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If you're eating a "well-balanced diet" but are nevertheless still piling on the pounds, you have a right to be annoyed. Your diet's making you fat. Could carbohydrates be to blame?

Exponents of high protein/ low carbohydrate diets like Atkins, the Zone and the South Beach diet think they are. What's more, high protein dieters have proven that you can lose weight fast with their way of eating.

However, nutritionists and researchers say that not only are high protein diets hard to maintain long term, they're not healthy.

So there's the dilemma - should you eat a well-balanced diet and stay fat and perhaps get even fatter, or minimize your carbs, eat a high protein unhealthy diet (according to the experts) and lose weight to become slim and healthy?

The Benefits of Protein

There's no doubt that since protein is the building block of your body, you need protein. Every cell in your body needs protein, and you body makes many components from protein, including enzymes and hormones.

While we all need protein, at certain times in your life you need more. Children, teenagers and pregnant women need more protein, and athletes may need more too.

One of the major benefits of protein in the form of muscle tissue is that it speeds up your metabolism. The more muscle tissue you have, the more calories your body burns. So the skinny get even skinner, which seems a little unfair, but that's why you should exercise, to build muscle.

The Dangers of Protein

High protein diets can be dangerous for people with heart and kidney disease. So as with any diet, before you go on a high protein diet, you need to have a comprehensive health check.

Starting a diet that's high in protein probably won't trigger a disease, but it may reveal a health concerns you already have.

The Benefits of Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates provide the energy your body needs for all bodily processes. The glucose from carbohydrates is required by cells, and by your brain. In addition to glucose, carbs provide vitamins and other chemicals which are needed by your body.

To be active you need carbs, and if your body doesn't get them, it will crave them. This is one of the reasons it's hard to maintain a low carb diet for the long term.

If you're losing weight, you should eat carbs with a low Glycemic Index (GI). Low GO cards help you to control your appetite and fight cravings by releasing glucose slowly, so that the glucose doesn't trigger a high release of insulin.

The Dangers of Carbohydrates

Eating too many carbs will make you fat, because your body stores the glucose you don't need as fat.

Resolve the Dilemma - Eat a Well-Balanced Diet, and Focus on Low Gi Carbs

One of way of resolving the protein or carbs dilemma is by maintaining a well-balanced, normal diet, but switching your carbs to low GI carbs as much as possible.

Low GI carbs, such as those found in oatmeal, not only provide fast energy boosts, but they extend that boost in glucose over several hours.

So add low GI carbs to your diet. You'll find that with minimal changes, you can win the battle between protein and carbs.