Healthy Diet at Home

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...