Healthy Diet at Home

The masses within the low-carb community tend to stick to about 20 to 35 net carbohydrates per day. The current perspective on Ketosis is that it takes 50 grams or less for most people to maintain that metabolic state. You’d think that asking, “How low is low carb?” would be rather silly. Wouldn’t the obvious answer be less than 50 carbohydrates per day? How Low is Low Carb? Well, maybe…but maybe not. How low is low carb exactly? Like almost anything, it all depends on which low-carb expert you ask, and how much weight you place on their theory and belief. It wasn’t very long ago that the same people who are currently trying to talk us into converting to a low protein, low carb, high-fat lifestyle (for our own good, of course) were preaching something very different. Gluten Exposure Has Resulted in Weight Gain  Understanding where the line is between a low-carb diet and something else is particularly important to me because I’ve recently found myself in the unwelcomed position of...

This afternoon, Jimmy Moore popped up in my Facebook feed. Since he follows a Nutritional Ketosis program rather than the Atkins Diet, I rarely read his blog any more, but I do read his Facebook posts when I'm there. In this particular Facebook post, Jimmy was quite upset. Apparently, a couple of twin doctors in Europe (Alexander and Chris Van Tolleken) decided to do a 30-day experiment to discover for themselves which was worse for a dieter: eating sugar or fat. I could tell by Jimmy's Facebook comments that the low-carb diet the article's author had decided to follow didn't turn out very well. He took offense at the doctor's personal experience of being "thick headed" during those 30 days, and argued that the doctor wasn't following a Nutritional Ketosis diet, so he might not have really been in Ketosis. Plus, 30 days is not long enough to become keto-adapted. In Jimmy's opinion, anything other than the Nutritional Ketosis parameters he follow...

(This is Part 1 of a two-part series. It was originally posted at my Sharing the Magic of Low-Carb Living blog. I'm moving it here because the information is important, and I have other plans for that blog now.) Over the course of my low-carb journey, I have tried several different types of low-carb diets. Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution, Atkins 72, the Kimkins Diet, Protein Power, and a round of hHCG are just a few. Each time I made a change or tweak, I would carefully evaluate my progress to see if what I was doing was working, or if I needed to toss it aside. In the Spring of 2009, I started participating in a 100-Day Very Low-Carb Challenge. The reason I entered into that challenge was because a traditional low-carb diet had stopped working for me. Since the whole idea of a low-carb diet is to find your own personal carbohydrate sensitivity, I thought the basis for the challenge made perfect sense. If you aren't losing weight, then you're eating too many carbohydrates. Perio...

(This is part 7 of a multi-part series on How to Tweak a Low Carb Diet . It explains the path I have traveled in my weight loss journey so far. If you didn’t read part 1, you can do so by clicking on the how-to link. Part 1 also includes links to the rest of the series.) My diet break obviously refilled my glycogen stores, since I was eating more carbohydrates, but that wasn’t a surprise. I was okay with the eight-pound weight regain because everything happened exactly as Lyle McDonald said it would. Although each of us have the potential to hold different amounts of glycogen in our liver and muscles, there was no reason to believe those eight pounds were fat. I was used to inputting everything I ate into Fitday, and that didn’t stop during my break, so it was easy to keep tabs on my daily calorie count. That helped to keep me zeroed into maintenance. Overall, my complete diet break went well, except that I took my husband’s suggestion and enjoyed a full month off from dieting that Dec...

(This is part 9 and the final installment of a multi-part series on How to Tweak a Low Carb Diet . It explains the path I have traveled in my weight loss journey. If you arrived here without reading part 1, you can do so by clicking on the how-to link. Part 1 also contains links to the other posts in this series.) When you begin to restrict carbohydrates to less than about 100 carbs per day, the body is forced to draw upon its liver glycogen to keep your blood glucose levels steady. That’s according to Dr. Michael Eades. I can also tell you from experience, that during those first few days, the brain doesn’t get the proper amount of fuel to function correctly. Or at least, I don’t. I know that because I start having severe vertigo attacks. Other people have talked about being tired or having brain fog. Now, the way it’s supposed to work is that the liver converts the protein you don’t need for immediate repair purposes to glucose to feed the brain. The brain can partially run on ketone...

Struggling to figure out which version of the Atkins Induction Diet is right for you? Today, Atkins offers many different Induction programs to choose from.   There are Different Versions of the Atkins Diet However, when I returned to a low carb diet in 2007, I started with Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution, 2002 version, due to its availability. When I bought the book, I didn’t know the diet had evolved into something different. Mainly because many Atkins followers I had run into on the web thought that particular program was the only “true” Atkins’ plan. Problems with the 2002 Version of Atkins A small group of us had problems with that particular plan. While our issues differed, it didn’t take very long to figure out that if we stuck to the current Atkins’ program, as written, the way most devoted to the cause demanded, we could chuck the goal of reaching target weight good-bye. We stalled, gained weight, or endured serious cravings on that plan. That’s why I’ve always been a stro...

Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream If you hang around low carb circles for more than a couple of days, you’re sure to hear the low carb mantra that says restricting carbohydrates controls cravings. The perspective is that low calorie diets make you hungry and low carb diets do not, but how true is that? Does everyone who follows a low carb diet experience relief from their cravings and excessive hunger? If they did, there wouldn’t be tons of people joining low carb groups and forums saying, “Hi guys…I’m back!” All of us, short or tall, thin or fat, are hard-wired as infants to seek after pleasure and avoid discomfort at all costs. That’s practically the first rule we create for ourselves. By the time we reach adulthood, seeking comfort and alleviating pain is so deeply ingrained into our subconscious minds, that the steps we take to do that have become an automatic response. When it comes to diets, all diet programs introduce us to restriction and change. That produces cravings and a strong...

Last month Jimmy Moore started testing his blood sugar after eating popular low carb products. Here’s the facts and myths about blood glucose levels when eating low carb. Saturday was the first time I heard about Jimmy Moore testing his blood glucose levels after eating some of his favorite low carb foods. While Twitter is a great place to keep in touch with your favorite bloggers, it’s easy to miss important tweets – unless you think to pull up their most recent posts. While most low carbers stop by Jimmy's blog every day or two, I quit doing that about a year ago when videos became the norm there. At that time, I didn't have a high-speed internet connection, so wasn't getting anything out of that blog. Saturday, I just happened to be reading the tweets of the people I follow on Twitter when Jimmy announced his blood sugar testing results from eating Julian Bakery’s CarbSmart breads was in. Since I now have high-speed access, I clicked on the link he provided, and began ...

In general, a low-carb diet doesn't cause you to lose weight any faster than a low-calorie diet does, unless you have a lot of body fat to get rid of. People who fall into the obese category can lose a bucket-load of body fat during the first few months, on any diet, but there is a biological reason for that. For most folks, the body limits the amount of body fat it is willing to take out of storage because it doesn't know how long your dietary restriction is going to last. If you have a 100 pounds, or more, to lose, the body will be more willing to give up lots of its body fat than if you only needed to shed 20 or 30 pounds. People lose weight at various rates, even on low carb. Sound disappointing? It doesn't have to be. Not if you're willing to do what it takes to help coax your body into speeding things up a bit. While some people won't be willing to incorporate the following tips and tricks for faster weight loss into their plan, if you have only been losing a ...

What's up with low-carb dieters these days? I really need someone to explain it to me. I'm at a total loss to understand. I realize that dieting is difficult, that it requires you to give up a lot of your favorite foods, revamp your lifestyle, and substitute those old food habits with healthier alternatives, but c'mon. I mean, do you really expect to drop 15 pounds in only a couple of weeks? Do you enjoy all of the pain and misery you are bringing upon yourself due to these false expectations and fantasies? Did someone, somewhere, tell you that low-carb diets are a quick weight-loss scheme? Or what? Where did that idea actually come from? Why are so many people coming here to this blog with the idea that if they don't shed some water weight and perhaps a little muscle tissue during the first week or two, then low carb isn't worth the effort? This self-torture doesn't make sense to me. Whether its 3 days, 8 days, 2 weeks, or a month, choosing to torture yourse...