Healthy Diet at Home

(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...

As I talked about in my last post, the holistic practitioner that has been working with me lately suggested that I move toward the Paleo Diet in order to regain my health. That caused me to smile. Not only because I didn't expect her to say that, but because after spending 5 years on a strict, whole-foods low-carb diet of just meats, eggs, vegetables, berries, and healthy fats, I was no closer to health than I was before I started. That's the naked truth. Foundation Claims of the Paleo Diet I decided to look into the Paleo Diet anyway because I was relatively familiar with the program. I started with Lorin Cordain's website since he was the founder of the Paleo movement. I thought I would get a clearer picture of what the diet was all about if I went to the source. What I understood after the hours I spent reading there was that Paleo is based on mimicking the foods our ancient ancestors ate before the Agricultural Revolution because those are the foods our bodies are gen...

(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...