What Impact does Cutting Food Groups have on Weight Loss
The most common question we get from new clients is; Do I need to cut CARBS and DAIRY from my diet to get results? There are so many opinions of what you should or shouldn’t do but what should you believe?
Is there really such a good thing as a good and bad food?!
CARBS
When you think of carbs what do you think of?! I know the first things that come to my head are pizza, pasta, bread and cakes! All things that we’ve had drilled into our heads are we should massively avoid to be successful in our weight loss journey.
Carbohydrates are the bodies PRIMARY ENERGY SOURCE, meaning they’re a pretty vital component of an individual’s diet. Therefore, anyone who recommends you should cut ALL carbohydrates from your diet is simply and completely incorrect. While diets such as the Atkins diets are proven to display significant weight loss – there is no long term evidence that this is a sustainable diet to maintain for an extended period can be beneficial to your body at all.
A lack of carbohydrates within your diet can leave you feeling tired and moody. This is because our brains are programmed to rely on glucose as it’s source of fuel, whilst our mood can be affected as carbohydrates play a specific role in determining how much serotonin (aka. THE HAPPY HORMONE) we produce.
Carbohydrates aren’t just found in the cakes, biscuits, pasta and pizza we all love and crave, but also found in a number of healthy and nutritious foods including fruit and vegetables. Meaning that by excluding one of the three key macromolecules from your diet you could be missing out on beneficial features of the foods and therefore not making an optimal choice for your overall health.
DAIRY
Over the past few years it has been claimed that weight loss, acne and bloating or inflammation can all be treated by cutting dairy from our diet but is that really true?! Dairy products such as butter, cheese, milk and yoghurts have been slated for years for their high fat content, and now the low fat versions are being targeted for their high content of sugars and additives But how bad are the full fat versions really for us?!
Dairy products have recently been recognised as beneficial for weight loss through an extensive research project. This is because the dairy products we have learned to be afraid of are extremely rich in Protein, Satiating Fat (meaning we feel fuller for longer!), Vitamin D and Calcium. The latter both play a key role in the fat burning processes and digestion process, meaning without intaking enough of these nutrients we could be hindering our digestion process as opposed to improving it!
Studies have also found that when comparing Whole Milk to the dairy-free alternative of Almond Milk it was identified that Whole milk contains far more necessary nutrients that our body needs to function optimally.
Obviously dairy won’t work for everyone with less than 0.5% of individuals having an allergy to dairy and many having severe intolerances – however if this doesn’t apply to yourself are you really doing the healthiest thing by cutting dairy products out or are you just limiting your calorific intake?
What works for your body won’t work for others!
Which is why at LYB we promote a baseline diet that works for you.
Trial and error is your best friend within your journey and finding foods that; work well for you, keep you full, make you happy and allow you to maintain a balanced lifestyle is something we promote.
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