What happens to your body if you give up carbohydrates for 30 days
'23.10.2019'
Source: Life hacker
The consequences may not be the most pleasant: from headaches to hormonal failure.
Persistent headache
An irritating headache may appear in a day without carbohydrates. And this is a predictable side effect, especially if you didn’t limit yourself in sugars before, writes Life hacker.
The body systems are used to getting energy from carbohydrates, which are quickly broken down to glucose. In the absence of familiar sources, the body will begin to use fat for energy, but it needs time to rebuild. Therefore, in the first few days or weeks, dizziness and headache will become your constant companions.
Fatigue
The lack of a simple and understandable source of energy for the body will inevitably lead to the fact that you will constantly feel tired and drowsy, and in the mornings only a crane or steel will be able to tear you off the pillow. With a lack of glucose, the body goes into energy saving mode and spends energy primarily on life support processes: respiration, contraction of the heart muscle, and so on. Your work and study are not included in the priorities of the body.
Mood Swings
Without carbohydrates, you will not be such a pleasant conversationalist for others. However, constant irritability, mood swings and your own life will not make it easier. The reason for such changes is the close relationship between carbohydrates and the level of the hormone of joy of serotonin. Irritability is not the worst thing that can happen. A low-carb diet often leads to depression.
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Digestive disorders
Probably, the lack of carbohydrates in the diet will be accompanied by bloating. Constipation is one of the likely consequences of overly severe food restrictions. This effect is possible due to dehydration caused by a lack of carbohydrates, and a small amount of fiber in food, if you do not eat enough cereals, fruits and vegetables. The problem can be solved if you drink enough water and consume enough fiber.
However, the completely opposite result of the diet is possible - diarrhea. You should not take it as a way to lose weight faster: it threatens with the same dehydration and leaching of useful substances from the body until they are absorbed. If the cause is precisely the wrong diet, diarrhea is eliminated by returning to a balanced diet. In other cases, you should consult a doctor.
Inability to focus
Routine tasks will take you more time, as the first step in any undertaking will be an attempt to concentrate. To focus, the brain needs a constant supply of energy. The absence of its sources leads to distraction.
Moreover, studies show that low-carb diets affect cognitive abilities much more negatively than balanced ones, even with the same total calorie content.
Dehydration
Carbohydrates trap water in the body, so their sharp reduction in the diet will lead to a rapid loss of several kilograms. But this has nothing to do with the loss of fat, it is only about fluid.
And yet, with a low-carb diet, you will look better, the body will become more prominent. However, the medal has another side: you risk losing too much water, which will negatively affect your health. Lack of moisture will also lead to headaches.
Hunger
The body will take a response to a sharp restriction of carbohydrates in the diet, and then pass on to the ultimatum requirement to return to it the usual source of energy. A grumbling stomach will constantly ask for new servings, and any smell of food will cause violent salivation. Food will take up a significant portion of your thoughts.
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Change in eating habits
The lack of fast carbohydrates will make you take a fresh look at foods that contain sugar. After a while, you will find how sweet fruits and milk can be. Moreover, the longer you go without sweets and rolls, the easier it will be for you to refuse them.
Weight loss
If you exclude carbohydrates, scales sooner or later will show weight loss. There may be two reasons for this.
- Ketosis When the amount of carbohydrates in the diet is extremely small, the body begins to use fatty acids and the metabolism of ketone bodies as energy. To enter ketosis, you need to consume enough fat.
- Decrease in total calories. The principle by which all diets work: consume less than you spend. If you have not just begun to eat less carbohydrates, but generally started to eat less, weight loss is a logical consequence.
Hormonal changes
A lack of calories and carbohydrates can change the level of production of the following hormones.
- T3 is a thyroid hormone. Studies show that a tough diet can lower hormone production, and the lack of carbohydrates affects the thyroid gland more than the macronutrient-balanced diet.
- Cortisol is a stress hormone. The absence of carbohydrates increases its production, which negatively affects the functioning of the basic systems of the body.
- Testosterone. According to studies, a low-carb diet reduces the production of this sex hormone.
