by Mario Carini

Created on: July 21, 2010   Last Updated: July 23, 2010

As America gets fatter, more people worry about maintaining a slim waistline. Despite their best efforts that spare time seems to inflate more and more as the months pass and the efforts to reduce weight prove futile at best.

Many people are at a loss as to what to do to tackle the problem. Weight loss pills offer a quick fix solution while those fad diets produce a temporary feeling of accomplishment before what was lost comes back to add more unsightly fat. The only loss that results from all the weight loss efforts lies in a slimmer pocketbook.

65% of Americans are overweight or obese. More children today than ever before are packing on pounds that guarantee a life of chronic pain and disease.

Reducing calories and exercise are important keys to weight loss but often aren't enough. The latest popular diet and one endorsed by many medical practitioners and the media is the “high carb, low fat, low calorie diet”. But a closer look reveals that such a diet is doomed to fail.

Consuming high carbohydrate has been shown to increase glucose levels. Consuming too many high carb foods requires the pancreas to produce insulin to transport glucose out of the bloodstream and into your cells. Unfortunately, insulin resistance is one of the major causes leading to diabetes. Since sugar forms the foundation of many high carbohydrate foods, this kind of diet can lead to more diagnoses of diabetes.

Most people don't realize that insulin also functions as a “fat storage” hormone. For the diabetic, insulin resistance leads to a higher production of insulin by the pancreas to try to force the cells to absorb the excess sugar. But this means your body doesn't burn fat properly and what fat doesn't get burned must be stored and that leads to weight gain.

A high carb diet is likely to increase insulin resistance which only leads to further problems.

A low carbohydrate, high protein diet makes more sense than a high carb diet as there is less chance of glucose increasing too quickly in the bloodstream. That means less production of insulin. The less insulin there is, the better you are at burning off fat.

Every food contains carbohydrates. Some foods contain more while others contain less. The glycemic index was developed as a way to separate high glycemic foods from the low as a method to help diabetics avoid those foods that create the sugar spikes that lead to overproduction of insulin. Anything refined, such as white bread, white flour, white rice, potatoes,

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