Are low carb diets safe?

If you want to lose weight, you may be wondering are low carb diets safe? When you are trying to find a diet that really works, you certainly have your work cut out for you. There are so many plans, pills, and programs that one can become easily confused. I am going to help you clear up the popular question, about whether or not low carb diets are safe.

Let’s look at what a low carb diet entails. You eat a large amount of protein and fat and restrict or avoid carbohydrates. When someone asks me are low carb diets safe, the first thing I remind them of is the fact that a low carb diet requires you to deprive yourself of even the healthy carbohydrates, such as fruits and vegetables. This diet focuses so much on quick weight loss, yet it restricts you from eating the vitamins and minerals you need to stay healthy and sustain your weight loss. So even if you lose a few quick pounds, you gain it right back with interest. Let’s face it, or bodies need carbs to function properly. Another reason I answer no to the question are low carb diets safe, is that consuming too much protein is bad for you. Among other things, it cause stress on your kidneys as they are trying to rid your body of waste and toxins. When these bad things accumulate, it leads to kidney stones and gallbladder problems. And since low carb diets also restrict your fiber intake, you are also increasing your risk for colon cancer and other bowel disorders.

If someone asks you are low carb diets safe, you can also remind them that these diets reduce healthy glycogen stores in muscles and liver, which can lead to dehydration and muscle loss. The depletion of glycogen can cause you to get tired easily because it reduces your metabolism, burning fewer calories. While I agree that some carbohydrate rich foods such as pasta, refined white bread and rice do not help you lose weight, good carbs like whole grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes and brown rice are essential for health and can actually assist with weight loss.

So quit asking yourself if low carb diets are safe. They’re not. Instead, find a diet which incorporates a combination of healthy carbs, proteins, and essential fats. After all, it is a lot easier to stick with a weight loss plan that doesn’t deprive you of your favorite foods!

Weight loss pills have become popular in the past several years. There are two basic types of diet pills or weight loss pills – â??prescriptionâ?? and â??non-prescriptionâ?? pills.
Prescription Pills :

Prescription weight loss pills are treated like drugs. They require FDA approval and are closely regulated. Some examples of this type of weight loss pills are Xenical (Orlistat), Meridia (Sibutramine) and Phentermine/ Fentermine. To prove their effectiveness in weight reduction, these pills are subjected to a range of clinical tests typically for monitoring health risks and side effects.
Non Prescription Pills

The Non-prescription weight loss pills are also called as weight loss supplements. These drugs can be purchased over the counter as they are subjected to minimal FDA regulation only. Some examples of this type of weight loss pills include pills from Metabolifeâ?¢ and Herbalifeâ?¢ as well as fat-burners, herbal weight loss pills, stackers, other sports or diet supplements.

The difference between prescription and non-prescription weight loss pills is becoming narrower. Since some types of non-prescription pills can be just as powerful or dangerous as weight loss drugs. Exception is that these types of weight loss supplements are not regulated similar to prescription weight loss pills. Hence they can be more dangerous if anything. The FDA has issued warnings recently about weight loss supplements that contain ephedra. Hence, many drug manufacturers are now declaring as â??ephedra-freeâ?? by removing ephedra from their weight loss pills.
Who can benefit from Weight Loss Pills?

Prescription weight loss pills are designed specifically for the treatment of obesity rather than mere weight loss. Despite health risks and side effects, the use of weight loss pills is justified, as obesity is a serious condition associated with serious health risks. Weight loss supplements or Non-prescription weight loss pills should be viewed in similar light.
Do these Weight Loss Pills work?

The answer is both Yes and No. With a proper exercise program and diet in conjunction with medical supervision, weight loss pills or weight loss supplements can be effective in the short term at least. However the benefits may quickly wear off as the body adjusts rather quickly to many weight loss pills.
Weight Loss Trials of Pills clinically:

Clinical weight loss trials demonstrate that by using weight loss pills alone, long term weight control is not possible. A combination of improved diet and physical activity is to be maintained in the long term to maintain weight loss successfully.
Consult your doctor before taking weight loss pills:

You should obtain information from your doctor about the possible dangers and side effects of weight loss pills before taking any weight loss pills.
Side Effects of taking weight loss pills:

Weight loss pills become less effective as time progresses like most drugs and can lead to addiction. If you feel any of the following side effects, taking the pills should be stopped immediately.

Irritability

Anxiety or nervousness

High blood pressure

Insomnia

Heart palpitations and Heart attack

Tightness in the chest

Vomiting, constipation or constant stomach pain

Diarrhea, Fever and Head aches

Dry mouth

Dizziness

Profuse sweating

Blurred vision

Hair loss

Urinary tract problems

Disturbances in sex drive and menstrual cycle.

The long-term effects of these weight loss pills are not known and how they interact with other medications is also not clear.

What’s the most effective diet plan for fat loss and weight loss? Well, I can tell you firsthand that it is not a fad diet but a diet plan that uses an effective weight loss and fat loss system that has been proven to work. This is not a low calorie diet, a low-carb diet, a celebrity diet, or a starvation diet. If you want to lose weight… and keep it off, take just a few minutes out of your busy day to read on to learn about the most effective diet plan to lose your weight and burn off stubborn fat.

The top diet and weight loss system is a system called calorie shifting. What calorie shifting does is it will train your normal eating patterns to burn off fat. So yes, this is a diet where you actually get to eat! This type of dieting will cause a significant boost in your metabolism, unlike being on a low calorie diet which actually decreases your metabolism. When your metabolism is decreased, your body will then begin to store calories as fat. When you learn how to shift the calories from the foods you eat to burn off fat faster, not only will you lose your weight and fat, you will also keep it off.

Listen, if you don’t want to starve, if you want to lose weight and keep the weight off, if you want to get the body you’ve always wanted, then I encourage you to give the calorie shifting diet plan a try.

Weight loss has become an obsession in a nation where 63% of the people are overweight and a startling 31% are obese. Clearly our modern lifestyle is not healthy. Many people are desperate to make a change and will try any ‘magic-bullet’ weight loss cure that is offered – still the obesity rates climb. What are the reasons behind this trend? The stress of our lifestyles, toxicity in the environment, unhealthy processed food, improper nutrition habits, and lives spent in our cars, small offices and houses with little or no time in fresh air. Our lifestyles seem designed to make us fat.

People desperate for weight loss will try any diet, take any pill, and even resort to surgery to try and get their weight under control, but if they don’t deal with the underlying issues that lead to obesity in the first place they are bound to regain the weight leading to an ever increasing waistline. There is no ‘magic-bullet’ to take away obesity. In order to counter the effects of our unhealthy lifestyles it is necessary to deal with the underlying issues that are causing the obesity in the first place. We can learn from the lifestyles of ancient cultures where the diet is predominantly fruits, grains and vegetables and where fasting or nutritional cleansing is an accepted practice.

We are surrounded by more chemicals with higher levels of toxicity than ever before. These chemicals can build up in our body and compound the problems of improper nutrition leading to obesity. Nutritional cleansing is a great way to help our bodies deal with toxicity. By eating healthy meals, predominantly of vegetables and lean protein, and by taking regular cleanse days to flush the toxins from the system our bodies will re-set the natural balance and weight loss will automatically follow. Unlike fasting, nutritional cleansing is not simply a process of not eating. When you undertake nutritional cleansing you drink a specially prepared vitamin and mineral packed supplement that will help increase your energy, cleanse the toxins from your body and even help your skin and hair regain the gloss of health.

Simply by reprogramming your life to eat healthier food, drink plenty of water and cleanse the toxins from your body you will see results. Not only will you lose weight, but you will have more energy, feel healthier and best of all, have reduced cravings for those unhealthy foods. The best thing about nutritional cleansing is that you can achieve weight loss without going on a diet!

According to Ayurveda, the ancient Indian science of health and healing, the Kapha Dosha (humour) is primarily responsible for fat and adipose tissue in the body and therefore reducing Kapaha is the key to a successful weight loss program. Below you will find some effective tips from ayurveda to help reduce Kapha Dosha and thus battle obesity and being overweight.

Of the four dimensions of our being, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual, in this article I will cover the Physical Dimension which is most important for the reduction of Kapha and the correlating reduction in weight.

Weight Loss Tips from Ayurveda:

1. Ayurvedic Diet for Weight Loss:

Obviously an anti-kapha diet is the place to start when looking to lose weight. This means eating lots of fruits, vegetables, spicy foods and whole grains.

2. Exercise for Weight Loss:

The following Ayurvedic guidelines should be followed for proper exercise with regard to weight loss:

* More Exercise the Better: Kapha’s qualities of fixed, dull, heavy, soft and cold are all negated via exercise. In other words, the more exercise you do the more you reduce Kapha and therefore fat in your body.

* Exercise Without Excessive Strain: According to Ayurveda, Kapha individuals need the most vigorous exercise, but at the same time, the exercise should never be extreme. Find a good balance between doing too little and over doing it. Breaking a nice sweat is good, but being totally breathless is probably too much.

* Be Consistent: A Kapha body type has a propensity towards weight gain so you need to make exercise a daily part of you life. The hardest part will be to get the exercise program underway. Once this is done Kapha people tend to be very determined and steady, so they will be able to adhere to it long term. Getting started though is another matter for Kapha types and usually requires shock treatment. In the spirit of shock treatment, understand that by NOT exercising and NOT losing the weight you are putting your longevity and quality of life at risk. Enough said, start today!

* Yoga for Weight Loss: Yoga offers an excellent way to include holistic exercises into your fitness program. These exercises will not just help you lose weight, but will also help your overall health and well-being.

* Post Exercise Diet: After exercises do not drink cold liquids. This period is key as you are trying to increase the metabolic fire in your cells so they burn more calories and drinking cold liquids at this time will negate this important benefit which exercise bestows.

3. Hard Physical Work to Burn Calories:

According to Ayurveda reduction of Kapha is promoted by living a physical, active lifestyle. In today’s age of technology, computers, TVs, TiVO, internet, etc, manual labor is getting more rare for people to do. So you need to consciously incorporate physical work into your life. Whether that be mowing the lawn, tending to the garden or shoveling snow, it is important to not live a sedentary live of watching TV and eating twinkies.

4. Massage Therapy to Reduce Fat:

There are many treatment modalities in Ayurveda of which massage is highly recommended. In the context of weight loss and reducing Kapha, strong massage with light oils such as mustard or flaxseed is helpful.

5. Sleep Guidelines for Weight Loss:

No napping or going to bed early. If you want to reduce Kapha and weight remember you burn more calories when you are awake and being active, than when you are happily snuggled under the blanket.

The above recommendations will surely help you with your weight loss goals and in addition to helping you get slim, they will also make you more healthy and fit.