates are present in foods like milk, vegetables and fruits. These carbohydrates are healthier to eat. Processed simple carbohydrates are found in foods like juices, candy, cakes, refined sugar (white or brown), and cereals. Possibly the best example of processing a healthy food into a simple carbohydrate is grains—like wheat. Naturally occurring grains have a shell made out of fiber and an inner core made out of simple carbohydrates.
If you eat the grain whole, it is far better for you because the fiber slows digestion, makes you feel full, and minimizes the rise in insulin. When grains are processed, the healthy shell is removed and the consumer is left with only the simple carbohydrate core (white flour). You can apply this simple example to every grain, including rice, wheat and oats. While eating simple carbohydrates might be beneficial before taking on intense exercise, having large amounts of simple carbs, in the setting of a sedentary lifestyle, can stress the pancreas and cause large increases in insulin secretion with subsequent weight gain and eventual insulin resistance.
Carbohydrates vs. calories
The relationship between carbohydrates, calories and weight loss might be closer than you think. Carbohydrate-based foods are very calorie-dense. This means they contain a lot of energy in a small amount of food. As an example, over 200 calories are in a single cup of cooked pasta (80% of these calories are from carbohydrates). If you have a small bowl of spaghetti, plan on about 400 calories. Bagels have around 250 calories each, even before you butter them!
Carbohydrates and hunger
Ghrelin is a hormone made by the stomach, particularly when it is empty. Ghrelin acts on the brain to trigger appetite. A diet high in carbohydrates may actually trigger this hunger hormone and increase food intake at the next meal. Choosing foods high in protein can help prevent this quick rebound in hunger after a meal. Carbohydrates are everywhere in our diet, and it would be very challenging to eliminate every single form of carbohydrate you eat. When trying to lose weight, target and limit the carbohydrates that trigger the most insulin secretion: processed, simple carbohydrates.
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