The Low Carb Diet
Sugar’s infamy has been in the works for some time now. Apart from raising our fat levels, excess sugar keeps our insulin levels abnormally high (which is what triggers type 2 diabetes), acerbates heart conditions, causes us to crave more sugar, and so on. For these reasons, it’s now on everyone’s dietary black list, or so we all claim.
To combat the rising health problems caused by out of control sweet teeth, medical practitioners, and health professionals, recommend diets low in sugar. And various nutrition experts, have risen to the challenge and provided us with a trove of choices. Our pick for today’s article is the low carb diet.
The Low carb diet, is as straightforward as its name suggests; reduce your unhealthy carbohydrate intake. Unfortunately, the major problem with this diet, lies in deciphering which carbohydrates are healthy and which aren’t. So, to help you figure things out, we’ve procured a list of foods divided into three categories, labelled Eat well, eat in moderation, and eat in tiny amounts. They are:
- Eat Well (every day, if you like):
All vegetables and nuts apart from sweet potatoes, corn, yam, and grains.
All fruit apart from bananas, mangoes, dates and pears
All types of meat, fish (including sardines), and eggs
Dairy products such as cheese, cream, full-fat yogurt, and Greek yogurt.
Water, tea, coffee.
Olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, butter
Dark chocolate
- Eat in Moderation (From time to time):
Starchy vegetables such as sweet potatoes, yam, corn, grains.
Bananas, mangoes, dates, pears.
Wheat and Brown bread
Milk
- Eat in Tiny Amounts (on rare occasions):
All types of junk food apart from Dark chocolate
Soda
Processed sugar
Processed pasta e.g. spaghetti, Indomie, Macaroni
White bread
There, we’ve managed to cover all the main groups of Nigerian food, and as you can see, it’s not as limiting as you would have imagined. Sure, you’d have to give up some everyday meals, but there are so many combinations you could explore with the alternatives; All Nigerian Recipes, is a good place to check out meals you can prepare with the foods listed above. Remember, it’s a lifestyle, not a one time thing, be patient with yourself, enjoy your meals, and remember, the fact that its a low carb meal, is not permission to overeat; food is still food, too much and you put on unnecessary weight.
