Healthy Diet at Home

It never fails. When January rolls around, and sometimes the week just prior, the low-carb boards and egroups fill up with folks who are returning to the low-carb lifestyle. Why? Because – despite their good intensions and strong determination to eat the low-carb way for the rest of their life, something caused the pounds to creep back on. Sometimes, the detour was deliberate, but most of the time, something in themselves or their life caused them to lose sight of their goals. Let’s face it: Eating low carb is not easy! Eating low carb is hard! It’s a radical switch from the way most people eat. It’s an almost primitive, backwards style from what health-conscious medical doctors and nutritionists recommend. It’s loaded with protein and fat, ignores the pleas from professionals and government agencies to eat lots of whole grains, and forbids almost all types of low-calorie fruits when you’re still in weight-loss mode. In fact, to most folks, it’s almost sacrilegious. Those who enter int...

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 ...

With the holidays right around the corner, low carb folks will soon be talking about how to handle holiday temptation. The solution varies, depending on whom you talk too. Right now, we’re starting into the curve known as Halloween; that means candy, candied applies, donuts, spiced apple cider, and other holiday goodies. Some of them can be given a low carb twist, sure, but let’s be honest: with all of the genetically-modified corn and soy running around these days, the high volume of wheat protein in low carb products, the dairy, and the high glycemic sugar alcohols in sugar free candies – diet twists aren’t necessarily more healthy than the high carb foods they’ve been designed to replace. Low carb junk, and low carb frankenfoods in particular, are still junk! Now, if we’re serious about making low carb eating a lifestyle, we can’t cave into the coming holidays without getting lost in one holiday after another, one party after another, one excuse after another – or we’ll find ourselv...

Crispy Sesame Chicken Wings I haven't experimented with chicken wings much; they are expensive in my neck of the woods. Used to be, if I was going to spend $5 for just the meat portion of a single meal, I'd pick up a nice steak or piece of Salmon. Since I can't eat either of those anymore, except on very rare occasions, I grabbed a marked-down package of chicken wings the last time I was at Walmart. Marked-down wings are rare here too, but does happen now and then, so I guess I'll be on the look-out from now on, because these chicken wings came out crispy with just the right amount of mouth-watering ginger and sesame. Plus at $5 for two meals, it makes them doable. My favorite go-to has always been a good old-fashioned hot wing recipe, with Heroine Wings coming in at a close second, but I can't do Parmesan Cheese anymore -- so I opted for a sweet Teriyaki. When doing a PSMF diet round once, I threw together soy sauce, diet maple syrup, ginger, and garlic and used th...

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...

A low-carb diet is an effective, but highly restrictive, weight-loss plan. It works well when you follow the rules. If you waltz into the room thinking you can do your own thing without having read and studied any of the weight-loss plans, you’ll probably find yourself asking, “Am I doing low carb right?” A dead giveaway that you aren’t. However, if you’ve been carefully following one of the low-carb programs, and weight loss has slowed, or stopped, you might want to check and see if you’ve been making one of these low-carb mistakes.     Where Are Your Carbs Coming From? Most individuals enter the Induction phase on a diet-high. Motivation is strong. The weight loss you experience from losing the glycogen needed to get you into ketosis keeps you pumped. Motivated by the new lack in cravings and sense of well-being, low-carb diet mistakes are few. You stick to the rules, start experimenting with new foods and recipes, and make the decision that this low carb stuff is going to ...

Many things can interfere with the success of a low carb diet. Gluten sensitivity or celiac disease, thyroid problems, portion control issues, and food addictions are just a few. Recently, I’ve been looking at food sensitivities and allergies, since inflammation and the resulting water retention factor heavily into the vertigo and ataxia I suffer with. Also, I started having severe itching problems and a rash on my arms, along with drastic weight gain, whenever I ate beef. Technically, the term “food allergy” describes an IgE antibody response launched by the immune system to a specific food protein. These antibodies interpret the offending protein molecule to be an invader and use mediators such as histamine – which cause the allergy symptoms. The skin, gastrointestinal tract, and respiratory system are the primary organs affected by food allergies. However, when I was younger, most allergists did not believe in food sensitivities or intolerances. They only believed in food allergies ...

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...

Last month Jimmy Moore started testing his blood sugar after eating popular low carb products. Here’s the facts and myths about blood glucose levels when eating low carb. Saturday was the first time I heard about Jimmy Moore testing his blood glucose levels after eating some of his favorite low carb foods. While Twitter is a great place to keep in touch with your favorite bloggers, it’s easy to miss important tweets – unless you think to pull up their most recent posts. While most low carbers stop by Jimmy's blog every day or two, I quit doing that about a year ago when videos became the norm there. At that time, I didn't have a high-speed internet connection, so wasn't getting anything out of that blog. Saturday, I just happened to be reading the tweets of the people I follow on Twitter when Jimmy announced his blood sugar testing results from eating Julian Bakery’s CarbSmart breads was in. Since I now have high-speed access, I clicked on the link he provided, and began ...

The Environmental Working Group released their latest “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean 15” listing for pesticide contamination today. So how did low carb veggies and fruits do? Avacados make a great low-pesticide choice Non-starchy vegetables and low-glycemic fruits are the mainstay of a healthy, low carb diet. High in fiber and nutrients, and low in carbohydrates and calories, they help to keep blood glucose levels from spiking too high. However, environmental contaminants like PCBs, arsenic, dioxin, cadmium, bisphenol A, and mercury can interfere with the body’s metabolic processes. A low carb diet is designed to lower fasting and post-meal insulin levels, allowing the body to have ready access to its fat stores. But pesticides (including herbicides and insecticides) can increase or impair insulin secretion, or damage beta cells themselves. While most organic vs. non-organic arguments stem from what feeding your family organic vegetables would cost, many scientific studies clearly show envir...

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 ...

It’s a myth that all overweight people have insulin resistance and/or metabolic syndrome. It’s also a myth that everyone’s insulin and blood glucose levels soar into the clouds when they eat carbohydrates. If you have normal blood glucose control, your body’s sensitivity to insulin will quickly take care of the small rise in glucose you get after you eat. In fact, typical folks never see a rise in blood sugar levels much above 120 mg/dl (6.6 mmol/L) – no matter how much starch and sugar they eat. The problem comes for those of us with an abnormal response to the carbohydrates we eat. Reasons for that vary, but taking the necessary steps to correct the problem can often make us feel ill. The Atkins’ Flu, Detoxing from Sugar, and Carbohydrate Withdrawal The first two weeks of a low carb diet can send the body into a tizzy. We’re restricting the body’s first-used fuel source, emptying out glycogen stores, dumping a lot of excess water, and coaxing our liver to begin breaking down stored b...

Slipped off Your Low-Carb Diet? Here's How to Recover Quickly! Did you go out to eat at a restaurant?  Restaurants are famous for hiding sugar and other carby fillers in their food.  Maybe you went to a party, and couldn't tell if your food was really free of carbs, or not. Perhaps, you deliberately caved in to those delicious looking cupcakes that someone brought into the office, or you decided to chuck the dieting game and just kick back and enjoy your vacation.  Now that you've come to your senses, you know you blew it, but you're hoping that it won't harm your low-carb diet efforts too much. Whatever happened, it's over now. Don't beat yourself up about it. However, the Ketostix might be giving you a bad time. Instead of turning pink this morning, they stayed beige. The scale bounced up a pound or two, and now, you're craving those chocolate chip cookies you used to make for the kids before you went on the Atkins Diet. You're afraid that you aren...