You can always use fruit as the carbohydrate on your plate. Just make sure you pay attention to the portion size. If you're using a bigger plate, that quarter plate could end up being too large.

I always say you should have about a fistful of carbs and a palm-sized portion of protein at each meal. Budget with your fist for all carbs — including fruit. Make sure you're getting enough protein to ensure good health, but don't make it the centerpiece of your diet. Don't gorge on carbs, but don't eliminate them, either.

And lastly, load up on the veggies! It's become such a cliché — moderation and finding a balance. But when you look at all the components of both weight loss and weight maintenance, that's really what it's about: finding behaviors that you can stick with and that don't feel like deprivation.

I'm also a big advocate of not cutting out everything you love. If you eat cake or chips every day now, it's unrealistic to think that you'll never have them again.

So instead of deprivation, look at making improvements. How often are sweets a part of your normal routine now? If it's every day, cutting back to two or three days a week is an improvement. If you eat chips with lunch every day, substituting a salad or moving to the smaller size bag of chips will be more realistic than swearing them off for life.

Think about it this way: If you're going to try to change something, ask yourself, "Can I do this forever? The Skinny on Low-Carb Diets. Is a low-carb diet the best way to lose weight and, more important, keep it off? Home RUSH Stories The Skinny on Low-Carb Diets.

Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to LinkedIn Share via Email. These days, many people turn to high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets to shed unwanted pounds. Are low-carb diets safe? The effects of cutting out carbs. We get our calories, our fuel, from three sources: protein, carbohydrates and fats.

The risks of beefing up on protein. Some of these diets claim that if you cut out carbs, you'll lose 5 pounds in two days.

Low-carb diets and rapid weight loss. The challenges of staying the course. Meal-Prep Tip: Start the Classic Beef Stroganoff in the slow cooker in the morning. Cook it on the Low setting so it'll be ready in time for dinner hours. Daily Totals: 1, calories, 66 g protein, g carbohydrates, 28 g fiber, 65 g fat, 2, mg sodium.

Daily Totals: 1, calories, 56 g protein, g carbohydrates, 35 g fiber, 65 g fat, 2, mg sodium. Daily Totals: 1, calories, 61 g protein, g carbohydrates, 24 g fiber, 62 g fat, 1, mg sodium. Daily Totals: 1, calories, 70 g protein, g carbohydrates, 27 g fiber, 62 g fat, 1, mg sodium.

Daily Totals: 1, calories, 55 g protein, 97 g carbohydrates, 30 g fiber, 69 g fat, 1, mg sodium. Daily Totals: 1, calories, 72 g protein, 87 g carbohydrates, 26 g fiber, 70 g fat, 1, mg sodium. Meal-Prep Tip: Hard-boil 4 eggs and refrigerate to have for snacks on Days 27 and Daily Totals: 1, calories, 61 g protein, 98 g carbohydrates, 32 g fiber, 70 g fat, 1, mg sodium.

Meal-Prep Tip: Refrigerate 2 servings of the soup to have for lunch on Days 28 and Daily Totals: 1, calories, 52 g protein, 83 g carbohydrates, 29 g fiber, 81 g fat, 1, mg sodium. Daily Totals: 1, calories, 51 g protein, 94 g carbohydrates, 26 g fiber, 72 g fat, 1, mg sodium.

Daily Totals: 1, calories, 78 g protein, g carbohydrates, 31 g fiber, 50 g fat, 2, mg sodium. Daily Totals: 1, calories, 50 g protein, g carbohydrates, 25 g fiber, 75 g fat, 1, mg sodium. Give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done. Whether you followed this entire weight-loss plan for the whole 30 days or simply took bits and pieces from it, we hope you found this low-carb meal plan helpful.

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List of Partners vendors. Meal Plans Low-Carb Meal Plans. By Victoria Seaver, M. Victoria Seaver, M. Victoria Seaver is a registered dietitian and Associate Editorial Director for EatingWell. She completed her undergraduate degree in nutrition, dietetics and food science and her masters degree and dietetic internship at the University of Vermont.

Victoria has been a part of the EatingWell. com team since The Atkins Diet doesn't require calorie counting or portion control. You do need to track your carbs, though. It uses a system called net carbs. Net carbs is the total carbohydrate content of an item minus its fiber content.

For example, a half-cup 4 ounces of raw broccoli has 2. This puts its net carb value at 1 gram. The Atkins Diet says its approach to carbs will burn off your body's fat stores, control your blood sugar and help you achieve optimal health.

And the Atkins Diet says it won't leave you feeling hungry or deprived. Once you're at your goal weight, the Atkins Diet also explains it will help you find your personal carbohydrate balance. The personal carbohydrate balance is the number of grams of net carbs you can eat each day without gaining or losing weight.

The Atkins Diet claims exercise isn't needed for weight loss. But it states that exercise can help keep your weight steady and offer other health benefits. The Atkins Diet has four phases. Depending on your weight-loss goals, you can start at any of the first three phases.

Phase 1: Induction. In this strict phase, you cut out almost all carbohydrates from your diet. You eat just 20 grams of net carbs a day, mainly from vegetables. In this phase, you eat protein, such as fish and shellfish, poultry, meat, eggs, and cheese, at every meal.

You don't need to limit oils and fats. But you can't have most fruits, sugary baked goods, breads, pastas, grains, nuts or alcohol. You drink at least eight glasses of water a day.

You stay in this phase for at least two weeks, depending on your weight loss. The Atkins Diet says that you can lose a large amount of weight in the first two weeks of phase 1 — but it also states that those aren't typical results.

The Atkins Diet also notes that you may lose water weight at first. It says that you'll keep losing weight in phases 2 and 3 as long as you don't eat more carbs than your body can tolerate.

Most people can lose weight on almost any diet plan that restricts calories — at least in the short term. Over the long term, though, studies show that low-carb diets like the Atkins Diet are no more effective for weight loss than are standard weight-loss diets. And studies find that most people regain the weight they lost no matter which diet plan they used.

Because carbs usually provide over half of calories consumed, the main reason for weight loss on the Atkins Diet is lower overall calorie intake from eating less carbs. Some studies suggest that there are other reasons for weight loss with the Atkins Diet.

You may shed pounds because your food choices are limited. And you eat less since the extra protein and fat keep you feeling full longer. Both of these effects also contribute to lower overall calorie intake. The Atkins Diet says that its eating plan can prevent or improve serious health conditions, such as metabolic syndrome, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.

In fact, almost any diet that helps you shed excess weight can reduce or even reverse risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. And most weight-loss diets — not just low-carb diets — may improve blood cholesterol or blood sugar levels, at least temporarily. One study showed that people who followed the Atkins Diet had improved triglycerides, suggesting better heart health.

But there have been no major studies to show whether such benefits hold up for the long term or increase how long you live. Some health experts believe that eating a large amount of fat and protein from animal sources, as allowed on the Atkins Diet, can increase your risk of heart disease or some cancers.

But it's not known what risks, if any, the Atkins Diet may pose over the long term because most of the studies about it have lasted for two years or less.

The Atkins Diet says that cutting carbs extremely in the early phase of the program can cause some side effects, including:. Some very low-carb diets also restrict carbs so much that they cause you not to have enough nutrients or fiber. This can cause such health problems as constipation, diarrhea and nausea.

Eating carbs that are high fiber, whole grain and high in nutrients can improve the health profile of programs like the Atkins Diet, though. It's also possible that restricting carbohydrates to less than 20 grams a day — the level recommended for phase 1 of the diet — can result in ketosis.

Ketosis occurs when you don't have enough carbohydrates that are broken down into sugar glucose for energy, so your body breaks down stored fat. This causes ketones to build up in your body. Side effects from ketosis can include nausea, headache, mental fatigue and bad breath.

In addition, the Atkins Diet isn't a good idea for everyone. For example, the Atkins Diet recommends that you talk to your health care provider before starting the diet if you take diuretics, insulin or oral diabetes medications. Also, people with severe kidney disease shouldn't follow the diet.

And the weight-loss phases of the diet aren't a good fit for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding. There is a problem with information submitted for this request. Sign up for free and stay up to date on research advancements, health tips, current health topics, and expertise on managing health.

Westman EC, et al. Using a low-carbohydrate diet to treat obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Current Opinions in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Obesity. Gepner Y, et al. The beneficial effects of Mediterranean diet over low-fat diet may be mediated by decreasing hepatic fat content.

Journal of Hepatology. Department of Health and Human Services and U. Department of Agriculture. Accessed Oct.

Kirkpatrick C, et al. Review of current evidence and clinical recommendations on the effects of low-carbohydrate and very-low-carbohydrate including ketogenic diets for the management of body weight and other cardiometabolic risk factors: A scientific statement from the National Lipid Association Nutrition and Lifestyle Task Force.

Journal of Clinical Lipidology. Perreault L. Obesity in adults: Dietary therapy. Freire R. Scientific evidence of diets for weight loss: Different macronutrient composition, intermittent fasting, and popular diets. Shan Z, et al. Association of low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets with mortality among US adults.

JAMA Internal Medicine. Evert AB, et al. Nutrition therapy for adults with diabetes or prediabetes: A consensus report. Diabetes Care. Gordon B. What is the ketogenic diet? Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Accessed Nov. Products and Services The Mayo Clinic Diet Online A Book: The Mayo Clinic Diet Bundle.

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Medical Professionals. Clinical Trials. Mayo Clinic Alumni Association. If you cut way down on carbs, you dramatically reduce calorie intake. You would think with all that fat and protein that it would be easy to overdo it on calories. But some days, I struggled to get over 1, calories.

Despite my goal of 1, calories, I fell short almost every day. That's enough of a calorie deficit to produce weight loss, even without the low-carb count. The "keto flu" is a term you'll see on keto blogs and forums. It was a real event for me, but not everyone will experience it.

As your body starts to rely on ketones from the fat you're burning instead of glucose from carbohydrates, you may experience fatigue, mental fogginess and even irritability. My "keto flu" only lasted a day, and I never experienced the symptoms again once I passed it.

Featured Recipe: Soy Sauce Eggs. While I set out to lose 10 pounds, I quickly surpassed my goal. I lost 10 pounds within three weeks and hit 15 pounds two days before the wedding. It's important to remember that when you are on a low-carb diet of any type, you will lose several pounds in the first few days.

That's because your body is dropping water weight. When I returned to typical eating over the wedding weekend, I gained 4 pounds because when I started eating carbs again the water weight returned.

While on the keto diet, I had a lot of energy, and I didn't experience the typical mid-afternoon energy slumps. With that said, gym time was a bit of a challenge. Without carbs, your body has to burn fat for energy, which some days will leave you feeling drained during a workout because your body has to work harder to release the fat so it can be used for energy.

That's OK. Stick with it, and try again tomorrow. Eating at a restaurant and keeping your keto status is almost impossible—and after asking the server to hold the onions from your chicken fajitas for the third time, you'll never want to go into a restaurant again.

Luckily, I consider myself an adventurous cook and love trying new recipes. Of course, with a keto plan, your ingredient list is dramatically shortened. I scoured blogs, Instagram, Pinterest and other sources for reliable recipes, then put my thinking cap on and came up with several dishes I really enjoyed.

Write the recipes down, use a meal-tracking app like MyFitnessPal to record the ingredients and determine if a recipe works for you. It takes a bit more work than an average meal plan, but it's worth it. You can't eat sugar on the keto diet, and most of the no-carb sugar substitutes don't work for me.

This isn't to say that my cravings simply went away. In the first few days, cravings for a peanut butter cup, soda or even just a banana were strong. Here's when having an accountability buddy really helps. When you go back to typical eating, you might find, as I did, that many foods you ate regularly are now just too sweet to finish.

Read More: I Gave up Sugar for 30 Days—Here's What Happened. I won't be staying on a keto diet meal plan for the long term—I can't eat that much bacon to keep it up—but I expect I'll return to it several times a year. If nothing else, my monthlong experiment helped me eat less sugar and refined carbs.

It's important that you check with your health care practitioner before trying this diet, as the keto diet is not for everyone.

Certainly, there are plenty of people who should not try this diet, including if you're pregnant or breastfeeding, and those with blood sugar issues, heart disease and liver disease, among other conditions. With that said, if you're in good health and are looking for a weight loss jump-start, the keto diet might be the opportunity you've been looking for.

I just hope you really like bacon. Read More: 7 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting the Keto Diet. One of the functions of insulin is to store fat. Many experts believe that the reason low carb diets work so well is that they reduce your levels of this hormone.

Another thing that insulin does is to tell the kidneys to retain sodium. This is the reason high carb diets can cause excess water retention. Many studies show that low carb diets can be more effective than low fat diets for weight loss, but the research is inconsistent, showing a potential for an increase in cholesterol.

That said, low carb diets can help reduce blood pressure, sodium, and glucose. Researchers define low-carbohydrate diets as ones that contain less than 20 to g of carbohydrates per day.

That said, different diets may restrict carbs to a different degree. Some may allow you to eat a bit more. Low carb diets usually contain fewer than 20 to g of carbohydrates per day. But optimal carb intake varies between individuals, depending on activity levels, current metabolic health, and many other factors.

It may also improve your health. For this reason, the diet should be based on whole, unprocessed foods and healthy carb sources. Low carb junk foods are often unhealthy. If you want to improve your health, aim for unprocessed foods such as:. Look for carbohydrate sources that include fiber.

If you prefer a moderate carb intake, try to choose unrefined starch sources, like potatoes, sweet potatoes, oats, and brown rice. For more details on specific foods to eat, check out this list of low carb foods and this detailed low carb meal plan and sample menu.

A healthy diet includes plenty of vegetables, even at the lowest level of carb intake. Research has found that the average weight loss within 12 months tends to be about 13 pounds lb or 6 kilograms kg. That said, the study showed that a low fat diet can also lead to similar weight loss within a year.

Another study also found that participants on a low-carbohydrate diet for 8 weeks lost Visceral fat is the most dangerous fat and is strongly associated with many diseases. Keep in mind, these results were average for this specific research study.

You may lose more or less depending on your body and the specific factors that may be influencing your metabolism. In addition, eating slightly more carbs may lead to lower but more sustainable weight loss.

Eating less than 50 g of carbs a day is the most limiting low-carbohydrate diet. That said, consider seeing a healthcare professional or dietician first to see what diet is best for you given your specific needs and health parameters.

There are free apps that can help. Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space, and we update our articles when new information becomes available.

To get optimal results on a low carb diet, just cutting back on carbs isn't enough.