The Difference Between Low Carb & Very Low Carb Diet

Low-carb diets persevere as popular ways to lose weight. In general, these diets limit your intake of breads, cereals, pasta, grains and some starchy vegetables and fruits. Dozens of low-carb diets exist, and the prescriptions as to how many carbs you can eat vary widely.

Low-Carb Diets

A low-carb diet asks that you eat about 25 percent to 39 percent of your calories in the form of carbohydrates. Diets like the Zone and South Beach are considered low-carb. These diets usually focus on eating healthy carbs like fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Starchy vegetables such as potatoes and carrots, high-sugar fruits like bananas and watermelon, and refined carbohydrates like white rice and white bread are discouraged. These diets limit the serving sizes to just ½ cup at most meals to about 150 g of carbs daily.

Very Low-Carb Diets

Very low-carb diets prescribe that 25 percent or less of daily calories from carbohydrates. Examples of very low-carb diets are the induction phase of the Atkins diet, in which only 20 net grams of carbs are permitted daily, or the Ketogenic diet, which emphasizes fat. Very low-carb diets are high in animal-based proteins and fats. Allowed foods are most meats, poultry, fish and shellfish, as well as eggs and cheeses like blue, cheddar, feta and mozzarella. Most fats including butter, oils, mayonnaise and salad dressings also are permitted.

Potential Benefits

Low-carb diets can help with weight loss better than other types of diets, according to a 2007 study reported on in the "Journal of the American Medical Association." Obese women lost more weight after 12 months of following the very-low carbohydrate Atkins plan than women on the low carb Zone, low-fat Ornish or lifestyle-based LEARN diets. Sometimes, a very low-carb diet is prescribed to address certain medical conditions, like epilepsy.

Considerations

A very low-carb diet restricts your intake of some healthy foods, which can lead to nutritional deficiencies, warns the American Heart Association. Very low-carb diets place a lot of restrictions on your food intake, making eating in social situations or at restaurants more challenging. You risk taking in more saturated fat on a very low-carb diet because most of the allowed foods are animal products like meat, poultry, cream and butter.

Expert Insight

Although some experts warn that a very low-carb diet will lead to a loss of lean body mass, a review of the literature published in "Nutrition & Metabolism" in 2006 concluded that very low-carb diets actually help preserve lean muscle mass. By their nature, very low-carb diets are high in protein, which helps increase protein synthesis and promotes loss of body fat.

A study that followed almost 130,000 participants over 26 years that was published in the "Annals of Internal Medicine" on Sept. 7, 2010 found that low-carb diets that emphasize animal proteins correlate with a higher mortality rate in men and women over low-carb diets emphasizing plant-based proteins. As vegetable proteins usually contain more carbohydrates than animal-based foods, you might consider choosing a low-carb over a very low-carb diet as an approach to weight loss to preserve long-term health.