Carbohydrates or carbs are the fibers, starches, and sugars found in different foods. You tend to find carbs in fruits, vegetables, grains, and dairy products. Carbohydrates are also part of the three macronutrients, the other two being fat and protein. These nutrients are essential for the body to function correctly. But, consuming more carbs than recommended can lead to weight gain and other health complications.
You can munch on low-carb snacks and still maintain good health. Here are eight benefits of adding low-carbohydrate snacks to your daily diet.
1. Reduces Hunger Pangs
It becomes very challenging to resist food when the growling in your stomach strikes. Hunger pangs tend to be the worst enemy for people following a strict diet. You’ll find it tough to resist food when it’s right in front of you.
You can give in to that temptation, but you will feel miserable afterward. Continue this habit, and you’ll return to your unhealthy eating habits eventually.
Instead of grabbing that slice of cake that’s sitting in your fridge, eat low carb snacks instead. Food options like cheddar cheese, deviled eggs, tuna salad, and low-carb potato chips can help fill your stomach when needed. Also, eating these snacks can help reduce hunger pangs and food cravings.
Also, consider increasing your protein and proper fat intake daily. You’ll end up eating fewer calories than usual to supplement your weight loss or weight maintenance goals.
2. Maintain Blood Sugar and Insulin Levels
Eating a high-carb meal or snack will place you into a state called Post Prandial Somnolence or “Food Coma.” It happens when indulging in a heavy meal, and you feel very sleepy or lethargic afterward.
Many food options come with refined carbohydrates and sugars that cause the body’s blood sugar and insulin levels to spike. Then, the body’s glucose levels go down quickly afterward. So, you’ll feel energized during and after a few minutes of eating a high-carb meal or snack. But, you’ll lose those energy levels fast.
Eating high sugar and high-carb snacks will lead to weight gain and other health issues. Failure to watch out for your carbohydrate intake might lead to chronic diseases like cancer, dementia, Type-2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
Aim to eat low-carb snacks to take care of your health properly. Lowering your daily carbohydrate intake will help your body control blood sugar and insulin levels. Moving to a low-carb diet will also help people with diabetes manage their health conditions.
3. Weight Loss
Those pants that you bought a few months ago seem to be tighter than usual. Also, your small-sized T-shirt appears to be bursting at the seams.
If you see or feel these symptoms, then you gained a few (or more) pounds. You ask yourself, “What could be the cause?” Then, you think back at all the food you ate from the couple of months that passed.
Perhaps, you’ve been eating at buffets recently, or your snacks comprise of high amounts of carbohydrates and sugar. You can proceed to lose weight by starting a healthy lifestyle. Regular exercise and a balanced diet will help you lose weight.
You should think about introducing healthy food options for your daily diet slowly instead of abruptly. A sudden change in your diet might make it more challenging than intended to resist food temptations. So, you might find yourself going back to your unhealthy eating habits.
Instead, you can start losing weight by watching your daily calorie intake by minimizing your meal portions. Then, proceed to introduce healthy, low-carb snacks in between meals.
However, cutting carbs from your snacks might not lead to significant weight loss, especially if your only plan to help you lose weight is to consume healthy snacks. You can expedite your weight loss efforts by increasing your protein and healthy fat intake. Moreover, ensure that you cut at least 500 calories off of your daily recommended calorie intake to make your body lose weight naturally.
4. Increase Physical Endurance
In line with the previous benefit, lowering your daily carbohydrate intake while introducing more protein and fat in your diet can help increase your physical endurance. Extra protein helps your muscles to process more fat for energy. This diet plan, along with regular exercise, will result in a leaner, fitter-looking body.
It’s because of the body supplying stored carbohydrates for only a few hours. The body will produce and use energy from carbohydrates with intense exercise. But, the unhealthy fat that comes from the high-carb diet may last for weeks or months, depending on your workout regimen.
Take note that the body burns carbohydrates primarily. But, fat storage isn’t available easily. The result is your body to mistake this condition as false hunger. So, you think that you’re always hungry even though you just ate.
Eating low-carb snacks can help reduce the intensity of this problem. Since your body is low on carbohydrates always, your system will fuel your energy storage by using its fat. The ultimate result is you’ll gain more energy that may seem like you can run a full marathon. But, prepare your physical condition first before attempting that feat.
5. Reduce Skin Problems
Diets filled with sugar and refined carbohydrates may introduce skin problems, particularly acne. A 2007 study put together 43 young and acne-prone men found that a low-glycemic-load diet found better results in improving acne lesions than the participants who ate higher-glycemic-load food.
Moreover, the men who ate the low-glycemic-load diet had a decrease in androgen and insulin levels. These results indicate that these men’s bodies gained improved insulin sensitivity. As a bonus, the men with the low-glycemic-load eating plan lost weight during the study.
If you want to start improving your skin, you should begin cutting refined carbohydrates from your diet. Introduce more healthy carbs found in snacks like string cheese, turkey jerky, sliced ham, and celery.
6. Increase “Good” Cholesterol and Decrease “Bad” Cholesterol Levels
Try to walk up two flights of stairs. If you’re out of breath by the time you finished that short climb, then you may have concerns about your cardiovascular health. If so, you should consider increasing the High-Density Lipoproteins (HDL) or the “good” cholesterol in your body.
Introduce more essential fatty acids in your body by consuming low-carb snacks like cheddar cheese in crackers. Eating more fat in your daily diet might sound counterintuitive. But, consuming more healthy fat may make your body increase the production of HDL.
The “good” cholesterol helps transport blood and nutrients to other areas of the body before delivering them back to the liver. Once these substances return to the liver, the organ can reuse the cholesterol or excrete any excess amount as waste.
Eating healthy snacks may also help reduce Low-Density Lipoproteins (LDL) or the “Bad” cholesterol in the body. Elevated levels of LDL can increase the risks of cardiovascular disease. This substance also moves HDL from your liver to other body systems, which will lessen the efficacy of HDL’s functions.
Ultimately, eating low-carb meals and snacks may lead to a reduction of LDL and an improvement of HDL in the body. Consider adding regular exercise to your new healthy diet to help enhance your body’s immune system, especially when combating heart disease.
7. Helps in Fighting Metabolic Syndrome
Metabolic syndrome is an umbrella term for a cluster of health conditions that happen together. These health issues include high blood sugar, abnormal cholesterol levels, increased blood pressure, and too much body fat. When these conditions happen at the same time, they put your body at risk for more severe health complications like stroke, Type-2 diabetes, and heart disease.
Introduce your body to a low-carb diet by consuming more healthy snacks with few amounts of carbohydrates. Your new low-carbohydrate eating habits may help reduce the intensities of all symptoms associated with metabolic syndrome.
8. Remove Excess Water Weight
Water weight is the fluid or liquid collected in your tissues, which causes them to swell. Many individuals often confuse muffin tops caused by fat and water weight.
Fat weight can take several weeks before they show up on the weighing scale. Conversely, water weight can appear in about a week. You can find out if you have fat or water weight by comparing your weight readings frequently.
If you see sudden changes in your weight, then the difference is water weight. But, if the number on the weighing scale seems to increase over time, then it’s weight from fat stores.
You can maintain your weight and remove excess water weight by consuming low-carb snacks. The low-carbohydrate diet can help the kidney dispose of more water from your body. But, it also means that you should drink more liquids to compensate for that loss. Otherwise, you might feel dehydrated, which can lead to lethargy and other health issues.
Parting Words
Several benefits are in-store for you if you start eating low-carb snacks today. The low-carbohydrate diet will help you lose weight, increase energy, and combat specific diseases like Type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But, you should make sure to consult your doctor before starting a low-carb diet to avoid health complications.
