How to Make a Faux Low-Carb Cookie Plate Filled with Healthy Holiday Snacks

How to Make a Faux Low-Carb Cookie Plate Filled with Healthy Holiday Snacks

Low Carb Styles Special Event Diet The Brutal Way

Don't Have to Give Up Healthy
Holiday Treats on Low Carb

When you're on a low-carb diet, the holidays can be rough. Everywhere you turn, there is candy, cookies, quick breads, and other carby treats enticing you to go off plan. Whether it's an office party pot luck, hot cocoa and marshmallows, warm cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, or the cookie plate the neighbor sent over on Christmas Eve, holiday traditions offer multiple temptations and opportunities to chuck your keto diet and go face down into those unhealthy treats.

As habitual creatures who consistently seek out pleasurable experiences, tradition feels comforting and familiar. In past years, you've understood that the holidays only come around once a year, so there was nothing to feel guilty about if you ate a few too many treats.

Moving into your first low-carb Christmas changes all of that.

You can feel apprehensive and worried. Many past traditions have been disrupted. A low-carb diet is a massive lifestyle change, but switching your mindset from using carbs for comfort to wanting to make healthy snacks for the holidays doesn't happen overnight.

Even if you've been around the keto block for a few years, you might have a tendency to make it through Christmas by white-knuckling the cookie plates and banana bread the best way you can, but that's no way to spend the holidays. Even though you're on a low-carb diet, Christmas can still be fun and exciting!

All it takes is a little creativity and a bit of time to throw together a faux low-carb cookie plate filled with healthy holiday snacks of your own.

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The Ultimate Guide to Cooking a Perfect Turkey for Low-Carb Dieters

The Ultimate Guide to Cooking a Perfect Turkey for Low-Carb Dieters

Low Carb Styles Special Event Diet The Brutal Way

How to Roast a 
Thanksgiving Turkey
with Crispy Skin
(Photo: Gerry, CC BY 2.0)

No matter which low-carb diet you're following, the turkey is the center of attention on your Thanksgiving Table.

High in protein, turkey meat is a nice source of zinc, iron, potassium, and B vitamins. It also has no carbohydrates, so unless you have a metabolic defect in processing proteins, you don't have to limit your portion size.

At least, not for the holidays.

The good news? Going back for seconds on turkey, or even thirds, won't throw you out of ketosis.

For that reason, learning to make the perfect holiday turkey can make the difference between serving up a great holiday meal and one that's just so-so.

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The Truth About Sugar Substitutes

The Truth About Sugar Substitutes

Sugar..!!

The Truth About Sugar Substitutes

I get a lot of questions about sugar substitutes.

In general, artificial sweeteners are allowed and even encouraged on low-carb diets. Low-carb diets claim that sugar substitutes don't raise blood glucose levels, and therefore, can't interfere with fat mobilization. The only caution I've heard over the years is to not use aspartame and count the little packets as 1 carb each.

On Atkins Induction, the packets are also limited to 3 per day.

• But is any of that true?
• Are low-carb advocates telling us the truth about sugar substitutes?
• Or are they just trying to sell us something?

I'm a follow-the-money type of person. I'm always wary when it comes to people trying to sell me on an idea that is to their financial interest for me to swallow and believe.

Because of that, and because it's been years since I wrote about the truth of sugar alcohols on this blog, I did a little more research into the whole topic of artificial sweeteners over the past few days. I was looking for new information and concerns. While most of what I found, I already knew, there were a few surprises.

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Before You Reach for that Thanksgiving Roll . . . (Here's What You Need to Know)

Before You Reach for that Thanksgiving Roll . . . (Here's What You Need to Know)

Are the Consequences
Worth Going Off Plan?

The holidays can be a difficult time to diet.

Office parties, family gatherings, and social events, as well as the holiday itself, puts you around food.

Lots of food.

And usually, the type of food that isn't found on any low-carb plan.

If you're new to a low-carb diet, it's hard enough trying to figure out how low carb works without having to add temptation into the mix, but newbies are not the only ones who might not understand the consequences that come when reaching for that Thanksgiving roll or small piece of pumpkin pie.

If you're considering going off plan for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year, here's what you need to know in order to make a well-informed decision.

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Are Low-Carb Meals and Snacks Gluten Free?

Are Low-Carb Meals and Snacks Gluten Free?

Questions??

A Low-Carb Diet
is Not Always Gluten Free
(Photo Credit: Richard Masoner, 
CC BY-SA 2.0)

The gluten-free community isn't very happy right now.

As those in the entertainment world continue to announce that they are going gluten free, not because they have celiac disease or non-celiac gluten sensitivity, but because they want to shed a few pounds, we have a horde of groupies and those who have heard that gluten-free diets are great for weight loss deciding that ditching the gluten is an important way to gain better health.

Typically, a low-carb dieter would have no problem with that, but since a lot of these people don't understand what a gluten-free diet actually is, they have put together a weight-loss plan based on their own ideas and incorporated these distorted dieting habits into that new gluten-free diet. Unfortunately, those habits often tell them it's okay to eat a little gluten once in a while.

What has gluten-free folks riled up is that these so-called gluten-free dieters (by choice) are not cheating at home, behind closed doors. They do it in public, particularly after causing a big scene in restaurants where chefs, waiters, waitresses, and busboys are getting sick-and-tired of going to all of the precautions and extra steps it takes to prepare a safe gluten-free meal, only to have the diner order a piece of chocolate cake for dessert. "It's okay if I eat a little gluten once in a while," they say.

While a low-carb dieter would never do that -- at least, not in their normal frame of mind -- I've heard many within the low-carb community voice misconceptions about low-carb diets being gluten free, as if that was a fact. For many low carbers, that isn't true. Most people can't live without their low-carb tortillas, sweets, and baked goods, but what about those who shun low-carb products?

Are clean low-carb meals and snacks gluten free?

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An Honest Discussion About Slow Weight Loss

An Honest Discussion About Slow Weight Loss

Low Carb Styles Special Event Diet The Brutal Way

Low-Carb Diets Designed
to Eliminate Hunger and Cravings

In my low-carb travels lately, I've run into quite a few folks who are very frustrated about how slowly they are losing weight on the Atkins Diet. These people expected the Atkins Nutritional Approach to perform in a way it wasn't designed for. Internet myths and rumors, comparing yourself to others, and misunderstanding the science behind why carbohydrate restriction results in weight loss can bring about tons of needless struggle and pain.

The more I read, the more I've realized that unrealistic expectations and misconceptions have reached epidemic proportions within the low-carb community. While some people do experience dramatic weight loss, that isn't the norm. Often, the people who find low carb easy are brand new to a low-carb diet and even dieting itself, so their body hasn't adapted to what they're doing yet.

The idea behind restricting carbohydrates isn't fast weight loss.

Low carb is about finding your personal carbohydrate tolerance level and then using that knowledge to get off the dieting merry-go-round, the carefree eating style that previously packed on the pounds, and move into a realistic, permanent lifestyle that's designed to improve your vitality and health.

What you might have forgotten is what brought you to the Atkins table. Maybe, you've spent a good portion of your life sampling every new diet scheme out there that promised to fulfill your dreams of happiness through achieving ultimate thinness. But, what did you get for all of those efforts? If dieting had worked, you wouldn't be reading this blog post right now.

So if you're frustrated with how slowly you're losing weight on Atkins, pull up a chair. Let's have an honest-to-goodness discussion about slow weight loss.

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12 Tasty Ideas for Eating Low Carb on a Budget

12 Tasty Ideas for Eating Low Carb on a Budget

Low Carb Styles

Eating Low-Carb on a Budget
Takes Creativity

At first glance, a low-carb diet can look quite expensive. Especially, since the focus is on meat and other high-cost proteins like cheese. Vegetables and leafy salads make up the bulk of your meals, taking the place of lower priced potatoes, white rice, and pasta on your plate. Bread and tortillas are also gone unless you have enough room in your budget for a few low-carb products. However, many low carbers do not.

The good news is that you can definitely eat low-carb on a budget. It just takes a little thought and planning. The key is to start with the cheapest basics available in your area, find recipes that make good use of those basics, and then branch out with whatever you can afford from there. That might sound easy, but it will take a bit of legwork and planning to pull it all together.

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Fresh Cucumber and Tomato Salsa

Fresh Cucumber and Tomato Salsa

The Brutal Way

Cucumber and Tomato Salsa

It's been really hot here in Utah for the past few days, over 100-degrees, so I've been experimenting with recipes that don't require a lot of cooking. On the days when hubby has to work out in the heat, I've also been serving food that can be eaten at room temperature.

When you're on a low-carb diet, summer meals can be quite a challenge. Not only does meat speed up your metabolism, making you uncomfortable in the summer heat, but typical low-carb stir fries, roasted vegetables, soups, and stews will also heat up the kitchen.

To solve the problem, you might want to try perking up the flavor of your crockpot chicken, lettuce wraps, and taco salads with a nice batch of fresh homemade salsa. Fresh salsas are made with assorted vegetables, using tomatoes, onions, and hot peppers as the base, but ingredients can vary widely depending on what you already have on hand and what rung of the carbohydrate ladder you're on.

That's how this Fresh Cucumber and Tomato Salsa was born.

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Best Grain-Free Sources of Vitamin B for a Low-Carb Diet

Best Grain-Free Sources of Vitamin B for a Low-Carb Diet

Low Carb Diet

Low-Carb Diet is Rich
in Vitamin B Complex Sources

Vitamin B is actually a group of different water-soluble vitamins that must be eaten daily since the body cannot store them. These vitamins are necessary to turn food into energy, create red blood cells, keep the nervous system and brain functioning normally, and even regulate appetite. Processing foods that contain natural B vitamins will destroy some of those nutrients, so grains and cereals are often enriched in order to replace the nutrients lost during processing.

When nutritionists claim that we should eat plenty of grains to be healthy, it is this artificial form of vitamins and minerals that manufacturers add to their stripped bread and over cooked products that they are suggesting we eat. In order to verify or destroy that claim, I recently did a little research on grains and grain-free sources of Vitamin B. Here is what I found out . . .

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Cinco de Mayo: 12 Super-Tasty Cal-Mex Dishes

Cinco de Mayo: 12 Super-Tasty Cal-Mex Dishes

The Brutal Way

Cal-Mex Cuisine
Fresh Vegetables, Herbs, Whole Foods
(Photo Credit: Armando Maynez,
CC BY 2.0)

Mexican food is very popular in the southwestern portion of the United States as well as other areas that have a large Mexican population. For us, Cinco de Mayo was a big deal. Mexican restaurants existed in every major city in Southern California, and they offered a large variety of Cal-Mex and Tex-Mex cuisine. Mexican traditions like flavorful tacos, spicy enchiladas, and wet burritos were found on the menu of even budget-minded folks like us every single week.

It's culture there. It's how I grew up.

In fact, when I was still married to my ex and funds were short, we simply got through the rough spots by eating tacos or enchiladas every single night. Mexican food was cheap, filling, and tasty. It worked much better when raising my sons than Kraft mac-and-cheese or Top Ramen soup. Although, we did eat those things too.

Even when the current hubby and I first moved to Utah and we were struggling to survive financially, that's how we ate. Enchiladas, Spanish rice, and refried beans were a staple. Tacos with various fillings showed up on the plate twice a week. It was a given.

But what do you do when you're on a low-carb diet?

What do you do when traditional forms of tacos, burritos and enchiladas no longer work? How do you satisfy that craving for Mexican cuisine or enjoy a nice Cinco de Mayo celebration once restricting carbohydrates has become a lifestyle?

The answer to that depends on what you want to accomplish, but we can also take a few pointers from what's called Cal-Mex instead of Tex-Mex cuisine.

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Missing Diet Soda? PepsiCo Has Your Back!

Missing Diet Soda? PepsiCo Has Your Back!

Sugar..!! The Brutal Way

Diet Pepsi is Switching
from Aspartame to Sucralose
(Photo credit: Ben Mason, CC BY 2.0)

The Atkins Diet doesn't allow diet soda with aspartame. Dr. Atkins took it off the acceptable beverage list many years ago after doing personal research into aspartame's potential health dangers. At that time, he recommended sucralose sweetened beverages and products instead, but sucralose sweetened products are difficult to find.

There are a few Erythritol and acesulfame potassium (ace-K) sweetened beverages available in limited areas of the U.S. or online, but a 6-pack is really expensive compared to aspartame-sweetened options. The one time I tried it (back before I started reacting to sugar substitutes) it didn't taste very good, so I never bought it again. For that reason, many low-carb dieters have simply opted to ignore Dr. Atkins advice and have reached for the Diet Pepsi or Diet Coke instead.

If that describes you, then you might be interested to know that . . .

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How the Myth of Willpower Affects Weight Loss

How the Myth of Willpower Affects Weight Loss

The Brutal Way

Back-Door Low-Carb Plan

This morning, I received a comment from a reader who didn't like what I had to say about body memory and the body's biological instinct for survival. The comment was from an anonymous reader who reacted to something I said on a post I wrote in September of 2011. The title of the post was Stumbling on Your Low-Carb Eating Plan? Here's How to Find Success by Using the Back Door! if you want to read it.

This post was designed to help those who might be having trouble making it through Atkins Induction, now called Atkins Phase 1, by offering a more gentle, alternative plan to drastically cutting carbs all at once.

A year ago, someone found that post and thanked me for writing it. It was encouraging for them. In my reply, I shared how I was thinking of using the back door approach once I'd gotten my thyroid problems straightened out.

What the anonymous commenter took offense to was . . .

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How to Work Low-Carb Vegetables Into Your Diet

How to Work Low-Carb Vegetables Into Your Diet

Low Carb Diet

Need to Eat More Veggies?
Get Loads of Low-Carb Ideas!

If you listen to the media and other anti low-carb advocates, you're going to think that the Atkins Diet is nothing but greasy burgers, T-bone steaks, tons of full-fat cheeses and piles of bacon. While the foundation of a low-carb diet is an adequate amount of protein and plenty of healthy fats, the greatest volume of food you eat on a low-carb diet is vegetables.

That fact is usually ignored by those who believe low-carb diets are unhealthy. Mostly, because the Atkins Induction Diet originally used very few vegetables to get you into the state of ketosis quickly, and also because a lot of people who do low carb don't follow the diet protocol correctly.

In addition to staying at an Induction level of carbs, instead of getting most of their carbohydrates from vegetables, low-carb dieters often eat an abundance of other low-carb foods, such as:

• nuts and seeds (including nut flours and ground flaxseeds)
• low-glycemic fruits
• tons of heavy cream, sour cream, and mayo
• low-carb convenience foods
• low-carb tortillas and pastas
• low-carb flours and starches
• lots of cheeses, heavy cream, and butter
• low-carb condiments
• low-carb desserts

There is nothing wrong with using these additional low-carb foods. In fact, the 1992 version of the diet gave dieters lots of freedom to design their own low-carb plan.

However, the Atkins Diet in its true form is basically a meat-and-vegetable diet. It isn't a zero-carb diet. It isn't even a high-fat diet. Protein and fat in the same proportions as found in nature and fibrous low-carb vegetables are the mainstay of a low-carb diet.

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How to Get Into Ketosis in Less Than 3 Days

How to Get Into Ketosis in Less Than 3 Days

Sugar..!! The Brutal Way

How to Get Into Ketosis
 in Less Than 3 Days

Ketogenic diets work by reducing basal insulin levels and setting up conditions that will move you into a state of ketosis.

Getting into ketosis fast is important because when the body produces ketones, your hunger level goes down, your energy goes up, and you experience a state of well-being. These benefits will make it easier for you to stick to your diet plan.

Ordinarily, on a typical keto diet, it takes 3 to 5 days to enter into the state of ketosis, depending on how many carbohydrates per day you were eating before you started restricting carbs. But there are much quicker methods. 

While nutrition should never be sacrificed at the expense of your health, here is how you can get into ketosis in less than 3 days.

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