Healthy Diet at Home

Why Does a Low-Carb Diet Stop Working? A low-carb diet plan is an effective weight-loss tool because it promotes satiety and teaches us the importance of eating nutrient-dense foods. We learn how our prior eating habits contributed to our present metabolic situation. We learn that our personal metabolic defects can cause us to crave the very foods that create these imbalances. We also learn that changing our diet can literally correct those imbalances and change our lives. However, for many dieters, counting carbohydrates and staying within a certain daily allotment isn’t enough to achieve success. In my own case, the problem with not losing weight on a low-carb diet can be traced to a variety of issues: hidden food sensitivities celiac disease leaky gut syndrome endocrine disruptors fat malabsorption probably excessive ASP and who knows what else But weight-loss problems are never the same for everyone. In general, the closer you get to goal weight, the more important calorie counting

Is a Low-Carb Diet Sustainable? (Photo by Alpha ) As most of you know, I’m extremely partial to the 1972 and the 1992 versions of The Atkins Diet. The ’72 version was based on Dr. Atkins own experiences following a low-carb diet and a few initial clinical observations. The original ’92 version (the first edition) was based on the feedback that he actually got from his patients. Many of them were cheating by adding a few vegetables to Induction along with the salad, which they eventually admitted to. Since Dr. Atkins patients still lost weight easily eating that way, Dr. Atkins decided it was okay to add 2/3 of a cup of cooked vegetables to his Induction Plan. Because of that addition, he lengthened Induction from one week to two. The second edition printed around 1999 was exactly the same as the first one except for a one-line comment he made about how he couldn’t find anything unreasonable about deducting soluble fiber grams from the total carbohydrate count – the type found in the ps

Whether you’re new to low carb or a well-seasoned dieter, starting a low carb diet can be exciting. Watching the pounds drop that very first week or two can put you in a better frame of mind to keep going, but if you expect that weight loss to continue, you’ll soon be in for a surprise. For those who have used carbohydrate restriction before, the slow-down isn’t discouraging. For a newbie to the low carb way of eating, however, it can be confusing. Questions begin to build up: Am I following the diet wrong? Has my low carb diet stopped working? If I’m exercising and eating correctly, why am I not losing weight? How can I be in ketosis and not lose weight? What can I do to break my stall? When your weight loss slows to a crawl or you hit a wall, it’s common to want to know what’s happening. Although there’s no way to know for sure, there are several possibilities. Dehydration One of the main reasons you might not be losing weight is due to dehydration or electrolyte imbalances. When

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 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

Find Low Carb Success Going Through the Back Door Most folks who start a low-carb eating plan, begin by walking through the front door. They read the book, study the first phase of Induction thoroughly, and then just do it. Some throw out, or give away, all of the high-carb items in the house, stock the refrigerator and cupboards with low-carb foods, and map out a solid plan of action for emergencies. Others take a more haphazard approach. They read the book, but skip over the boring information to get to the food list and rules. They don’t much care how low carb works, or why, they just want to know what to eat, and what not too. They may, or may not stock up on allowable foods, and they may, or may not think about what to do if they find themselves in a tight situation. Both dieting styles can lead to problems sticking to a new diet, because no matter what your degree of motivation, switching to a low-carb eating style brings drastic change. Initially, you might have enough determina

It has taken me a long time to reach this point. I don't really know how I feel about it all . . . just yet. The additional tests that the first nurse practitioner ran came back quite abnormal. But I didn't hear from her until I chased her down a couple of weeks later. She was very confused and was trying to figure it out on her own. In the meantime, everything in my body was racing. My metabolism was high, but the body was in starvation mode, so I don't understand her personal need to figure it all out. Since Cigna's insurance chart said our local Endocrinology clinic was not set up to take Cigna patients until January, I just wanted her to run the blood work for me, so I could decide if it was worth it to pay for the doctor visit myself, or if I should wait until our new insurance became effective in January. Hubby's company is dumping Cigna for a local health insurance company instead. When I didn't hear back, I called the clinic and asked for a copy of my r