Healthy Diet at Home

Since January is the time of year that many people begin, or return to, a low-carb diet, I thought I’d tackle a question that tends to come up quite frequently in many low-carb forums: “Do I HAVE to start with Atkins Induction, or can I eat 25 to 30 grams of carbohydrates per day and still get into ketosis eventually?” The answer to that question seems to depend on who you ask. Those who are hard-sell Atkins devotees always say: "Yes, you HAVE to start with Atkins Induction.” But they miss the most important element of the question: “Can I eat more than 20 net carbs and still get into ketosis?” That's what newbies and those coming back to the Atkins Diet really want to know. Although most Atkins dieters can quote the benefits for drastically lowering carbs to 20 during the first two to four weeks, and they understand the general concept of individual carbohydrate sensitivity, they seem to have difficulty transferring that understanding to Atkins Induction. For some reason, mos...

With 2013 right around the corner, on January 1 or soon thereafter, there’s going to be a lot of people either starting a low-carb diet for the very first time, or they will be returning after regaining part or all of their prior weight loss. Unfortunately, most of those people won’t stick around for very long. They’ll probably drift away by Valentine’s Day because New Year’s Resolutions are harder to keep than they realized. Want to know why? The truth is, sticking to a diet plan – any diet plan – won’t work very well (including a low-carb diet) if it’s your latest attempt at self-improvement. That’s right. Trying to self improve doesn’t work. It’s negative and painful, and we always try to avoid discomfort. That’s programmed into us. We are literally programmed to seek after pleasure and avoid all forms of pain. Don’t believe me? WATCH yourself sometime. WATCH your family interact with each other. WATCH your friends, and WATCH people you don’t know. Just plop yourself down on a ...

I was reading Jimmy Moore’s latest n=1 Nutritional Ketosis report that he posted to his blog recently, and discovered that Regina Wilshire of the Weight of the Evidence blog is beginning to post again. I thought that she might be around because someone with that name recently “liked” my author fan page at Facebook. I’ve always enjoyed reading Regina’s posts because she’s not fanatical about a low-carb diet. She’s extremely realistic. Since she’s a professional nutritionist, her focus has always been on the nutrient density of food rather than typical low-carb topics such as Ketosis, Keto-Adaption, or that most carbs are evil. Her approach is what I would call The Middle Path . She doesn’t subscribe to extremes. She simply calls it as she sees it. I wish I would have known that she had put up a few posts over the past year, because it would have saved me much of the misery and weight gain (a whopping 22 pounds!) I’ve suffered from experimenting with Nutritional Ketosis over the past ...

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...

Am I Getting Enough Protein? (Photo by Florian ) With Nutritional Ketosis being held up lately as the Holy Grail of low-carb eating, there’s a lot of confusion regarding protein consumption, and just how much you need. Most of those who are turning to the Nutritional Ketosis way of eating are doing that because they have stalled in their weight-loss efforts. They are not dropping their protein intake because it’s healthier than a traditional low-carb diet. They are doing what they need to do to succeed. So How Much Protein Do You Need? Some of the numbers being tossed around lately are as low as .6 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass, but that’s the bare minimum a sedentary person needs to keep up with muscle repair. That doesn’t cover gluconeogenesis to supply the amount of glucose the brain, red blood cells, and kidney needs to function properly or the extra damage you do to your muscles during heavy exercise. That’s just the bare minimum a person who’s eating carbohydrates ...

How Can You be in Ketosis and Not Lose Weight? In 1972, Dr. Atkins introduced the world to the concept of carbohydrate sensitivity.  He talked about the damage that excessive carbohydrates can do to your metabolism, suggested that overweight and obesity was caused from a metabolic defect, and played up the necessity of being in the state of ketosis to achieve effective weight loss. Since then, many low-carb dieters have mistakenly thought that the state of dietary ketosis is what makes the diet work.  It doesn't, and this misconception has caused a lot of confusion.  While ketosis is essential in Dr. Atkins program to trigger the metabolic changes needed to switch to predominantly burning fats for fuel, you can be in ketosis but not lose weight.  Here's why: Read more »

Try Indoor Grilled Chicken, Low Carb at Its Best! (Photo by Ray Dehler )    What do you normally think of when you picture Italian food? Probably not something that’s quick and easy to fix. Am I right? Most people think about homemade spaghetti, Lasagne, or an extra-large slice of pizza with all of the trimmings. While you can certainly find alternative ways to replace most of those carbs, with the holidays right around the corner, you’re going to need a few low-carb dinner ideas that are quick and simple. Here’s one of my favorites. Marinate and Grill Your Chicken Chicken makes an extremely economical low-carb meal. In my own area, we can get boneless, skinless chicken breasts at our local WalMart for less than $2 a pound. I do have to buy a family pack to get it at that price, but many times our small local grocery store runs special deals on Thursdays. Those deals are even cheaper. Sometimes, I can purchase chicken breast for as low as $1.79 a pound. I don’t use the frozen ...

As many of you know, my blood glucose levels tend to go wonky every now and then. While I used to believe that phenomenon was connected to the amount of carbohydrates I was eating, that hasn’t turned out to be the case. Yes, the number of carbs I eat matters while my sugars are not under control, but so far, carbohydrates have never turned out to be the cause. Instead, food sensitivities such as gluten and GMO corn have always sat at the heart of the problem. Once I uncover the offending food and removed it from my life, my glucose levels have always returned to normal. When I started reacting to something again this past summer, I was at a loss as to what was causing it. I wasn’t eating gluten, dairy, or GMO corn. I’d been off gluten for over three years. I’d been without dairy for more than two, and GMO corn for a year. But my numbers weren’t improving. So what was left? Soy? I removed my organic gluten-free tamari, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. My blood glucose levels c...

How to Survive Halloween on a Low-Carb Diet (Photo by ylacarmoberg ) As Halloween approaches, a house loaded with Halloween candy for the neighborhood kiddies becomes a major problem for many low-carb dieters. My husband loves his mini candy bars and Tootsie Rolls , so I can certainly sympathize and relate. In fact, he started asking me on the very first day of October when I was going to buy the Halloween candy. Although he eats candy regularly – now that he’s given up smoking – he has a special fondness for Halloween. To him, it just isn’t Halloween without candy. He tries to be sneaky about it. The candy is for all of those trick-or-treaters. We can’t disappoint the neighborhood kids, so maybe we should buy the candy early. That way we won’t have to settle for what’s leftover in the stores on the day before Halloween. I only played that game once. Once was more than enough to figure out I’d been duped. We live about half a dozen blocks from the local church, or less, so we don’t get...

As GMO corn-containing feed prices continue to rise, ranchers are turning to new and innovative ways to fatten up their cattle. The mad search for alternatives isn’t all that surprising, because the rumors surrounding the potential cost to raise beef these days could result in meat tripling or more in price. That would be bad news for those of us who are on a low-carb diet. Rising Corn Prices Affect Low-Carb Diets (Photo by Don O'Brien ) However, the alternatives that have been publicized lately, such as candy bars, hot cocoa mix, marshmallows and other goodies, isn’t really new. Many ranchers have been doing that for decades, which is one reason why some low carbers have switched to eating grass-fed beef and organic dairy instead. With the drought last winter and the rising demand for ethanol, even dairy farmers are starting to participate in the practice. If you look closely at the following examples of what they’re feeding the cows: breakfast cereal trail mix dried cranberries o...

I absolutely love it when I run across a new success story. Not only does it give me a reason to pause and reflect upon this way of eating, but it also gives me an opportunity to gain a little new insight that I didn’t have before. Such is the case with Captain K. I read a lot of weight-loss articles over at Info Barrel, but it’s like searching for a pearl that’s buried in an entire desert of sand. Most articles are determined to call low-carb eating a fad, want to preach how low-calorie higher-activity is The Way, or just go on and on, rehashing the same basic concepts we’ve read in a hundred weight-loss articles before. Nothing new, and nothing to pass on here. But Captain K was different. He’s not just a writer trying to write a weight-loss article from an outside perspective. He lost 40 pounds in 10 months and wanted to share how he did it, and what he learned along the way. Even the intro sucked the breath right out of me: “Once you have gained weight, it becomes a habit to eat wh...