What is the benefit of low carb?

Just wondering if anyone can help. I'm moving on to calorie counting and am setting my limits for the day. Do I need to count carbs as well as calories? What is the benefit/difference in doing so?

your gonna hate asking this hun as its not the easiest of answers....its not like you can limit it to so many carbs per 100g....well you could but it would be a nightmare...

The science bit...

Your body needs 2g of carbs per 1lb of body weight to MAINTAIN, so to lose weight, you should have 1g of carbs per lb of body weight.
Your body only needs a certain amount of carbs per day to be happy...the same as everything else you take in (fat etc)...so if you limit the carbs a bit, it will burn fat
Dont eat carbs after 7pm, and always eat carbs with protein as it aids digestion and limits the amount that are stored...

My personal trainer told me all this and it was confirmed by my Dr...
and before i got complacent and lazy, this worked and helped me lose 4 stone! Oh, and 5 small meals a day is better than 3!

Does that help at all or have i just confused you even more?

xxxx

Ok so basically it's calorie count, eating healthy food, keep carbs, fats low. Which is what I thought. Is that 1g per 1lb a week yeah?

per day hun!
The SKIN of a baked potato has about 100g of carbs....if you want to see how little it ends up, check out your cereal! lol....i'm a fruit in the morning gal....but then it is better to have good carbs first thing in the morning as you get the rest of the day to burn them off!

xxx

Hi
If you can, I suggest you get hold of a copy of 'Neris and India's idiot proof diet' - it is a very, very readable book which takes you through a low carb weight loss programme and subsequent long term eating plan.

Neris and India's Idiot-proof Diet: Amazon.co.uk: India Knight, Neris Thomas: Books

Amazon appear to be out of stock but you might be able to pick it up second hand or at the library, or on Play or something.

They explain it really well and its a diet of their own devising on which they lost 10 stone between them in a year. I am very much drawn to this as a longer term plan for when I come off CD having done all the steps and am trying to sort myself out for life...I don't fancy being a lifetime WW-er, it just depresses me.

I think you might be a bit surprised by the content of the diet. High protein, good fats, low carb, and in fact loads of lovely things to eat.

ETA: the paperback version seems to be in stock and is cheaper. Try Play tho - free delivery.

Oooh thanks LizS.

A day?! That seem like loooooads. I don't really have cereal, think I've had it once or twice in past month! So only have carbs mainly with evening meal. Should well be able to stay under 1g per lb a day then! Thanks for all your help LizMB, very helpful!

IMO I would bother with counting calories and not carbohydrates. It's the calories which will make you gain weight, whilst eating some carbohydrates may cause water retention. Counting carbohydrates as well as counting calories can become very complex.