Its been three months and I have tried so many diet plans listed on the internet. Even though, I went to and fro from one plan to another, all of the plans that I have been followed have a common numerator, it's a low carbohydrate diet plan. Does low carbohydrate diet work? Well, I'm supposed it is and why is it important for us to keep the portion of macro nutrient well balanced to lose weight? Can we just do calorie counting in order to lose weight?
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The answer is yes, you can lose weight by simply restricting the amount of calories goes in. Nevertheless, there are few reasons why controlling the portion of carbohydrate, protein and fat are way better than counting calories in and calories out in losing weight. The reason which I will be focusing on in this post will involve a bit of biochemistry but I'm sure it is not hard to understand. Let's take an example of someone who consumed carbohydrate as the majority of the macro nutrient for his/her diet.
When we consume foods which are rich in carbohydrate or even simple sugar, our body will secrete a hormone which is called insulin. Insulin is an anabolic hormone and its role in transporting glucose into the cell is crucial for us to be healthy as glucose cannot stay in the circulation or it will exert a detrimental effect towards our health. The secretion of insulin by pancreas will aid the entry of glucose into the cell through a glucose transporter. This glucose will be used for energy and the excess of it will be stored in the liver and muscle in the form of glycogen. What happen if you consumed more than your liver and muscle can store? It will be stored in the fat cell in a process called De Novo Lipogenesis (new fat making). Everybody knew that, any glucose which are stored in the body, act as an energy reserve so it can be used when it is needed, but is it that simple?
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Sure glycogen can be converted into glucose by an enzyme Glucagon if the body need some glucose but what about fat cell? Fat cells also act as an energy reserves and if it is so, obese people would be more energetic than any other people. Why they are easily tired and seems fatigue all the time? The answer lies in a hormone which we called as Hormone Sensitive Lipase which allows the fat cell to be used as a fuel for energy, but the problem is, this hormone is sensitive to Insulin. It would not be excreted if the insulin level is high. That is why, even though obese people have high percentage of body fat, they still need to consume carbohydrate to stabilize blood glucose in order to make them more "energetic". Why is this particular knowledge important for us?
It is important to know that, after a period of time not taking carbohydrate, insulin level dropped and eventually, your body will start to use fat as an energy fuel. You will not "die" as a result of not eating for a couple of hours. This fat cell would be brought to the liver to be converted into ketone, and this ketone is the energy sources for someone who is on a low carbohydrate particularly high fat diet. People nowadays started to realize the advantageous of using ketone instead of glucose thus ketogenic diet has become so popular. Controlling the portion of your macro nutrient will let you know, which component of your body are you losing when you are losing weight. Is it the fat or muscle? Of course there are other factors which influence which of the component that you lose such as frequency of resistant training, genetics etc. but controlling macro nutrient instead of calories in and out can gives you a much better insight and advantage in losing fat while building muscle.
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