Christian Frank

If you’re trying to loose weight, like I am, there’s one hard truth: You’ll only loose weight if your daily calorie intake is less than your calorie expenditure.

There are no miracle hormones, or fat burning exercises, it all comes down to calorie intake.

To reduce your calorie intake, there are basically three types of diet:

• Overall reduction
• Low fat
• Low carb (high fat)

If you’re going for an overall reduction, the danger is that you trigger a survival mechanism – your body will believe that you’re going through bad times and reduce its overall consumption, to make its own stores last as long as possible. While this might definitely lead to short-term weight loss, chances are that as soon as you’re off the diet, your body will start to replenish and prepare for the next period of hunger. Bummer.

A low fat diet might certainly be sustainable, I just don’t like the bland taste of low-fat food.

That leaves a low carb / high fat diet – together with my GP and a dietician I settled on a diet somewhere between Atkins and Keto, with good, steady results so far. The definite benefit of a LCHF diet is that the food tastes really good and you’re almost never hungry (you stay sated for longer) – I went down to two meals per day, sometimes one, without any cravings.

From personal experience, if you need / want to loose weight, I’d highly recommend trying a LHCF diet, but: Never without ongoing medical supervision!