Healthy Diet at Home

(This is part 3 of a multi-part series on How to Tweak a Low Carb Diet . It discusses my weight loss journey so far. If you didn’t read part 1, you can do so by clicking on the how-to link. There, you will also find links to the entire series.) In 2007, I was not gluten free, dairy free, or corn free. I didn’t know about the Celiac Disease or other food sensitivities back then, so I was working with what I did know. Looking back now, I can see why a very low carb or no carb diet did not work for me. Untreated Celiac Disease and food sensitivities keep your intestinal tract inflamed. An inflamed digestive system interferes with the way the body absorbs dietary fats and other nutrients. In addition, corn allergies and sensitivities can be especially problematic for low carb dieters because most of the meats, poultry, and fish at the supermarket are contaminated with corn. Plus, many fresh vegetables (including organic varieties) are waxed or gassed. Around this time, there was a rise in ...

Need to Eat More Veggies? Get Loads of Low-Carb Ideas! If you listen to the media and other anti low-carb advocates, you're going to think that the Atkins Diet is nothing but greasy burgers, T-bone steaks, tons of full-fat cheeses and piles of bacon. While the foundation of a low-carb diet is an adequate amount of protein and plenty of healthy fats, the greatest volume of food you eat on a low-carb diet is vegetables. That fact is usually ignored by those who believe low-carb diets are unhealthy. Mostly, because the Atkins Induction Diet originally used very few vegetables to get you into the state of ketosis quickly, and also because a lot of people who do low carb don't follow the diet protocol correctly. In addition to staying at an Induction level of carbs, instead of getting most of their carbohydrates from vegetables, low-carb dieters often eat an abundance of other low-carb foods, such as: nuts and seeds (including nut flours and ground flaxseeds) low-glycemic fruits ton...

(This is part 6 of a multi-part series on How to Tweak a Low Carb Diet . It discusses 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 this series.) At one time or another, most dieters get caught up in the desire of wanting to lose weight fast. That actually worked to my advantage because Lyle McDonald originally created his Rapid Fat Loss Plan (a whole foods PSMF Diet) to deal with crash diets safely. While McDonald’s focus is on bodybuilding, muscle retention, and metabolism, maintaining muscle mass during dieting is to everyone’s benefit – quick weight loss or not. The Kimkins fiasco brought the protein content of a low carb diet into the limelight. Dr. Eades’ did have recommendations for low carbers to shoot for. He talked about large, medium, and small servings of protein (five, four or three ounces) at each meal depending upon how much you currently weigh, getting 35 grams of carbohy...

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...

Are you following a low carb diet plan, yet find yourself hungry, tired and feeling sick? Has your weight loss stalled? Thanks to the prevalence of genetically modified foods in the U.S., your low carb meals might not be as grain free as you think. Most Cheeses Contain GMO Corn and Rennet  Many low-carb followers, especially those who do their own research, understand the effect that various sugars can have on the body when their metabolism no longer functions properly. In fact, most low carb diet plans, such as the Atkins diet or the Protein Power Lifeplan, place insulin resistance and other metabolic issues at the heart of the obesity epidemic. Excessive dietary carbohydrates keep insulin levels too high for too long, which prevents fat mobilization for energy. Lower your carbohydrate intake and your insulin level drops quickly, keeping the doors to your fat stores open, so your body can use its stored body fat as needed. That’s basic low-carb philosophy. Today, however, we have ...

(This is part 2 of a multi-part series on How to Tweak a Low Carb Diet . If you didn’t read part 1, you can do so by clicking on the how-to link.) When I started low carbing in January 2007, the 2002 version of Atkins was considered the bible of low carb dieting. However, even among those who proclaimed you HAD to follow that version by the book, they were using the latest Atkins Nutritionals’ (ANA) recommendations to override the book’s instructions. So if you were not eating a minimum of 20 net carbs per day on Induction and getting the greater majority of those carbs from vegetables (12 to 15 net carbs per day), you were either blasted for not doing Atkins, or you were written off as someone who was playing an I-am-on-a-diet game. You were also counseled to spend the majority of your calories on consuming tremendous amounts of fat. Those calories had to be a minimum of ten times your current weight in order to avoid starvation mode. You had to drink a minimum of eight glasses of pur...

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,...

No matter which low carb diet program you choose, one of the first things most dieters do is set a weight loss goal. Most of the time, this goal involves a number on the scale. Sometimes, that number is realistic, but most of the time it's not. Weight charts are sometimes used by medical professionals to tell you exactly what you should weigh. Many dieters use them to help them make a weight loss goal. These numbers are supposed to take your height, gender and sometimes age under consideration. The general rule is that a 5-foot individual such as myself should weigh about 100 pounds. A man should weigh around 110. For every inch taller, you would add an additional 5 or 6 pounds. These charts were designed for life insurance companies, not dieters. Hence, the numbers reflect life expectancy for the average individual and sit on the low side of reality – especially since our food supply has changed drastically since then. Measuring body mass index (BMI) is similar. BMI looks at your ...

today, i'd like to talk aboutturning around an epidemic. one hundred million americans right nowdo have either diabetes or pre-diabetes, and that puts themat risk for amputations, for heart disease, for blindness. and we're exportingthis epidemic overseas. the word "epidemic" comes from old greek: 'epi' means 'on', 'demos' means 'people', so an epidemic is something we study withsterile statistics, and maps, and graphs, but the truth is, it's something that impinges directly on people,on living, breathing human-beings. but my story actually startsin the basement of a minneapolis hospital. the year before i went to medical school,i was the morgue attendant, or as i'd like to say,"the autopsy assistant". what that meant was, whenever anybody died,i would bring the body out of the cooler, and put the body onan examination table, and the pathologistwould come into the room. and one day, a person diedin a hospital of a mass...