While the diets we talked about so far have seen an increase in popularity only in the last few years, low carb diets have been around for decades. As the name suggests, low carb diets are low in carbohydrates. This means that if you switch to a low carb diet and consume the same amount of calories, you will have to consume more protein and or more fat to make up for the lost calories. Since carbs are the only non essential macronutrient, which means our body doesn't need them to survive, unlike protein and fat. In theory, there's nothing wrong with a low carb diet. But like I said so many times before, there is a difference between simply surviving and feeling great.
Advocates of low carb dieting will often tell you that reducing your carb makes sense because eating carbohydrate produces insulin, which in turn triggers rapid fat storage. So the key to a healthy diet they say is to eat as few carbohydrates as possible. Now, I already talked about how this can Be true for simple carbs like high sugar fruits and candy. But when it comes to quality complex carbs, then these claims are simply false. In fact, if you regularly exercise than not consuming complex carbs will hurt your strength level and therefore your muscle gains. Trust me, you'll feel a lot weaker and your workouts will become very difficult if you don't provide your body with the fuel in the form of complex carbs.
What this means is that if you want to gain muscle, then low carb diets are not optimal, and I don't recommend them. Now, what about weight loss? Does a low carb diet makes sense when wanting to lose fat? as so often? The answer is it depends. If you're completely sanitary, meaning you almost never exercise, then yeah, it makes sense to cut carbs, simply because carbohydrates are primarily energetic.
So the purpose is to give yourself energy. If you don't do anything with your body, it doesn't need very much energy so it doesn't need the carbs. That's a relatively low carb diet would make sense for us. sanitary person, and somewhere around 100 grams per day would probably be enough. Also, people who consumed primarily simple carbs such as processed and junk foods will benefit from eating less of them simply because anything you eat instead of junk food is probably going to be more nutritious. That being said, to lose weight, you always have to follow negative calorie balance.
Like I said so many times before, no matter if you're eating low or high carb. The problem with low carb diets though is that it's easier to overeat. For many people, the absolute worst part of dieting to lose weight is the hunger which often leads to cravings. Unfortunately, a low carb diet basically guarantees that you're going to struggle with hunger. carbs, especially the fiber rich types have a significant impact on your fullness, whereas the dietary fats don't. That is eat a bunch of fibrous carbohydrates and you'll feel very fool for quite some time.
Eat a bunch of dietary fat and you want also fat is a lot more calorie dense with one gram of fat, having Double the calories of one gram of carbs. So as you can see, unless you don't exercise at all or have problems with your insulin sensitivity, low carb isn't the best choice. Of course, different people react differently to more or less carbon tech. So it makes sense to try it out at least once. Maybe you're one of those people that actually feel better with less carbs and that's what matters in the end.