Weight Loss, Diet and Fitness Program

Some food for thought about the hottest diet plans around. No rice, no pasta, no bread-no problem. With low-carb menus all the rage, dieters may think they know everything there is to know about regimens like Atkins and South Beach.
“One of the real benefits of the increase in low-carbohydrate diets is that the population is more informed,” said Richard Feinman, a biochemistry professor at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn.

Scientists, including Feinman, who met in late June in Brooklyn for a two-day conference on low-carb diets, said followers might be surprised to learn a few things:

1. “Net Carb” doesn’t mean “No Carb.”
The tempting “low net carbs!” chocolates and candies that have flooded the market promise dieters a sweet fix without the sugar guilt. But many of them use sweeteners called sugar alcohols, which may appear on labels as sorbitol, xylitol and maltitol.

Sugar alcohols may not hike blood sugar levels as rapidly as table sugar, says C.J. Segal-Isaacson, a researcher with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, but they may not help you get the full metabolic advantages of a strict low-carb regimen, either.
Some researchers advise calculating net carbs by including sugar alcohol but subtracting fiber-which is indigestible-from total carbs.

2. Low-carb liquor is still liquor.
Boozing can interfere with the fat-burning process, according to the Atkins Website. Low-carbing also can lower your tolerance for alcohol, so you get drunker faster, and drinking can shake your resolve to shun those starchy party snacks.

3. Patience is a low-carb virtue.
Though exercise improves health and enhances dieting, dropping carbs and running laps the same day may leave you feeling lousy.
“It’s somewhere around two to three weeks of sticking to the low-carb intake before the body really adapts,” says Dr. Stephen Phinney of Elk Grove, California, who has studied endurance levels among low-carbing athletes. “That doesn’t mean people need to feel bad when they start a low-carb diet,” Phinney added. “It’s just they shouldn’t push the exercise envelope until they’ve given their body time to adapt.”

4. Take your vitamins-with a grain of salt.
For years, Americans have been warned to limit salt to avoid high blood pressure, but a bit helps the body use important vitamins and minerals such as potassium.

A modest amount of daily salt-3 grams or so-”helps to avoid the headaches, weakness, lightheadedness and muscle cramps that often accompany starting out on a low-carb diet,” Phinney said.

5. Low-carbing isn’t for everyone.
Some dieters - possibly including people with high levels of a blood fat called triglycerides - probably should avoid low-carbing, counsels Dr. Eric Westman of Duke University. People who have a triglyceride level over 500 and go low-carb may develop pancreatitis, in which the gland’s enzymes attack their own tissue and cause extreme abdominal pain, he said.

The Atkins Websites, however, argues that the diet can lower triglycerides. Westman says the best bet is to have a blood chesmistry screening before embarking on the diet.