Low carb dieters need more to stay thin.
Contributed by on Wednesday, May 19 @ 06:13:23 EDT
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Low carb dieters run the risk of putting the weight back on once they go off the diet. They also develop LCTS which can affect their health negatively. Dr. Howard Peiper tells us what to do to maintain a slimming lifestyle and integrate low carb with healthy eating.
A 2003 Gallup poll disclosed that 47 percent of the U.S. population is now monitoring carbohydrate intake. It is estimated that the “low-carb” diet is followed by over 50 percent of weight-conscious Americans. The sales of low-carb products and services have been estimated at $15 billion in 2003. Everywhere you look, food products are popping up labeled low carb. Bread, pasta and other flour products have lowered their net carbs (the ones you absorb) to entice you to pig out without putting on weight. Candy and “health” bar manufacturers have given us so many new choices for low-carb confections that whole supermarket isles are devoted to those treats. Even soft drink and orange juice makers have found a way to lower carbs. So, you gobble all these acceptable foods in hopes that you will stay slim, lose weight and prevent heart attacks.
The enormous popularity of low carb diets has triggered the scientific community to research the nutritional and metabolic basis of the food regimens as well as the health effects of artificial sweeteners used especially in so-called diet drinks. As Dr. Howard Peiper mentions in the book, Low Carb and Beyond, that lifestyle may not keep you healthy. You may become a victim of the Low Carb Tunnel Syndrome (LCTS) where you fail to look a your body’s needs. Instead you may become focused on eating anything that claims to be low carb without consideration to ingredients. If we take a course in “Body Function 101” we find we need carbohydrates to survive. We also need fiber and nutri-ents from foods as well. Unfortunately, many low-carb packaged foods and bread stuffs contain carb blockers which are nothing more than substances added to prevent the body from absorbing the carbs and turning them into glucose to be stored as fat. In Low Carb and Beyond, we are told that the body needs to absorb nutrients or we will eventually die. If carb blockers prevent absorption, won’t the nutrients also be passed out of the body along with the starch?
Eating is supposed to be a ritual that is necessary to sustain life. If what you eat doesn’t get absorbed, how can you stay alive? Rather than choose carb-blocker breads and pasta, you should try to rethink your entire food regime to include moderate amounts of whole grain products. Reducing or eliminating white flour products (higher in the “bad” carbs) will satisfy your urge to maintain a low-carb lifestyle while allowing you to eat flour products made from spelt, rice, kamut, rye, etc.
People afflicted with Low-carb Tunnel Syndrome (LCTS) are making the confec-tion industry boom. Weight conscious dieters have long chosen aspartame-laden products over sugar-rich treats, even with its publicized side effects such as headaches. Now low-carbers can get off aspartame and choose instead sucralose, maltitol, erithritol, ACE-K, sorbitol, lactitol, etc. These sweeteners are not absorbed by the body and therefore do not cause carbohydrate absorption. Unfortunately these sweeteners also come with side ef-fects such as diarrhea and worse which are overlooked by those afflicted with the LCT Syndrome.
The most difficult food addiction to break is sugar. If it becomes acceptable to gorge oneself on low-carb drinks, bars and desserts, the dieter may emerge with an im-mune-deficient body. Hunger normally means the body needs nutrition. When sweets are consumed on a constant basis, the body continually craves its next fix. Low-carb or not, a person becomes addicted to these non-sugar treats and substitutes them for healthy life-giving food. The low-carb addict becomes nutrient deficient and signs of immune disor-ders appear such as fatigue, memory loss, joint problems, acne, wrinkles and chronic ill-ness. Low carbers have also chosen hard liquor over beer in an effort to stay devote to their lifestyle. Alcohol also comes with high calories, which are overlooked when LCT Syndrome victims make choices based solely on carb content. This desire to be low carb taints our common sense.
Public health officials are sounding the alarm: poor eating habits are at the root of an epidemic of obesity and diabetes and these conditions are linked directly to hyperten-sion, heart attacks, and strokes. Diets high in refined carbohydrates are linked to many illness. But restricting all carbohydrates from your diet could compromise your immune system putting you at risk for many more illnesses. Since their inception, low-carb diet proponents have altered their recommendations. Once known as protein diets, deleterious effects on the body prompted them to add vegetables and other low-glycemic carbohy-drates to the program. These current diets are much healthier and include whole-grains, low-fat foods like chicken or fish instead of high fat meat, olive oil instead of saturated or hydrogenated oil, and snack foods such as popcorn or whole-grain pretzels or bread. Dr. Peiper outlines a program of eating that takes into consideration low carb, food-combining, acid/alkaline balancing, choosing organic foods and adding supplements. He claims that by rounding out your low-carb diet you will avoid LCTS and maintain a more healthy lifestyle.
-Low Carb and Beyond $8.95, www.safegoodspub.com (888) NATURE-1
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