Our Living Low Carb diet review takes a look at a low carb resource-book-come-cookbook…less a diet, more some delicious recipes and useful tips to follow, but do they work?
I was chatting with a friend a few days ago when she mentioned she was trying to lose some weight.
I asked her whether she was on a diet and she said she wasn’t. She’d bought a book called “Living Low Carb” and was using it to put together her own low carb eating plan.
The recipes sounded great, so I thought I’d grab a copy and take a look!
Living Low Carb Diet Review – How Does it Work…?
Cookbook writer and author turned diet guru, Fran McCullough uses a low carb approach to weight control.
She wrote ‘Living Low-Carb’ in 2000 based on her own experiences.
It turned into a bit of a bestseller!
It’s not a diet book, more an examination of the theory behind low carb dieting, reviews of popular low carb diets and tons of recipes.
As an accomplished cook, they’re pretty mouthwatering fare.
McCullough’s other cookbooks, the earlier, ‘Low-Carb Cookbook’ and 2003’s, ‘The Good Fat Cookbook’ offer more recipes along similar lines.
Whilst the recipes look fantastic, they’re in the ‘gourmet’ end of the market, using more expensive and unusual ingredients like skate and sea bass.
They generally look easy enough to cook though.
There are no formal meal plans as such, just choose your main meals and snacks from the recipes on offer – nearly 200 of them!
McCullough suggests good low carb choices for fruits and veg and lists the good fats that should be incorported into your meals.
As you’d expect, nuts, olive oil and nut oils all feature prominently.
McCullough does run through the rationale for following a low carb diet and the science behind it. Check out our page on low carb weight loss for more information.
She then distils this into 10 principles that low carbers should follow for a low carb lifestyle:
Living Low Carb Diet Review – Does it Work…?
The debate still rages!
Low carb advocates swear low carb dieting works, most nutritionists are still sceptical.
There is scientific evidence to suggest that you can lose weight by restricting carbs, but the long term evidence to support the approach isn’t there yet
Critics point to the low calorie nature of most low carb diets as the reason for any success. They also suggest that it’s difficult to restrict carbs forever, and that people will eventually fall off the wagon.
As such, there’s some doubt that low carb diets offer a long term solution to weight management.
To be fair, though, even the most cursory Living Low Carb diet review would conclude that McCullough doesn’t propose the elimination of carbs from your diet.
Just that sugars and refined carbs be replaced with fiber-rich wholegrains, fruit and veg in moderate portions.
We’d suggest that’s good advice!
The protein in this diet is higher than that recommended by healthy eating guidelines, but McCullough recommends lean protein on the whole.
Her advice on eating mono- and polyunsaturates instead of saturated fats conforms to healthy eating guidance.
However, there are a couple of areas where we’d question McCullough’s reasoning.
For instance, her assertion that whilst exercise is good for your health, you won’t lose body fat by exercising.
The evidence is clear that aerobic exercise is an excellent fat burner and that resistance training raises your metabolic rate by building lean tissue, hence helping you to burn more calories at rest.
Of great benefit as far as weight loss and weight maintenance are concerned!
Living Low Carb Diet Review – The Bottom Line…
Whilst the science is a little woolly in places, our Living Low Carb diet review would conclude that this is one of the better low carb diet resources.
Granted, it’s not a diet as such, but if you’re keen to try a low carb approach to weight management and want flexibility and some great recipes then this is a useful tool.
It offers a long term approach, which is positive but whether you’ll be able to stick with it long term is open to question.
Generally, it’s pretty healthy in its recommendations and not a million miles away from most healthy eating guidelines.
Our Living Low Carb diet review verdict? One of the better low carb diet books available!