There is a current trend for high protein diets but there can be a down side to this kind of diet. Firstly by reducing your carbohydrate intake (CHO) you will reduce your muscle glycogen stores. As these hold a lot of water they reduce and so does your body weight and often very quickly. You can lose between 6 and 12 pounds within the first few weeks but unfortunately this is not body fat you are losing.
This diet tends to work because as it does restrict your diet to protein foods such as cheese, meat and eggs etc.
One of the problems is you need CHO for maintaining energy levels. In the first few weeks you reduce your intake of CHO and one of the downsides of this is that a high protein diet will increase ketone bodies due to the lack of CHO. The ketone bodies can increase the acid of the blood and the kidneys then counter this rise by leeching calcium from the bones to get the body back in balance. This could have serious repercussions later in life for the health of your bones better known as Osteoporosis. This will also highlight a complaint in your kidneys as it’s making them work very hard. Also this kind of diet is has been linked with arthritis.
A long term study identified that people who did persevere with this diet lost no more weight than someone eating healthily.
