Читать книгу Low-Carb Diet For Dummies - Katherine B. Chauncey - Страница 13

Although the term “low carb” is bandied around freely in general conversation and most everyone using the term assumes that they’re using the term in the same way, unfortunately no clear definition of the term exists.

In an attempt to overcome this barrier to communication, researchers have suggested four definitions:

 Very-low carbohydrate ketogenic diet (VLCKD): Carbohydrates are limited to 20 to 50 grams per day or less than 10 percent of a 2,000 kcal/day diet, whether or not ketosis occurs. It’s derived from levels of carbohydrate required to induce ketosis in most people. VLCKD is the recommended early phase (induction) of popular diets such as Atkins Diet or Protein Power and is the basis for the Keto Diet.

 Low-carbohydrate diet: This diet limits carbohydrates to less than 130 grams per day or less than 26 percent of total energy. The Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) defines 130 grams per day as its recommended minimum. The Whole Foods Weight Loss Eating Plan promoted in this book adheres to this carbohydrate level. See Appendix C for more on the DRIs.

 Moderate-carbohydrate diet: This diet sets carbohydrate limits at 130 to 225 grams per day or 26 to 45 percent of your total calorie intake. This was the prevailing upper limit of carbohydrate intake in the western diet before the obesity epidemic (43 percent) began.

 High-carbohydrate diet: Carbohydrate intake is more than 225 grams per day or greater than 45 percent of total calorie intake on this diet. More recent surveys estimate that the current American diet is 53 percent refined and processed carbohydrate.

The Whole Foods Weight Loss Eating Plan that I describe in this book provides 130 grams of carbohydrate and fits the definition of a low-carbohydrate diet. But don’t worry — the guidelines I give don’t ask you to remove carbs from your diet completely. Instead, I want to get you thinking about the quality of the foods you consume, rather than the number of carb grams those foods contain. For more details about this, turn to Chapter 2.