Healthy Diet at Home

(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

I ran into a horde of regurgitated news release type articles the other day that pointed me towards a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition this month. It was a short-term study – just two weeks long – but it clearly showed how a low-carb diet burns more liver fat during Atkins Induction than a low-calorie diet does. I didn’t read all of those articles, because the first two were just copies of the original press release put out by UT Southwestern Medical Center – the sponsor of the study. So I took a trip over to PubMed where I actually found two studies published this month comparing how low-calorie diets and low-carb diets affect fatty liver disease. What is a Fatty Liver? Even though the researchers of the two-week study say fat in the liver “ is due, in part, to increased hepatic synthesis of fat from carbohydrates via lipogensis, ” The American Liver Foundation says a little bit of fat in the liver is normal. Maybe that’s because so many America

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

Lately, I’ve had a few readers ask me, “What is Atkins 72?” Since I use that term quite often, I thought maybe more of you might have the same question. Most people think of the book, Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution , whenever they talk about a low-carb diet. But that became quite confusing over the years because every new edition Dr. Atkins put out carried the same name, even though the diet had changed. The basic principles of the Atkins program stayed fairly consistent, but the Rules of Induction, food quantities and types, how you add carbohydrates back into your diet, and even the way you count carbohydrates changed – depending on which edition you were following. That made it difficult to help someone who didn’t understand how to do the Atkins Diet correctly, or to give advice when someone was stumbling or had stalled. To make it easier, the low-carb community began using the year the edition was published attached to Dr. Atkins’ name in order to distinguish one plan from anothe

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

The masses within the low-carb community tend to stick to about 20 to 35 net carbohydrates per day. The current perspective on Ketosis is that it takes 50 grams or less for most people to maintain that metabolic state. You’d think that asking, “How low is low carb?” would be rather silly. Wouldn’t the obvious answer be less than 50 carbohydrates per day? How Low is Low Carb? Well, maybe…but maybe not. How low is low carb exactly? Like almost anything, it all depends on which low-carb expert you ask, and how much weight you place on their theory and belief. It wasn’t very long ago that the same people who are currently trying to talk us into converting to a low protein, low carb, high-fat lifestyle (for our own good, of course) were preaching something very different. Gluten Exposure Has Resulted in Weight Gain  Understanding where the line is between a low-carb diet and something else is particularly important to me because I’ve recently found myself in the unwelcomed position of hav

[crying] i feel like i have to be strong for everybody. just wonder who's going to be strong for mesometimes. i don’t want to do this anymore, i justwanna rest and have a sleep. i just feel like it’s all a bit much. oh well i have to go out there and feed thebaby now. meet elle, an ordinary woman on the brinkof an extraordinary journey. at eight months pregnant elle is planningto do something inspiring, to make a dramatic example of how each of us has the power tochange our core identity. wife of husband jon and adoring mother ofinfant daughter kiana, elle is about to undertake a life changing journey. i just can be really hard. a journey that will push her both mentallyand physically as she struggles to overcome the limitations of circumstance. it can be difficult because people have theirown opinions on what i'm doing, and what i think i should be doing. you did a beautiful job. not only will she attempt to shed the post-pregnancyweight, but elle is also hoping to develop

♪♪♪ when it comes to nutrition,i rely heavily on the research that's been publishedin journals and done by scientists allover the world. but just because something'sbeen discovered in the lab does not mean that it'snecessarily gonna carry over into the real world. so i test it on myselfand thousands of people who follow my advice. so with all that data, i'm ableto sort of bring it all together into the best nutritionadvice that's out there. with the nutrition programfor "shortcut to shred," it's all based onmacronutrients. getting the protein tocomplement the recovery from the training helps you to buildmore strength and muscle. that's gonna keep youalso burning more body fat. in the "shortcut to shred"program, the macronutrients are ranked protein first,fat is actually second, and then carbs comein third place. protein is the most criticalmacronutrient on the "shortcut to shred" programfor the simple fact that muscle is m