What Is the Fat Burning Index Diet?

The Banta Diet is a flexible user-friendly ketogenic diet based on the fat burning capacity of foods having the proper combination of carb, fat, and protein. It is first of all a low carb diet. What does it mean for the dieters? Let's look into the basics.

Basic Facts about Carbs, Fat, and Protein-reduced Diets

- Low-calorie diets burn both fat and muscle.
- Low-fat diets prevent fat depositing but also fat burning.
- Low-carb diets preserve muscle while burning the body's fat for fuel.

The Body's Fuel

What can the body use for fuel? Isn't it the mixture of carbohydrates, fats and proteins, as we were taught in a middle school? Normally it is, but there are some peculiarities in using and storing every component of the mixture:

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrate fuel is the one being digested, stored and used, quickly and easily. This is why the body's metabolic system always prefers to deal with this fuel.

When taken in excess, carbs are first stored in the liver and muscles. These stores are very limited in their ability to carry glycogen as a stored fuel. There's only as much energy stores in these depots as to survive a day, approximately 750 Kcal. After the carb depots are filled, all excess carbs are transformed into fat and stored in the fat depots. Fat stores in the body are huge compared to carb stores. Even in a person with a normal percentage of body fat, fat tissue contains enough calories to survive months of starvation. Obese people carry up to a year's supply of fat fuel.

Proteins

As I stated earlier, carbohydrate is the preferred fuel for all organs of the body. The heart, however, is less discriminate and readily uses any fuel, but only if carbs are present in sufficient quantities. When there's not enough carbs coming in with food, the body manages to produce its own carbohydrates out of protein that it takes either from food or from muscle tissue. This is why calorie-restricted diets burn not only fat but also muscle.

To prevent this undesirable condition, low-fat and calorie-restricted diets should include sufficient carb and protein, and low-carb diets should include sufficient fat and protein.
Here we come to the very core of low-carb versus high-carb dieting: High-carb diet proponents argue that carbohydrates preserve muscle protein and prevent fat deposition. Is this true?
Yes. But this is not the complete truth. While low-fat diets prevent further depositing of fat, they also prevent the existent adipose tissue from being used for fuel. They preserve muscle but they preserve fat as well. High-carb diets preserve fat simply because the body prefers to use carbs for fuel and when there are plenty of carbs, there's just no need to burn body's fat.

Carbs and Fats

The combination of a high-carb diet, unlimited calorie intake and physical inactivity causes the excess calories from carbs to be converted into fat and immediately be deposited. Thus, many high-carb diets incorporate calorie limitation and appetite-curbing methods, from appetite suppressants to behavioral modification.

So What is a Low-carb Diet?

A low-carbohydrate (low-carb) diet is a diet that allows less than 100 grams of carbohydrates in a daily ration. Some low-carb diets are very restrictive, not only in carbohydrate amount but also in the amount of protein.

Carbohydrate allowance in different low-carb diets varies between 20 grams (or less) to 100 grams. Some diets claim that they are low-carb while allowing more than 100 grams of carbohydrate per day, but these are really carbohydrate-reduced diets and they work differently.

What does someone on a low-carb diet eat?

Most low-carb diets allow meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, butter, oils and nuts. Green vegetables are allowed, but it is advised to count carbohydrate content in them. Some diary products other than milk are also allowed in limited quantities. Fat-free products, fruits, grains, legumes and starches are not allowed.

Why do low-carb diets work?

It is believed that low-carb diets work because when there's not enough carbohydrate fuel, the body adjusts to using fat for fuel. It is important that while burning the body's fat, low-carb diet preserves muscles because it provides sufficient amounts of protein.
Are low-carb diets dangerous?

Many nutritionists warn that these diets can be dangerous, but there is no clinical evidence against them. The Durham V.A. Medical Center in North Carolina conducted a clinically controlled study of one of the low-carb diets (Atkins). The results concluded that the diet is safe.

How does it compare to other diets?

There are three general diet groups on the market:

- low-calorie;
- low-fat; and
- low-carb.

Any one of them may be good for one person, but worthless or bad for another. Low-fat diets appear to be successful as a long-term regimen for physically active individuals, for those with few extra pounds to lose and those mostly concerned about maintaining a healthy weight. There was a trend of using low-fat diets to improve blood cholesterol and decrease the risk of cardiovascular diseases, but recent clinical data questioned this approach.

Low-calorie diets require self-discipline and, in many cases, support and guidance. One example is the Weight Watchers weight-loss program that has attracted millions of dieters over decades.

Why are low-carb diets used to be popular?

A part of their popularity can be explained by the fact that low-carb diets curb appetite, so it is easy to stay on the diet and even make it a lifestyle. The negative side of these diets is that they can not be considered balanced. Dieters are usually advised to take supplements to ensure an adequate nutrient intake.

It's very important to understand how these diets work and what you can expect from each of them; and to be able to then choose a diet that is best for you.
Fortunately, the mechanisms of carbohydrates working as primary fuel for just about any body have been studied extensively and are well understood.

What is the Ketogenic Diet?

The Ketogenic Diet consists of high-fat, low-protein and low-carbohydrate intake. It is a stringent, mathematically calculated diet high in fat, and low in protein and carbohydrates that, when followed conscientiously, produces a by-product called ketones. The diet has been in existence since the 1920s, when it has been considered a breakthrough in treatment of intractable childhood epilepsy but was usurped by synthetic medications in the 1950s. "The reintroduction of the Ketogenic diet is a great opportunity for registered dieticians to play a pivotal role in offering hope in previously hopeless cases." (Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 1996, Vol 96, No11, 1134-1135)

The diet can be used as a treatment for diabetes, atherosclerosis, hypertension, hyperlipoproteinism, autism, obesity, epilepsy and other serious medical conditions, including disappearance of gallbladder stones (Journal of Pediatrics, 117(5):743-5, 1990 Nov.) and morbid obesity (Therapeutische Umschau, 46(5):297-308, 1989 May.)

The Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins have set up a way to induce the effects of starvation by feeding the patient large quantities of fat and limiting protein and carbohydrates. Dr. Raymond Chang, a Scottish Rite neurologist, says the diet is "a controlled fast."

Tanya Zilberter, PhD, is a researcher, health educator, exercise physiologist, and scientific journalist. In health sciences since 1972, she authored several hundred scientific and popular publications, including four print books and more than a dozen of eBooks.

Dr. Ziberter's current research interests revolve around theoretical and applied problems of general physiology and neurobiology, and nutirion. Tanya associates with the Mediterranean Institute of Neurobiology (Inmed -- inmednet.com) at Marseilles, France, where she is resposnsible for Internet research and development as well as popularization of neurosciences.