I believe that low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets, such as the Atkins diet, the South Beach Diet, and the Zone Diet, are as unhealthy and dangerous as any fad diet. But because they have been immensely popular for the past decade, I feel they deserve a chapter of their own.
So what is a high-protein, low-carb diet? It’s any diet that stresses eating lots of protein (such as meat and eggs) while severely limiting carbohydrates (such as bread, potatoes, pasta, and rice). Most low-carb diets also make you avoid fruits, vegetables, and other good-for-you foods.
What’s made low-carb diets so popular is that you do drop off pounds—at least in the short term. But instead of losing fat, these are the five things you’re losing on a low-carb diet.
Although low-carb, high-protein diets cause a sudden weight loss initially, much of what you’re losing is water. When you starve yourself of carbs, your body is left with no choice but to use up its glycogen, which is the stored carbohydrates it keeps on reserve to fuel activity. Each gram of glycogen has 3 to 4 grams of water attached to it, so as your body uses it up, excess water is shed, and the needle on the scale starts to move downward. The problem is, as soon as you go back to eating normally, your body restocks glycogen—and the excess water—so the weight comes right back.
After its initial water-weight loss, your body has to turn elsewhere to find calories to fuel activity. That’s when it starts gobbling up any lean muscle and organ tissue it can find as a source of energy.
Most low-carb diets limit the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables you can eat. This leaves your body severely deficient in vitamins and minerals, not to mention dietary fiber.
Because so many foods (fruits, cereals, breads, grains, starches, baked goods, dairy products, starchy vegetables, and sweets) are eliminated or severely limited, this kind of diet is very hard to incorporate into life on a long-term basis. After a few weeks of following any low-carb regime, you’ll lose interest in the diet because you’re constantly feeling hungry and unsatisfied with the food you’re allowed to eat.
Some low-carb diets let you eat large amounts of foods that are extremely high in saturated fats. That’s why the American Heart Association warns that low-carb diets can raise your cholesterol levels and increase your risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Recent research suggests that low-carb diets may contribute to certain kinds of cancer.
A low-carb diet can also put an enormous strain on your kidneys. Without carbohydrates to use for fuel, your body switches into a metabolic state called ketosis. When you’re in ketosis, you get your energy from ketones—a form of carbon that’s created from the breakdown of fat. That sounds like exactly what you’re looking for, right? Wrong! It’s dangerous to your health. The more ketones you have in your system, the harder your kidneys have to work to filter them, and that can lead to kidney failure. If you already have kidney problems, the situation can be dire: A Harvard study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that low-carb diets can cause a permanent loss of kidney function in people with reduced kidney function.
Most people don’t experience the negative long-term consequences of low-carb diets only because they quit the diets after just a few weeks. I’d hate to see you waste your time, so take a look at the top five reasons people stop following low-carb diets.
How did you fare in algebra back in high school? Adhering to a low-carb diet requires understanding your body’s metabolism and calorie breakdowns, choosing the right portion sizes, and dividing up how many grams of protein, carbs, and fats are in every single food you eat. Some of the recipes in these diet books are so complex, they require more cooking skills—and time—than the average person has.
The 5-Factor Diet Difference: With the 5-Factor Diet, the recipes are as tasty as those you’d find in the trendiest Hollywood restaurants, but they’re still designed so that anyone—no matter how limited his or her culinary skills—can whip up nutritious meals and snacks with little effort. And as for math, you can count to 5, can’t you? Because that’s all I’ll ever ask you to do.
Because of their complexity, low-carb diets simply require too much time to think, organize, and implement. That’s why many people give up on low-carb diets early on.
The 5-Factor Diet Difference: My clients’ time is extremely limited and incredibly valuable. So is yours. I realize that the only way to keep you eating right is to make it easier to eat right. That’s why all of the recipes in the 5-Factor Diet take no more than 5 minutes of prep time before cooking.
Eating a meal should be a social experience, yet low-carb diets leave many people feeling like the odd man out. You can’t enjoy a meal at a restaurant with your friends when you’re too busy trying to find a low-carb option on the menu and calculating protein grams. That’s why most people end up cheating on these diets when they go out to eat.
The 5-Factor Diet Difference: Most of my celebrity clients work in an industry that practically forces them to be sociable. At the same time, however, privacy is very important to them. Like you, they need a diet program they can use anywhere without advertising the fact that they’re dieting. The 5-Factor Diet works at home, on the road, or in any restaurant, so you’ll never again have to choose between food and friends.
Low-carb diets may mention how essential exercise is for losing weight, but none of them go into detail about how you should exercise. That’s like telling people a road trip will be much faster and smoother if they buy a faster engine, and then never saying where to find one!
The 5-Factor Diet Difference: The 5-Factor Diet is one of the few nutritional programs out there that show you the right way to eat and the right way to exercise.
Your brain relies on carbohydrates to help it function. Yet these low-carb diets reduce the amount of carbs you eat to a trickle of what your brain desperately needs. No wonder low-carb, high-protein dieters tend to have a tough time concentrating. They also end up suffering from fatigue, which leaves them with less energy for exercise.
The 5-Factor Diet Difference: With the 5-Factor Diet, not only will you be free to eat carbohydrates, but you’ll also learn which ones are best for your body. And while other diets may shock you when you see what you can’t eat, with my 5-Factor Diet, you’ll be amazed at what you can eat.
You’ve just heard all the negatives that low-carb diets have in common, but each version is also controversial for a variety of its own reasons. Here are the facts you deserve to know.
This popular low-carb diet contends that overconsumption of carbohydrates is the main reason for obesity. Bread, pastas, and potatoes are to be avoided on this plan. Therefore, the Atkins diet severely restricts how many carbohydrates you eat each day and limits your daily calories to between 1,200 and 1,800. The reason this diet is appealing to many people is that you do lose a certain amount of weight—plus you can eat fatty meats, certain fried foods, high-fat dairy products, cheese, eggs, and even butter.
All the freedom the Atkins diet offers comes at a price. Because it’s so anti-carb, the diet is lacking in fruits, whole grains, and fiber. Your body misses out on many important nutrients, including vitamin B, vitamin C, and other phytonutrients that boost your immune system. You may drop a few quick pounds by stripping most carbohydrates from your diet, but it’s mostly water weight and muscle tissue—and it may place you at risk for a series of short- and long-term health problems.
Your risk of developing osteoporosis may increase because the diet lowers your calcium intake. Research published in the American Journal of Kidney Disease found that healthy subjects who tried the Atkins diet experienced calcium losses that were 65 percent greater than normal.
Your risk of heart disease may increase because the diet encourages people to eat fatty meats and certain cheeses, which are high in artery-blocking saturated fats.
Further, according to the National Weight Control Registry, which monitors the diets of more than 2,500 people who have maintained a 30-pound weight loss for at least a year, fewer than 1 percent of these successful dieters use a low-carb, high-protein plan that resembles the Atkins diet.
The Zone Diet is a rigid high-protein, low-carb diet. It requires you to divide every single meal you eat using a 40/30/30 ratio: 40 percent carbohydrate, 30 percent protein, and 30 percent fat.
According to the Zone’s creator, most people suffer from insulin imbalances that cause them to put on weight. By eating protein, carbs, and fats in the right proportions, you can correct this imbalance and drop the pounds, along with your risk of developing cardiac diseases, diabetes, depression, cancer, and even PMS.
In order to benefit from the diet, you must follow the calculations to the absolute letter. Dividing the components of every meal you eat can be incredibly complicated and takes the enjoyment out of eating, unless you find pleasure in having to pass a math exam each time you want a meal. This plan is too difficult for anyone with a life to manage, or just to put up with for very long.
I’m sure you have friends who swear by the Zone. I will admit that I’ve seen people get excited when they lose some weight at the start of the plan. But it’s the reduction of total daily calories—1,000 to 1,700 calories a day—that’s responsible for the weight loss, not the whole 40/30/30 breakdown. A good portion of the weight loss is water and muscle tissue—two things your body can’t afford to lose.
The portion sizes of the carbohydrates you’re allowed to eat are so small, you’ll forget you even ate them in the first place. Your body won’t remember the carbs either, and as a result, you’ll never achieve satiety. When you quit this diet you’ll have better division skills, but don’t count on having a leaner, healthier body.
The South Beach Diet claims to be different from the Atkins diet because it’s not completely anti-carbs; instead it encourages you to eat the “right” kinds of carbs.
The first stage of this three-stage diet requires you to stop eating potatoes, pasta, bread, candy, cookies, alcohol, ice cream, baked goods, and sugar. But giving up all of these vices at once is nearly impossible. It’s ironic that the South Beach Diet starts off by saying how the Zone Diet is not the answer and the Atkins diet is too severe. Yet once you look at it carefully, you’ll realize South Beach is a mix of Atkins and Zone. And the third and final stage is just the daily allowances recommended by the American Dietetic Association.
South Beach also claims that you’ll drop 8–13 pounds in its first two-week phase. But just like on the Atkins diet, you’re losing water and not fat.