How do low carbohydrate diets initially produce greater weight loss?
Low carbohydrate diets reduce the daily caloric intake by 500 kcal/day. This should result in 0.45-0.91 kg of weight loss each week. By ridding the daily food intake of some of the most popular foods, such as pizza, bread, French fries, and soft drinks, the calories consumed each day significantly decrease. This produces an initial weight loss of 2 to 3 kg weight loss in the first week alone. Such a significant weight loss in the first week occurs from two different processes. The first process is mobilization of glycogen. Glycogen is stored in the liver and muscle. The liver can store up to 100g of glycogen; whereas, muscle can store as much as 400g of glycogen. Each gram of glycogen is mobilized by 2g of water. This accounts for the bloating that people on the low carbohydrate diet usually do not experience. This results in a weight loss of 1 kg. The second process is the generation of ketone bodies. Ketosis is a condition in which the incomplete breakdown of fatty acids comes from t
