Low-carb and keto diets have been lauded over the years for being the right diet for optimum health. However, making the transition might seem hard at first, but the moment the body adjusts, you’d start to see significant gains.

Have you ever wondered what happens to your body when you cut or reduce your carbs intake? Here’s what to expect:

1. You Start Burning Fat and Your Belly Becomes Flatter

The first thing that’ll happen to your body once you go on a low-carb or ketosis diet is that your body starts burning fat instead of sugar, which is usually acquired from carbohydrates. By reducing or cutting carbohydrates, the number of calories you’re consuming reduces. Since your carb-induced calories have reduced, your body would be forced to burn fat into energy, instead of the usual glucose processed from carbohydrates.

Another change that comes with burning fat is belly trimming. Since carbs are usually stored around the body’s midsection, one of the first things you’ll notice after some time is a slimmer belly. This is because carbs are no longer present in your body system. Hence, you get to live healthily while also looking gorgeous, which is a win-win situation.

2. You’d Feel Less Hungry

Contrary to what some people think, a high intake of calories doesn’t satiate hunger. Rather, it’s the nutrients in food, particularly fiber, protein, and healthy fats. It’s quite ironic that carbohydrate is lacking in all three. This is because it contains cheap calories that fill your body fast and are equally hard to burn off.

This means that you end up eating so much and getting filled with calories without the feeling of satisfaction. This is why people have constant food cravings even after eating a hefty amount of junks. By reducing or cutting out carbs, you’d have to rely more on healthy foods that’ll provide all the nutrients you need.

This would then make you feel full and satisfied for longer on less amount of food. Go for foods like immi, eggs, fruits, veggies, meats, and more to make your low or no-carb diet effective.

3. You Might Experience Constipation

It isn’t easy going off carbs because the body is already used to it. Removing or limiting your carbs all of a sudden could make the body revolt because it has lost its active source of energy. This could result in constipation because the body is experiencing an anomaly.

Once your body adjusts to receiving healthy calories and burning fats as energy, constipation would naturally fade away. If you experience constipation during your dieting transition, try drinking plenty of water to help your body recover faster.

4. You Might Experience Fatigue

It’s normal to feel more tired than usual when going off the carb. This is because it’s the body’s way of showing that carb, which is the main source of carbohydrate, is absent. The body normally stores carbs in the form of glycogen, which is then activated for energy.

Once the body runs out of carbs, it won’t immediately start processing fat as energy. It would need a little while to adjust and start burning fat. The period before the adjustment is when you’d feel tired and experience unusual fatigue. The transition will take a toll on your energy and endurance level, but, with time, you’ll get back in shape.

5. The Risk of Diabetes Reduces

Carbs contain a high quantity of sugar. In fact, it’s safe to call carbohydrate ‘sugar.’ While sugar has its usefulness in the body, its excessiveness can wreak havoc. The thing is that carbohydrates push in high quantities of cheap calories into the body. Essentially, it gives the body excess sugar.

This makes the pancreas to produce excess insulin, which eventually leads to insulin resistance and, eventually, type 2 diabetes. By reducing or cutting off carbs, the risk of you getting sugar-induced health challenges, like diabetes, will reduce. Other than diabetes, a high quantity of refined carbs is associated with other health challenges like heart diseases.

6. You may Suffer from Flu-Like Symptoms

When transitioning to a carb-free diet, you’ll likely feel some symptoms similar to that of flu. Some of those symptoms include nausea, headache, loss of appetite, and even exhaustion. This would be normal, especially if you were very used to taking a high quantity of carbs. You don’t need to worry, though, as this experience will only last a little while.

By the time your body adjusts, the symptoms would disappear. But to boost your system before you fully recover, try to drink plenty of water. If you notice that totally going off carbs all of a sudden will affect your system, you can start cutting your carb intakes gradually instead of suddenly.

7. You’d Feel More Energized

When you go off carbs, your body would be forced to burn fats as energy. This would make you feel more energized and stay active longer. That’s because the energy burned from fats is more effective than those received from carbs. Also, since you’re doing away with the cheap calories from carbs, your brain and muscles would be well energized to help you carry out your activities.

This also explains why athletes, bodybuilders, and sports persons always go for a low or no-carb diet. The healthy nutrients, the type that carbohydrates can’t offer, helps build the muscles and keep them strong. By switching to a diet high that’s in proteins, fibers, and healthy fats, your body would be able to build healthy and strong blocks of muscles.

8. You may Lose Weight and Hair Loss

Depending on how your body responds to the diet change, you might experience weight gain or weight loss when going off carbs. Carbs make the body store more water than it needs. By switching to a low or no-carb diet, your body would get rid of the excess water and retain just the right amount it needs. This would then result in weight loss, and, with time, your body will adjust to a healthy weight.

You might also experience some hair loss when you cut off carbs. It’s normal to experience hair loss when switching diets. It’s the body’s way of showing that change is going on, and adjustment is in progress. You might experience this for one to two months after you restrict carbs. But, in due time, your hair would come back bigger and better since the hair loss is only temporary.

Conclusion

Today’s health challenges are forcing more people to look hard at their diets and make healthier choices, like going on a low or no-carb diet. Cutting carbs off can have both long-term and short-term effects on the body. Some of the changes to expect include weight loss, slimmer belly, higher metabolism rate, constipation, and flu-like symptoms.

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