Thyroid Disease is Finally Confirmed

Thyroid Disease is Finally Confirmed

Low Carb Styles

It has taken me a long time to reach this point. I don't really know how I feel about it all . . . just yet.

The additional tests that the first nurse practitioner ran came back quite abnormal. But I didn't hear from her until I chased her down a couple of weeks later. She was very confused and was trying to figure it out on her own.

In the meantime, everything in my body was racing. My metabolism was high, but the body was in starvation mode, so I don't understand her personal need to figure it all out. Since Cigna's insurance chart said our local Endocrinology clinic was not set up to take Cigna patients until January, I just wanted her to run the blood work for me, so I could decide if it was worth it to pay for the doctor visit myself, or if I should wait until our new insurance became effective in January. Hubby's company is dumping Cigna for a local health insurance company instead.

When I didn't hear back, I called the clinic and asked for a copy of my results, so I could set up an appointment with a Specialist myself. Surprisingly, the nurse practitioner finally called me back that very day and talked to me for about an hour.

First Test Results

My Hashimoto's Disease antibodies were only 1.3, which meant I didn't have Hashimoto's Disease. I thought it odd that it was the only antibody test she ran, especially since my labs were pointing to hyperthyroidism, but that's just the way it goes sometimes. Most doctors don't really know very much about thyroid disease, which is why I wanted to go to a Specialist instead of a nurse practitioner.

My Free T3 was high. It was above lab range. I think it was something like 5.6 with the top of the range being 4.2 or so. Coupled with the TSH at less than .10, that meant some type of hyperthyroidism. But the nurse wasn't focused on me being hyper. The only questions she asked me before the tests were about hypothyroid symptoms.

Since I've struggled with being cold, extremely exhausted, insomnia, dry skin, and tons of hair loss for years now that's what I knew signaled thyroid issues. Plus, hypothyroid is not unheard of with a low-carb diet because it can interfere with T4 to T3 conversion in some people. The truth was, I didn't know what hyperthyroid symptoms even were.

Pituitary hormones did show some irregularities, but those could be attributed to menopause. What disturbed her the most was my hypothyroid symptoms coupled with the hyperthyroid labs. If she'd only told me what hyperthyroid symptoms were, I could have saved both of us a lot of time.

The only symptoms I recognized was a problem with having an adrenaline rush in the mornings and afternoons, and sometimes at night, but I'd been doing that for a very long time. I had always thought it was just my wonky blood sugar. But apparently, it wasn't.

My Visit to an Endocrinologist

I was feeling so badly, that I was willing to pay for the visit to a Specialist myself, but upon calling up the Endocrinology clinic in our area, they informed me that they take both Cigna and the new insurance we are moving to in January. That was extremely helpful, because I really needed to see someone soon.

My visit to an Endocrinologist appeared to go quite smoothly. I had no clue that she was not a doctor. She appeared to be well informed about hyperthyroidism and Grave's Disease. I handed her a list of all of my symptoms (I'd looked up hyperthyroidism online) and a history of my endocrine problems over the years, which she actually took the time to read.

She asked me additional questions, and she physically checked my thyroid to see if it was enlarged. She said she could feel something, so she wanted to do a thyroid scan (sonogram), as well as have my blood work done over again. I wasn't surprised at the additional blood work, since my previous tests were broken up: TSH and Free T4 on one day, and Free T3 two weeks later. Plus, I hadn't been tested for Grave's Disease yet.

The nurse practitioner showed me a plaque with a model of a normal thyroid, what a thyroid with Grave's Disease looked like, and a list of symptoms. I had every single symptom on the list except for infertility, which wasn't applicable any more. She was so sure that's what I had, that she ignored all of the symptoms that didn't fit into that scenario.

Oddly enough, although I'd been recommended to the clinic due to a suppressed TSH and high Free T3, this nurse wanted to look at my Total T3, as well as my TSH and Free T4. That was quite odd, because Total thyroid hormone and Free thyroid hormone tests do not measure the same thing.

My Free T4 and Total T3 came back normal. That wasn't surprising to me. My Free T4 was already normal during my previous test. According to the Cleveland Clinic thyroid booklet I downloaded after-the-fact, a normal Total T3 is very common with hyperthyroidism because those with hyperthyroidism are malnourished.

If you don't have enough protein in the blood, because your body is digesting your muscles, your Total T3 test won't be accurate because there won't be enough protein to bind to. That can make your total thyroid hormones look normal, even though the Free T3 is high.

What was a surprise was that the Grave's Disease antibodies came back normal as well.

Thyroid Scan Results

After speaking to the nurse practitioner's nurse about my results, I was very frustrated. According to my blood tests, the initial diagnosis was only thyroiditis, which is inflammation of the thyroid gland. That is generally caused by a virus or after pregnancy, neither of which was applicable to me. According to the nurse practitioner, my problem was going to clear up on its own.

HUH?

I've been sick for years!

Whatever was going on with me, it was not going to clear up on its own!

But the nurse practitioner was willing to put me on a maintenance dose of anti-thyroid medication if I wanted it. Of course I wanted it. I was totally flabbergasted. Hyperthyroidism seriously raises your chances of having a heart attack! And currently, I cannot hold still. I'm shaking like crazy!

I asked about my scheduled thyroid scan, if they still wanted me to have it, but the nurse practitioner's nurse didn't know anything about it. After thinking it over for a few minutes, I decided to keep the appointment. Especially since the nurse practitioner had not run the correct test. A scan would show if there was any physical abnormalities with the thyroid.

Which it did!

What the nurse practitioner said I have is Toxic Multi-Nodular Goiter.

My thyroid gland is enlarged, hence the term "goiter." I have a 12 cm nodule on the right hand side of my thyroid, a 9 mm nodule on the left, and a multitude of small nodules scattered throughout the organ. Anything larger than 2.5 cm will cause hyperthyroidism. So it's no wonder that I have all of the symptoms of Grave's Disease.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

The nurse practitioner showed my results to the doctor she works under, who recommended I have an iodine uptake test to check out my thyroid function. That will reveal if one or both of the two large nodules are working independently of the thyroid gland. It will also show how much damage my thyroid has sustained from all of those nodules.

The test is scheduled for January 8th. I have to stop the anti-thyroid meds by Christmas Eve in order for the iodine test to be accurate. Unlike the meds I'm currently taking, the iodine test "can" do some damage to the thyroid, but at this point, there is no getting around that. Because once that test is done, they are probably going to do a biopsy for cancer.

Will a Low-Carb Diet Work for Me?

Will a Low-Carb Diet Work for Me?

Questions??

A low-carb diet is one of the heathiest ways to eat, but unfortunately, it takes more than diet and exercise to reach your weight-loss goals. For most people, successful weight loss also requires you to make a mental adjustment. For that reason, many people wonder, "Will a low-carb diet work for me?" The answer to that depends on your motivation, personality type, and determination to succeed.

What's at the Heart of a Low-Carb Diet?

Before I introduce you to the three personality types that are most likely to achieve success on a low-carb diet, let's briefly discuss what sits at the heart of carbohydrate restriction. Better health through correcting insulin and blood glucose imbalances, improving cholesterol markers, an adequate protein intake, lower hunger levels, and gaining better control over your cravings all make a carb-reduced diet extremely attractive to dieters. But don't forget that the basis for low carbing originally came from "observation" of patients, not strict science.

Today, research has shown that low carb isn't better at helping you shed the pounds than a low calorie diet is, but that doesn't mean that low carb doesn't work or that it won't be better for YOU. It all depends on how willing you are to stick to the program, how your body responds to carbohydrate restriction, and if you can make the mental shift required.

Low-Carb Diet Reality -- Few Succeed

If you sit back and watch all of the participants at the various low-carb forums, you'll eventually come to realize that very few dieters every accomplish their weight loss goals. Despite the low-carb benefits, most people just don't achieve success. There are hundreds of people that spend a lot of their free time socializing, supporting each other, and seeking help for their dieting issues on these boards, but hardly anyone announcing that they have reached their weight loss goal.

However, a few do go all of the way to goal, so those are the ones I zeroed in on to see just what made them different from the rest. Why did they achieve success on a low-carb diet, while so many others did not?

The 3 Personalities that a Low-Carb Diet Works For

Of those who succeed on a low-carb diet, there seems to be three types of people:

1. Those who achieve their goals with a little bit of a struggle. These people stick around the forums in order to help others, and give advice when needed. Some of these people are what are known as "Turtles." The weight comes off very slowly. Or they cheat now and then, and have to climb back into the wagon. Others believe so strongly in the low-carb theory that they don't care if they are losing weight or not. They just keep going. Those who find a low-carb diet has stopped working for them, but they decide to keep eating low carb for their health, fall into this group.
2. Those who achieved their goals by taking a few left-turns along the way, maybe with a tweak of two of their own that failed. Once they come to their senses, they end up revamping their program, but they do it more realistically this time. Part of their newly designed plan conforms exactly with some of the author's views of how they should achieve success. And part of it doesn't. These plans are usually created to fit the person's lifestyle, tastes, health problems, and also include foods the dieter feels they cannot give up. They simply find a way to make those foods work for them.
3. Those who easily achieve their goals, then disappear from the boards to live their lives never to be heard from again. We don't know how true they were to the diet, if they tweaked it to fit their own personality and health problems, or not. We simply never hear from them unless they gain back a part or all of their weight, or more, and want to start all over. There are actually a large number of people who fall into this "Welcome Back" group. For those who do decide to stick around and help others "see the light," they don't help in the same way that group 2 does. Since the weight simply fell off for them, it's more of a knock you over the head kind of thing. Do it by the book, they scream. Follow the author's advice exactly, or you are not doing "South Beach," "Atkins," or "Protein Power."

While it's fantastic that this third group has reached their goal, unfortunately, they don't have a lot of power to help others since weight loss came easy for them. Generally, this is the very first time they have ever tried to diet, so their body hasn't caught on to what they are doing yet.

Will A Low Carb Diet Work for Me or Not?

A lot depends on whether you love the foods allowed on your plan, how much weight you have to lose, and if you're okay with giving up bread, rice, potatoes, and sugary desserts. It also depends on how many diets you've gone on before. If you're coming to the table as a yo-yo dieter, your body will have always decided that a diet is a famine and will fight you every step of the way.

It doesn't matter how accurate the low-carb science is, the body is designed to sustain life and that is exactly what it will do.

If the body determines that your diet is an emergency situation, it will lower your insulin level, but also secrete Cortisol and other stress hormones. That will cause the body to go into gluconeogenesis overdrive every time you lower your calories and/or carbohydrate level. If that's where you're at, that's where Group 2 comes into play. You simply tweak your diet to fit your own personal situation.

But you won't know if you'll have to do that until after you give a traditional low-carb diet a fair chance to work for you. Low-carb diets are extremely healthy because they focus on adequate amounts of protein, lots of healthy vegetables, nuts, low-sugar fruits, healthy fats, and a small amount of low-carb condiments and flavorings. And when Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution is followed correctly, it also teaches you just how many carbohydrates are the perfect amount for you.

Where most people get into problems is either keeping their carbohydrate levels too low for an extended length of time, or they will go on-and-off of a low-carb diet, expecting it to work exactly the same every time they do that. It won't. The body will remember, and it will start a full-body war against you.

A low-carb diet will work for you, but you have to give your body a little bit of respect and sometimes coax it into complying by making it feel secure and safe. That's a much longer ballgame, but the alternative is to never reach your weight loss goals.

Can a Zero-Carb Diet Raise Your Blood Sugar? (Part 2)

Can a Zero-Carb Diet Raise Your Blood Sugar? (Part 2)

Questions?? Sugar..!!

(This is Part 2 of a two-part series. If you didn't read Part 1, you can find it here. This post was originally published at my Sharing the Magic of Low-Carb Living blog. I'm moving it here because the information is important and I have other plans for that blog now.)

Once I realized that the zero-carb folks didn't understand biology, I stopped posting to that particular forum. I didn't know if I was hurting myself by being there. However, I was enjoying the thread on Frankenfoods, and I couldn't read and participate in that thread unless I was a member of the forum.

So I just kept silently reading. In addition to the forum, I read everything about biochemistry that I could find on education websites. I read everything on the Bloodsugar 101 website. And I read everything on the "Over 50s" thread at the zero-carb forum as well. That thread began to reveal a lot of things that I was going through. From the gain of belly fat, to the rise in blood sugars, I wasn't the only one having trouble with zero carbs.

Retesting My Blood Glucose Levels

During this time, I'd tried to get my hands on some more blood sugar strips, but our local Walmart was out of them. They had a crazy policy where they didn't order what they were out of. The distribution center just shipped them when they were available or whenever they wanted to. So I wasn't able to see what was going on for another 2 weeks.

When I finally got my hands on some testing strips, I'd been eating a few more carbs daily, which had helped but not stopped the heart palpitations and Neuropathy, because I was trying to get the heart palpitations under control. Plus, the Neuropathy had spread from my feet up my legs. That meant I was doing serious damage to myself by staying on a Zero-Carb Diet.

My early morning fasting Blood Sugar: a whopping 120!

I ate meat and eggs for breakfast, and meat for lunch

Just before eating dinner that day, my blood sugar was: 103

One hour after a 12-ounce steak, my blood sugar was: 155

Since damage begins when your blood sugar is over 140 at one hour or 120 at two hours after a meal, I called a PERMANENT halt to the very low-carb challenge and zero-carb way of eating. Regardless of the forum's claim that you need to stay the course for months, and sometimes years, to give your body time to adapt to that way of eating, it wasn't worth losing one or both of my legs over.

So I walked away from a zero-carb diet.

Returning to Atkins Induction

I returned to Atkins Induction but continued to read at the zero-carb forum because I wanted to keep up with the over 50's thread there. I'm glad that I continued reading because someone posted a link to a journal at the raw paleo forum. Apparently, someone was having pretty much the same problem I was. They were gaining fat around the belly, and had higher than normal blood sugars, though not anywhere near as drastic as mine were.

Finding Someone Else With the Same Problem

I read the entire journal because I wanted to figure out what was wrong with me. I wanted to learn how to help myself. What this person found out was that sometimes it's a problem about eating too much fat. Sometimes, it's a problem with eating too much protein. And sometimes, it's a problem with eating too much food in general.

Okay. I'd already played around with the low-fat thing, and if fat was the problem, I guessed I was just going to have to stay obese. I am not interested in starving the fat off of me. That isn't sustainable. As soon as your motivation dies, so does you weight loss.

Cutting Protein and Raising the Carbs

Unfortunately, just switching to Atkins Induction didn't correct my blood glucose issues. They continued to stay high. A typical blood glucose reading two hours after a standard low-carb meal of baked chicken legs, a cup of broccoli, and a small salad was 175. As the days went by, that number continued to grow. When it reached over 200 at one hour after a meal, I knew I had to do something -- and FAST.

So the next thing I tried was cutting down on my protein and drastically raising my carbohydrates. I cut my protein by 50% because I wanted to clearly see, real quick like, if excess protein really was converted into glucose as they say. I also upped my carbohydrates for the same reason. I wanted to get my blood glucose levels under control as quickly as I could.

On the day of the test, I ate a normal low-carb breakfast of a hot Italian sausage link and a couple of fried eggs. I ate about 24 starchy carbs for lunch, rather than protein. And then I had a mixed dinner of a 4-ounce hamburger patty and another 24 starchy carbs.

My bloodsugar before dinner was: 93

My bloodsugar one hour after dinner was: 103

My bloodsugar two hours after dinner was: 92

My bloodsugar three hours after dinner was: 91

Even though my basal glucose levels were what very low-carb people refer to as normal levels, the real problem I was having with Atkins was after-meal glucose readings. That is what this test improved.

I can't say from these figures alone that excess protein is converted into glucose, since I'd changed two variables in my diet: lower protein and much higher carbs. But I find it interesting that 48 starchy carbohydrates had a much lower glucose effect on me than protein did. That told me that protein takes far more insulin to metabolize than most low-carb dieters suspect.

I also woke up in the middle of the night, about 3 a.m., extremely hungry. I'm guessing that was because my total protein for the day was only 7 ounces, plus two eggs -- about 58 grams of protein. Fifty-eight grams is what a lot of people are eating today on a Nutritional Ketosis plan, but that's a lot lower than the 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass you need to protect and maintain that mass on a low-carb diet.

What Type 1 Diabetics Say About Protein

Around this time, I ran into an interesting post at Dr. Bernstein's diabetic forum by someone who has Type 1 Diabetes. She said she has to inject 8 units of insulin to cover a typical 12-ounce steak. Yet, she only has to inject 3 units of insulin to cover a meal of 45 carbs.

Now that caught my attention, because that's exactly what I've found in myself. Apparently, protein raises insulin HIGHER than carbs do!!!! Which is definitely something that the low-carb gurus and the low-carb physicians are NOT discussing. They are all saying that protein only barely raises your blood glucose, just enough to help usher the amino acids into your cells.

Now whether the game has different rules because I have pre-diabetes and am also post-menopause, or whether that is true for everyone, I simply don't know. What I do know is that for me, carbs are not the bad guy. They affect my blood sugars less than protein does.

Who Does Very-Low Carb Work For Then?

Apparently, you need a healthy insulin response in order to do a very low-carb or zero-carb diet successfully. That's why results are so varied. Most of the people that I've seen succeed on zero carb or very-low carb for any length of time are younger. If you have insulin resistance, not eating enough carbohydrates could get you into trouble. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but Dr. Atkins designed his diet to be progressive in carbs for a good reason. Most people ignore a low-carb diet's original structure.

In my case, dropping down to zero carbs caused the liver to initiate runaway gluconeogenesis, which didn't correct itself until I returned about 60 grams of carbohydrate to my diet on a daily basis. Now, I'm not saying that's how many carbs you have to eat to prevent the problem, but that is how many carbs it took for me to correct it.

Where I'm At Today

The above article was written several years ago, so research today might help to add some additional light to what's going on. However, in my own case, today, a simple Atkins Induction for two weeks will do exactly the same thing to me. It causes my blood glucose levels to rise into dangerous territory and results in a Neuropathy flare-up.

My hypothesis is that the body remembers what I put it through by eating zero carbs before, so it interprets a low-carb diet to be a famine situation, and therefore, an emergency.

What I've learned since I went through this experience is that a lack of carbs causes your body to secrete cortisol, a stress hormone that encourages the liver to dump it's glycogen stores into the bloodstream whenever the mind perceives an emergency situation. Cortisol is a part of our "fight or flight" response. It's secreted whenever the body is under internal or environmental stress.

It's job is to provide the energy one needs to fight an immediate physical danger or run away, so it temporarily lowers insulin levels in order to do that. When glycogen stores are low, cortisol's presence commands the liver to use gluconeogenesis to fuel the emergency. This is a normal response, but if that state of emergency continues, cortisol levels will stay elevated and gluconeogenesis will never shut off.

Without enough insulin to process all of that excess glucose you can find yourself in a very dangerous situation. It doesn't matter that the emergency isn't real. The liver will react as if your life is in danger and keep producing glucose. The liver doesn't read your blood sugar level. It uses signals, such as elevated cortisol to determine the amount of energy you need.

Personally, I think the way that Dr. Atkins originally set up his diet is the best way to go, but for some people, that type of diet won't work. A good alternative would be to implement a low-carb diet backwards. Or you could simply move to a well-balanced diet of 120 grams of carbs per day, cut down on the amount of food you are eating, and see how you do. The important thing to remember is that the higher in carbs you go, the lower in fat your diet needs to be.

Can a Zero-Carb Diet Raise Your Blood Sugar?

Can a Zero-Carb Diet Raise Your Blood Sugar?

Questions??

(This is Part 1 of a two-part series. It was originally posted at my Sharing the Magic of Low-Carb Living blog. I'm moving it here because the information is important, and I have other plans for that blog now.)

Over the course of my low-carb journey, I have tried several different types of low-carb diets. Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution, Atkins 72, the Kimkins Diet, Protein Power, and a round of hHCG are just a few. Each time I made a change or tweak, I would carefully evaluate my progress to see if what I was doing was working, or if I needed to toss it aside.

In the Spring of 2009, I started participating in a 100-Day Very Low-Carb Challenge. The reason I entered into that challenge was because a traditional low-carb diet had stopped working for me. Since the whole idea of a low-carb diet is to find your own personal carbohydrate sensitivity, I thought the basis for the challenge made perfect sense.

If you aren't losing weight, then you're eating too many carbohydrates. Period!

So dropping my carbs down to zero, or almost zero, made a lot of sense to me. However, no one had ever mentioned that the lower in carbs you go, the higher your cortisol and adrenaline release will be. Why? Because a low-carb diet creates internal stress for a lot of people. The body perceives a diet (ANY type of diet) to be a famine, so the fewer carbohydrates you eat, the greater the famine response is going to be.

Does Zero Carb Lower Blood Sugar and Insulin Levels?

I don't remember how many days I lasted, but I had to call a halt to that 100-Day Very Low-Carb Challenge because I started having serious blood sugar issues. It's absolutely mind-blowing to me that the very basic principles of a low-carb diet do not fit my own experience. But how can that be?

Now maybe it's because we are all individuals and react differently to various foods and macronutrients, but when the very foundation that you've been standing on for months and even decades is ripped out from beneath your feet, it's hard to toss away the disappointment. I have to tell you, I really felt more than a little bit let down. I felt absolutely devastated.

When you lower your carbs, Dr. Atkins and Dr. Eades have said that you automatically lower your blood sugar and thereby lower your insulin levels. Right?

BUT THAT'S WRONG.

Or, at least, that doesn't always hold true if you lower your carbs down to biologically zero. For those of us that are sitting on the fence of pre-diabetes, that's very important information to have and know before you embark into zero-carb territory.

Now, was that stuff withheld deliberately? No. I don't think so. I think that ignorance about the reality of a very low-carb diet sits on both sides of the fence. But one would think that sincerity of heart would keep the doors of discussion open long enough to allow the facts to be revealed without having to pry it out of someone.

That's not how it works though.

Higher Blood Glucose Levels On Zero Carb

I lasted 5 weeks on zero carb. And even though my original intent wasn't to go that low, that's still what I ended up doing -- biologically zero carbs.

When I began that journey, my basal blood glucose was around 84. According to Dr. Bernstein, that's a perfectly normal blood glucose level. In addition, my blood glucose level never bounced up higher than 120, even on as many as 100 to 150 carbs per day, provided I stayed away from gluten.

I did have problems before my gluten intolerance was discovered, but I had absolutely no problems with my blood glucose since then. So I was of the mind-set that my blood glucose problems were in direct relationship to my gluten sensitivity.

The first week without carbs I felt absolutely great. My energy increased, my sinuses improved, and all of my digestion issues went away. My teeth felt cleaner, and the pain I was having in a broken tooth also went completely away.

But after that first week things started to do an about face. Slowly, I started to go down hill. I started out not feeling very well, and then suddenly I found myself having to endure a lot of tiredness. Excessive tiredness. At first, I thought that was because my body had run out of glucose and was trying to convert itself to predominantly burning fatty acids. Everything that we are told by Dr. Atkins and Dr. Eades will happen as our glycogen stores begin to run low.

At that time, I took my blood sugar, because I had one strip left. Although it had been hours since I'd last eaten, I was worried because I felt so terrible. The reading was 98.

That shocked me, not only because it had been hours since I'd last eaten, but because I've always had basal glucose levels in the lower 80s. Even when I was having issues before, between meals, my glucose had always returned to normal levels. But now, I was staring at a number that fell in the upper 90s. My guess at that time was that my levels were never falling back to normal.

So What Do Your Insulin Levels Do on Zero Carbs?

I tried to find information about our insulin levels on one of the zero-carb forums that I was participating in at the time, but it seemed the greater majority of participants there believed that when you cut out the carbs, insulin stays at basal levels giving you a flat line blood sugar curve. Or thereabouts. They didn't believe that the body needed insulin to digest proteins or dairy products.

There was no scientific data to back up that hypothesis. They simply told me that no carbohydrate in the diet came with a different set of normals. At the time, I didn't feel like arguing. I just accepted their viewpoint. As long as my blood glucose level didn't cross over 100, it was safe enough to assume that basal insulin levels were probably normal. Second insulin response kicks in and continues to manufacture and secrete insulin at blood sugar levels that are over 100.

Serious Trouble Begins

After about a month, I started having SERIOUS issues.

Neuropathy had resurrected itself, and I started having heart palpitations. That wasn't a good sign because it meant I was way above my blood glucose threshold.

BUT HOW COULD THAT BE????

I wasn't eating any carbs for heaven's sake. I was just eating meat and eggs. Insulin should be at basal levels. Blood sugar should be low. But my body was telling me that it wasn't.

About that time, I happened to read on one of the zero-carb forums that Bear, the original zero-carb guru, had told folks that protein is not converted to glucose through gluconeogenesis except under starvation or emergency conditions, and that his blood sugar constantly ran in the 100s all of the time. His perspective was that the goal of going zero carb wasn't low blood sugar, but stable blood sugar.

At which time, I thought...SAY WHAT????

At a blood glucose level over 100, stable or not, insulin doesn't shut off! The body perceives that level of blood glucose to be a threat!

For Part 2 click here.

Giving Up Diet Soda Again

Giving Up Diet Soda Again

Sugar..!! The Brutal Way

I've had a wallop of a winter this year. It's been quite cloudy, rainy, and humid. For me, that means lots of vertigo and off balance challenges. My husband also fell at work last December and splattered one of his thumb tendons, went through surgery to correct the problem, but the doctors still cannot figure out what is wrong with his wrist.

His schedule has been a bit twisted this past winter as well. He's been doing graveyard, which was extremely difficult, but has now moved back to a daytime schedule.

While doing graveyard, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to get completely off of Melatonin. I've been cutting down on the amount I've been using ever since I watched a youtube video last year that talked about the possibility of having to use it for the rest of your life. I didn't like the sound of that, so when my hubby went onto a graveyard schedule, I thought it was the perfect time to completely quit.

Since I now have that under control, my next step is to try and give up diet sodas again. Since I react violently to all sugar substitutes, I don't really know WHY I haven't been reacting to the diet Coke or Dr. Pepper that I've been drinking, but whatever the reason, the time has come to try to completely chuck the aspartame -- once again.

There have been several times in my life when I have tried to completely give up aspartame. The first time was shortly after I was diagnosed with vestibular dysfunction. Since dizziness is often listed as a symptom of aspartame poisoning, I stopped drinking the diet Dr. Pepper in hopes of reversing what was wrong with me. After two years, the vertigo was as strong as it ever was and my health problems were no better, (I didn't know that I had celiac disease and possible gluten ataxia back then), so I simply went back to them.

The next time I tried to quit was when I was following a zero-carb diet. At that time, I was a cook in a boys home, and giving up the sodas made the vertigo worse. So bad, in fact, that I had to choose between the diet sodas and my job. I decided to go back to drinking the sodas. I needed my job.

I also did a short 6-week abstinence when I was doing a round of hHCG. By that time, I was writing online rather than working outside of the home, but giving up the soda was pure hell. I was really addicted to the bubbly stuff, I realized that then, so I went right back to them once that diet was over. I didn't see a need to give them up. Plus, I didn't want to gain back the weight I'd lost.

However, I gained it back anyway, (the amount I'd lost doing hHCG), despite the diet sodas and sugar substitutes. A standard low-carb diet simply packed back on the pounds for me. At that time, I realized that reaching my 125 pound goal wasn't realistic. 160 pounds is far easier to maintain.

Since then, I've tried to cut down on diet soda more slowly. But that didn't work well either. I would get down to about a liter of diet soda per day, and then the vertigo would come whirling back. Since then, I've gone off all sugar substitutes. I did that when I was reacting to corn. I switched from diet Dr. Pepper to Dr. Coke because it tasted like it contained less corn than the other. 

Even though I'm able to tolerate a little bit of corn again, I know that diet sodas aren't good for me.

My thought is that maybe going the slower route wasn't working well because I was still poisoning my body with Splenda and Erythritol. Since I've cut those things completely out of my life now, I think it's time to try and give up the diet sodas again.

Is Someone Criticizing Your Low-Carb Diet?

Is Someone Criticizing Your Low-Carb Diet?

Questions??

Although summer temps here have been a bit higher than normal, we've been having a lot of monsoons lately, which has been playing havoc with my vertigo. In addition, my computer died last week, and we had to go out and buy a new one. Now that I've got a computer back up and running again, I found another email from Infobarrel asking me to remove the links to my articles from this blog.

Since I've been getting the emails every week for awhile now, I wasn't all that surprised, but it's getting discouraging. At first, we were told that no links were allowed. Then we were told that no-follow links were okay. But I'm still receiving emails asking me to remove them. 

So....

I'm going to remove all of them, so that the emails will stop (I don't want to jeopardize my ability to write there), and then carefully go back through all of my posts and add a "Related Articles" section at the bottom of the post that lists the URL of an Infobarrel article when it's appropriate.

I've already fixed the "Infobarrel Articles" section, which you can access through the buttons at the top of this page, or from the sidebar, because that page was specifically on Infobarrel's list of links to remove immediately. The URLs are there, but you'll have to copy and past them into your browser. That's the way I'll be handling the Related Articles section at the bottom of occasional posts as well.

I'm really sorry for the inconvenience, but the only other alternative I have at this point is to not have any references to my low-carb articles outside of this blog at all.

What to Do When Someone Criticizes Your Low-Carb Diet

My latest article at IB is about what to say and do when friends, family, or acquaintances begin to criticize your low-carb diet. I first had experience with this type of problem when a friend of mine came over and saw the book for Dr. Atkins' 2002 version of his diet sitting near my computer. At that point, I started to receive a lecture about the danger of ketones and ketosis.

To read what I did, and additional methods of handling the problem, you can read the article at:

http://www.infobarrel.com/What_to_Say_When_Someone_Criticizes_Your_Low-Carb_Diet

Plan the Perfect Fourth-of-July Celebration

Plan the Perfect Fourth-of-July Celebration

Special Event Diet

How to Plan the Perfect Low-Carb Fourth-of-July Celebration
(Photo by Jeffrey Kontur)

If you’re following a low-carb diet, you can still have a fantastic Fourth-of-July celebration without having to worry about popping yourself out of Ketosis. You don’t have to sit on the sidelines or deprive yourself of holiday goodies either. With picnics and barbecue parties the most popular ways of celebrating America’s freedom and independence, it’s easy to surround yourself in colors of red, white, and blue – yet still maintain control over those carbs!

All it takes is a little bit of thought and preparation.

With that in mind, you don’t want to wait until next Tuesday morning to start figuring out how to stay on plan. If you do, you’ll end up with a plain bun-free burger or hotdog, a boring lettuce salad, a handful of pork rinds, and maybe a few strawberries for color. Eating that way when everyone else around you is chowing down on potato salad, baked beans, corn-on-the-cob, and colorful cupcakes can quickly escalate into tossing your low-carb diet aside.

Although one free day won’t damage your new way of eating for very long, a better alternative is to take a few moments and give the food you plan to serve or eat that day a little more thought. Whether you’re the party chef, hostess, or welcomed guest, here’s how to plan the perfect Fourth-of-July Celebration.

Decorate with Patriotic Colors – Set Up Red, White, and Blue Tables

Decorate for Fourth-of-July Using Red, White, and Blue
(Photo by Rubbermaid Products)

In the U.S., most of our holidays use food as the central point of the festivities, but you can change all of that by beefing up the decorations. The idea is to create a celebratory atmosphere and mood for your picnic or barbecue that doesn’t rely on food to give your family and friends a good time. Decorations, centerpieces, and plate settings that play to the traditional Independence Day colors of red, white, and blue can make the day truly unique and memorable.

Take advantage of colorful plastic cups, plates, silverware, and napkins. Don’t just opt for a boring white, although a white vinyl tablecloth can look quite striking as a background to a stack of blue or red plates and cups. Spend a little bit of time browsing the offerings of your local thrift store or dollar store for red and blue flowers, greenery, and knickknacks with a patriotic theme. Make the time you spend on decorating fun.

And while you’re at it, don’t forget about using a few red, white, and blue balloons, flags, pinwheels, pompoms, and maybe some crepe paper streamers or small bunches of curling ribbon streamers to liven things up. When the holiday is over and done with, it will be the fun you had that you remember, not necessarily what you ate.

That doesn’t mean that food isn’t important. It obviously is. But when you spend an appropriate amount of time covering your tables with red-and-white-checkered tablecloths, rolling single-serving sets of silverware inside blue napkins, or arranging the food on the table to keep the Patriotic colors well-balanced, you give your subconscious mind something fun to do, rather than eat.

Low-Carb Barbecue Main Dishes for the Fourth-of-July

The nice thing about picnics and barbecues is that the main part of your meal is practically taken care of for you. No one expects the main dish to be ultra-fancy. The Fourth-of-July traditional features are simple:

• hot dogs
• hamburgers
• pork or beef ribs
• chicken
• steak
• shish kabobs
• salmon

The most difficult part of the festivities is the barbecue sauce or the marinades that the meat might have been soaked in. Standard barbecue sauces are loaded with sugar, and therefore very high in carbohydrates for the amount of sauce you get. Many marinades also contain a load of sugar. If you’re going to a holiday barbecue, one option is to call ahead and ask what the host or hostess plans to do regarding marinades and sauces. If that isn’t an option, simply bring your own meat and sauce to throw on a corner of the grill.

Easy Low-Carb Barbecue Sauce

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar-free catsup (Hunt’s low-sugar catsup is made with Splenda)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spices
1/4 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke
1 tablespoon spicy mustard
1 teaspoon molasses
1/3 cup sugar substitute
1/4 cup sugar-free maple syrup
2 tablespoons Brandy (optional)

Method:

Place all of the ingredients in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat, and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. If you don’t have all of those spices, the pumpkin pie spice and a little extra cinnamon are the two that give this sauce it’s unique flavor.

Low-Carb Main Dish Picnic Ideas

Picnics aren’t that difficult either because cold roasted chicken or grilled chicken breast that has been grilled ahead of time, and then paired with a nice, low-carb dipping sauce, make nice celebratory main dishes. If you aren’t sensitive to wheat, you can also use a low-carb flour and make some fried chicken. Chicken strips or nuggets breaded with crushed pork rinds and parmesan cheese and dipped in a sauce of mayo and mustard or the above barbecue sauce also makes a tasty dish for a picnic. Even room temperature leftover barbecued ribs or pork chops are good.

Take advantage of lettuce wraps, lunch meat filled with cream cheese or dill pickles and then rolled, or even cold meat balls tossed in barbecue sauce. Anything that tastes good cold will make a good main dish for a low-carb picnic. We live near a Sprouts market. They sell assorted turkey parts. We love to braise the legs or thighs in water to cover with lots of garlic powder and some salt. These are fantastic served cold or at room temperature.

Side Dishes for Your Fourth-of-July Celebration

It’s the side dishes where you can really get creative. Once again, think about foods and ingredients that play to your red, white, and blue theme.

Spark Up Your Lettuce Salad: Don’t just serve a simple lettuce salad with chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, and green onions. Take advantage of summer blueberries, sliced strawberries, hard-cooked eggs, and crumbled feta or blue cheese to really bring out your holiday theme. And don't forget to whip one one of your favorite low-carb salad dressings.

Meat and Cheese Appetizers: Make appetizers using cubes of pepper-jack cheese, ham cubes, and black olives. Spear them together with toothpicks that hold a U.S. flag.

Cauliflower Salad: You can also whip up a cauliflower salad. It’s made just like potato salad with onions, pickles, olives, and mayonnaise, but with the addition of blueberries and chunks of red bell peppers for a nice Patriotic presentation. For an added twist, throw in a few bacon crumbles, some minced jalapeno, and a handful of tiny baby cooked shrimp.

Deviled Eggs: For those who are still on Atkins Induction, use minced red sweet peppers in the filling, along with the traditional lemon juice and mayo, but add a little bit of blue food coloring to really perk them up.

Everything doesn’t have to be red, white, and blue of course, especially if you’re still on Induction or haven’t returned berries to your diet yet. Just make sure that your sides go the extra-mile with little touches that say they are not your every day, typical faire.    

Three-Bean Salad: Combine a can of drained green beans, yellow wax beans, and black soy beans with some chopped onion and red bell peppers. Toss with your favorite Italian Dressing and chill overnight.

Cole Slaw: Purchased cole slaw from the deli is high in sugar, but you can do the same thing at home by combining a package of ready-mix cole slaw veggies with mayo, Splenda, celery seeds, minced garlic, and lemon juice. This tangerine and walnut cole slaw recipe will also make your salad extra special.

Vegetable Salad: Look over your list of acceptable vegetables and pick out several different kinds. You can use them raw, or lightly steam them. Toss with mayo, Splenda, a dab of spicy mustard, a few bacon crumbles, and some Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb seasoning. Italian Dressing or a homemade Ranch would also be nice. If you aren’t sensitive to dairy, blue cheese dressing or chunks of blue cheese would also go well with this. Many low carbers are particularly fond of raw chopped broccoli, cheese chunks, and bacon.

Jalapeno Poppers: These are good cooked on the grill, but if you’re planning a picnic, they are also great served cold! Simply slice open a large jalapeno, remove the pith and seeds, and fill with cream cheese. Close the pepper back up and wrap in bacon secured with a toothpick. Bake or grill, turning often, until bacon is crispy and peppers are cooked through.

Low-Carb Fruit Fluff

For those who can afford a few extra carbohydrates, this low-carb fruit fluff is to diet for! Originally made with pineapple, mandarin oranges, small baby marshmellows, and Cool Whip, I’ve adapted it to be much more low-carb friendly.

Ingredients:

1 cup of heavy whipping cream
sugar substitute to taste
2 to 3 cups of assorted berries: strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries
16-ounce carton of cottage cheese
sugar-free gelatin, blue or red
Extras: unsweetened coconut, chopped nuts, dried cranberries, etc.

Method:

Whip up the heavy cream until nice and thick. Add sugar substitute. The amount you need will depend on how sweet your berries are. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine berries, cottage cheese, and enough sugar-free gelatin to give it all a nice dark color. When you fold in the cream, the color will lighten up quite a bit, so you want the color to be much darker than when you finish. Add any extras you like, then fold in the whipped cream, and chill.

Low-Carb Desserts

When it comes to low-carb desserts, there’s no shortage of recipes on the web. However, many of these recipes for cakes, cookies, and pies use low-carb products that contain a lot of wheat gluten. If you’re sensitive to gluten, you’ll want to stay away from them. But if you’re not, the holidays are a perfect time to try one of these recipes out. The following are some of my favorite low-carb desserts:

Chocolate-Mayonnaise Pound Cake: This recipe for low-carb chocolate cake is wonderful, but it needs to be made a day ahead. If you eat it the same day, it will be dry, but after it sits overnight, the texture changes and it becomes moist and wonderful. It does use wheat gluten though.

Easy Apple-Blueberry Crisp: If you’re short on time, this recipe for apple crisp makes use of canned sugar-free pie filling.

Strawberry Cheesecake: With or without a nut crust, a low-carb cheesecake topped with sliced strawberries and blueberries makes a great Fourth-of-July low-carb dessert.

Easy Strawberry Pie: If you’re looking for a red, white, and blue dessert, this low-carb strawberry pie will make you look like you spent hours in the kitchen. You can serve it to your non low-carb guests, and they’ll never know the carbs are missing! Or take it along with you to a Fourth-of-July party, but be prepared to share the recipe.

Real Strawberry Popsicles: If you’re hosting your own Fourth-of-July party, whipping up a bunch of real strawberry popsicles will keep the kids happy, as well as the adults. For an added touch, toss in a few blueberries and maybe swirl in a bit of whipped cream for a marbled effect.

Strawberry-Blueberry Shortcake: If you want to get creative, you can make a fantastic strawberry-blueberry shortcake using Atkins’ original Revolution Roll recipe piled into a tube pan and baked into an Angel Food Cake. Revolution rolls themselves would make a nice shortcake base. Just split, fill with berries, and top with Splenda-sweetened whipped cream.

Low-Carb Cupcakes: Dr. Atkins' recipe can also be baked in a muffin pan using cupcake papers and then frosted for delicious low-carb cupcakes! For a marbled effect, simply divide the cupcake batter into two dishes and tint each bowlful red or blue. Carefully spoon the colored batter into your muffin cups and bake.

Easy Low-Carb Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

8 ounces softened cream cheese
1/2 cup soft butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
Splenda to taste

Cream together the cream cheese and butter until nice and fluffy. Add vanilla and Splenda to taste. This is great just as it is, but you could also flavor it with assorted extracts, fold in some unsweetened coconut and chopped nuts, or add some food coloring to match the holiday. You can also tint the coconut and sprinkle it on top, or top with strawberries or blueberries just before serving.

Keep the Holidays Fun!

Last year, we went to a country western concert for the Fourth-of-July, rather than having an eating bash. It was a nice outing, and we had loads of fun! I don’t remember what we ate. I just remember the time we spent with our closest friends. Now, when you’re in the beginning or the midst of a low-carb diet, that can sound a bit contrived, but the aim is to find appropriate ways to put some fun back into your life. Yes, low-carb food can be fun to make and fun to eat, but to truly make a low-carb diet a way of life, you need to be able to have fun without everything being about food.

For MORE party ideas, check out the following Related Post:

Low-Carb Superbowl Goodies

Top 6 Dieting Mistakes Newbies Make

Top 6 Dieting Mistakes Newbies Make

The Brutal Way

You don’t have to be new to low-carb diets in order to make one of these 6 dieting mistakes. They are just as common among those who have been dieting for a while. That’s because as time goes on, we tend to become more relaxed in the way we implement our personal carb-restriction programs, and forget what’s most important. So whether you’re new to the low-carb lifestyle or have been journeying for months, here are the top 6 dieting mistakes you’ll want to avoid.

1. Not Eating Enough Salt

Mistake #1: Not Eating Enough Salt
(Photo by Casey Konstantin)

This mistake cannot be stressed highly enough, because it’s the foundation for the low-carb myth that the Induction Flu is about detoxing from carbohydrates or sugar. It’s not. When you begin a low-carb diet, the body loses most of its glycogen stores. Since there’s 3 or 4 grams of water attached to each gram of glycogen, you’re going to lose a ton of water in the first few days. That will throw your electrolytes out of balance.

Electrolytes are your calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium levels in the body. They have to remain balanced in order for you to feel well. When you lose a lot of water, sodium and potassium are flushed out of the body. If you’re eating most of your Atkins Induction carbohydrates in the form of vegetables, potassium levels will probably be replaced, but if you’re not heavily salting your food, you’re going to get dehydrated. That will make you feel sick, nauseated, and give you other flu-like symptoms.

If that happens, simply up your salt intake, and you should begin to feel better right away.

2. Not Eating Enough Protein

Mistake #2: Not Eating Enough Protein
(Photo by Daniel R. Blume)

If you’ve been reading posts on several of the low-carb diet forums, or have been following some of the high-profile low-carb blogs, you might have heard about the latest tend called Nutritional Ketosis. The way these individuals have implemented Nutritional Ketosis is to reduce their protein intake to just above, or just below, the protein intake the body needs to repair itself. What they're doing, is limiting their protein intake, so the body doesn’t convert their excess protein to glucose to feed the brain.

Those following this type of low-carb lifestyle have been dieting for quite a few months or years now, and have stalled part way to their goal weight. They are using this reduced-protein plan to try and kick-start their weight loss. If you’ve just starting a low-carb diet, you don’t want to limit your protein. Until you adapt to the state of ketosis, your brain needs 120 grams of carbohydrates in order to function daily. Although the body can convert the protein you need into that glucose, if you don’t eat enough for your liver to do that, it will pull the amino acids from your muscles instead.

Lyle McDonald, in The Ketogenic Diet, recommends you eat a minimum of 150 grams of protein for the first three weeks, until the brain adapts to using ketone bodies for its energy needs. Once the body switches to using fatty acids and the brain begins to use ketones for fuel, your glucose requirements will go down. As that happens, protein requirements drop as well.

However, there isn’t a set amount of protein that works for everyone. Most low-carb specialists trained in nutrition recommend about 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass you have. That’s especially true if you’re following any type of exercise or weight-lifting program, so use that as a guide, and then adjust it later on, as needed.

3. Not Eating Enough Food

Mistake #3: Not Eating Enough Food
(Photo by Lesley Show)

We tend to enter into dieting, any type of dieting, with the mindset that we have to eat less and move more in order to lose weight. While that’s true, the first three to four weeks of a low-carb diet are not about losing weight. It’s about coaxing your body to switch from predominantly burning glucose for fuel to burning fatty acids and ketones instead. You don’t do that by eating less food. You do that by making your body feel secure.

One of the top complaints I hear from beginners is that they’re hungry. This will generally happen once the body begins to run out of glycogen – the storage form of carbohydrates. As your glycogen levels go down, the body will begin to demand you replenish them. It does that by kicking up your hunger quite a bit.

When that happens, eat enough zero-carb foods to satisfy your appetite. Yes, you’ll be eating a lot of calories, and a lot of food until your body makes the switch, but you can worry about portion sizes later on. Generally, this excess hunger only lasts for a day or two because most people who follow a low-carb diet find their hunger significantly goes down once they enter the state of Ketosis.

Until that happens, don’t be afraid to eat!

4. Not Understanding Which Foods Contain Too Many Carbohydrates

Mistake #4: Not Understanding Which Foods Contain Too Many Carbs
(Photo by Sophie Jonasson)

I see this problem quite a bit too. People use the misinformation they see on the web to create their own personalized low-carb diet plan, and then can’t figure out why they are not losing weight. So far, all of the people who have given me sample diet meals to analyze have been eating foods that are not typically eaten during the beginning of a low-carb diet.

Fruit and nuts seem to be the largest offenders, but if you’re sensitive to wheat or gluten, low-carb foods such as low-carb tortillas and breads, Atkins shakes and bars, or other low-carb products can prevent you from entering the state of Ketosis. So will typical low-fat diet foods. Take the time to learn which foods are acceptable on a low-carb diet, and which foods are not.

While a carb is a carb, and there’s nothing magic about which foods you actually choose to eat, provided you stay within your own personal carbohydrate level of tolerance, low-carb programs are designed to help the body quickly lower its insulin levels. Meat, eggs, cheese, and vegetables is the fastest way to do that. Granted, a half a cup of cooked rice and 2 cups of cooked vegetables will provide you with about the same amount of glucose. But if you have Insulin Resistance or pre-diabetes, your body won’t react the same way to each of those foods.

There will be plenty of time later on to experiment. For now, it’s best to stick with low-carb foods.

5. Not Drinking Enough Water

Mistake #5: Not Drinking Enough Water
(Photo by Carnie Lewis)

Dr. Atkins recommended drinking at least 8 cups of water daily in order to help the body flush out incompletely burned ketone fragments. That’s about 2 quarts of pure water. However, most nutritionists and diet experts recommend you drink more than that. The current recommendation is to drink about one-half of your current body weight.

At 190 pounds, for me, that would be 95 ounces of water. Others recommend drinking 64 ounces, and then an extra 8 ounces for each 25 pounds that you are overweight. For me, that would be about 85 ounces or so. Whichever formula you choose to use, the important principle is that this is only talking about pure water. It doesn’t include your morning coffee, diet sodas, low-carb soft drinks, or tea. Just water.

You need the water to process your stored body fat. The liver uses it to break down your fat stores and convert those triglycerides into fatty acids and ketones. It doesn’t just flush them out of the body. If you don’t drink enough water, the liver will have to help your kidneys filter out excess toxins and other stuff that’s common in today’s food supply such as pesticides, rather than mobilizing your fat stores. You’ll feel tired, cranky, and weight loss will be extremely slow, and possibly even stop completely.

While it can be difficult to begin drinking water if you’re not used to it, water is as important to the body and fat-loss process as getting enough protein is. By nature, a low-carb diet is dehydrating, so make sure that you’re drinking enough.

6. Not Following the Rules of Your Low-Carb Diet Plan

Mistake #6: Not Following the Rules of Your Low-Carb Diet Plan

Each low-carb diet program comes with its own rules. Whichever program you have chosen to follow, make sure you give the rules of that plan a chance to work before you begin tweaking your diet. Weight loss won’t be linear, and sometimes, the body freaks out if you’ve lost a large amount of water during the first week or two. That can cause fat loss to be masked. Don’t expect to see a lower number on the scale every week, and especially not every day.

For those who are brand new to the low-carb lifestyle, you’ll find this diet works extremely well. That’s because the body probably has never used this pathway before and there’s a large learning curve for it. That will give you a slight metabolic advantage over those who are not new to low carb, cause the body to mobilize more fat stores than it needs, and dump a ton of unused ketone fragments. You’ll be able to initially eat more, make several dieting mistakes without suffering any repercussions, and lose weight at a fairly quick pace. Often, much quicker than others.

However, it’s always extremely important that you follow the rules of your low-carb diet plan, because your body remembers your dieting patterns and prepares to protect itself against future famines. That means if you choose to leave the low-carb lifestyle and then decide to return to it later on, it won’t work as well as it originally did. There won’t be much of a metabolic advantage. While the program will still work, it will take longer and require much more effort in order to succeed.

So stick to your low-carb diet plan, move into maintenance during periods of turmoil or when you’re in a situation where you don’t have any control over what you eat, but expect the program to work more slowly when you return. It’s having the diet not meet our unrealistic expectations that causes most low-carb diets to fail. Follow the rules, and you’ll do fine. After all, this is a lifestyle change, not a diet.

Related Article:

21 Reasons You're Not Losing Weight on Low Carb
http://www.infobarrel.com/21_Reasons_Youre_Not_Losing_Weight_on_Low_Carb

Cheating On a Low-Carb Diet – Is There Any Hope?

Cheating On a Low-Carb Diet – Is There Any Hope?

Questions??

Low-carb dieters come in several varieties.

1. There are the die-hards who believe you should never ever cheat on a low-carb diet, even on holidays or your birthday. They have a particular list of low-carb foods that they believe everyone should stick to, and if you eat something that is not on their acceptable list, you’re not truly committed to your low-carb lifestyle.

2. Then there are those who take up the low-carb baton, willingly, but aren’t as fanatical about the details. They’re much more flexible about the whole process. They eat what they believe are low-carb foods, but don’t count how many carbohydrates they’re eating. They don’t know if they are within standard low-carb guidelines, but aren’t concerned about it because they’re either losing weight their own way, or they’re happy with their improved health. They will go off plan on holidays, their birthdays, and sometimes during social engagements, but then they’ll climb right back into the wagon and continue their low-carb journey.

3. There are cyclical low-carb dieters that fluctuate between being a die-hard and being overly relaxed. They will strongly stick to Atkins Induction for a few weeks, never cheating, but as the restrictiveness of that very low-carb level begins to wear thin, or the temptation to cheat becomes too strong, they’ll become more flexible. Where the relaxed dieter can easily climb back onto their plan once they’ve satisfied their need to eat normally, the cyclical dieter often finds themselves face down in the carbs. They have so much trouble getting back on plan, however, that they’ve usually gained back part of their weight, if not all, before they try again.

4. And then there is the person who can’t stick with a low-carb diet for more than a few days before the pull to cheat is too strong. They go into an unconscious binge before they wake up and discover what they’ve done. Sometimes it’s cyclical behavior, and sometimes it’s flexible, but they never really get the chance to lose much weight, and sometimes they even gain more, because their mind talks them into refilling their glycogen stores almost as soon as they’ve been emptied.

5. There are also a chosen few who are die-hards for most of the year, but allow themselves the luxury of participating in planned cheats. They are more strict than those who have a relaxed style of dieting because they do count their daily carbohydrates and do eat from a select list of low-carb foods. Their cheats are small and well controlled, because that’s all they need to feel satisfied. Those who practice controlled free meals and refeeds would fit into this category.

Granted, these are exaggerated caricatures, but they do illustrate the wide variety of eating styles that can be found within the low-carb community. Some of these eating styles are more friendly to fat loss than others. I’ve even experienced or purposely tried a few myself. Regardless of a die-hard’s unforgiving attitude, no style is better than any of the others. These are just the patterns that I’m aware of.

Subconscious Mind Drives the Cheating

These patterns are so distant from one another, it makes it difficult (if not impossible) to make solid recommendations in regards to cheating on a low-carb diet, because what drives us to overeat carbohydrates isn’t necessarily something that we can easily control – especially for those who experience a strong famine response to dieting. The mind and body are wired toward survival, and that’s what many of us are fighting against: the mind and body’s determination to survive at all costs.

It can be shocking to come to the realization that the mind and body would rather be fat than thin, but in my low-carb journey so far, that’s the epiphany I’ve sadly come to. The subconscious mind is in control, and when our conscious ideals and goals butt heads with our unconscious programming, the subconscious mind always wins.

ALWAYS!

That doesn’t leave us in a very good position. It feels rather hopeless actually. And that hopelessness and reinforcement only gets stronger when you take the time to actually LOOK at what’s going on within the low-carb community today. Very, very few individuals ever reach their goal weight. That’s reality. Luckily, for those of us who are still trying, there are a handful of low-carb success stories available, such as a man at Low Carb Friends who goes by the name of avid.

I talked about him a little bit in my last post about coffee and heavy cream. He’s gone from 180 pounds to 131. He reached goal weight on June 5, 2013. However, the last five pounds did require him to lower his daily calories, which he chose to do by cutting down on how much coffee he drank, as well as how much heavy cream he was putting in it. While losing 51 pounds is a tremendous accomplishment and should be celebrated, the sad part of this story is that it fits into my 50-Pound Theory.

What is My 50-Pound Theory?

For awhile, I’ve been watching people within the low-carb community that have actually make it all of the way to goal weight, and it has prompted a few questions.

• What sets them apart from the rest of us?
• Why do some of us completely stall out when we’re still so far away from a healthy weight?
• Why does the mind and body do everything in its power to trick us into eating too many carbs?
• Why does someone go from a die-hard eating style to someone who cannot stick to a low-carb diet for more than few days?

At first, I entertained the theory put forth by the BloodSugar 101 website that the body will only allow us to lose a certain percentage of our body fat before it puts on the breaks. But that doesn’t explain how people like avid have been able to succeed. Obviously, he has lost more than 15 or 20 percent of his weight, so what makes him different? What made Dr. Atkins’ success different?

At one time, the popular theory within the low-carb community that tried to explain this phenomena was called the One Golden Shot Theory. Many guessed that a low-carb diet ceased to work if you yo-yo’d back-and-forth between a low-carb diet and a high-carb diet too often. In fact, Dr. Atkins even warned his readers about abusing Induction for that very reason. It could backfire in our face. However, looking at my own weight-loss and weight-gain patterns, I’m now wondering if it’s about absolute poundage lost rather than a percentage.

It seems that when I look at success stories, people that have about 50 to 60 pounds to lose, or less, do very well on a low-carb diet – provided they stick with the plan. That’s because they hit maintenance about the same time that the body catches on and stalls. Those of us who started out with a hundred pounds to lose, or more, tend to stall when we are still far away from goal weight. When we attempt to push the issue, to force our bodies to give up more of its fat stores then those first 50 to 60 pounds, eventually, one of the non-die-hard low-carb eating patterns I described above raises its head to try and stop us from succeeding.

In my own case, I’m sad to say it worked.

Is There Any Hope of Overcoming the Subconscious Mind?

Honestly? I don’t know! Every low-carb diet I’ve attempted since I lost my initial 100 pounds has only left me heavier than I was before. It’s getting very disheartening. I managed to get down to 145 pounds after completing a round of the hHCG diet, but I wasn’t able to maintain that loss. Not because the diet is not sustainable. You move to a low-carb diet after it’s over. But I couldn't maintain the loss because of the amount of calories it takes to sustain 145 pounds. I just couldn’t do it.

When I regained and reached about 160, which was a little less than a 100-pound weight loss, I found that livable. It was maintainable. However, that quickly changed when I attempted to do a low-carb, high-fat diet. Eating high-fat only packed on more pounds. It was a big mistake on my part, because I was following a small low-carb subset, but I had HOPE.

And hope was what I needed at that moment.

Unfortunately, it backfired in my face. I quickly went from 160 pounds to the 190 that I weigh today before my weight stabilized. Not pretty. In fact, I was literally shocked when the DMV recently took my picture for my driver’s license. I had no idea I looked that badly again! But the drop in metabolic rate that the high-fat diet caused has not corrected itself.

So Where Do I Go From Here?

There are so many different low-carb camps today. The low-carb community has severely fractured into many different tribes, with each group standing opposed to the others, and screaming, “We have the truth. We will lead you to salvation.” But I don’t believe that anymore. I have come to realize that no one has the truth. Especially me. The world that existed when Dr. Atkins first started his low-carb revolution no longer exists.

Our food is more genetically altered, contaminated with chemicals, drenched in pesticides, and lacking in nutritional density than it was in 1972. Our meat is full of antibiotics and hormones that have messed with our gut flora and intestinal health. We live in a sterilized, fear-of-germs world.

At the moment, I don’t have any answers other than to continue eating a nutrient-dense diet. That’s quite a bit easier these days because we have moved further north to where my husband currently works. Healthy foods are easy to get here, but those nutrient-dense foods haven’t affected my weight at all. But my right knee and neurological issues are acting up again under the excess weight.

I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING…

I just don’t know what. Maybe a more gentle, backdoor approach that doesn’t trigger the famine response would be best.