How to Count Carbs on the Atkins Diet

by | Apr 4, 2013 | Carbs, Fat Loss, Low carb | 0 comments

12271443014i309S

Managing carbohydrate intake is the heart of the Atkins diet plan. In addition to computing your daily carbohydrate intake, you will gradually reintroduce carbohydrates back into your diet in a specific sequence called the carbohydrate ladder.

Steps

Compute Net Carbs
The Atkins diet focuses on net carbs, which is the quantity of carbohydrate in a food less the amount of dietary fiber and sugar alcohols.

  1. Find the number of total carbohydrates in a food on the food’s nutrition label. Total carbohydrates are found in the top section of the label after the product’s sodium content.
  2. Find the quantity of dietary fiber in the food. Dietary fiber is usually located as a subheading beneath the total carbohydrate count.
  3. Subtract the amount of dietary fiber from the amount of total carbohydrates. If the product contains 20 grams of total carbohydrates and 3 grams of dietary fiber, then the product contains 17 net carbs.
  4. Look for sugar alcohols. Because sugar alcohols are not easily absorbed by the body, they do not count against your net carb total. If the food label contains a listing for sugar alcohol quantity, then you can subtract sugar alcohol content from your total carbohydrate count in addition to subtracting dietary fiber.
  5. Use a carbohydrate-counting guide. Many guides for foods that contain both their carbohydrate and dietary fiber counts are available in bookstores or online. These are especially helpful for foods that do not come with nutrition labels.

Count Carbohydrates During the Induction Phase
In the Induction phase, you should consume no more than 20 net carbs per day. In subsequent phases, you can consume more as long as they don’t interfere with your weight loss.

  1. Start by consuming 12 to 15 grams of net carbs through eating foundation vegetables. Foundation vegetables include leafy greens, broccoli, cauliflower and asparagus.
  2. Eat high-fat, low-carb dairy products during Induction for your remaining carbs. Examples include hard cheeses, cream and sour cream.

Count Carbohydrates During the Ongoing Weight Loss (OWL) Phase
Increase your carb intake gradually during OWL (Ongoing Weight Loss). Every week, add 5 grams of net carbs to your diet. As long as you continue to lose weight, you can continue gradually adding more carbohydrates to your diet. If weight loss stalls, you can gradually cut back on your carbohydrates until you start to lose weight again.

  1. Start eating nuts and seeds again. Avoid chestnuts, which contain too many net carbs.
  2. Add in some fruit the next week. You can eat berries, cherries and melon. Avoid watermelon, however, because it will raise your blood sugar rapidly.
  3. Vary your dairy. After you incorporate fruit, you can add in whole milk yogurt and fresh cheeses, including ricotta and cottage cheese.
  4. Add legumes next. These include chickpeas, lentils, peanuts and beans.
  5. Drink some tomato or vegetable juice cocktails after you add in legumes. Continue to avoid fruit juices with the exception of lemon and lime juice.

Count Carbohydrates During Pre-Maintenance and Maintenance
Add 10 grams of net carbs each week during Pre-Maintenance and Maintenance. Your weight loss should slow to a crawl during this period because you are working to find your Atkins Carbohydrate Equilibrium, or ACE. Your ACE is the number of net carbs you can consume each day without gaining weight.

  1. Eat a greater variety of fruit. Enjoy apples, citrus fruits and other fruits that are lower in sugar but high in fiber. Be wary of fruits high in sugar such as banana, pineapple and watermelon.
  2. Start eating high-carb vegetables again. You can add winter squash, peas and carrots back to your diet. Avoid regular potatoes.
  3. Add whole grains after you add high-carb vegetables. Focus on whole grains and continue to avoid high-carb refined grains such as white bread and white rice.

Tips

  • In addition to watching your weight, pay attention to your cravings. If you start to crave more carbohydrate after adding additional net carbs to your diet, then you are probably eating too many carbs.
  • Throughout each phase of Atkins, make sure to consume 12 to 15 grams of carbohydrates each day by eating foundation vegetables.

Warnings

  • Don’t allow yourself to gain more than 5 pounds without addressing your carbohydrate intake. Lower your daily carb intake by 10 to 20 grams until your excess weight retreats.

Things You’ll Need

  • Carbohydrate counting guide

 

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Count Carbs on the Atkins Diet. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Low-Carb Diet May Slow Alzheimer’s Disease

by | Apr 3, 2013 | Degenerative Diseases, Diabetes, High Fat Diet, How Your Body Works, Low carb diet, Nutrition, Preservatives, Sugars | 0 comments

1348139045M9KWP0

You know it’s curious when many people ask me about what I think they should do about such and such a condition. They all seem surprised when I say “well, let’s have a look at what you’re eating before we go any further” because over the years I found truly that so many of the problems, diseases, illnesses both physical and mental far too often have a source or certainly a highly contributory factor in what we eat and having watched my mother suffer with Parkinson’s disease and many of her friends and those in that generation suffer with Alzheimer’s as well.

Nothing yet has convinced me that there’s not quite a bit of truth that the gradual lowering in quality of our food has contributed quite strongly to the gradual increase in many of the health problems that we as a society suffer which is why I’m quite happy to  recommend the article that I’m linking to below by Dr. Mercola who’s looking at the work of another doctor, Dr. Ron Rosedale, who’s a prominent  expert in low carb and high-quality fat approach to improving health and the article points to a very interesting conclusion that Alzheimer’s might well be considered as brain diabetes.

It’s well worth a good read as not only do they point out some of the more cutting edge work about exactly what casues Alzheimer’s but they lead on from that and tell us about how we can avoid Alzheimer’s just by simple changes in our diet and behavior to a certain extent anyway, fairly recommend as well and I hope it helps you.

Link to the article

Taking the good with the bad

by | Apr 3, 2013 | Digestive system, General Health, How Your Body Works, Metabolism, Sensible Eating, Vitamins & Supplements | 0 comments

1277727227cvan7p

Did you know that the number of bacteria in our body outnumbers the number of cells in our body?

That is something that I personally find totally amazing. But you know in many ways we wouldn’t be able to live without them. Our bodies even use bacteria for digesting our food along with a healthy dose of enzymes and some really remarkable and well balanced processes but without those friendly bacteria in our digestive system we would find it very difficult to get the full range of nutrients that we need.

Now if you don’t know anything about the digestive system particularly about how the bacteria within our digestive system works, then the article I’ve linked to below is probably a very good primer and well worth reading. Enjoy!

Link to the article

Carbs are key

by | Apr 2, 2013 | Carbs, Diabetes, Diet, Low carb, Sugars | 0 comments

1329066375yggd9U

The world needs more people like Peggy Newman. She’s a Family Nurse practitioner at Southeastern Medical Clinic in White Lake and she takes the time and trouble to teach people about exactly what carbohydrates are.

Her main audience is people who have diabetes but obviously that would also apply to people who are wanting to follow a low carbohydrate diet in order to deal with the diabetes and other health problems such as being overweight.

 It’s a matter of fact little story this but frankly it’s quite touching but someone would give up their time and take the trouble to help show other people how to live better and healthier lives.

Three cheers for Peggy! Maybe this story will touch your heart as well…. The link is below.

Link to the full article

Depression, Diabetes, & Diet: Drop One, Add One, Jump Start Your Mood

by | Apr 1, 2013 | Diabetes, Diet, Nutrition | 0 comments

http://www.dreamstime.com/-image1528140Here’s an interesting article by a British psychiatrist and researcher Malcolm Peet. He’s been investigating the link between mental illnesses and diet for a quarter of a century. Dr. Peet has found that there is more schizophrenia in countries that consume a lot of sugar.

One of the other interesting  conclusions from the study he has made is that people with diabetes and other blood sugar issues seem to be at greater risk of depression in other words that diabetes and depression can co-occur and of course many people who are depressed  will often turn to food for comfort which merely reinforces the problem causing it to spiral further downwards eventually to be seemingly out of control.

It’s a short but worthwhile article and there are lots of other links from it that may prove interesting to people who have diabetes and or depression.

Link to the article