5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Go Low Carb

Low-carb diets have been all of the rage lately. Everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon, and touting their results. While initially, yes you are cutting water weight which will make you lose weight fairly quickly, it’s easy to see why. But I’ll break down some of the science-backed reasons why low-carb diets (in the long run) do more harm than good. 

Low-carb diets can work for an elimination diet. When done purposefully, cutting out healthy foods (such as fruits and veggies) for no more than 14 – 21 days can be beneficial. This is important to understand what your carbohydrate tolerance is, how much you can consume before gaining weight. However, going more than 4 weeks can have detrimental effects on your body, metabolism, hormones, immunity, inflammation levels, and mental health. 

Before jumping on any trend, it’s so important to make sure you know all of the facts and the side effects. I’m here to break them down for you. 

1. Hormone Function – going low carb for more than 4 – 6 weeks, can impact your hormone balance. Not eating carbs or eating very low carbs, produces stress on your body, which spikes your cortisol response. This will impact your sleep and circadian rhythm. Your thyroid function can also be thrown off balance, making it more difficult to regulate mood, emotions, stress levels, metabolism, immune system, and energy levels. 
2. Metabolic Flexibility – your body’s metabolism can be impaired. Your body will have a harder time tapping into your glucose stores and your fat stores and properly switching between these two fuel stores. It will be harder for your body to correctly break down fat when your heart rate is in a more rested state and carbohydrates when your heart rate is up. The effects of this could be increased weight gain and slower metabolism.  
3. Insulin Sensitivity – after you stop eating carbs for more than 4 – 6 weeks, this can impact your body’s insulin response. When reintroducing carbs back into your diet (since it’s nearly impossible – and unhealthy – to cut them out forever), your body’s insulin response may change making it harder to respond properly, leading to an increase in your blood sugar and tiring out your pancreas. 
4. Gut Microbiome – your gut microbiome is impacted when you’re not consuming enough carbs. You’ll start to lose the diversity of your gut microbiome. Gut microbiome is beneficial for your immunity, reducing inflammation, and the absorption of nutrients. Once the diversification of your microbiome starts to decrease, it can impact your immunity, raise your inflammation, and make it harder for your body to absorb nutrients.   
5. Stress and Anxiety – eating a low-carb diet can impact your mood and increase stress and anxiety. Consuming carbs produces serotonin, so you’ll feel better, and have less stress, anxiety, and worry when consuming carbohydrates. Since your body isn’t as good at getting energy from protein and fats as it is from carbs, this can cause stress on your body which negatively impacts your mood, spikes your cortisol, and makes you feel more stressed and anxious.   

If you are going low carb, do it as an elimination diet for no more than 2 – 3 weeks, and have a plan to start to slowly introduce carbohydrates back in. While you can see some benefits in the short term, don’t harm your long-term health by cutting out carbs (or any food group in general). You can absolutely lose weight or reach your goals without cutting out carbs long-term. Make sure you’re doing the healthy thing for your body.