The recommendation to reduce or eliminate carbohydrate consumption is a common one in the weight loss field, but many people who are trying to lose weight fail to understand why eating carbs is so damaging to their weight loss efforts. Despite the fact that some doctors say that weight loss is a simple matter of taking in less calories than you expend in performing your activities, the fac of thmatter is that due to the effects of hormones, not all calories are handled the same way by the body. Carbohydrate consumption clearly makes it harder for the body to burn fat, for reasons we're about to discuss.

Eating carbohydrates in large amounts triggers the release of insulin from the pancreas. Insulin is used by the body to promote the storage of excess blood sugar that occurs just after eating so it can be used for energy at a later time.

Surplus blood sugar initially is converted to a fast-energy source called glycogen, which is mostly contained in the liver and muscle tissue. The body can re-convert glycogen to blood sugar to be used for energy during short periods of physical activity. There is not very much room to store glycogen, so when additional reserve blood sugar needs to be stored beyond what can be kept as glycogen, insulin stimlates the remainder is converted to fat.

There is considerably more storage space in the body for fat than there is for glycogen. There are billions of fat cells in the body, each of which can enlarge to over 100 times its original size to accomodate extra fat storage. As an aside, this is why it is possible to get fat again after liposuction - even if you remove many of the body's fat cells, those that remain can enlarge considerably to store fat.

Insulin has very strong effects in stimulating fat storage. In addition, because fat burning and fat storage are opposite processes, insulin has a strong suppression effect on fat burning. It is this inhibition of fat burning by insulin that makes strictly limiting carbohydrate intake so important for weight loss.

Eating a lot of refined carbohydrates will trigger the release of high levels of insulin. High levels of insulin will actually block the body's ability to burn fat for up to two days at a time after just a single high-carbohydrate meal. It actually only takes the amount of carbs in a single slice of bread to shut off fat burning for 24 to 48 hours, no matter what your diet is like and no matter how much you exercise in that 24 to 48 hours.

You may have doubts about that last statement because you may know of people who are losing weight even though they eat carbs. It is important to note that carbohydrate intake causes the release of insulin which prevents the body from burning FAT. Weight loss is still possible because you can lose retained water and the body will still burn some calories, it's just that the calories being burned are from the protein in your muscles and other lean body tissue rather than fat. Because muscle is the most metabolically active tissue in the body, burning muscle is particularly bad, because not only will it make you weaker, your metabolism will start to slow down and it will become more and more challenging to lose weight.

It is strongly recommended to avoid eating refined carbohydrates when trying to lose weight in order to avoid the strong fat burning inhibition caused by high insulin levels. Please don't take this to mean that I am recommending that everyone go on a high protein program like Atkins. Large amounts of protein and fat can be hard on the liver and this can create different problems with weight loss in the long run. In my opinion, the best diet in most cases is one that is rich in fresh vegetables and fruits, nuts and seeds, and contains moderate amounts of animal proteins like chicken, fish, lean meat, eggs, and some dairy products. With such a diet, you will get healthy carbohydrates from sources high in fiber that do not trigger heavy insulin release as seen with refined flours, sweets, and starchy foods.

In some cases, even low-carb diets will sometimes allow for a "cheat" meal containing refined carbs as a reward - as often as once a week on some plans. I do not recommend this approach as it can derail your weight loss efforts in two ways. First, as we said, a single high-carb meal can block the ability of the body to burn fat for up to 48 hours. If you do the math, one high-carb meal per week would mean you could lose the ability to burn fat for up to eight days per month. In other words, you could be losing up to 25% of the effectiveness of your diet! The second problem is that eating carbs on a regular basis usually reinforces cravings. I think it is counterproductive to keep setting off cravings as this only makes your weight loss task more difficult and could result in additional cheating that could result in complete failure of your weight loss program.

You probably now understand better why you really need to avoid eating refined carbohydrates if you are attempting to lose weight. In my experience, most people who stay away from carbs for two or three weeks will usually stop craving them and then avoiding carbs becomes a much easier thing to do. With some will-power in the early going, your diet will become second nature to you and you'll be prepared to meet your weight loss goals.