What Are Low Cal Diets?

As the name suggest, taking low calorie food makes the low cal diet. For this you should avoid all fats, control carbohydrates and avoid processed food. High calorie food includes cookies, chips, carbonated drinks, all fried food, sugary items, butter, oil etc. In the low cal diet, all these things are avoided and substitute are used. Like in place of sugar, you can use splenda. In place of butter, margarine can be used, in baked food like cookies, muffins etc, low cal bake mix can be used.

What Are Low Carb Diets?

When you restrict carbohydrate intake, you are said to be on low carb diet. Low carb diet has become very popular in the last 10 years. The Atkins diet and the South beach diet are very popular low carb diet plans. In this, you don’t take carbohydrates more than 5% or 10% of your meal; you take more of proteins and fats. Meals consist of meat, vegetables with some low carb sauces and no fruits or cereals.

The reasoning behind the low carb diets is that when you eat very less carbs, blood contains less glucose. Thus body requires energy from some other source, which it now gets from fat cells. This results in reduction of fat.

How Good Are These Diet Plans?

Before jumping on any conclusion and choosing a diet plan, research the validity and effectiveness of these plans. Low cal diet is good if you are getting at least minimum calories to go about your daily routine. However, if you are eating too less, you will feel tired, irritated and feel hungry all the time, this will invite other diseases.

While, in low carb diet, you take too much of saturated fat to get energy, but this is harmful for your blood vessels and heart. Your cholesterol might take a leap and obese people should be careful about these things.

It’s always good to choose fresh, pure, unadulterated food in its most natural form. Avoiding something totally and binging on particular things is not good. Try to have a balanced diet, avoid excess of anything, maintain a good lifestyle and incorporate exercise in your daily routine. Only then the low cal and low carb diets are going to work for you.

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What Happens In Low Carb Dieting?

Carbohydrates are the fuel of our body, required by the body to perform all activities from physical to mental. It is stored in our muscles. Along with each gram of carbs, 3 grams of water is also stored. If you start taking a low carb diet, the carbs stored in muscles start to deplete, and along with it water loss also takes place. All this leads to weight loss. But as soon as you start taking regular diet with carbs, the lost weight is regained and sometimes even more.

Effects On Your Body

You might see magical reduction in weight, if you are on a low carb diet and you start thinking that low carb diet is the perfect way to weight loss. But do you know what it does to your body’s functions? Your brain needs carbs for energy. It requires approx. 400 calories for performing regular functions like day to day survival. Any movement that is done for more than 3 minutes, require energy derived from carbs. If you take lesser carbs, your body undergoes ketosis. This results in fatigue, loss of energy, tiredness and slower thought process.

The Right Way To Have Carbs And Not Gaining Weight

Simply cutting down on all carbs will only produce ill effects as described above. But if you choose properly what type of carbs to cut, and what to have, you can get the benefits of low carb diet. Eat good carbs like vegetables, grains that have energy as well as fiber, vitamins and minerals for a balanced diet. Don’t take carbs in any form of sugar like those in candies, soft drinks, processed and refined food. Add a plate of salad in your meal but keep the dressing as a low calorie one. If you like pasta, add vegetables into it.

Another way of making good use of carbs is weight training. In this, your body uses carbs for exercise and repairs the muscles. Thus, try to monitor the type of carbs you are eating and put the carbs in the body to a productive use. This way you can say safely-low carb diet-the perfect way towards weight loss.

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Using Substitutes Which Are Low In Calorie

Next big question is how to keep the calorie count low and maintain the taste of your food. There are two very basic ways but really effective to follow. Let’s have a look:

Use Margarine Instead Of Butter: By using margarine in place of butter in any recipe, you can cut the calories by a significant amount and the taste does not suffer. Even in recipes given by chefs on internet or in magazines, you will find that a choice has been given to use either butter or margarine. If you make your choice as margarine, you making a wise low calorie choice which will help you reduce weight and keep you healthy. The difference in taste is negligible between food cooked in margarine and that in butter.

Use Splenda Instead Of Sugar: You can use Splenda in place of sugar in all food and beverages where considerable amount of sugar is required. Splenda has sucralose; it was approved for sale in market in late1990s. It is great in the taste department and nobody could tell the difference in taste in the food prepared using Splenda. It is heat stable, thus is good to use for baked items too.

By taking the above two measures you can cut down on the calorie intake for yourself and your family by a large amount, and now you know how to cook delicious low calorie food. You may also try these: go slow on processed food, limit your salt intake instead use lemon or herbs to make your food tasty. As you can see, making delicious low calorie food is not a very difficult thing. You just need some information about the different options available and the determination to stick on to low calorie diet. Your goal of losing weight will be achieved soon.

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Have A Plan Day By Day

On day one, you must decide which low cal plan you are going to follow. No matter what plan you choose, you will basically be eating less of carbs, oil and sugar. Your goal here is to lower the intake of calories and carbs so that the body uses fat stored within the body to get energy.

On day two, make your house low cal low carb diet plan friendly. That means you have to take stock of what eating items you have at home in your refrigerator, cabinets, drawers, pockets and pantry. Throw away or give away anything that has high sugar, high carb, and high calorie content. That ways even you crave, you will not get a ready answer for your cravings and you will have to opt for something healthier. That day itself, make a list of what you will be eating and what needs to be purchased for the coming week. Include raw food, fresh food, drinks, snacks whatever you will need, obviously all of these have to be low cal and low carb.Then go on shopping according to the list, no extra eating items to be bought.

Then, at the beginning of the third day, you can start following your low cal and low carb diet strictly. It is always good to start fresh as the day starts; you will be more committed towards your goal and find the diet a new way to transform your life and the way you look. On this third day, take some time out to cook some low cal low carb food for yourself. Then you will not have the impulse to grab on just anything when you feel hungry, instead you will have something healthy cooked by you very well within your planned diet.

The next few days are going to be little rough, as you will face some withdrawal symptoms. You might experience headache, dizziness and tiredness because your body craves for sugary food that it is used to. Nevertheless, do not worry, all these symptoms will subside within 3-4 days. Then the going will be smooth.

Now you have a step-by-step approach on how to get started on low cal diet. Commit yourself and you will not regret having your favorite calorie ridden dish when you see the great weight loss results for yourself.

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The Best Way To Find Such Recipes

The most convenient, fast and effective mode of searching for recipes is through the internet. Type in ‘low calorie recipes’ and you will get thousands of website links with several recipes claiming to be low calorie recipes. You will find many new and varied recipes on the websites. Another way is to go to a particular website like one that is of your favorite chef and search for low calorie recipes. You may also visit sites devoted to food preparation or health sites and look for low calorie recipes. You will come to know that many experiments and innovative work is being done in this direction.

Search The Books

Another time-tested method is to look in the ‘recipes section’ in popular magazines. Focus on magazines meant for women, children, family and home. You are sure to get a few recipes in each one of them, usually with a separate section for low calorie recipes. The advantage of looking for low calorie recipes in the magazines is that mostly they are tried and tested and deliver the same results as stated.

If you are yet not satisfied and want more variety, hit your nearest book store. You are sure to find loads of books on low calorie recipes. Again, if you have tried a particular chef’s published recipe earlier, it is better to look for the same author while searching for low calorie recipes.

The big idea is that there is no dearth of information and material available for low calorie cooking. It’s up to you now which recipe to choose from, how to make it suitable for your family’s liking. You may also like to make some changes into your existing recipes by replacing high calorie ingredients with low calorie ones, and thus make a low calorie recipe of your own. Cooking is an art; don’t be shy to try out new ideas, especially if it’s for the health of you and your family. How to find low calorie recipes is certainly not difficult. It’s more important how to adapt it your taste without increasing its calories.

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Tips On How To Cook Low Cal Food

* Some food items like chicken parmesan, stuffed pepper, etc, require breadcrumbs to be rolled on. You can make the crumbs low cal and low carb by using low carb bread to prepare it. Just toast the low carb bread in the oven using the cookie sheet and crush it into powder form in your grinder.

* You can use soy flour or bake mix like Atkins bake mix. You need flour for baking and coating breaded food items, you can replace the ordinary flour with say flour or bake mix, these are low cal.

* For cookies and muffins, in addition to use of soy flour, use low cal chocolate bars for adding chocolate chips to these items.

* You can use Splenda in place of sugar. It is a low cal and low carb option, instead of sugar. The taste will be the same, though it’s lighter so you will have to adjust the amount you are going to use in your recipe.

* Use low cal yogurt for making fruit smoothies. Also remember to use low carb fruit and instead of juice, use the full fruit. The fiber in fruits helps keep the effective carbohydrates low.

* You can try using low cal spaghetti squash in place of pasta as low cal pasta does not taste good enough. Bake the squash for 40 minutes on 400 degrees Fahrenheit after cutting it into half.

Thus, we see that by using some low cal and low carb substitutes, you can make tasty food with your existing recipes. This way, you can make ultimate use of the low cal ingredients available in the market and monitor your calorie intake. These tips to cook low cal food will be very handy for you, as you will have to make small changes in your existing recipes. You can attain your target of having only low cal food and losing weight in turn, yet not compromising much on the taste buds. The food will be as tasty and healthy as well. For more tips on how to cook low cal food, you can search the internet or look out for special cookery books written specially on this topic.

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What Is The Low Cal – Low Carb Diet

A low carb diet consists of carbs not more than 5% to 10% of your total intake of calories during the day. In this diet, emphasis is on consumption of more protein and fat so that the body gets proper energy and there is a feeling of fullness. The feeling of starvation is what drives us to have sugary food, carb loaded food. If our stomach is full, we will not think of eating all the time. The fullness effect can be achieved by having fiber-loaded food too. The catch is that if you are taking too much fat, it’s harmful for the health of your heart and arteries. Thus, avoiding carbs totally and piling on fat is also not advisable. Hence stick to a plan which is low in carbs as well as low in calories too.

Here, over-eating is not recommended. But you should try to balance out with healthier choice rather than just concentrating on avoiding carbs. You should have some nutritious food that contains vitamins, minerals, fiber in adequate quantity. Take help from your dietician, specially recommended for diabetic people.

The low cal food consists of fish, chicken, poultry, eggs, cheese, carrot, avocado, beans etc. But obese diabetic patients should try this diet under the supervision and guidance of their physician. The doctors will recommend a modified version of low carb and low cal diet for the diabetics.

Though, a new concept, low cal diet is here to stay because of its effectiveness. In weight loss, it’s very effective; you can lose pounds and inches quickly. For diabetics, it is the recommended diet as it restrains from having starchy and sugary food. However, to ward off any side effects of the low cal diet, one must make a wise choice of what are you eating. This will help you in having carbs and cals only that much which is required and will be beneficial in controlling the blood sugar too.

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Low Calorie Diet: How Good It Is

If the low calorie diets really worked, the whole country would have consisted of people of size zero. But it’s not so. The reason is, when you get a product which has low calorie, they might have removed the fat which adds calories but added extra carbs, salt, sugar or any equally harmful ingredient into it. The body requires calories to carry on day to day functions. If your intake of calories is low, your body will go into survival mode. You will feel fatigued, won’t like to exercise and feel hungry all the time.

Low Carb Diet: The Correct Way To Do It

When you cut down carbohydrates totally from your diet…you are said to be on a low carb diet. In the starting, you might get fabulous results, lose 10 pounds and a few inches, but in a longer run it’s difficult to sustain. It’s also not a healthy way to reduce weight as you start using the carbs stored in your muscles and you also lose the water stored with it. After sometime, you might feel tired, restless, slowness of thought process and overall weakness.

If you are desperate to reduce your weight in a short time, you might think of doing the low carb diet and achieve your goal. But once you’ve done it, it’s good to plan a balanced meal program where you get all the nutrition required by your body and avoid foods that are not good for you in any way.

The better approach to make low calorie and low carb diet really work for you is to cut down on things actually bad for you: processed food, sugar, salt, refined food items, fried dishes etc. You should include vegetables, fruits, grains, salad with non-creamy seasoning, and all those things which are high in fiber content. This way, choosing a sensible diet plan, you can control your hunger pangs, at the same time lose weight in a healthy way.

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Pros Of Low Cal And Low Carb Diet

* In low cal diet, you take less of calories. For energy, body then uses your fat deposits hence you lose weight. Similarly, in low carb diet, you take less carbs, blood has less glucose content. Thus body uses fat for energy. The result is that you loose weight.

* The low cal and low carb diet are easy to start off as you can eat lot of things but avoid carbs and extra calories. You can have fibrous food to keep you full and ward off cravings. You never go hungry.

* When you take control of your cravings, the way is smooth. You can eat food, not always of your choice, but there is plenty of variety.

* The results are fabulous; you lose weight in pounds and lose inches of your flab. This achievement keeps you going.

Cons Of Low Cal And Low Carb Diet

* It might be little expensive, as you will be buying lots of vegetables and meat which is more expensive than starch loaded, processed food.

* You will have to give up food you crave for, like candies, carbonated drinks, cookies, cakes, fries etc. You might suffer from withdrawal for a few starting days. You might have headaches, restlessness, feel lethargic too.

* The side effects like weakening of muscles, high cholesterol, constipation, low energy level, tiredness will take place.

How To Go About It?

Take a positive view about the diet plans. Low cal and low carb doesn’t mean you have to go hungry and stop eating anything you like. Just eat sensibly and if possible take food in its natural form. Take lots of fibrous food. Have an active lifestyle with some exercise in your daily routines. If you suffer conditions like heart problems, diabetes, thyroid, etc. you must consult your regular physician before embarking upon any diet plan by yourself. Knowing about the ins and outs of the low cal and low carb diet, you might choose the diet program which fits your preferences and goals you made for your health.

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What Contents Are Bad

* All of us say pasta is bad as it contains calories. However, if you notice, pasta in itself is not as bad. The creamy sauces and seasoning added to it which we eat along with bread, butter, desserts and carbonated drinks is what makes it loaded with calories. If we have make pasta by adding lots of veggies and low fat sauces, it will be a healthy food.

* Similarly, we say potato should be avoided. However, if we prepare potatoes with oil, fry it or add creamy contents, it will be bad, if we bake it or have it in a boiled form with low cal seasoning, it is quite nutritious.

What Should We Do To Eat Healthy

* For maintaining good health, you can have lots of fresh produce, vegetables, fruits (not juices), whole grains (avoid refined ones), nut, salad. You should use vegetable oil or nuts for cooking in moderation. Buy ingredients yourself, fresh and pure.

* If you are bound to have restaurant food or packaged food, look at the serving size. Restrict the size of whatever you eat. Sometimes serving size means you are having only that particular food, if you have it along with added sauces, drinks and desserts; you are piling on calories as well as carbs. These are a strict no-no for low cal and low carb diet.

* Try to stick to healthy eating throughout. Eating everything for months, then going on crash diet won’t work. Instead, if you eat sensibly throughout the week, then you take liberty of eating some fatty or high cal and high carb food on the weekend, then again go on your low cal low carb eating on weekdays. In this case, you are not forming a habit of eating unhealthy food; instead you are giving yourself a treat once in a while.

In conclusion we can say that, all diet plans don’t work for everyone. You must choose a plan which suits your lifestyle; make some changes in your habits. Try something which you can sustain for a longer time rather than being always on the lookout for latest low cal and low carb diet.

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