Healthy Diet at Home

Whether you’re new to low carb or a well-seasoned dieter, starting a low carb diet can be exciting. Watching the pounds drop that very first week or two can put you in a better frame of mind to keep going, but if you expect that weight loss to continue, you’ll soon be in for a surprise. For those who have used carbohydrate restriction before, the slow-down isn’t discouraging. For a newbie to the low carb way of eating, however, it can be confusing. Questions begin to build up: Am I following the diet wrong? Has my low carb diet stopped working? If I’m exercising and eating correctly, why am I not losing weight? How can I be in ketosis and not lose weight? What can I do to break my stall? When your weight loss slows to a crawl or you hit a wall, it’s common to want to know what’s happening. Although there’s no way to know for sure, there are several possibilities. Dehydration One of the main reasons you might not be losing weight is due to dehydration or electrolyte imbalances. When ...

I recently received a comment from a reader that suggested my lack of dieting success was probably due to my inability to stay with one particular low-carb diet plan long enough to reap results. The advice I received was to go on a low-carb, high-fat diet and give it six months or more to work before analyzing.  That was similar to the advice I received from the zero-carb folks a few years ago when despite the fact that I had gained about 20 pounds in the first three weeks and was experiencing abnormally high blood glucose levels, they told me to eat only beef, drink only water, and wait six months before reviewing the results. They didn't seem to care about the resurrected neuropathy. They were just sure that their way was the only way.  The problem with that type of advice is that it doesn't work for everyone.  Take Responsibility for Your Own Health Correcting metabolic issues isn't always as easy as lowering your carbohydrate level. For example, I'm juggling vertigo...

There is a lot of confusion these days about metabolism. It seems to be a scapegoat that people like to blame when weight loss doesn’t happen easily. If they’re following a low carb diet and struggling to succeed, then they believe that all of those years of eating carbohydrates must have destroyed their metabolism and made them fat. On the other side of the argument are those who oppose low carb dieting. These people claim that carbohydrate restriction will permanently alter your metabolism, but what’s the truth? Will eating carbohydrates or following a low carb diet ruin your metabolism – or not? What is Metabolism? Low carb dieters generally do not like to hear about the energy equation. Dr. Atkins told us that we no longer need to worry about calories, so most people believe the energy equation isn’t applicable to them. Calories don’t matter, they say. Dr. Eades has tried to set the record straight, but far too many people still do not want to go outside and drag the equation bac...

One of the largest misunderstandings circulating within the low carb community is the mistaken idea that everyone on a low carb diet has insulin resistance. While most of us have some type of metabolic problem or defect, it isn’t always from insulinemia. Sometimes, the problem is not too much insulin; sometimes, it’s actually not enough. For those with insulin resistance, the problem can be easy to solve: Just restrict carbs to your personal level of tolerance and save carby treats for special occasions. That results in increased sensitivity to insulin and better blood glucose control. If you have insulin insufficiency, however, the problem is more complex. Role of Insulin A fear of carbs and insulin is common among low carb dieters, but insulin is vital to survival. If you don’t produce enough insulin, you’ll die. Insulin is a peptide hormone secreted by the beta cells inside the pancreas. It’s released about every 5 to 10 seconds at a very small level, and then in larger quantities a...

No matter which low carb diet program you choose, one of the first things most dieters do is set a weight loss goal. Most of the time, this goal involves a number on the scale. Sometimes, that number is realistic, but most of the time it's not. Weight charts are sometimes used by medical professionals to tell you exactly what you should weigh. Many dieters use them to help them make a weight loss goal. These numbers are supposed to take your height, gender and sometimes age under consideration. The general rule is that a 5-foot individual such as myself should weigh about 100 pounds. A man should weigh around 110. For every inch taller, you would add an additional 5 or 6 pounds. These charts were designed for life insurance companies, not dieters. Hence, the numbers reflect life expectancy for the average individual and sit on the low side of reality – especially since our food supply has changed drastically since then. Measuring body mass index (BMI) is similar. BMI looks at your ...

(This is part 9 and the final installment of a multi-part series on How to Tweak a Low Carb Diet . It explains the path I have traveled in my weight loss journey. If you arrived here without reading part 1, you can do so by clicking on the how-to link. Part 1 also contains links to the other posts in this series.) When you begin to restrict carbohydrates to less than about 100 carbs per day, the body is forced to draw upon its liver glycogen to keep your blood glucose levels steady. That’s according to Dr. Michael Eades. I can also tell you from experience, that during those first few days, the brain doesn’t get the proper amount of fuel to function correctly. Or at least, I don’t. I know that because I start having severe vertigo attacks. Other people have talked about being tired or having brain fog. Now, the way it’s supposed to work is that the liver converts the protein you don’t need for immediate repair purposes to glucose to feed the brain. The brain can partially run on ketone...

(This is part 8 of a multi-part series on How to Tweak a Low Carb Diet . It explains the path I have traveled in my weight loss journey so far. If you didn’t read part 1, you can do so by clicking on the how-to link. Part 1 also contains links to the rest of the series.) The low carb road I have traveled towards thinness has been long and rugged. Many times along the way, I’ve been tempted to give up. Looking back now, I’ve made little progress in my weight loss attempts since I left my version of Kimkins behind. That’s the cold, hard truth for me. By following a variety of low carb diets, I’ve learned a lot about myself. My health has improved because I was able to discover many of the food categories I need to avoid (gluten, cow’s dairy and corn) but I am no closer to my weight loss goal than I was then. This morning, I weighed in at 173 pounds, and all I could do was sigh. While that makes my before and after pictures still accurate, that glorious one-hundred pound marker I had at o...