Low carb diets and your weight; why the diet works according to a new study in the BMJ Low carb diets have a reputation for helping people keep the weight off. We understand that most simple carbohydrates such as breads and pasta's can make us gain weight. We also understand that insulin resistance can develop with the long term ingestion of too many carbohydrates. The NY Times recently reported on a British Medical Journal article that found that replacing carbohydrates with fat in overweight adults increased metabolism, and led to weight loss. The debate for which type of diet is better may be leaning toward a low carbohydrate diet since people in this published study who reduced carbohydrates but increased fat consumption for a 5 month period burned about 250 calories per day as compared to those who did not curtail their carbohydrate intake. Read more this important discovery below How a Low-Carb Diet Might Help You Maintain a Healthy Weight Adults who cut carbohydrates from their diets and replaced them with fat sharply increased their metabolisms. It has been a fundamental tenet of nutrition: When it comes to weight loss, all calories are created equal. Regardless of what you eat, the key is to track your calories and burn more than you consume. But a large new study published on Wednesday in the journal BMJ challenges the conventional wisdom. It found that overweight adults who cut carbohydrates from their diets and replaced them with fat sharply increased their metabolisms. After five months on the diet, their bodies burned roughly 250 calories more per day than people who ate a high-carb, low-fat diet, suggesting that restricting carb intake could help people maintain their weight loss more easily. The new research is unlikely to end the decades-long debate over the best diet for weight loss. But it provides strong new evidence that all calories are not metabolically alike to the body. And it suggests that the popular advice on weight loss promoted by health authorities — count calories, reduce portion sizes and lower your fat intake — might be outdated.