A low carb and high fat diet is the base of most successful weight loss programs, including the Atkins diet. The mechanism behind weight gain on a high-carb diet is now pretty clear – eating carbohydrates causes spikes in blood sugar, which releases insulin. As a result, any excess sugar is stored by the body as fat. This mechanism is so effective that you can easily gain 5-10 lbs of fat in a few days and more importantly – quickly undo any progress that you have made. Therefore, it is important not to indulge in carb binges soon after you have successfully lost weight. Regardless, lets look at the differences between a low fat and a low carb diet:
Low fat diets and blood pressure
A low-fat and a high-carbohydrate diet is based on the obsolete theory that fat is bad because it is high in calories. It also causes cholesterol and blood lipid problems. At least that’s what we thought. We now know that fat is the main source of energy for the body, and it makes up nearly 100% of cellular walls. Therefore, a low fat diet is generally speaking not a good idea, unless you are trying to deal with a specific medical condition, which requires it.
Losing weight on a low fat diet is also difficult – in order to do so, you would have to eat very frequent and small carbohydrate-rich meals. Eating anything more than can be stored in your muscles and liver (which is about 800 kcal) will result in a fat gain, especially if you are predisposed to gaining weight (which you probably are, since you are reading this article).
High fat, low carb – does it really cause hypertension?
This is the most effective strategy, when it comes to losing weight. But wait, isn’t fat high in calories? It is. In fact, it has more than twice the calories of carbohydrates per gram. However, there are countless examples that support the fact that caloric intake and weight loss are connected only partially. You can easily lose weight while consuming 3000 kcal per day. You can also keep staying overweight, despite your best efforts to starve yourself. It is all in the source of your calories and not the amount.
But what is the best way to lower your blood pressure? Your diet has a big impact on this, but most of the things you have probably already heard about this are wrong – high fat diets do NOT raise blood pressure on their own. To learn more about how to lower your blood pressure, read this report.