Healthy Diet at Home

What Can Halloween Traditions Teach Us About Ourselves? Halloween traditions have disintegrated for us.  Since we live in a basement apartment right now, we no longer have kids knocking on our front door, yelling, “Trick or Treat.” There's just silence. Up to this point in our lives, hubby would purchase enough Halloween candy to over-spill a huge popcorn bowl, kick back in his hefty easy chair, watch the History channel, and eagerly listen for the tiny patter of footsteps and chatter to make its way to the front porch and ring the doorbell. Each year, however, that pattering and chatter has grown more distant, until last year – when Halloween totally evaporated into the nothing. Now, instead of a dozen kids bringing a smile to hubby's face on Halloween night, there is just us. October 31st will be like any other night now. Halloween traditions will probably be rekindled once we move to Texas, where our granddaughter lives, but for right now, they are simmerin...

Worried About Whether You're in Ketosis or Not? How do you know if your body is in ketosis? I have been getting quite a few emails and comments lately from people who have been asking me exactly that: “How do I know if I am in ketosis?” After a bit of discussion back and forth, the conversation usually reveals that: 1) The ketone strips that Dr. Atkins recommended are only turning pink; and/or 2) They are not losing much weight. For that reason, many people believe they are not in ketosis. Since both of these ideas show a disconnect between: the purpose of ketosis weight loss and low-carb diets I went searching through the archives to see what I had already written. During that search, I found this old post on how to tell if you are in ketosis. Originally, it was written back in 2012. It contained a bulleted list of symptoms that could help you know if you are in ketosis. It also explained what you can do to ease the symptoms and make yourself more comfortable while going through t...

Kermit is Having Trouble Getting Into Ketosis Are you having trouble getting into ketosis? Do you feel like nothing is happening even though you've been following your low-carb diet correctly and drinking lots of water? If you're not in ketosis yet, are you confused because you don't seem to be making any progress? Other people are losing a ton of weight doing: Atkins Induction Protein Power Keto Diet Nutritional Ketosis (LCHF) but nothing has worked for you. You can't seem to get into ketosis no matter what you do. Your clothes are still tight the scale isn't budging and your Ketostix are either still tan or barely pink. Maybe, you're still craving those chocolate chip cookies the kids are eating. And maybe, you're having a hard time at work because you feel exhausted all the time. If so, you might be wondering: What am I doing wrong? Why am I not in ketosis yet? Ketosis occurs when the body has exhausted all potential sources of glucose. For most people, t...

What's up with low-carb dieters these days? I really need someone to explain it to me. I'm at a total loss to understand. I realize that dieting is difficult, that it requires you to give up a lot of your favorite foods, revamp your lifestyle, and substitute those old food habits with healthier alternatives, but c'mon. I mean, do you really expect to drop 15 pounds in only a couple of weeks? Do you enjoy all of the pain and misery you are bringing upon yourself due to these false expectations and fantasies? Did someone, somewhere, tell you that low-carb diets are a quick weight-loss scheme? Or what? Where did that idea actually come from? Why are so many people coming here to this blog with the idea that if they don't shed some water weight and perhaps a little muscle tissue during the first week or two, then low carb isn't worth the effort? This self-torture doesn't make sense to me. Whether its 3 days, 8 days, 2 weeks, or a month, choosing to torture yourse...

In general, a low-carb diet doesn't cause you to lose weight any faster than a low-calorie diet does, unless you have a lot of body fat to get rid of. People who fall into the obese category can lose a bucket-load of body fat during the first few months, on any diet, but there is a biological reason for that. For most folks, the body limits the amount of body fat it is willing to take out of storage because it doesn't know how long your dietary restriction is going to last. If you have a 100 pounds, or more, to lose, the body will be more willing to give up lots of its body fat than if you only needed to shed 20 or 30 pounds. People lose weight at various rates, even on low carb. Sound disappointing? It doesn't have to be. Not if you're willing to do what it takes to help coax your body into speeding things up a bit. While some people won't be willing to incorporate the following tips and tricks for faster weight loss into their plan, if you have only been losing a ...

I've been digging into the archives here at Kickin' Carb Clutter and came across this old blog post about the various consequences you can expect to experience if you cheat on your low-carb diet. I don't really like the word cheat. If low carb is truly your way of life, if you have actually committed to a low-carb lifestyle, there really isn't any cheating going on. You might have days where you eat more carbohydrates than you planned, but plans are like that. No matter how structured or detailed your low-carb intentions are, resistance of some kind is going to rise up to oppose what you really want to do. If you're like most folks, the pleasure of the moment often supersedes your long-term target. Success on any low-carb plan is tightly connected to how well you follow the program. While that might sound obvious, it's much more difficult to pull off, so take a few minutes and think about that. Success isn't about setting goals or having lots of willpower t...

Atkins Induction is Not Zero Carb It Now Allows Vegetables Whether you're doing Atkins 72 or Atkins 2002, Atkins Induction is going to be the strictest phase you have to pass through on your journey to health. In 1972, the introductory phase allowed for less than 10 full grams of carbohydrates per day. Just: 2 cups of loosely packed greens couple of raw vegetables to make that salad tolerable couple of eggs and a few ounces of cheese was all the carbohydrate you got.  Today, the Atkins Diet allows 20 net grams for the initial 2-week period called Induction. Compared to the average American diet, which consists of 300 to 500 carbohydrates per day, your carbohydrate intake during this first phase of the Atkins Diet is going to be extremely restrictive.  There is no getting around that. Induction serves a specific purpose, and 20 net carbs per day has been found to be a highly reliable limit that accomplishes that purpose for most people. However, the restrictiveness does scare a lot ...

The Atkins Induction phase is the most difficult phase of the diet. It severely cuts your daily carbohydrate level to 20 net carbs, forces the body to use its glycogen stores for fuel, and eliminates most of the foods you're used to eating. The degree of water loss that accompanies all of that can be quite a shock to both your body and mind. While the: euphoria lack of appetite stable blood sugar and dramatic weight loss that accompanies the state of ketosis can provide plenty of motivation to get you through those first carb-free days, if the mind decides to fight against you, the Atkins Induction Diet can quickly turn into a nightmare. Unrealistic expectations about how quickly you believe the pounds should come off are the kiss of death on a low-carb diet, especially if you haven't really decided to make low carb your new way of life. Mindlessly going through the first two weeks and depending on the scale to pull you through can really do a lot of emotional damage if you don...

Are you sick and tired of weight-loss diets that promise you'll lose 15 pounds in 2 weeks?  Are you ready to buckle down and put in the effort it takes to finally get slim and trim?  If so, the Atkins Diet can help you get there! From the very first day on Atkins Induction, the name that Dr. Atkins gave to the initial phase of this revolutionary diet program, you'll learn how to make honest-to-goodness healthy food choices that will satisfy your appetite and allow you to start whittling away at those needless excess pounds. Atkins Induction is not the whole Atkins Nutritional Approach. S imilar to the ketogenic diet that Dr. Walter Lyons Bloom developed in 1972, Induction is only the first phase. If followed correctly, it will help you kick-start your weight-loss efforts and increase your chances of finally gaining complete control over your weight. Originally, Bloom used his innovative bacon-and-egg diet in a published scientific study that compared fasting to a zero-carb diet...

Almond Flour Pizza (Photo: Rusty Clark , CC BY 2.0 ) Are you ready to move beyond Atkins Induction to the real honest-to-goodness Atkins Diet?   Good! You've made a great decision. But first, congratulations on achieving and completing the first phase of the Atkins nutritional approach. I know how hard that was. Phase 2 will be much easier. It's the space where you start to create your own personalized low-carb diet. To do that, you need to know the best way to transition from a very low-carb diet to a plan that fits your special tastes, activity level, and carbohydrate tolerance but still allows you to lose body fat at an acceptable pace. What makes the Atkins Diet different from other low-carb programs is the way it builds on the success you experienced during the first 2 to 4 weeks of the diet. By now, you will be deeply into the state of ketosis and your physical appetite will have drastically changed, making it easier to eat at a calorie deficit. You'll also be predomi...

Phase 1 of the Atkins Diet requires you to severely limit your carbohydrate intake to 20 net carbs per day, most of which must come from non-starchy vegetables and greens. However, there isn't anything magical about that 20 net carb number. Twenty is just the number that Dr. Atkins picked, because in his professional experience, that level of carbohydrate restriction enables most people to go into the state of ketosis within a few days. For many dieters, 20 net carbs per day works extremely well. Salmon and Green Bean Salad (Photo: Kevin Dooley , CC BY 2.0 ) At that level, glycogen (the storage form of carbohydrates) is depleted within two to five days. Low glycogen forces the body to begin to use mostly fats for fuel instead of mostly glucose. With glucose in short supply, the need for insulin goes down. When insulin levels drop, your hunger and cravings evaporate. When there is less insulin circulating in the bloodstream between meals, it makes it easier to eat less than you were...

How to Make Your Low-Carb Diet More Fun and exciting! Bacon and eggs, meat, salad, and veggies – day after day. Sounds boring, doesn't it? Whether you're just cutting carbohydrates or keeping tract of those calories too, eating a low-carb diet can really feel restricting if you're the only one you know eating that way. Low-carb rules make your so-called healthy lifestyle feel like you're on a diet, no matter how many times you try to tell yourself it's not. When you're starring down at another baked chicken leg or piece of fish, some mushy green beans or broccoli, and a pile of lettuce, thinking about eating this way for the rest of your life can feel depressing. If you allow yourself to get bored with the menu, your emotions will go in search of comfort and tasty treats. Not good, especially if you're new to this way of eating or don't feel creative in the kitchen because an up-kick in emotions almost always means an increase in emotional hunger and cra...

Everything You Need to Know Before Starting a Low-Carb Diet! If you're thinking about entering into the low-carb lifestyle, you are going to need a reliable guide you can depend on to help you get started. Whether you want to shed the fat that's clinging to your hips and belly, lower your risk for heart disease, or eliminate those nasty cravings that always strike as soon as you sit down to watch your favorite television show, this easy guide to low-carb diets will eliminate a lot of the confusion and misconceptions you might have. There are many low-carb programs to choose from, and each plan has different restrictions. That can easily get confusing, especially if you try to start a low-carb diet by just winging it, using the bits and pieces you've collected from various places. You can really get yourself into a mess. Before you begin, you need a strong understanding of why carbohydrate restriction works and what you can expect to achieve in the first month or two. In add...

Low-Carb Fruit Platter  Helps You Stay on Plan It's been in the 90s this week, so I've been looking for creative ways to serve cool and inviting dinners when hubby gets home from a long, tiring, hot day.  While we've been eating a lot of sliced strawberries over the past few weeks, and couldn't resist coming home with a small basket of plump, red raspberries this past weekend, summer ushers in a wide variety of tasty fruits that make the perfect side dish to accompany your fish or chicken. Being on a low-carb diet doesn't mean you have to pass up Mother Nature's delicious fruit bounty all summer.  It just means you have to be careful and selective when adding fruit to your meals and snacks. You have to stay aware of portion sizes and keep your fruit indulgence within your personal carbohydrate tolerance level. While those of you on Atkins Induction will have to wait a bit before returning fruit to your diet, if you're doing the: Keto Diet Atkins 20 Atkins 40...

Egg Fast is the Hottest Low-Carb Stall Buster If you've stalled on your low-carb diet, or you just want to give yourself a hefty shove in the right direction, you might consider doing an egg fast. An egg fast is a short-term dieting intervention method created by Jimmy Moore in 2010. Originally called a Low-Carb Eggfest, by following the protocols he set up for himself, Jimmy was able to lose 28 pounds in 30 days. You do need to like eggs, of course. That's a no-brainer, as the majority of your protein on this fast comes from eggs. Jimmy did allow himself a little bit of hard cheese, some grass-fed butter, and a diet soda here and there, but for the most part, this is a low-carb egg diet that's specifically designed to get the scales moving in the right direction again. It wasn't set up to be a crash diet, although some people have used it that way. Over the past week, I've read a lot of material on this highly effective weight-loss fast. I was more than a little cu...

Setting Weight Loss Goals  Can Cause You to Crash and Burn From the moment we entered this world, people have been pushing their ideas and suggestions at us. One of these suggestions is that we need to set goals. The idea of setting weight-loss goals is driven by the belief that we will receive a certain reward for having achieved the goal. Being different than we are now is supposed to bring approval and relieve our feelings of anxiety and insecurity. We hate where we are now, so we have a low-carb weight-loss action plan that will enable us to get the fast results we're hoping for. Whether that happens or not, that's what we believe, so we experience this insatiable desire to achieve our goal. It's almost like an obsession, at times. The urge to get what we want, when we want it, in return for our efforts, is just that strong. Goals can motivate you to stick to your weight-loss plan. That's what we've been told. The reward factor will give us that little boost in ...

How to Make Lasagna  With Eggplant Instead of Noodles Turning low carb into a lifestyle won't work very well unless you can find new dishes that are just as tasty, or more so, than the ones you left behind. Chucking the breads, cereals, tortillas, and pasta dishes can also bring a lot of emotional upheaval for those who are severely attached to sandwiches, burritos, tacos, and spaghetti. The trick to making a low-carb diet work better for you is to find healthy ways to bring back the foods you miss the most, such as lasagna. While that process might be quick and simple if you can tolerate the wheat-protein based low-carb pastas on the market today, switching out those gummy noodles for healthy slices of eggplant can be a tastier option. No, really. You can make a yummy eggplant lasagna without the noodles by simply substituting ultra-thin slices of partially-baked eggplant and covering them in a traditional, spicy meat sauce and cheese. Once you get the hang of making this unforget...

Not Losing Weight  on Atkins Induction? Here are 12 Metabolic Areas  You Can Explore If you're on Atkins Induction, but not losing weight, you might think that the Atkins Nutritional Approach isn't working this time around. While it can certainly feel like you're wasting your time depriving yourself of carbohydrates, a low-carb diet isn't magic. There are specific, metabolic reasons why it works better for some people than others. Unlike a typical, low-fat, low-calorie diet, Atkins Induction was created to help you enter the dietary state of ketosis easily and effortlessly. As such, it works best for those who are insulin resistant, but even those who are insulin sensitive and suffer with carbohydrate cravings or are prone to binge can benefit from the hunger reduction that occurs when burning fats for fuel. I never recommend weighing yourself when you're on Induction. It's better to wait until Atkins Phase 1 is completely over. That way, you won't be tempt...

What's the Difference Between the Keto Diet, Nutritional Ketosis, and the Atkins Diet? Recently, a reader asked me if a low-carb diet was a Keto Diet. They were greatly confused about what a Keto Diet was and hoped I could clear up the confusion for them. Over the past few months, many of the thought-leaders within the low-carb community have latched onto the word “keto” and are using it as a synonym or nickname for the state of ketosis or for a ketogenic diet in general. This has caused a lot of confusion among low-carb dieters, especially since many health professionals have also begun using the terms “keto” and “ketogenic diet” to represent the more popular low-carb programs, such as: Nutritional Ketosis Atkins Diet Protein Power Lifeplan When speaking of keto or ketogenic diets, these people are simply referring to the same low-carb high-fat plan they have always supported. They are not talking about anything new. While there is nothing wrong with what people within the low-...

Not Losing Weight on Atkins 40? Atkins 40 is the latest Atkins Diet specifically designed for those who are insulin sensitive, rather than insulin resistant. This makes the Atkins Nutritional Approach more adaptable to every metabolic type than it was before. From the very beginning of this low-carb diet, you can eat from all food groups on the acceptable foods list and even start at a higher carb count than those doing Atkins Induction.  Like the Protein Power Life Plan, there is no carbohydrate ladder that you need to adhere to. You are free to make your own choices within your personal carbohydrate tolerance. For that reason, Atkins 40 can be an easier way to implement the Atkins Nutritional Approach because it comes with less deprivation and more flexibility than Atkins 20.  Unlike previous diets that told you exactly what to do and when to do it, Atkins 40 seeks to place the control over what you eat in your own lap.  This freedom allows you to design a personalized weight-loss pr...

Weight Loss Isn't a Smooth Path A low-carb diet offers you many potential health benefits, but it doesn't always live up to its reputation as a quick weight-loss diet. I know that can be frustrating when the pounds don't come off as quickly as you had hoped. Although the diet regime is sound advice and has lots of scientific evidence to back it up, many people eventually find themselves sitting on a plateau. For others, the diet stops working completely. Weight loss is never a smooth ride. The body always strives to maintain balance. Restricting carbohydrates upsets the body's normal metabolic rhythm. It doesn't like change, and it doesn't like having to do things the hard way. In addition, many low-carb gurus present miraculous claims to their readers, but those claims often fall short of the truth. In their excitement to share their own experiences or coax you into giving Atkins Induction or Nutritional Ketosis a fair chance, low-carb supporters often repeat t...

Need an Easter Short Cut?  Toss Vegetables into Your Salad! (photo: Zaskoda , CC BY 2.0 ) Easter is right around the corner. Do you have your low-carb menu all set up and ready to go? Done your shopping yet? Me neither. Our holiday plans for this year are a bit up in the air. We have a close friend that is in the midst of buying a house and was hoping it would close before Easter. If so, then we won't be cooking at home this year, so I've been dragging my feet, waiting to hear . . . Low-carb Easter menus are not that difficult though. With ham the traditional centerpiece and lots of hard-boiled eggs around, all you need to round out your low-carb meal is a super-nice salad and vegetables with a little bit of extra perk. If that sounds like too much work this year and you're looking for a holiday short-cut, simply skip the extras and toss those lightly steamed or leftover roasted veggies into the salad. Chill it all together and you'll have an extra-special mega-salad tr...

Kicked Out of Ketosis? Ketone Testing Strip Secrets If you hang out at low-carb forums for any length of time, you're bound to hear again and again how someone recently got kicked out of the state of ketosis and is looking for a fast way to get back in. Out of all the issues that you can have with a low-carb lifestyle, understanding ketone testing strips is one of the biggies. “ I got kicked out of ketosis,” is one of the most common complaints I hear. And while that may or may not be true, depending on the situation, there are a lot of misconceptions about the role that ketones and ketone testing strips play in a low-carb diet. If you think that you've been kicked out of ketosis, listen up. Here's the dirty little secrets about ketone testing strips that you probably won't hear in a low-carb forum. Read more »

Meat, Poultry, and Fish are Unlimited on Atkins 72 Are you struggling to make Atkins 20 work for you? If so, you are not alone. There seems to be an ever-growing number of low-carb dieters who find themselves metabolically resistant to the current Atkins Induction Diet. While that can certainly be frustrating, especially if you've had success with the Atkins Nutritional Approach before, there is always a reason why the diet doesn't work. “ I have never had a case where the diet could not be made to work, ” Dr. Atkins wrote in 1972. “If the patient stops losing, there is always a specific something that is holding up progress. And invariably, it can be changed.” That something can take ages to find and correct if you approach the problem by trying to figure out what the something is and then eliminate it. For that reason, it's often best to come at the problem from an opposite perspective. Read more »

Can You Gain Weight Eating Salmon and Fried Eggs? The latest study on the Paleo Diet coming out of Australia is sending shock waves through the media here in the U.S. Reporters are tripping all over themselves trying to get the word out that a Paleo Diet, defined by the researchers as a very low-carb high-fat diet, causes weight gain even though the Paleo Diet is NOT a low-carb nor high-fat diet. On the surface, the study published on February 15th in Nutrition & Diabetes appears to look into the benefits that a low-carb high-fat diet has on beta cell degeneration and function in mice, but the methods used in the study are so shocking and contrary to low-carb, Paleo, and even diabetic diets that it's hard to believe that anyone is actually taking the study seriously. But they are. War has been declared on the Paleo Diet, with journalists insisting that the Paleo Diet causes weight gain, all because some researchers in Australia came to an erroneous conclusion after feeding pre-...