Healthy Diet at Home

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...

The Radioactive Iodine Uptake test was no picnic. Although the nuclear medicine technician who gave me the iodine capsules assured me that the capsules didn't have enough iodine to produce any side effects, it definitely increased my hyperthyroid symptoms -- drastically. I'm guessing that one might not notice the upswing if one wasn't looking for it, because it would just be more of the same. Especially in those people whose thyroid is putting out a whopping amount of thyroid hormones already. In my case, the test was quite uncomfortable. I had to try to hold still for 20 minutes, and then again for 4 minutes, as the technicians measured the amount of radiation my thyroid was putting out and the amount of iodine my thyroid had taken up. I also had to go back again the following morning for another iodine reading at exactly 24 hours. With thyroid nodules, what they are initially looking at is whether or not the nodules are making thyroid hormone independently from the thyroi...