Diet Low Carbs

Quick Start Weight Loss

This approach is mainly used by bodybuilders 2 weeks before a competition for the purpose of removing body fat.

Breakfast

• Half a grapefruit ( or half a glass of unsweetened grapefruit juice)
• 2 eggs any style
• 2 – 12 slices of fried or grilled bacon
• 1 cup decaf coffee or Tea No Sugar with cream if desired

Lunch

• Half a grapefruit ( or half a glass of unsweetened grapefruit juice)
• Meat, any style any amount
• Salad dressed without sugar- as much as you can eat.
• 1 cup decaf coffee or Tea No Sugar with cream if desired

Dinner

• Half a grapefruit ( or half a glass of unsweetened grapefruit juice)
• Meat or fish any style, with gravy as long as the gravy is made without flour
• Any amount of green, yellow or red vegetables (except Beets )
• Salad dressed without sugar- as much as you can eat.
• 1 cup decaf coffee or Tea No Sugar with cream if desired

Late Night Snack

• Half a glass of tomato juice or a chicken drumstick.

Water

• At least 2 liters of water a day.

Points to Note

• Drinking the water is very important. Cold water speeds up your metabolism, this in turn will burn fat quicker.
• No fruit except the grapefruit, you must begin each meal with the grapefruit. It acts as a catalyst to start fat burning.
• Do not omit anything – it is the food combination that keeps you feeling full and burns the fat.
• No eating between meals
• No puddings, rice, potatoes, bread, pasta
• You can fry your eggs and have your vegetables swimming in butter, for fat does not form fat in the body, fat actually burns fat.
• If you consume alcohol drink dry wine or have spirits straight up or with soda water.

This diet is comparatively painless and it works. If your doubtful consult your doctor before embarking on this regime. Remember: for the first four days your scales will show no change, then on the fifth day you should find that you have lost 5 pounds. After that you will loose a pound per day until your 14th day. Determined dieters who perservere beyond that will loose approximately 1 pound every second day.

Note: This is basically the induction phase of the Atkins diet. The addition of the grapefruit that works as a catalyst was added by the Dave Prowse Fitness Centre of London SE1.

By Evelyn Tribole, R.D. from Lifetimetv.com

We women are like fine wines: We just get better with age. Save for one little detail: our weight — which seems fated to skyrocket once we hit that developmental milestone menopause. According to the North American Association for the Study of Obesity, obesity in women has nearly doubled in the last two decades; it is a problem that researchers say is particularly acute during perimenopause, the 3 to 10 year period preceding menopause. The Women’s Healthy Lifestyle Project, a five year study of 585 perimenopausal women funded by the National Institute of Health, found that women who don’t change their lifestyles gain an average of 5.2 pounds during that period.

But before you throw in the towel and submit to age-related weight gain, consider this: Understanding the new set of rules governing your body’s changes can provide you with concrete ways to manage your weight. Here’s what is happening: As you age, your body stops ovulating and produces less and less estrogen. Meanwhile, the hormone testosterone ( no, it’s not just in men ) remains at the same level. This increase in the estrogen to testosterone ratio triggers the expansion of our waistlines, since our fat distribution changes to be more like a man’s, shifting from our hips and buttocks to our waists. ( one bright note: Once this transition is completed, half of all women find that their thighs have actually decreased in size!)

As our waistline fills out, some weight gain is inevitable , although the amount can range from 2 to 20 pounds. However, another key finding of the Women’s Healthy Lifestyle Project was that women who engage in physical activity and adhere to a low-fat, reduced calorie diet are very likely to maintain their weight or lose weight. The bottom line: Your hormones don’t have to have the last word — you can keep off the weight.

9 Tactics for staying fit during menopause.

1. Pump some iron. Lean body mass, which acts as a calorie-burning machine, naturally decreases as you age. Lifting weights two to three times a week can help you maintain your muscle mass and keep your metabolism revved.
2.  Exercise your options. Your metabolism slows down 10 to 15 % during midlife, mainly due to decreased muscle mass, Aerobic, cardiovascular exercise is crucial to minimizing the weight gain and fat storage that would naturally result from this downshift. Walk, jog, bike, swim or do an aerobics tape for at least one hour a day most days of the week.
3. Eat right. Dieting — defined as traditional low-calorie plans, so-called fat-burning pills and fad diets, including Atkins can actually worsen midlife weight gain. That’s because dieting increases the level of enzymes that tell your body to store fat. To effectively manage your weight through food, craft a balanced diet of nutrient-rich foods and eat only when you are hungry.
4. Cut quantities. As we age, our bodies need fewer calories. If you downsize the amount you eat at each meal, but increase the number of meals you have each day, you’ll find that you have more energy and a more balanced mood. Aim to consume five to six small meals each day, eating no more than three fistfuls of food each time.
5. Seek satisfaction. With less estrogen in your body, it’s easier to overeat, since estrogen helps to trigger the feeling of being full. However eating high-satiety (aka Filling) foods, including those high in protein ( such as chicken, turkey, eggs, fish, beans, tofu, nuts) and those high in fiber ( such as whole grain cereals, dried beans, whole grain crackers, fruits, vegetables ), help you feel satisfied and stop you from overeating.
   
6. Love lunch. It’s a somewhat controversial  concept, but some experts recommend eating your biggest meal at lunch rather than dinner to control weight gain.
7. Limit alcohol. Since alcohol has been shown to increase abdominal weight gain, do not have more than one drink a day.
8. Relax! Periods of stress cause increased storage of fat around the abdomen — and years of stress can actually disrupt your fat cell’s ability to make estrogen, causing them to expand in an effort to compensate. The best thing you can do is not to get too worked up about impending weight gain ( or anything else!) and find ways to release stress — through exercise, meditation, journal-writing, therapy or conversations with friends.
9. Look on th ebright side! There is some good nres: Once you’ve completed the "change of life" your fat cells start to shrink and produce less fat. While you will never have the meteabolism you had when you were 20, your weight will get somewhat easier to mansge after perimenopause.

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I’ve been on this Atkin’s Low Carb Diet for almost 6 months now and have reached a plateau. Every person’s body has a weight set point where it becomes increasing difficult to lose or gain weight. I seem to have reached this point and I’m still 15 to 20 lbs above my goal weight. I believe it’s time to go back to Stage 1 of the diet which is the strictest phase of the diet. Here the carbohydrate daily consumption is less than 25 grams of net carbohydrates a day.

No more white wine before supper. I really notice how wine is an appetite stimulant so drinking it is a double wammy. One it contains carbohydrates and two it makes me eat more.

While I type this I’m sitting here eating my last high carb pasta meal for another 6 months no doubt. I don’t expect this to be easy, it wasn’t the last time. I felt very weak and unsteady in the 1st – 2 weeks of induction eating. The carbohydrate withdrawal zone I called it. My husband just came home with all this wonderful fruit and I just rememberd now that the induction phase allows no fruit .

I guess I’ll adjust the carbohyrate level intake according to my exercise level. I’m walking an hour or two every day now delivering flyers to sell rain water harvesting supplies, meaning rain barrels. That amount of exercise should allow me to eat some fruit – you’d think wouldn’t you?

Here is my meal plan for Day 1 of induction.

Breakfast – 2 eggs with bacon.

Lunch – Low carb vegetable soup in a cup. Havarti cheese melt on a low carb muffin and a large green salad with dressing.

Supper – Stuffed chicken breast plus one cup zucchini and mushrooms.

Snack – 15 almonds or some of those wonderful cherries Alan brought home from the store.

Exercise – Walk 1 hour at a moderate pace.

Tips for Smart Food Shopping

Shop the produce, diary, meat sections of the supermarket. These departments are usually placed around the outer wall sections of the supermarket. Stay away from the inner isles. There is nothing there for you anymore, this is where you usually find the carbohydrate temptations.

Buy fresh

Fresh vegetables, fruits and protein foods will be the basis of your diet.Stay away fron canned goods. They may contain hidden carbs and are loaded with transfats and/or nitrates and nitrites. If at all possible buy organic vegetrables, fruits, poultry, meat and eggs.

Think fish

Fatty fish such as salmon, tuna, halibut and macherel, herring, bluefish, and saridines supply protein and B vitamins, as well as omega-3s, a type of essential fatty acid with disease-fighting properties. Keep canned fish on hand for hurry-up suppers. Look for light tuna packed in olive oil; it tastes richer than tuna packaged in water or vegatable oil.

Shop with the seasons

Choose vegetables and fruits at their height of flavor and freshness. Seasonal produces are generally less expensive.

Color matters

Dark leafy greens, orange vegetables, purple grapes contain more nutrients than their paler cousins. Arugula has almost twice the folateof iceberg lettuce. red grapes are higher in anthocyanins than green; and pink grapefruit has 40 times more beta-carotene than white. Stay away from white foods such as white rice, white flour, and pale pasta. Focus on brown breads and grains, beans and legumes.

Go with the grain

Go beyond rice and pasta fo rlower carb choices. Oatmeal boasts cholesterol-lowering soluble fiber. Wild rice packs twice the protein of the other varieties. Bulgar, a form of whole wheat, is already cooked; simply pour boiling liquid over it until soft, about 30 minutes.

Scrutinize labels

Avoid anything that has high-fructose corn syrup or any kind of starch, such as modified potato or rice starch, in the ingredient list. Pay attention to fat free foods, the fat is usually replaced with sugar. Instead use high flavor condiments such as peat and salsa.

Think small

Purchase only what you can consume in a few days. Keep food as fresh as possible.

This study has just been presented at The Endocrine Society’s 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. June 11, 2009.

Moderately restricting the intake of carbohydrates, without calorie restrictions and weight loss, can help increase a sense of fullness.

Barbara Gower, PhD, a professor in the Department of Nutrition Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham and her co-workers investigated whether a modest reduction in dietary carbohydrates, or "carbs" would improve feelings of fullness batter than a carbohydrate level comparable to that of a typical U.S. diet.

The study group had their carbohydrates lowered by 12 %. A typical American diet has 55% of their daily calories coming from carbohydrates: sugars, starches and fiber. The moderate carbohydrate dieters had an increased fat consumption- 39% versus 27 % of calories. This adjustment allowed both groups to consume the same amounts of proteins – 18% of their calories. This was done because proteins can influence both satiety (fullness) and insulin secretion.

14 adults were given the control diet and 16 adults were given the moderately reduced carbohydrate diet for a month. All participants were monitored to maintain their original weight. After 4 weeks adjustment to their diet they were given a test meal. Blood chemistry was analyzed for levels of insulin and blood sugar both before and after their meal.

This study showed that even in the absence of weight loss, a modest reduction in dietary carbohydrates was sufficient to lower insulin and stabilize blood sugar. Ratings of fullness were higher in the group on the moderate-carb diet before eating the test meal and stayed higher for a longer time after the meal, compared with those eating the standard diet.

Gower said, "Over the long run a sustained modest reduction in carbohydrate intake may help to reduce energy consumption and facilitate weight loss".

The latest modification of Atkins original diet plan is called the ‘ECO-Atkins’ Diet. It substitutes plant based proteins for animal based proteins and helps people lose weight and lower their cholesterol level. Dr. David J A Jenkins, lead author of the study states, "In just 2 weeks on the "Eco-Atkins diet, everything starts to look much better metabolically."

This study of the new diet modification of the Atkins low carbohydrate diet appeared in the June 8th issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. Dr. Atkins original diet went against all conventional wisdom at the time he introduced it. His diet was evidence based. He treated his many cardiac patients with his high-fat, high-protein, low carbohydrate diet and saw incredible results. Not only did their blood metabolism improve but they shed excess weight easily without hunger. 

Although most cardiac health indicators improved; the cholesterol level did not drop. Dr. Jenkins, who is research chair in nutrition and metabolism at the University of Toronto and St. Michael’s Hospital and his team sought to maintain the high protein low carb ratio of the Atkins diet, but in a way that might promote lowering the cholesterol level.

Half of the study participants 22 men or women who were overweight and had high cholesterol levels were placed on a low-fat, low-carb, high-vegetable, plant-based protein diet. The other 22 men or women were given a high-carb, lacto-ovo (dairy and eggs only) vegetarian diet. The 2 groups lost the same amount of weight, 8.8 pounds, but the group who consumed the plant-based proteins also saw an improvement in their LDL (bad) cholesterol levels.

This study was a very short term study and leaves many questions unanswered. Will this way of eating translate into less disease in the long run. Will this diet approach satisfy peoples hunger so that they can stay on it while not participating in a study where the meals were prepared for them. The more scientific studies performed on weight loss diets and health issues the better for our generation.

We currently suffer from a global pandemic of diabetes and in the US alone there are estimated to be 57 million pre-diabetics. It is time the worlds dietetic associations provide us with a very clear picture of what exactly consitutes a healthy diet.