Successful Low Carb Diets

As your body digests the food you eat, it releases insulin into your bloodstream. This insulin helps your body break down the glucose from food into energy. Carbohydrates release the greatest amount of glucose and cause the greatest insulin response. Low-carbohydrate diets advocate limiting carbohydrates in order to reduce the amount of glucose in your bloodstream. Because of this, your body must burn fat as an energy source--resulting in weight loss.

The Atkins Diet

The Atkins diet, perhaps the most well-known of all low-carbohydrate diets, restricts carbohydrate intake in stages and discourages dieters from eating any refined carbohydrates, such as sweets and white bread.

A 2007 report in "Science Daily" notes that in a Stanford University research study of the effectiveness of four popular diet plans, the Atkins diet was the clear winner. While acknowledging that reducing carbohydrates plays a considerable role in the Atkins diet's effectiveness, researchers also speculate that the Atkins diet is so successful because it encourages participants to eat more protein. Protein digests slowly, helping quell hunger and reducing dieters' temptation to snack between meals.

The South Beach Diet

Like the Atkins diet, the South Beach Diet emphasizes reducing carbohydrate intake. Unlike the Atkins diet, however, the South Beach diet doesn't allow dieters to eat their fill of high-fat proteins. Over time, a diet rich in red meat and saturated fats can contribute to heart disease--a risk that the South Beach diet helps individuals avoid.

The South Beach diet is successful because it encourages individuals to eat a variety of fresh, healthy foods and eliminate refined and processed foods--which often have a higher fat, calorie and carbohydrate content. It also teaches dieters how to make healthy food choices and maintain their weight after meeting their weight loss goals.

The Grapefruit Diet

The premise of the grapefruit diet, also known as the "Mayo Clinic Diet" and the "Scarsdale Diet," is that eating grapefruit prior to each meal facilitates weight loss. Dieters adhering to the grapefruit diet, however, must significantly restrict their carbohydrate intake. Both a low-calorie and a high-protein version of the diet are available, but both require that participants eat only certain foods and eliminate all refined carbohydrates.

A 12-week study conducted by the Scripps Clinic in San Diego, California, found that the grapefruit diet was effective at helping dieters achieve short-term weight loss. Unlike many other low-carbohydrate diet plans, the grapefruit diet is not intended for long-term use.