Healthy Diet at Home

I stopped by The Lighter Side of Low Carb’s Facebook fan page the other day, and noticed that Cleo had posted a picture showing what her personal USDA plate looks like. She had 3 strips of bacon, an egg, and 3 peas smiling up from the plate. While most of the comments shared how they would personally alter the foods in the graphic (I would have added another egg and more peas, myself), the one comment that caught my attention said - “Peas are evil.” There seems to be a common tendency within the low carb community to demonize foods not listed on the Atkins 2002 Induction menu chart. But I don’t know how or when that ever got started. I took a quick trip back to 1970 (one of the two Atkins’ books that survived the flea bombs that destroyed almost everything I owned last year), but Dr. Atkins’ advice didn't even insinuate that peas are evil. He said: “…additions are interchangeable and flexible. You can make any of these additions any week that you choose. I could be very arbitrary ...

ever looked on the internet for the best weight loss diets? if you have, you’ve probablyread about the next best diet in the world called the paleo diet. but what exactly isthis paleo diet and what makes it better than all the other diets our there?paleo is short for paleolithic, a prehistoric period of human development that existed overtwo and a half million years ago. during this paleolithic era, humans have yet to learnabout agriculture and animal domestication. this meant that humans only ate food thatwere readily available to them in their surrounding environment . they then genetically adaptedto become stronger and healthier by consuming more of these foods. advocators of the dietargue that there has been too little of a time frame between the end of the paleolithicera and modern day for the human body to adapt to today's western diet. the lack of adaptationis supposedly responsible for the existence of modern diseases today such as diabetesand obesity. this paleo-type die...

Diet Pepsi is Switching from Aspartame to Sucralose (Photo credit: Ben Mason , CC BY 2.0 ) The Atkins Diet doesn't allow diet soda with aspartame. Dr. Atkins took it off the acceptable beverage list many years ago after doing personal research into aspartame's potential health dangers. At that time, he recommended sucralose sweetened beverages and products instead, but sucralose sweetened products are difficult to find. There are a few Erythritol and acesulfame potassium (ace-K) sweetened beverages available in limited areas of the U.S. or online, but a 6-pack is really expensive compared to aspartame-sweetened options. The one time I tried it (back before I started reacting to sugar substitutes) it didn't taste very good, so I never bought it again. For that reason, many low-carb dieters have simply opted to ignore Dr. Atkins advice and have reached for the Diet Pepsi or Diet Coke instead. If that describes you, then you might be interested to know that . . . Read more »

Do you have nightshade sensitivity or allergy? How about an autoimmune disease? Arthritis? Fibromyalgia? If so, you might not be able to eat certain vegetables, fruits, and spices without suffering pain, inflammation, and other health complaints. You can even stall in your low-carb diet because inflammation can interfere with weight loss. I didn't realize that nightshades were so common among low-carb recipes and menus until I actually looked at which vegetables and spices are nightshades, and then at what most people eat on a low-carb diet. When I did that, I was literally shocked! Low-carb recipes and menus are chock full of nightshades. For that reason, even if you are not allergic to nightshades, you might want to pay attention to just how many you're eating and cut back on them a little bit -- especially if you're having problems losing weight. BASIC NIGHTSHADE PRIMER This is going to be a basic nightshade primer, which I'm hoping a lot of people will find helpful,...

How to Plan the Perfect Low-Carb Fourth-of-July Celebration (Photo by Jeffrey Kontur ) If you’re following a low-carb diet, you can still have a fantastic Fourth-of-July celebration without having to worry about popping yourself out of Ketosis. You don’t have to sit on the sidelines or deprive yourself of holiday goodies either. With picnics and barbecue parties the most popular ways of celebrating America’s freedom and independence, it’s easy to surround yourself in colors of red, white, and blue – yet still maintain control over those carbs! All it takes is a little bit of thought and preparation. With that in mind, you don’t want to wait until next Tuesday morning to start figuring out how to stay on plan. If you do, you’ll end up with a plain bun-free burger or hotdog, a boring lettuce salad, a handful of pork rinds, and maybe a few strawberries for color. Eating that way when everyone else around you is chowing down on potato salad, baked beans, corn-on-the-cob, and colorful cupc...

When we choose to live a low-carb lifestyle, we give up many holiday traditions that focus on food. While Easter Dinner can always be adapted to fit your carbohydrate tolerance, if you ask any child what the most important aspect of the Easter holiday is, they’ll probably tell you… CANDY! An Easter basket full of goodies often plays the center role in Easter festivities. Jelly beans, chocolate bunnies, marshmallow chicks, and foil-wrapped chocolate eggs are popular basket fillers. But there’s one strong holiday tradition attached to Easter that the low carber doesn’t have to give up.                                              The Incredible, Edible Egg! Make Easter Eggs the Center of Your Low-Carb Easter Holiday! (Photo by Praktyczny Przewodnik ) Dr. Westman’s Thought of the Day I was browsing through the low-carb videos over at YouTube the other day, looking for an ...