Healthy Diet at Home

With Christmas and the holidays behind us, a lot of people have now turned their focus toward the new year and what they want to accomplish. For a lot of folks, that means getting into shape. Making better food choices, losing a few pounds, and kicking up your activity level tends to become a priority when January rolls around. Does that sound like you? Why Do You Want to Lose Weight With Low Carb? Are you dissatisfied with the way you are? Are you thinking about going on a low-carb diet? Do you feel that weight loss will improve your life? Do you believe weight loss will help you fit into some ideal? Why do you really want to lose weight? The answers to all of those questions, and more, will determine your ability to succeed on a low-carb diet. Or any diet at all. Most New Year's Resolutions Fail Have you ever noticed that very few people are able to stick with their New Year's resolutions for more than a few weeks? It's true. Almost 90-percent of all those who set one or ...

How to Plan a Stress-Free Low-Carb Christmas Dinner A typical menu is all about carbs. Potatoes, rice, bread, pasta, whole grains, cereals, and sweet desserts find their way onto the menu at almost every single meal. Loading up on carbohydrates isn't a holiday tradition. For most people, it's an every day affair. So if you're trying to plan a great low-carb Christmas dinner, your old holiday habits might have you feeling a little lost and overwhelmed right about now. The spiral-cut ham or prime roast beef you're used to making for Christmas can be easily adapted to be carb free. Some of the appetizers, side dishes, and luscious desserts you used to whip up to impress your family and friends might not be. If that's the problem you're having, don't despair. All it takes to put together a great low-carb Christmas dinner is a little know-how. Whether you're new to low carb this year or have been around the block a few times, if you follow the 10 simple prin...

Great Low-Carb Side Dishes for Thanksgiving Dinner?   When it comes to the holidays, sticking to your low-carb diet can be rough. The holidays are filled with tempting, luscious desserts, sugary treats, and comforting side dishes that mama always made. The good news is that both turkey and ham are low-carb goodies that you don't have to give up, except for the sugary glazes and carby brines. Coming up with a healthy Thanksgiving menu or some really good Thanksgiving side dishes and ideas isn't difficult. It just takes a little bit of planning. If Thanksgiving isn't going to be at your house, that isn't hard either. All you have to do is take a couple of low-carb side dishes with you, and maybe share a super-good sugar-free dessert. For those who have to eat gluten free, you can cook your Thanksgiving dinner at home and then take a plate with you. There is always a way to make it work, so don't despair. Low-carb doesn't mean misery. You just have to be a little ...

Who Needs Candy? Check Out these Low-Carb Halloween Recipes and Food Ideas! Have you noticed that Trick-or-Treat is almost non-existent now? For the past several years, hubby has sat by the front door with a large plastic bowl of candy and other goodies to pass out to the neighborhood kiddies, but hardly anyone ever shows up. We live in Utah, and Utah has organized Trunk-or-Treat festivities at the local church building every year, so very few kids roam the neighborhood after dark. However, when you're on a low-carb diet, candy isn't an option. To make your holiday special, here are tons of Halloween recipes and food ideas to keep you feeling like you're still part of the "in" crowd. Read more »

This morning I was taking a stroll through some of the threads over at Low Carb Friends, and I ran into something that really disturbed me. A patient of Dr. Westman was there asking for help. She has been on the high-fat low-carb diet known as Nutritional Ketosis for 4 months now. She is eating 20 carbs or less, is losing about 1 to 2 pounds a week, but she feels horrible. For some reason, she is not adapting to the state of Ketosis. Despite a high salt intake, she's having excruciating foot and leg cramps, gets dizzy, and comes near to passing out during her gym activities. She says she has zero energy, so her gym routine has dropped from 5 days a week and 1 trainer session, to just the training. She is taking magnesium and potassium supplements, along with chicken broth every day, but nothing is helping. She's exhausted and feels horrible, and yet, they want her to continue with the regimen she's been on, even though it's not working for her. That doesn't make an...

Going Low-Carb is a Major Event Going on a low-carb diet is a major event in your life. It is not a whim, and it is not a gimmick. It's a drastic lifestyle change that requires a whole new revolutionary way of looking at food, diet, and health. Most diets are weight-loss games that take a standard American diet and tweak it just enough to trick you into eating fewer calories and fat. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't, because standard dieting doesn't address the problems that accompany metabolic defects. That's the reason why a low-carb diet works. It corrects insulin issues, stabilizes blood sugar levels, primes the body to burn fat for energy, and drastically reduces your hunger. All of that makes low carbing much easier to stick to than a traditional low-fat, low-calorie diet. However, expecting yourself to never fall prey to a chocolate chip cookie isn't realistic. While some people do have the strength to never go off plan, others find dieting a ...

Do you have the purpose for a low-carb diet fixed firmly in your mind? Maybe not. If you are thinking that you have to be in ketosis to lose weight, then you still don't understand that getting into the state of ketosis is not about unlocking your fat stores. That's an old theory that didn't hold up when recent scientific studies put it to the test. The purpose of a low carb diet is to lower your basal insulin levels, but lowering insulin doesn't affect the amount of body fat your body uses for energy. Instead, it reduces your hunger level and makes it easier to eat at a calorie deficit. That's the true role of ketosis in a low-carb diet. The state of dietary ketosis isn't magic. It isn't a state that fixes your metabolic defects. Nor does it guarantee that you will always lose that excess body fat. Instead, ketosis is a byproduct of the fat burning process. When you are in ketosis, you are burning fat for energy, but that fat can come from your diet as wel...

Okay. You're decided to give the Atkins Diet a try. You've heard good things about dietary ketosis and you want to give it a whirl. Or, maybe you think that a lower fat, more protein-controlled Protein Power low-carb diet might be more suitable to your taste. Perhaps you are thinking about trying some other low-carb diet plan. No matter which low-carb diet program you're considering, it's a good idea to take a moment and ask yourself: What is the purpose of going on a low-carb diet? Why am I doing this? And what do I hope to gain? What is the Purpose of a Low-Carb Diet? Don't Confuse Purpose with Goal A lot of people confuse purpose with a goal. A goal is the ultimate outcome you hope to achieve once you have completed a diet program. That goal could be to achieve a certain clothing size, reach a particular number on the scale, or enjoy improved overall health. A goal could be to get rid of the uncontrollable cravings that unstable blood sugar or a high basal in...

Am I Addicted to Carbohydrates? One of the accusations I hear running around the low-carb world is that people can become addicted to carbohydrates, and that is why they are fat. That is why they cheat now and then, have trouble maintaining their loses, or got heavy in the first place. It's all because of the carbs. They simply cannot stop eating them. They crave them too much, or they lose control at a party or social gathering because they can't stand the thought of being deprived. Now, whatever the exact reason is, carbohydrates always get the blame. What is Addiction? When low carbers talk about cravings, they usually are referring to a very strong urge to eat something that contains carbohydrates. Their mind says they want to eat that particular food because it will taste good, provide loads of enjoyment, and will satisfy them more than a leftover BBQ chicken leg or hard-boiled egg would. Being unable to make up one's mind and craving the sensation of taste is often ca...

If you've been curious about a low-carb diet, but don't eat meat, the Atkins Diet is not off limits. People have been doing a variety of low-carb vegetarian programs for as long as I've been on the Internet. The driving principle behind a low-carb diet is to correct insulin resistance and fix any problems with the body's ability to mobilize its fat stores for energy. Being in ketosis will help control your appetite, improve cardiac markers, and balance blood glucose levels, but you don't need a high-meat diet to do that. In fact, you don't have to eat any meat at all. When it comes to following a low-carb diet, what's essential is to get an adequate amount of protein foods. If you're trying to do a vegetarian low-carb diet, you need to make sure that you are getting all of the essential amino acids necessary to repair any daily tissue damage. You'll also need a few extra protein grams that the liver can use for glyconeogenesis, if needed. Popping a f...

I am so excited! I just figured out how to get around the new link policy at InfoBarrel! InfoBarrel is an article writing site where I have published several in-depth low-carb articles and guides over the last year. I used to include a link to those articles inside my blog posts whenever one of them was extremely relevant to what I was talking about. I also had a listing of those articles in a special section called "Infobarrel Articles" at the top of this blog page that readers could easily get to. But I had to remove all of those links recently because Infobarrel's link policy has changed, and they asked me to take them all down. I'm no longer allowed to link from my blog to their website. At all. Not even no-follow links. However, I CAN link to their website from Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest! While I do have a Kickin' Carb Clutter Fan Page at Facebook, it doesn't always work. A lot of the time, it won't allow me to post a link to my articles, so I ...

Do you have nightshade sensitivity or allergy? How about an autoimmune disease? Arthritis? Fibromyalgia? If so, you might not be able to eat certain vegetables, fruits, and spices without suffering pain, inflammation, and other health complaints. You can even stall in your low-carb diet because inflammation can interfere with weight loss. I didn't realize that nightshades were so common among low-carb recipes and menus until I actually looked at which vegetables and spices are nightshades, and then at what most people eat on a low-carb diet. When I did that, I was literally shocked! Low-carb recipes and menus are chock full of nightshades. For that reason, even if you are not allergic to nightshades, you might want to pay attention to just how many you're eating and cut back on them a little bit -- especially if you're having problems losing weight. BASIC NIGHTSHADE PRIMER This is going to be a basic nightshade primer, which I'm hoping a lot of people will find helpful,...

What Can I Eat on a Zero-Carb Diet? I recently received an email asking me for help in overcoming the boredom that results from eating a zero-carb diet. Hot wings and Heroine Wings can get pretty monotonous after a few weeks, so one of my readers asked if I had recipes or menu ideas that would fit into a zero-carb diet. I haven't talked about zero-carb diets much because my own personal experience with this type of diet wasn't a pleasant one, but that was before I was diagnosed with Graves' Disease. With that in mind, I've spent the past few days thinking about how I would go about upgrading my diet to make it more tolerable -- if I couldn't eat any carbs. Read more »

This afternoon, Jimmy Moore popped up in my Facebook feed. Since he follows a Nutritional Ketosis program rather than the Atkins Diet, I rarely read his blog any more, but I do read his Facebook posts when I'm there. In this particular Facebook post, Jimmy was quite upset. Apparently, a couple of twin doctors in Europe (Alexander and Chris Van Tolleken) decided to do a 30-day experiment to discover for themselves which was worse for a dieter: eating sugar or fat. I could tell by Jimmy's Facebook comments that the low-carb diet the article's author had decided to follow didn't turn out very well. He took offense at the doctor's personal experience of being "thick headed" during those 30 days, and argued that the doctor wasn't following a Nutritional Ketosis diet, so he might not have really been in Ketosis. Plus, 30 days is not long enough to become keto-adapted. In Jimmy's opinion, anything other than the Nutritional Ketosis parameters he follow...