Can You Be In Ketosis and Not Lose Weight?

Can You Be In Ketosis and Not Lose Weight?

Questions??

How Can You be in Ketosis
and Not Lose Weight?

In 1972, Dr. Atkins introduced the world to the concept of carbohydrate sensitivity. 

He talked about the damage that excessive carbohydrates can do to your metabolism, suggested that overweight and obesity was caused from a metabolic defect, and played up the necessity of being in the state of ketosis to achieve effective weight loss.

Since then, many low-carb dieters have mistakenly thought that the number of ketones that have backed up in the bloodstream is what makes the diet work. It doesn't, and this strong misconception -- that ketones are vital to the fat loss process -- has caused a lot of confusion. 

While being in ketosis is essential to initially trigger the metabolic changes needed to switch from predominantly burning glucose to predominantly burning fats for fuel, you can certainly be in ketosis but not lose weight. 

Here's why:

Read more »

Indoor Grilled Chicken, Low-Carb Style

Indoor Grilled Chicken, Low-Carb Style

Low Carb Styles Special Event Diet The Brutal Way

Try Indoor Grilled Chicken, Low Carb at Its Best!
(Photo by Ray Dehler)  

What do you normally think of when you picture Italian food? Probably not something that’s quick and easy to fix. Am I right? Most people think about homemade spaghetti, Lasagne, or an extra-large slice of pizza with all of the trimmings. While you can certainly find alternative ways to replace most of those carbs, with the holidays right around the corner, you’re going to need a few low-carb dinner ideas that are quick and simple. Here’s one of my favorites.

Marinate and Grill Your Chicken

Chicken makes an extremely economical low-carb meal. In my own area, we can get boneless, skinless chicken breasts at our local WalMart for less than $2 a pound. I do have to buy a family pack to get it at that price, but many times our small local grocery store runs special deals on Thursdays. Those deals are even cheaper. Sometimes, I can purchase chicken breast for as low as $1.79 a pound.

I don’t use the frozen type of breasts that come in a bag because I don’t know what they’re injected with. The bag simply calls it solution. With all of my food sensitivities, the word "solution" is scary, so I just avoid it, but you can certainly use that type of chicken to make this low-carb dish if you want. Make sure you pick up the plain variety though, or at least something that would blend well with lemon and Italian seasonings.

George Foreman Lean Machine for Fast Low-Carb Food
(Photo by Ray Dehler)

I absolutely love marinades. They make my life so much easier. Not only do they make the chicken tasty and tender, but when coupled with an indoor grill, they enable you to have dinner on the table in only a few minutes. My husband is extremely thankful for our George Foreman Lean Machine. Back before I started low-carbing, I was pretty much bedridden. The vertigo was so bad that most days I could hardly get out of bed. He suffered in silence through many “green beans baked over chicken” casserole meals – sometimes, almost every night. It was the easiest meal I could think of.

(Simply lay chicken legs in the bottom of a greased bake dish and top with one or two cans of green beans, water and all. Cover tightly with foil and bake. If I was somewhat coherent, I might sprinkle in a few chopped onions, tomatoes, and bacon.)

He doesn’t have to do that anymore, because an indoor grill is so versatile. Now he gets pork chops, hamburgers, steak, or chicken breast when I’m dizzy or not feeling well.

This low-carb chicken idea took birth during my hHCG days, but I’ve tweaked it to be far more healthy than it was then. Today, I’ve added extra-virgin olive oil to the marinade for some healthy fat and additional flavor. You can use any type of oil you like. When I don’t have extra-virgin olive oil, I use a little grapeseed oil. I don’t use popular oils such as canola because they all use corn-derived citric acid as a defoamer.

All I do is toss the marinade ingredients together in a bowl, pour it over the chicken, and let the chicken marinate all day. It would be the perfect choice when you’re going to be out Christmas shopping or spending the day carving or decorating pumpkins with the kids. I do slice my chicken breasts horizontally, though, so they look like the breasts that come frozen in a bag. That helps them to cook evenly. I get three slices out of each breast, so this recipe will make about nine cutlets. If you’re feeding a family, you can easily double the recipe if you need to.

If you can get your hands on an organic lemon, grating up some of the zest and adding it to the marinade will really intensify the lemon flavor. Since we live in a very small, urban community, they aren’t available here very often. You can also play around a little with the herbs. Some fresh, minced oregano, seasoned pepper, or one of Mrs. Dash’s unique seasoning blends would be nice.

If you happen to have any leftovers, simply tuck them into a baggie and take them to work with you the next day. They make a tasty, cold lunch, just as they are, but you could also chop or slice the leftovers and serve them over a nice salad.

Since this is one of my quick-and-easy low-carb dinner ideas, I generally serve it with a simple tossed salad made from organic romaine, some chopped red onions, and maybe a little minced hard-boiled eggs. When I have wax-free tomatoes, I toss some of them in there too. Since my husband prefers Thousand Island Dressing, I make my own. In addition, steamed vegetables are particularly easy. A mixture of organic broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots will steam in as little as 30 minutes. But since this main dish is so little work, you could also spend a little more time on a couple of fancier sides.

Indoor Grilled Chicken Makes Fast Low-Carb Diet Meal

Grilled Italian Chicken, Low-Carb Style

Ingredients:

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 tablespoons olive oil

juice of a fresh lemon

1 tablespoon Italian seasonings

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 teaspoon onion powder

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

sugar substitute to equal 2 tablespoons sugar

Method:

Slice your chicken breast horizontally into about three slices. The top slice will be shorter and smaller than the other two. Place the chicken pieces into a gallon zip-lock bag and set aside.

In a small bowl, combine all of the rest of the ingredients, and mix well. Pour the marinade into the bag, scraping the bowl with a spoon, so you get all of the Italian seasonings in there. Close the bag and squish everything around with your hands. You want the seasonings to be as evenly distributed over the chicken as you can get them. Allow the chicken to marinate all day, turning a couple of times if possible, but that isn’t absolutely necessary if you work outside the home.

Heat up your grill for about 5 minutes. Place the chicken cutlets onto the grill and cook with the lid closed for about 5 minutes. Be careful that you don't overcook. You want chicken breast to be just barely done so it stays juicy. You could also sauté the chicken in a frying pan with additional olive oil, butter, bacon drippings, or even the marinade itself.

Endocrine Disruptors – Should I Be Concerned?

Endocrine Disruptors – Should I Be Concerned?

Questions??

As many of you know, my blood glucose levels tend to go wonky every now and then. While I used to believe that phenomenon was connected to the amount of carbohydrates I was eating, that hasn’t turned out to be the case. Yes, the number of carbs I eat matters while my sugars are not under control, but so far, carbohydrates have never turned out to be the cause. Instead, food sensitivities such as gluten and GMO corn have always sat at the heart of the problem. Once I uncover the offending food and removed it from my life, my glucose levels have always returned to normal.

When I started reacting to something again this past summer, I was at a loss as to what was causing it. I wasn’t eating gluten, dairy, or GMO corn. I’d been off gluten for over three years. I’d been without dairy for more than two, and GMO corn for a year. But my numbers weren’t improving. So what was left? Soy? I removed my organic gluten-free tamari, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. My blood glucose levels continued to be wonky, and my weight continued to climb as my blood glucose level tipped over the line into diabetic territory.

Needless to say, I was extremely confused -- and worried!

Sometimes, Vertigo is a Blessing

I have a lot of health problems that interfere with my quality of life. One of those problems is bi-lateral vestibular dysfunction, otherwise known as vertigo. Vertigo isn’t a simple dizziness or light-headedness. It’s a spinning motion that occurs inside your head. Sometimes, it manifests as the world tipping sideways, and sometimes, your legs just go out from underneath you. When that happens, you hit the floor before you realize what’s happening because no matter how hard you try, nothing you attempt to hold onto will keep you from going down. Nothing.

Before anyone asks, no I do not have broken-off crystals in my ears messing me up. That’s already been checked out. I had a massive smoke inhalation from a series of Southern California forest fires more than 10 years ago. The Neurologist I went to back then believed I have Meniere’s Disease, but my Primary Care Physician wasn’t willing to accept that diagnosis. I’m pretty much on my own because even the ENT I was seeing told me to stop being lazy, go back to work – I was a floor supervisor and personal one-on-one educator for low-functioning developmentally disabled adults in a workshop setting – and just learn to live with it.

It’s not fun, by any stretch of the imagination, but such is life for me. If I visit a chiropractor regularly and stay away from the foods I’m sensitive too, the only disruptor in my life is the weather. I always know when bad weather is coming. My inner ears are far more accurate than any weather man. The blessing is that the swelling inside my ears and my vertigo always alerts me to things I need to stay away from, but sometimes that message gets confused. Like any typical elimination diet, the number of variables can easily interfere with figuring out what’s going on.

Allergic to Doing Dishes

One of the constants that I’d been noticing lately was that my ears always swelled and the vertigo seemed to suddenly appear shortly before my husband got home from work. That didn’t make any sense; it was just what I was noticing. I also was able to clearly see that it grew worse after dinner, especially when I was cleaning the dishes to get them ready for the dishwasher. I kept thinking it was something I was eating or something to do with our city’s water because nothing else made any sense.

What I’d forgotten was that my dish soap wasn’t 100-percent fragrance free. Our local health food store had been out of the Dishmate Free & Clear that I typically use, so I’d had to settle for a bottle of Dawn from Walmart – somewhere around the beginning of the summer. I’d bought the least offensive, “pure” type of dishwashing liquid the store had, but it still did have a light scent. What I didn’t know then was that some types of Dawn have an Endocrine Disruptor in them.

What is an Endocrine Disruptor?

An Endocrine Disruptor is a chemical that interferes with your hormones. They can cause attention issues, cognitive problems, learning disabilities, make men more feminine or give women more masculine characteristics. Basically, any body system that’s controlled by hormones can be upset. That’s because these chemicals interfere with secretion, synthesis, transport, binding, action, or elimination of hormones associated with that system in the body. So when you come in contact with an Endocrine Disruptor, insulin doesn’t work properly.

The pancreas is an endocrine organ. It secretes the hormone insulin to take care of the glucose in your blood after you eat. Chemicals that interfere with this process are called Endocrine Disruptors. There are many types of Endocrine Disruptors: the PCBs in plastics, bisphenol A (found in the inner lining of most food cans), dioxin, pesticides, phthalates (found in many shampoos and other soap products), and arsenic (currently found in rice). These disruptors can affect your adrenal glands and thyroid, as well as your pancreas.

That means your immune system, reproductive system, cardiovascular system, central nervous system, digestive system, metabolism, and adipose tissue (body fat cells) are all targets for disruption!

Endocrine Disruptors and Insulin Resistance

As low-carb dieters, we seem to spend a lot of time focusing on the amount of carbohydrates in our diets, but some Endocrine Disruptors can actually increase insulin resistance regardless of how many carbs you’re eating. Bisphenol A, dioxin, PCBs, some pesticides, and the phthalates found in Dawn, shampoo, and other soaps increase insulin resistance.

They also play a role in Type 1 and Type 1.5 Diabetes – the type of diabetes that runs in my family.

This is particularly important because Type 1 Diabetes is an autoimmune disease, the same as celiac disease, and phthalates have been found to induce autoimmune problems in certain strains of mice. This all seems to run akin to what I’ve learned about myself this past summer. Within only a couple of days of dumping the Dawn dishwashing detergent last month and returning to my trusty Dishmate, my blood glucose levels totally corrected themselves.

The lesson for me always seems to circle back around to balance. While too many carbs can cause insulin problems for many people, carbohydrates should never be our only focus. Endocrine Disruptors literally saturate our environment. We need to become more aware of their presence in our lives and take a more holistic approach to our low-carb lifestyle – instead of just focusing on our diet.

How to Survive Halloween on a Low-Carb Diet

How to Survive Halloween on a Low-Carb Diet

Low Carb Diet

How to Survive Halloween on a Low-Carb Diet
(Photo by ylacarmoberg)

As Halloween approaches, a house loaded with Halloween candy for the neighborhood kiddies becomes a major problem for many low-carb dieters. My husband loves his mini candy bars and Tootsie Rolls, so I can certainly sympathize and relate. In fact, he started asking me on the very first day of October when I was going to buy the Halloween candy. Although he eats candy regularly – now that he’s given up smoking – he has a special fondness for Halloween. To him, it just isn’t Halloween without candy.

He tries to be sneaky about it. The candy is for all of those trick-or-treaters. We can’t disappoint the neighborhood kids, so maybe we should buy the candy early. That way we won’t have to settle for what’s leftover in the stores on the day before Halloween. I only played that game once. Once was more than enough to figure out I’d been duped. We live about half a dozen blocks from the local church, or less, so we don’t get many trick-or-treaters anymore. Most of the neighborhood kids now spend Halloween in the church parking lot playing Trunk-or-Treat.

What is Trunk-or-Treat?

Trunk-or-Treat
(Photo by Alfred Cunningham)

For Trunk-or-Treat, the kids dress up in their Halloween costumes, but instead of going door-to-door trick-or-treating, they simply go from car-to-car in the parking lot. Parents fill their trunks with bowls or sacks of candy and pass it out to the kids that show up. That’s nice and convenient for the parents and safer for the kids, but it cuts way down on the traffic to our front door. That means we actually don’t have to buy very much candy at all. Besides, it’s much cheaper to wait until the day after Halloween to buy my husband's candy because that’s when our local Walmart marks down whatever is left over to half-price.

Most Celebrations and Holidays Focus on Food

When you’re following a low-carb diet, the holidays can be especially difficult. Society seems to be extremely attached to food, especially sugary foods, so the holidays have always been loaded with goodies for as far back as I can remember. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day all have food at the center of attention, and this has been going on since way before obesity was tagged an epidemic. Holiday celebrations do not make you fat.

Halloween Parties Focus on Food
(Photo by Collin Harvey)

When it comes to Halloween, there seems to be a certain degree of attraction and focus on spooky, unique, or comical costumes, haunted houses, and sometimes parties, but if you took the candy out of Halloween, it just wouldn’t feel the same anymore. It would be the same if you tried to take Christmas trees out of Christmas. Certain symbols, traditions, and foods play a major role in each holiday,  and having candy on Halloween is a holiday tradition that isn’t going to die easily. Let’s be honest…it’s not.

We can say that all we have to do is start adopting a few new traditions, and sometime down the road, they just might stick – but who would we be kidding? The fact that society moved from trick-or-treating to simply doing it collectively in a parking lot is a good sign that most people aren’t about to give up their sugary treats. Parties focus on food as much as trick-or-treating does. While that doesn’t have to be the case, currently, that’s the way it is. So rather than fighting against tradition, sometimes it’s best to look into what you can do to survive them.

Problems of Low-Carb Dieting During Halloween

Most food traditions are more noticeable when you begin a weight-loss diet, especially when you’ve chosen to restrict carbohydrates. Suddenly, the dietary habits of others become magnified. What you didn’t pay attention to before, now makes you feel deprived and left out. Your emotions go crazy, your mind tries to talk you into cheating, and you begin to wonder if it’s even realistic to turn this diet into a life-long project.

Spooky Halloween Cupcakes
(Photo by Cat)

When you’re counting carbohydrates rather than calories, you can no longer snatch a mini Hershey’s bar or individual package of M&Ms when you walk by the candy bowl. You can no longer save up a few extra calories to enjoy the spooky cupcakes or a glass of sparkling Halloween punch at the costume party. You might even find it difficult to figure out what to eat at your local restaurant after a trip through the Haunted House. For those that are new to a low-carb diet or those who have stalled in their weight-loss efforts, such times can be critical.

While it’s easy to say focus on everything but the food, when you can’t eat or drink anything that everyone around you is eating or drinking, that’s extremely difficult to do.

Eat Off Plan Strategically

Eating off plan isn’t necessarily bad. It’s certainly one way to survive Halloween. I did that myself almost every year when I was doing Atkins because the Carbalose, modified cornstarches, wheat starch, and Carbquick mixes low carbers were using to make Halloween treats never agreed with me. Today, I know it was because of the celiac disease, but back then, I didn’t know that. I just knew that the wheat proteins and low-carb products made me sick. Far sicker than cheating ever did because low-carb goodies are made with a high amount of gluten and GMO-corn in the form of sugar substitutes and other corn derivatives.

Eat Off Plan Strategically
(Photo by Chris RadCliff)

The key to eating off plan is to limit how much you eat. You don’t plop yourself down on the sofa in front of the television with the entire bowl of Halloween candy. You pick one or two servings of something you would like to have, and then call it good. You don’t wait until next week to go back onto your low-carb plan or even the next morning. You go right back to your healthy eating plan with the very next thing you put into your mouth. You don’t need to have carbs at dinner, carbs for dessert, carbs for snacks, and eat candy all on the same day just because it’s Halloween.

Pick the food tradition that matters most to you, relax, enjoy that particular food item, and then let it go. Now, that won’t work for everyone. If you have a food intolerance to something that’s in what you’re eating – milk or chocolate or wheat or high-fructose corn syrup, for example – it can send you into a binge, cause your blood glucose levels to soar into dangerous territory, make you feel bloated or downright awful. Not because of the carbohydrates, but because of the food ingredients you’re sensitive to.

  

Does that mean you can’t enjoy Halloween? Of course not. What it means is that you need to find a different way to make that day special for you.

Eat Something You Can’t Normally Afford

Now if you’re sensitive to wheat, dairy, or corn, have chosen to adopt a paleo-type lifestyle, or don’t believe in relaxing your diet even for a holiday or special occasion, you can always turn to a food that holds special meaning for you. Are there certain foods you can’t afford to eat on a regular basis? Are there recipes you love but can’t afford to make as often as you would like?

Eat Something You Can't Normally Afford
(Photo by Shawn Rossi)

In my area, chicken wings are extremely high-priced, but they are one of my favorite foods. Wild Salmon is also rather high here. Lamb is out of sight, but we love it. Surprisingly, boneless, fresh chicken breast is extremely low-priced, and we can buy bacon ends and real Amish butter for less than their conventional counterparts, but that isn’t true for everyone. You need to look at your own area and lifestyle and discover what would feel like a special treat for you.

It doesn’t have to be sugary, just because Halloween is associated with sugar and corn syrup, but it can be if that’s what’s important to you. Whip up a batch of sugar-free peppermint fudge, low-carb Halloween cut-out cookies, or a batch of cream-cheese frosted brownies. You can make a cheese ball rolled in chopped pecans and spread onto crackers made from almond meal. How about a nice sweet potato casserole topped with a streusel that’s loaded with dark-brown cane sugar, coconut, and pecans.

Since chicken wings are a luxury for me, I’m planning on having sesame chicken wings. The idea isn’t to fight feeling deprived. The idea is to recognize the holiday for what it is – AN EXCEPTION – and make it feel like a holiday celebration.

Impact of Corn Prices on a Low-Carb Diet

Impact of Corn Prices on a Low-Carb Diet

Low Carb Diet

As GMO corn-containing feed prices continue to rise, ranchers are turning to new and innovative ways to fatten up their cattle. The mad search for alternatives isn’t all that surprising, because the rumors surrounding the potential cost to raise beef these days could result in meat tripling or more in price. That would be bad news for those of us who are on a low-carb diet.

Rising Corn Prices
Affect Low-Carb Diets
(Photo by Don O'Brien)

However, the alternatives that have been publicized lately, such as candy bars, hot cocoa mix, marshmallows and other goodies, isn’t really new. Many ranchers have been doing that for decades, which is one reason why some low carbers have switched to eating grass-fed beef and organic dairy instead. With the drought last winter and the rising demand for ethanol, even dairy farmers are starting to participate in the practice.

If you look closely at the following examples of what they’re feeding the cows:

• breakfast cereal
• trail mix
• dried cranberries
• orange peels
• crumbled cookies
• saltines
• tapioca flour
• fish meal
• peanut butter
• ice cream sprinkles
• alternative grains

You can obviously see that these alternative foods mixed in with their normal feed contain a lot of carbs, but they also contain a lot of sugar, starches, wheat, or high-fructose corn syrup. When it comes to HFCS, they aren’t really avoiding the GMO corn issue, they’re just scrounging for a cheaper way of getting it into the cattle.

Impact of Corn Prices

Low-Carb Diets Saturated With Corn
(Photo by Liz West)

Of greater concern for low-carb dieters is the impact these rising corn prices are going to have on all of our low-carb food choices regardless of what the farmers and ranchers are doing. Most people following a low-carb diet believe they are eating gluten free or grain free, but in reality, they’re not. Why? Because GMO corn is as prevalent among low-carb foods as it is among highly processed, high-carb, refined products.

Corn isn’t just found in cornstarch, cornmeal, and corn on the cob. It’s extremely difficult to avoid unless you raise your own food and cattle. For example, it’s used to wash your eggs and produce, keep your supermarket meats fresh, found in most plastic wrappings and containers, and it’s what sugar-substitutes are made from. That means supermarket prices as a whole are bound to skyrocket, which will make it even more difficult to stick to a low-carb diet in the future.

I had an interesting revelation recently about Dawn dishwashing detergent. I noticed that every time I go into the kitchen and start doing the dishes, my ears begin to swell and I get dizzy. For a long time, I’ve been blaming that reaction on cheese and other foods, but I’ve finally narrowed it down to the Dawn. In fact, I’ve even discovered that it contains an endocrine disruptor, so getting rid of the Dawn has straightened out my blood glucose problems that have been giving me trouble lately as well.

I Get to Eat Cheese Again!
(Photo by Richard North)

For me, that also means I can re-introduce dairy products into my diet. Dairy, but not GMO corn. I still react to genetically modified corn and its derivatives. I’ve been adding dairy products extremely slowly, so that I can monitor my reactions. I’ve also been careful to introduce only a single variable at a time. I’ve been using no store-brand products, and only products that do not have natural flavorings, citric acid, or other obvious corn ingredients on the label.

I about choked when I stopped by my local supermarket this morning and found that traditional cheddar cheese has risen to almost $6 a pound! No wonder my local Walmart didn’t have any, at any price, last week. $12 is what it used to cost to buy a giant-sized five-pound block, but now it only gets you a measly two pounds. When you can buy a family-sized package of tender, center-cut pork chops for the same amount of money, it really starts to put a damper on variability – especially, if you’re like me and are only trying to feed two people.

Broccoli with Cheese Sauce
(Photo by Bordecia34)

Granted, two pounds of cheese will go quite a ways. It feeds both my husband and I for snacks, and makes cheese sauce for vegetables, but it’s disheartening when I sit back and realize that no matter how hard I try, I simply cannot get our food bill below $125 a week for two adults. And that’s with me eating about 100 carbs per day, and my husband eating all of the carbs he wants. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to eat a traditional low-carb diet when prices are so darn high right now.

I’m sure there must be low-carb tricks I’m missing, and I’m sure that some of that has to do with where we live. Some of it definitely has to do with what my husband eats for snacks and takes to work for his lunch, but still… Low carb, nor not, prices are climbing and I can’t claim that eating is cheaper that health care costs anymore – not when it’s $200 for a simple office visit in my area.

Although we do have insurance now, Cigna isn’t quick to pay, and they’re spending a lot of time trying to find loopholes. Their latest letter regarding an office visit my husband made six months ago to our family physician wanted to know when my husband went to the doctor for this condition last. Say, what? I guess they’re hoping it’s a pre-existing condition. It’s not, which is why this whole mess is so aggravating! They wait six months to ask us that?

At the moment, I don’t have any answers because I recently looked into the Nutritional Ketosis movement, did an Atkins’ Induction that way, and I gained another five pounds as a result!

I know I really need to stop doing that. I need to just let go of a traditional low-carb diet and go back to what works for me, but I was so hopeful that maybe…just maybe…someone had finally stumbled on my problem: too much protein. And that the Dawn dishwashing detergent I’d been using was the real cuprit behind my dieting failures. But I’ve discovered that isn’t it. My body fights back extremely hard when I try to lower my carbs. When I lower my protein, it fights back even harder.

I’m beginning to think that when you come to the low-carb table weighing as much as I did in 2007, that your body will only allow you to lose so much of your fat stores before it wages war against you. I’ve seen this happen in others, and I’ve seen this happen in myself. Going from a size 24 to a size 14 is great. I’m happy and proud of my success, but I still look FAT. I still look pregnant! I guess, I just need to find a way to live with that.