Tag Archive for: @LongBeachTRNR

Hyper Effective Workout Advice (Chest Exercise for Men)

/in , ,

Ask any woman and they will not hesitate to tell you a man’s most attractive physical feature is a highly developed chest. So it is no surprise that men fervently search for ways to workout their chest muscles in order to develop them into pecs all women will love and other men will envy.

If you have been searching for hyper effective workout advice for male chest exercises, you have finally found the right article.

chestChest Exercises

Out of all of the chest exercises created for the male’s pectoral muscle in mind, the bench press is arguably the most highly effective one. Bench presses can do many things for your chest, such as bring you the benefit of ripped pecs and increase the back arm muscle strength. If you want to take your bench pressing workouts to a whole new level, try alternating the way you space your hands.

Parallel bar dips will be the next chest exercise you should move to once you have slightly built up your pecs. When you do dips on the parallel bar, you will be adding great definition to your chest. Although parallel dips have a higher level of difficulty than bench presses, the reward is worth the extra effort. If huge pecs are what you are after, dips are what you must do.

The last exercise technique is called the dumbbell incline bench press. This exercise is the key to adding muscle mass to your upper chest, which will in turn give your pecs an overall thick look.

Exercise Tips to Remember

Even though the above chest exercises are hyper effective, it is still crucial to switch up your routines as well as increase your intensity at regular intervals in order to build your chest muscles quickly and efficiently.

Also, it is more important to be slow and controlled with your repetitions as shooting for a high amount of reps to complete or the heaviness of the weights you lift.

Always keep your elbows at a 90 degree angle in comparison to the floor as well as lined up with your barbell, and your arms should remain parallel with your bar. This form is vital to the proper building of pectoral muscles. If your elbows are bending towards your side, like many others make the mistake of doing, you will gain muscle mass in your triceps and shoulders instead of your chest.

Nutrition is Key

Your nutritional intake goes hand in hand with your chest exercises. Loading up on lean protein is ideal for building muscle mass.

Of course, your caloric intake plays a big role in the increasing of muscles too. The general rule is to take in a minimum of 1,000 more calories than your Basal Metabolic Rate, or BMR. Your BMR is the calories your body burns daily while at rest and this number can be calculated through various tools on the internet. There is no mistake about it; a high caloric intake is not optional for those seeking to build their chest muscles quickly and effectively.

How to Develop Healthy Meal Plans

/in , ,

Do you want your husband to lose weight? Or do you want the family to adopt a better, healthier lifestyle? You have to begin by creating some healthy meal plans. It is best to make about 4-5 meal plans and then to rotate them so that you can get a lot of variety in your meals.

Here are some tips for meal plans that are healthy for your family:

healthy meal plans

  1. When you make healthy meal plans, make sure of one thing: breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day, and it is also the most ignored one. Take care that your family eats a healthy breakfast. You can include healthy cereals, sprouts, fresh fruits and juices in the breakfast. It is best to have three meals a day and two snacks between them. Eating more might sound unhealthy, but eating smaller portions more often is actually healthier. It increases metabolism and burns more fat. Plus it reduces the tendency to eat out in the evening.

  2. Make sure you include some carbohydrates in healthy meal plans. Though most people think that carbs are bad, but your body needs some of them to function properly. You need some energy to operate, and carbohydrates are the source of that energy. You can select whole wheat options like bagel, waffles, or toasts. Also, if you have growing kids, make sure you include calcium in your breakfast. It is good for women as well. Have a small glass of skimmed milk or a cup of yogurt. Include eggs in breakfast as they are an excellent source of protein.

  3. For the first snack, pick something light and small. But it should be satisfying so that it keeps your family full till lunch. You can have nuts for energy, but try to avoid fattening ones (like cashews). You can pick almonds and walnuts instead. Also, low sugar flavored water would be a good addition. Then for lunch, include protein rich diet, like tofu burger, vegetables and fruits. You can also have shredded cheese along with baby spinach leaves and a tomato slice.

  4. For the second snack of the day, include a couple of fruits. You can also give them some cheddar slices. And if they crave salt, pack some mini pretzels. Plan the dinner to be light since they are going to sleep after it. You can have some fruits, salad, and a light protein dish. There should be at least a one-hour gap between eating and sleeping. This way your body will digest the food easily, and you can have better sleep.

When you prepare healthy meal plans, make sure you prepare enough servings for each food group. Rotate your menus so that your family doesn’t complain of lack of variety.

Workout Advice for Women

/in , ,

Let’s face it, women are more pressured to look good than men in today’s society. Those flawless bodies we see in magazines, on TV, or on the Internet have become the gold standard by which beauty is defined in our society today. While some progress has been made when it comes to educating women that “fit” is not the same as “thin,” there are still many who adhere by the code that “thin is in,” causing these women to go through the dangers of crash dieting, diet pills and poor nutrition and exercise habits.

The road to genuine physical fitness need not be such a dangerous one. For you girls out there who are serious about looking good the healthy way, here are some tips:

women

1. Do it for yourself.

This is the most crucial part. Most girls want to get that lean and sexy body because they want their husband’s or their boyfriends to desire them more. Others go on a dieting frenzy because they want to fit into that little black dress. Don’t. Love is blind and will close its eyes on those unsightly bumps. And why would you want to get all sweaty for a dress? If you must exercise or go on a diet, do it because you want to be healthy, because you want to feel good about your body, because you want to do it.

2. Go at your own pace.

You can’t lose those bumps in a matter of days. You’ll only land in the hospital if you even try. Think of physical fitness as a life-long commitment. There’s no rush. Do it regularly and stay focused on your program. Comparing yourself with others will only get you down and depressed.

3. Walk for health.

A 20-minute brisk walk around the park or your neighborhood can boost your metabolism. Aim for 10,000 a day- the recommended number of steps experts say can have lasting effects in terms of protecting you from cardiovascular and heart diseases as well as certain types of cancers. A pedometer is a cheap electronic device that you can clip on your waste to measure the number of steps you take each day. Studies have proven that pedometers keep you motivated to get moving. Get one.

4. Do bodyweight training.

Push ups, pull ups, crunches, squats, calisthenics and other bodyweight exercises provide a full body workout without the need to enroll in a gym.

5. Join fitness boot camps for support.

Fitness boot camps that are exclusive for women are springing up all over the country to provide the necessary support and camaraderie as they work out to lose weight and improve cardiovascular and muscular strength and endurance.

6. Mind your heart rate as you work out.

Experts recommend working out at 75%-85% of your maximum heart rate. Below this means you’re not doing enough, above it means you’re doing more than you should.

7. Eat healthy.

Any serious attempts at keeping fit cannot be achieved by exercise alone. It has to be accompanied by a sensible diet regimen that includes lots of fruit and veggies, sufficient amounts of protein from lean meat and enough water. While this can be difficult at first, you have to try to wean yourself away from processed foods.

 

Routine Workout Advice

/in , ,

Are you just starting to get back into a workout routine after years away from the gym? Perhaps you’ve never been to the gym in your life and need to figure out some sort of daily pattern of what the heck to do.

A few years ago I lost 40 pounds after years of sitting on the couch. So, let me give you some advice on how to get into or back into the swing of things.

workoutFirst, start small. Don’t expect too much of yourself when you are beginning that way you will be impressed by the results you do achieve.

Second, do a combination of both weight lifting and cardio. Weight lifting will build muscle and the more muscle you have the more fat you burn. Cardio is important too. However, you don’t have to spend hours every day on a treadmill. By doing ten 50 – 100 meter sprints you will actually raise your metabolism so that you are burning more calories when you do spend longer on the treadmill.

Third, there is no reason to do sit ups or any sort of ab workouts until you have gotten down to the body fat percentage that will make your ab muscles visible. Men need below 10% body fat and women below 16%.

Four, you don’t need to spend hours a day in the gym. Just spend between 30 – 45 minutes five days a week. You can do cardio one day and lift weights the next. Variety is the spice of life and will keep you from getting bored.

Finally, here are some weight loss secrets that will add to the effectiveness of your efforts. Exercising in the morning before eating burns off the fat calories rather than carb calories so this is an optimal time. Green tea has been found to significantly increase the metabolism and therefore contributes to weight loss. Brew yourself some green tea and save it as iced tea to drink while you are working out.

And, last but not least, take cayenne pepper capsules. The benefits of this spice are too numerous to list here but one of them is that it also increases your metabolism.

What are Workout Supplements and How to Choose Them?

/in , ,

Body building supplements are specially formulated to enhance body fitness and aid the process of body building. Workout sessions can be very demanding and gaining that extra energy needed to push to your limits is required to achieve target goals in workout results. The increased level of workout makes your body demand more vitamins and minerals and as a result your body can suffer from deficiency which can in turn hamper muscle growth.

Work supplements should be chosen carefully as they shape and tone your body by influencing your workout results. So, if your objective is to just build muscle, you need to look into workout supplements, such as prohormones, testosterone boosters, whey protein and creatine. However, muscle building workouts don’t just look into building muscles, they also stress on losing fat. Supplements that can help you burn fat are appetite supplements, carb blockers, fat-burners and stimulant-free products.

supplements

Best Body-Building Supplements

The range of products available in the form of body building supplements is quite extensive. However, the main categories that body builder check out are protein supplements, glutamine supplements and creatine supplements.

Protein Supplements

Protein supplements are used by body builder because of their ability to enhance muscle. Body builders take protein supplements primarily because they are so effective in improving sports performance. Workouts are bound to induce stress because of the need to achieve desired results. Intake of protein supplements helps to bring down the stress factors. Cortisol is a hormone that gets aggravated by stress, which is a negative factor because it destroys muscles, which workouts are actually aiming to enhance. Protein supplements reduce cortisol, thus aiding muscle building by bringing down muscle destruction.

When choosing protein food sources, the most important aspect to check out is the Biological Value (BV). Proteins that have the highest BV enable the body to absorb more nitrogen and this in turn helps in better building of lean muscles. Whey protein is a much preferred protein source because it has the highest BV (104) and only Egg Protein (BV 100) can come close to it.

Though there are many natural foods that are a good source of high protein, body builders prefer protein powders because they are a good source of gaining high quality protein without any fat intake. The powder is mixed with milk and drunk at the end of the workout session. Preparing a complete protein meal is time consuming so it offers a quicker solution.

Natural protein food sources such as salmon or beef can be expensive, while protein supplements cost lesser. They do not require any refrigeration and are portable. Most of them are available in the form of isolates, concentrates, blends, meal replacements, and weight gainers. Important protein supplements available in the market are Gaspari MyoFusion, VPX Syngex Protein, MGN Pure Whey Protein Isolate, LG Sciences Lipotropic Protein, and VPX Zero Carb Protein. However, intake of protein supplements must be carefully regulated so that desired results in muscle enhancement are achieved quickly. It is necessary to take up a protein supplement or food source at every meal. The quality of protein supplement should be restricted to 0.8 to 1 gram per pound of bodyweight.

Glutamine Supplements

Glutamine is one of the most essential supplements for body’s fitness because it protects the muscle from harmful effects of the cortisol hormone. It has been proven to help build muscles and also build the strength of the body’s immune system against various illnesses. It is, therefore, important to note that Glutamine is available from various food sources such as protein, milk and also meat, but when performing workouts, such food sources alone cannot compensate for the level of Glutamine ( found in blood and skeletal muscles) needed in the body after. Hence it is necessary to take up supplements to replenish glutamine levels that have got depleted during the process of workout. It will prevent muscle deterioration which can occur because when tissues that are in need of glutamine, take glutamine that is stored in muscle cells.

Top five Glutamine supplements available in the market include BSN CellMass, Higher Power L-Glutamine, Xyience NOX-CG3, CytoSport Muscle Milk RTD and Prolab N-Large II. Glutamine supplements ensure faster recovery after workouts and aid in muscle building because of its increased ability to synthesize protein and absorb nitrogen. Athletes and body builders take Glutamine supplements because they help to prevent muscle breakdown and enable production of new muscle tissue by synthesizing protein. They boost the body’s growth hormones and strengthen the immunity system.

Creatine Supplements

Creatine occurs naturally in animal foods such as beef, tuna and salmon, but these alone cannot suffice the demand, when you want to gain lean muscle mass. Creatine supplements help to enhance body performance in such a way that you can go in for a higher intensity workout, lift heavier weights and also train that much more hard to gain results.

Creatine increases amino acid intake in protein and increased intake shows good results in muscle size. It is well know amongst professional athletes that creatine blends can considerably increase athletic performance and also physical strength. Taking creatine supplements can enable you to gain as much as four pounds in less than a week’s time. Creatine manages muscle acidity so that muscles do not get easily fatigued. It also regulates calcium levels in the muscle tissue so that proper contractions can be performed. Creatine supplements can strengthen muscle cell membranes and have a natural ability to repair them and to enable them to grow more efficiently. However, it is to be noted that intake of creatine supplements must be regulated as they can negatively affect kidney and liver. Popular Creatine Supplements available in the market include MuscleTech’s Cell-Tech Hardcore, JetFUSE NOX from German American Technologies, GlycerGrow from Controlled Labs, Universal Nutrition’s Micronized Creatine and Creakic Hardcore from MuscleTech.

Probiotics

Probiotic supplements help in better digestion of proteins, which can be tough to break down and they are used by body builder because they help them to gain more energy from the protein supplements such as bars, powders or shakes that they intake. Probiotic supplements are available in the form of capsules, powders and shakes. Important Probiotic supplements include Ultimate Flora Critical Care 50 Billion, Dr. Ohhira’s Probiotics 12 Plus, PB 8 High-Potency Probiotic, and Jarro-Dophilus EPS. It is advisable to take probiotic supplements that are available in capsule form as they have higher bacteria levels that their powder or shakes counterparts.

Pre-Workout Supplements

Most often body builders take pre-workout supplements because they want energy that can keep them going through grilling workout routines. The supplements are especially formulated with ingredients that enhance energy and also build up muscle mass or strong, lean, hard muscles. Intense body workout sessions can make a person hit the plateau as they feel they are not getting the results they wanted through exercise. Taking pre-workout supplements helps to give body the sustenance or endurance that is required to go beyond their limits and help them to achieve their fitness results.

Are Body Building Supplements Really Beneficial?

Body building supplements are quite effective because they enhance performance and give the energy and stamina that is required to achieve required workout results. They are considered to be better than steroids because they do not alter the body’s natural hormone levels. However, it is important to keep in mind the fact that body building supplements are just that – supplements. They can be taken additionally but cannot become a substitute for real food sources and so before opting for them, it is vital to check if making any changes to normal diet can achieve the results that they provide. There are many natural or herbal supplements, but be aware of the fact that they may be unsafe or you might experience unpleasant side effect by taking them.

Ketogenic Diets and Weight Loss and Bodybuilding

/in , ,

I get asked about ketogenic diets for bodybuilding or weight loss goals a lot. People always wants to know what the best diet is or what they can do to lose fat faster. Truthfully, most people have no clue what they are getting themselves into.

While a ketogenic diet may work better then a low carb diet, I don’t know if people are ready for them.

First off, a ketogenic diet is one where there are no carbs. Without carbohydrates the body turn to burn fat as the primary fuel source. Since this is happening the body can tap into stored bodyfat for energy and we can end up leaner. Well while that is possible we need to look at what may happen.

For starters your energy will be drained. Without carbohydrates your body won’t know what energy source to turn to for a few days so you may experience feelings of weakness while you train or until your body becomes adapted at using fat. While this isn’t a bad thing you must understand that you have to change your training intensity. There’s no way that you can keep training with super high volume while you use one of these diets.

The next thing that you have to understand about using a ketogenic diet for weight loss or bodybuilding is that you need to eat more protein then normal. Since you don’t have carbs, and carbs are protein sparing, you need to consume more protein so you don’t lose muscle tissue. So make sure that you are eating at least 6 meals per day with a servings of protein coming every meal.

Then you have to make sure that you are getting enough fiber. Look to consume fiber from various sources such as green vegetables and fiber powder or pills like physillum husk. Now you need to add some healthily nutritional supplements since you want to make sure that you do your best to burn fat on these keto diets for weight loss and bodybuilding. First, make sure you consume healthy fats like omega-3 fish oils, cla, and gla. These fats will help to burn more body fat. Then you want to purchase a good branch chain amino acid powder as bcaa’s help to retain muscle mass and prevent muscle breakdown.

So in conclusion, a ketogenic diet may be the best for weight loss or bodybuilding but you need to make sure you are eating enough and taking in the right nutrients or you’ll lose too much muscle mass.

Benefits of In-House Personal Training

/in , ,

In-house personal training has gained a good following nowadays because more and more people are becoming health and fitness conscious.

Fitness training is necessary for everyone to lead a healthy life and in-house training is one of the easiest ways to attain your health and fitness goals.
In-house training involves everything a gym facility offers without the hassle of actually going to the gym, dealing with other gym users and sometimes unsanitary gym conditions. The traditional use of gym machines for fitness training is giving way to more convenient and practical equipments which you can bring anywhere you want. Some examples of these equipments are dumbbells, kettle bells, stability ball, Bosu ball, balance disks and medicine balls.

In-house personal training applies simple rules that you can easily follow even without your personal trainer. These simple exercise techniques that are used in in-house personal training can produce great results provided they are done correctly with proper form and technique. In-house training uses a balance of cardiovascular training, weight training and healthy diet.

In-house training offers the following services: general exercise and fitness, strength training and conditioning, abdominal and core conditioning training, aerobic or cardiovascular exercise, balance and flexibility training, muscle building and weight loss management, kick box cardio, Thai box cardio, consistent motivation, E-mail and phone coaching and nutrition counseling and weight management. One of the big advantages of in-house training is that you will have someone who will be with you every step of the way. You will have someone who will push you hard and hold your hands when the going gets tougher and tougher.

Another thing that in-house training offers is the latest methods of doing exercise, losing weight and dieting. Your personal trainer will also make a diet chart for you to follow so that you can regulate and maintain your diet.

Personal training also offers personalized training in the sense that the workouts, exercises and the diet plan are all made according to your body’s needs and fitness goals. In-house personal training session will not only shed out that extra weight, but will also tone up your body to your satisfaction.

In this type of weight loss sessions, personalized attention enables you to converse well with your trainer about the regular diet and things to be done. In-house personal training also includes taking care of back injury prevention, body toning and sculpting and traditional strength training. It is the fitness programs that help to avert all sorts of ailments. In-house training also enables you to cut down on the heavy fees that gym instructors charge.

The idea of in-house training is catching up with more and more people because it is the best way to get back into shape without the added pressure of going to the gym. The best thing about in house personal training is that you are your own boss and the only person that can pressure you is yourself.

Doing Aerobic Exercise with a Ketogenic Diet

/in , ,

Many prefer doing an exercise that is done with a combination of body movements; just like the aerobic exercise with the cyclical ketogenic diet. It is not really an easy way to do because it requires a lot of energy in performing it. This kind of exercise is not advisable to those who are on a restricted calorie diet especially when their energy is also affected.

When doing an aerobic exercise you must have enough energy to accomplish it but how will you able to do it if you are just eating a limited amount of food. Once an individual is on a diet he or she can only do limited activities. It can even make them easily get tired and become weak. This does not happen when you are on a ketogenic diet.

aerobic exercise

It doesn’t mean that when you are already on a diet you will also become healthy. Actually, it is the most affected in your life because you are not eating enough food to give your body the nutrients that it needs. You may become slimmer but your health will be in great danger. The only thing that you can do is to invest into dietary supplements that aside from losing weight it will also provide your body with the nutrients that it requires. There are a lot of products that promises this kind of benefits but most of it does not give your body the right amount of energy to do intense task. With the ketogenic diet you will not just achieve the perfect body that you wish to have but you will also acquire huge amount of energy that you can use to do other job or the aerobic exercise.

Aerobic exercise with ketogenic diet is the perfect combination that you can ever encounter since most of us want to have a physically fit and healthy body. With these two factors you can achieve the body that you want and still have enough energy to so some exercise. Diet will always be useless if you will not do an exercise. Imagine yourself losing weight but not having a firm and fit body. This is what will most likely happen to you if you lack an exercise when you are having your diet. You may reduce weight but your body structure will not be in perfect shape.

There are hundreds of companies that promote effective weight loss products as well as programs. In order to purchase the right one you must compare each of these and know its difference. You can set factors that you will follow base from what you want in a dietary product or program. With this process it would be much easier for you to decide what brand you will purchase. However, in case you are haven’t got any idea what to purchase why not choose s ketogenic diet. It has great benefits for anyone who will use it. With the combination of aerobic exercise with ketogenic diet you can be assured that you will not just be satisfied with the result but you will also be proud of it.

Top 8 Reasons for Personal Training

/in , ,

Life can be chaotic and out of control and people use that as an excuse not to train but that is actually a huge reason for fitness training.

Training can change your whole perspective and actually save your life without you even knowing it… even if you are not directly at risk of any illness or disease in particular.

training

1. MONEY

In the long run personal training will save you massive amounts of money. People look at personal training as an expense. The reality is that it will end up saving you thousands of $$$ on insurance, hospital and doctor bills as well as expensive medications. We are an instant gratification society and it is hard for us to look that far into the future, but it is now a proven fact that personal training will save you massive piles of hard cold $CASH$ in the future. So spend a couple hundred a month now and save $10-20K later.

Also, people may go to the gym for a couple hours a week and cause undetected damage called microtrauma (small unnoticeable injuries). Continuously doing “the wrong thing” and causing these microtraumas that build up over time, often times leads to a serious injury – all due to improper training – which again can cost you thousands of dollars in surgeries and physical therapy. Also, what price can you put on spending many more healthy years with your family?

2. Time 

If you are training properly you can save yourself massive amounts of time, and time is money (which goes right back to #1). If you are working with a personal trainer who knows physiology and anatomy and the right combination of exercise at the right time, then you can limit training to 2-3 hours a week and see amazing results. Whereas many people might go to the gym for hours and never see any results.

3. Productivity

We have energy systems in our body and if you train properly you can build those energy systems in a way that makes you 20% more productive. In combination with eating the right food, the energy can build and build. When you’re more productive you can do more and have more positive energy at work, which can lead to making more money. It will also reduce your level of stress as well as increase your ability to cope with stress making your job and life much easier.

4. Be More Attractive

The proper training will help you burn fat and gain lean muscle, which will give you a better figure, bring the skin closer to the muscle (reducing wrinkles) but that’s not the only thing. When you are training and taking care of your body your hormones are more balanced and what makes us more attracted to each other are Pheromones, which become stronger through training.

5. Feel Better About Yourself

Personal training adds a tremendous amount of self-confidence and self-esteem. There is no value to feeling good. We are only on this Earth for a small amount of time; we might as well feel good for as much of it as we can. Also, personal training has been scientifically proven to be more powerful than anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications to keep a positive mood balance.

6. Make Life Easier

It’s easy to see that if you are more productive, make and save more money, have more self-confidence and self-esteem, more energy and more love, then life automatically become much easier. Unfortunately, some people are always looking for a shortcut and ways to circumvent the necessary work to get these numerous benefits of personal training. What’s even more unfortunate is that these people end up feeling empty and unaccomplished.

7. More Muscles

Consider this equation: Work = Force (muscle) x Distance. The more muscles you have the easier it is to move your bones, which means it requires less energy to move your body around. For example, if you have more leg muscles and need to walk up the stairs everyday all day it will take less energy to do so. But smaller muscles use a ton of energy and you will be fatigued at the end of the day just from walking up and down the stairs.

8) Be a Role Model to Friends and Family and the World

We are quickly becoming the unhealthiest nation in the world. It is important to do personal training to lead our community members and family members to a healthier lifestyle so we can in turn become a stronger nation mentally and physically.

In a world where people are caring less and less about their health and looking for shortcuts, it is the cool thing to take the road less traveled and receive all the above benefits that will give you a competitive advantage in life. A strong person instantly has an easier life.

What is a Ketogenic Diet and How Does it Relate to the Atkins Diet?

/in , ,

You’ve probably heard plenty about the Atkins Diet over the years. You know, that incredibly popular and controversial diet that involves cutting right down on your carbohydrate intake. You may have also heard of “ketogenic diets” – it’s a more scientific term so you may not recognise it.

Did you realise that the Atkins Diet is a type of ketogenic diet? In this article we’ll have a brief look at what the term means and my experience of this type of diet.

Atkins DietThe Atkins Diet

The original Atkins Diet book, Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution, was released in 1972. Dr Robert Atkins was interested, among other things, in getting his own weight under control. Primarily using self-experimentation techniques he found that eating a diet very low in carbohydrates tended to make him lose weight quickly. His experimentation was based upon other research papers and, as a result of his own studies, he became confident that the science behind the diet was sound. The resulting book was a resounding success and, over the next 30 years up to his death in 2003, Robert Atkins continued to produce popular diet books based upon the low-carbohydrate principle.

Ketogenic Diets

Some would argue that only the first “phase” of the Atkins Diet is “ketogenic” but it’s very clear that this element is central to the whole diet. There are many other diets of this type with different names and claims but, if they talk about severely restricting the intake of carbohydrates, then they’re probably forms of ketogenic diet. The process of “ketosis” is quite complicated and would take some time to describe but, in essence, it works because cutting down on carbs restricts the amount of blood glucose available to trigger the “insulin response”. Without a triggering of the glucose-insulin response some hormonal changes take place which cause the body to start burning its stores of fat as energy. This also has the interesting effect of causing your brain to be fuelled by what are known as “ketone bodies” (hence “ketogenic”) rather than the usual glucose. The whole process is really quite fascinating and I recommend that you read up on it.

Controversy

All forms of ketogenic diet are controversial. Most of the debate surrounds the issue of cholesterol and whether ketogenic diets increase or decrease the levels HDL “good” cholesterol and/or increase or decrease LDL “bad” cholesterol. The number of scientific studies is increasing year on year and it is certainly possible to point to strong cases on both sides of the argument. My conclusion (and this is only my opinion) is that one could equally make the case that a carbohydrate-laden diet has negative effects on cholesterol and I think that, on balance, a ketogenic-type diet is more healthy than a carbohydrate-heavy one. Interestingly, there isn’t so much controversy about whether ketogenic diets work or not (it’s widely accepted that they do); it’s mostly about how they work and whether that is good/bad/indifferent from a health perspective.

My Experience

I too am a bit of a self-experimenter. I know this approach isn’t for everyone and it does carry an element of risk. I’ve experimented with a ketogenic diet for around eight years now. I sometimes lapse, mostly during holidays, but I always return to the diet as part of my day-to-day routine. I find that I can easily lose the several extra pounds that I put on during the holidays within around two weeks of starting up the keto diet again. I suppose it helps that I really enjoy the type of food I get to eat by following this regimen. Many of the foods I like are quite high in protein and fat. I do miss carbohydrate-rich foods such as pizza and pasta but I think that loss is outweighed (sic) by the benefit of being able to each rich food and still keep my weight under control. It goes without saying that I have to avoid sugary foods but I don’t have much of a sweet tooth and I can still enjoy things like good dark chocolate, in moderation.

Conclusion

It’s difficult, if you are just starting out looking for a diet that works for you, to know where the truth lies in this debate; if the scientists can’t sort it out then how are you going to? The plain truth is that you’ll need to educate yourself, weigh up the arguments, then follow your own best judgement. My experience has been largely positive but you will, no doubt, have heard of friends having problems on low carbohydrate diets for one reason or another. There is no such thing as a miracle diet and most of them are just variations on a theme but all ketogenic-type diets are based upon a very specific principle and that principle has been demonstrated to induce weight loss in many people. Perhaps you should try to base your opinion on the available evidence and not on anecdotes. It’s your body and your health, after all.