Healthy Diet at Home

There’s a thread over at Low-Carb Friends specifically devoted to those who have decided to return to a low-carb diet. It isn’t really about anything. It’s just a place to announce your intention of trying again. In a way, it’s a spot where you can declare your New Year’s Resolution to return home to where you know you belong. To return home to where you know you can shed the weight you’ve regained over the past few months or years. The problem is that achieving success with a low-carb or moderate-carb diet often takes more than just a choice to return to carbohydrate restriction. Only a strong nutritional foundation can convert a low-carb diet into a lifestyle. Yet, most of these individuals have returned wearing their dieting mindset on their sleeve. They believe that this time things will be different. This time they will do better. This time they won’t stray. If that’s your attitude as well, you might want to reconsider what you’re doing, and why. Weight Loss Success as Taug

(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 Much Protein Do I Need? The current rage beginning within the low-carb community is blood ketone meters that measure the amount of ketones in your blood, rather than your urine. The sticks are somewhat expensive, but for those who have purchased and used them, they have received a very eye-opening revelation about their low-carb diet plan. What people are discovering is not new. Both Stargazey and I have been saying this ever since we investigated and tried a no-carb diet several years ago. Stargazey has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and her blog is LowCarb4U if you’re interested. The series starts with a post on protein intake and blood glucose levels and runs for about half a dozen more posts, or so. Make sure you read all of the comments for each post as well. Today, there are low-carb experts who say the same thing, so low carbers are beginning to sit up and take notice – especially since Ketone Blood Meters are making the problem more real. Regardless of what you want to believe,

I’ve received a few questions lately asking me how I managed to make a low carb diet work so well for me. These questions are coming from individuals who have tried The Atkins Diet, as written, but have not found it to work as promised. With all of the various Atkins' diets to choose from – Atkins ‘72, Atkins ‘92, Atkins ’99, Atkins 2002, and the latest version called A New Atkins for a New You – which one did I use? Which version worked best for me? Other questions have asked how to make a low carb diet work, period. What can people do when Atkins stops working or when it doesn’t work to begin with? How can you tweak a low carb diet to achieve success? So this first post is going to be an introduction to that topic, and then future posts will go more into detail of how I actually lost over 100 pounds following a low carb diet. The Atkins Diet as written is an attempt to reach the greatest majority of individuals. It is a general guideline that works for most people, but it does no

This morning I was taking a stroll through some of the threads over at Low Carb Friends, and I ran into something that really disturbed me. A patient of Dr. Westman was there asking for help. She has been on the high-fat low-carb diet known as Nutritional Ketosis for 4 months now. She is eating 20 carbs or less, is losing about 1 to 2 pounds a week, but she feels horrible. For some reason, she is not adapting to the state of Ketosis. Despite a high salt intake, she's having excruciating foot and leg cramps, gets dizzy, and comes near to passing out during her gym activities. She says she has zero energy, so her gym routine has dropped from 5 days a week and 1 trainer session, to just the training. She is taking magnesium and potassium supplements, along with chicken broth every day, but nothing is helping. She's exhausted and feels horrible, and yet, they want her to continue with the regimen she's been on, even though it's not working for her. That doesn't make an

Okay. You're decided to give the Atkins Diet a try. You've heard good things about dietary ketosis and you want to give it a whirl. Or, maybe you think that a lower fat, more protein-controlled Protein Power low-carb diet might be more suitable to your taste. Perhaps you are thinking about trying some other low-carb diet plan. No matter which low-carb diet program you're considering, it's a good idea to take a moment and ask yourself: What is the purpose of going on a low-carb diet? Why am I doing this? And what do I hope to gain? What is the Purpose of a Low-Carb Diet? Don't Confuse Purpose with Goal A lot of people confuse purpose with a goal. A goal is the ultimate outcome you hope to achieve once you have completed a diet program. That goal could be to achieve a certain clothing size, reach a particular number on the scale, or enjoy improved overall health. A goal could be to get rid of the uncontrollable cravings that unstable blood sugar or a high basal in

I’ve been watching the Nutritional Ketosis movement for several weeks now, and I came to a serious “AHA moment” yesterday. I attempted a real Ketogenic diet several years ago – the type they put kids with seizures on – but I didn’t have much luck with it. In fact, I quickly gained about 10 to 15 pounds within the first week or two, so I haven’t been that interested in doing it myself, but I’ve been curious about it in case it worked well for others. A high-fat, low-carb diet isn’t new. Barry Groves has been recommending that type of weight-loss program for years! But what the low-carb community zeroed in on when presented with that type of diet was only the high fat. That’s where most people placed their focus because that’s what they wanted to eat. It didn’t matter that Dr. Atkins boldly claimed his diet was not a high-fat diet. Fat is what’s restricted on a standard low-calorie diet and doesn’t raise blood glucose levels, so that’s what makes low carbing attractive to many folks. For

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

The newest diabetes diet recommendations came out a few days ago: eat more carbs, and use drugs to keep your blood glucose under control. Scary stuff. Diabetes Health Magazine recently ran an article by Hope Warshaw entitled “Type 2 Diabetes: From Old Dogmas to New Realities – Part 2.” In that article Warshaw first focuses on and ridicules weight loss for diabetics in connection with better glucose control, and then likewise attacks a low carb diet – calling both of them old dogma. For those who have actually studied the principles and science behind carbohydrate restriction and/or have put them to the test, adversity against our own personal truth and experience isn’t new. But when someone looked to as an authoritative voice presents that, a minimum carbohydrate intake of 45% of daily calories is the new reality for diabetics, it’s hard to walk away and let that be. Is Weight Loss for Diabetics Really Dogma? When I was first diagnosed with pre-diabetes, my physician believed that if I