30+ Low-Carb Thanksgiving Side Dishes and Ideas

30+ Low-Carb Thanksgiving Side Dishes and Ideas

Special Event Diet

Get Easy Low-Carb
Side Dishes for 
Thanksgiving Dinner 

When it comes to the holidays, sticking to your low-carb diet can be rough.

The holidays are filled with tempting, luscious desserts, sugary treats, and comforting side dishes that mama always made.

The good news is that both turkey and ham are low-carb goodies. Even turkey gravy won't set you back a ton of carbs. You don't really have to give any of that up. Just say "no" to the sugary glazes and carby brines, and we'll show you how to make low-carb turkey gravy and all of the other trimmings you've been missing.

Coming up with a hearty Thanksgiving menu that includes some of these terrific low-carb Thanksgiving side dishes and ideas is easy. With a bit of planning, your low-carb meal can be tasty as well as appeal to the senses.

If Thanksgiving isn't going to be at your house, it will be simple to take a couple of the following 30 low-carb side dishes with you, and maybe even share a super-good sugar-free dessert.

For those who have to eat gluten free, we have tricks for you too:

Cook your Thanksgiving dinner at home and then take a plate with you.

There is always a way to make the holiday work well, without feeling deprived, so come along. Low-carb doesn't mean misery. In fact, your holiday offering will look so good, you'll be the envy of all of your friends and family.

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Make Your Low-Carb Halloween Special

Make Your Low-Carb Halloween Special

Special Event Diet

Who Needs Candy?
Check Out these Low-Carb
Halloween Recipes and Food Ideas!

Have you noticed that Trick-or-Treat is almost non-existent now?

For the past several years, hubby has sat by the front door with a large plastic bowl of candy and other goodies to pass out to the neighborhood kiddies, but hardly anyone ever shows up.

We live in Utah, and Utah has organized Trunk-or-Treat festivities at the local church building every year, so very few kids roam the neighborhood after dark.

However, when you're on a low-carb diet, candy isn't an option. To make your holiday special, here are tons of Halloween recipes and food ideas to keep you feeling like you're still part of the "in" crowd.

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Power of Forgiveness Brings Low-Carb Success

Power of Forgiveness Brings Low-Carb Success

Low Carb Styles

Going Low-Carb is a Major Event

Going on a low-carb diet is a major event in your life. It is not a whim, and it is not a gimmick. It's a drastic lifestyle change that requires a whole new revolutionary way of looking at food, diet, and health. Most diets are weight-loss games that take a standard American diet and tweak it just enough to trick you into eating fewer calories and fat. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't, because standard dieting doesn't address the problems that accompany metabolic defects.

That's the reason why a low-carb diet works. It corrects insulin issues, stabilizes blood sugar levels, primes the body to burn fat for energy, and drastically reduces your hunger. All of that makes low carbing much easier to stick to than a traditional low-fat, low-calorie diet. However, expecting yourself to never fall prey to a chocolate chip cookie isn't realistic. While some people do have the strength to never go off plan, others find dieting a struggle.

Deprivation is no picnic, and while it's exciting to initially be able to chow down on a thick juicy steak, use real butter on your veggies, and spike your morning coffee with heavy cream and sugar-free flavored syrup, at some point, most dieters find themselves unconsciously reaching for potato chips rather than cheese. Habits are extremely difficult to break, and no matter how committed you are to your low-carb lifestyle, you could honestly find yourself waking up the morning after a carb binge, and wondering -- what happened?

For Low-Carb Success Forgiving Yourself is Essential

When you fall off the wagon, forgiving yourself is essential. It doesn't do you any good to sit around trying to find something to blame. It's better to just realize that you did what you thought was right and justified at the time. While the rationalization you used the night before might not make sense now, listening to the internal dialog that's blaming you or the carbs only hurts your chances for ultimate success. You are not a victim and you are not helpless. You are just human, so both guilt and blame are equally destructive activities.

Indulging in that kind of thing only keeps you a slave to the dieting mindset. It paralyzes you, especially if you believe the lies that your inner critic is telling. Guilt weighs quite a bit, and being angry with yourself and beating yourself up for eating something you wanted to eat at the time isn't going to help you accomplish your goals. Resistance to what you want to do is normal. It's not something specific to you. While you might be weak where avoiding carbs is concerned, it happens to lots of low-carb dieters. You are not alone.

Getting Inside Your Head

Weight-Loss Success Takes More than Low-Carb Food

Successful dieting involves more than following a print out of established rules and regulations. It's more than being told what to eat and which foods to avoid. While the science behind low-carb diets is important in order to make an informed choice about which diet is best for you, once the choice has been made, it becomes a mental game to stay on plan.

Most of us have been feeding the subconscious mind for years. It's set in its ways and doesn't want to change. It loves being in charge. It loves seeking after comfort and avoiding all forms of disturbance and pain. Low-carb diets disrupt the way the subconscious mind has been programmed, so it's common to experience resistance. A lot of resistance. The trick is to observe what's going on without resorting to self-judgment and criticism.

You can't make essential changes in your current lifestyle or thought patterns if you're blind to what's happening. That's why a binge or going off plan is not a bad thing. It's actually something to celebrate, because you now have an opportunity to take a closer look at how your mind currently functions. Only then can you take the appropriate steps that will lead to permanent change.

The Power of Forgiveness

Forgiveness doesn't mean that we make excuses for our behavior. If you have serious issues with carbohydrates, such as metabolic syndrome, PCOS, pre-diabetes, or high cholesterol levels, then it's essential to stick to your low-carb diet. You owe it to yourself to lessen the stress on your body and give it the proper nutrition it needs to function appropriately.

But neither is forgiveness an excuse to go off of your diet every single time there's a chocolate cupcake in your environment calling your name. It's impossible to take advantage of the benefits of a low-carb lifestyle if you're not really living that lifestyle.

Cheating can cause your cravings to skyrocket, your hunger to spiral out of control, and it can even make your feel ill if you have hidden food sensitivities you don't know about. For example, many people who turn to a low-carb diet are sensitive or allergic to wheat, so when they cheat on the diet with bread or grain-based desserts, they feel bloated, crampy, sick to their stomach, and quickly pack on the pounds.

The power of forgiveness lies in the understanding that a low-carb diet plan isn't just a diet; it's a lifestyle change. True change takes time and whole lot of work. It requires you to get on top of your emotional eating style, to observe and consider your eating patterns and tendencies, to look at your activity level, and above all -- to teach yourself and habituate yourself to a whole new way of living.

That takes a lot of self-observation, self-considering, and perhaps a little self-talk along the way. It's takes confidence in your self that you can do this, but even more than that, it takes the strength and courage to get to know yourself. Your real self. Not the image you've created in your mind to hide behind, but the bare-naked self that is sabotaging your dieting efforts and goals.

However, the key to making a low-carb diet work isn't demanding perfection. The key to making a low-carb diet work is experiencing the power of forgiveness.

Weight-Loss Success Requires Inner Transformation

Think of it as transforming your inner couch potato and the carb monster who's currently sitting in the driver's seat into someone who's fit and trim. While they have both served you well up until now, and deserve your thankfulness and full forgiveness, the truth is that if you want to be thin and healthy, you can't do what you've always done.

You have to stand up do something different.

The True Role of Ketosis in a Low-Carb Diet

The True Role of Ketosis in a Low-Carb Diet

Low Carb Diet

Most Fatty Acids Burned
Come From Your Diet

Do you have the purpose for a low-carb diet fixed firmly in your mind?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

If you are thinking that you have to be in ketosis to lose weight, then you still don't understand.

Getting into the state of ketosis is not about unlocking your fat stores. That is an old low-carb theory known as the insulin hypothesis. It didn't hold up when recent scientific studies put it to the test.

The purpose of a low carb diet is:

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What is the Purpose of a Low-Carb Diet?

What is the Purpose of a Low-Carb Diet?

Low Carb Diet Questions??

Okay. You're decided to give the Atkins Diet a try. You've heard good things about dietary ketosis and you want to give it a whirl. Or, maybe you think that a lower fat, more protein-controlled Protein Power low-carb diet might be more suitable to your taste. Perhaps you are thinking about trying some other low-carb diet plan. No matter which low-carb diet program you're considering, it's a good idea to take a moment and ask yourself:

• What is the purpose of going on a low-carb diet?
• Why am I doing this?
• And what do I hope to gain?

What is the Purpose of a Low-Carb Diet?

Don't Confuse Purpose with Goal

A lot of people confuse purpose with a goal. A goal is the ultimate outcome you hope to achieve once you have completed a diet program. That goal could be to achieve a certain clothing size, reach a particular number on the scale, or enjoy improved overall health. A goal could be to get rid of the uncontrollable cravings that unstable blood sugar or a high basal insulin level can cause, to get rid of heartburn or digestive issues, to be able to fit into your favorite pair of jeans again, or maybe be able to participate in physical activities you couldn't do before, such as hiking or biking.

But those things are not purpose.

Purpose is the driving force, belief, or motivation that powers your actions. It's not the ultimate result. It's more like the beginning of a long journey of discovery. It's the frame of reference your subconscious mind turns to when evaluating what's currently going on, and the foundational belief your mind uses to assign a value to things. What we value or find important is what we react to. It's what we act on. So, the importance of what's happening at any given moment comes from purpose. It doesn't come from a goal.

What is the Purpose of a Low-Carb Diet?

A low-carb diet has many advantages over a standard low-fat, low-calorie diet, but it isn't magical. It works because of certain biological principles that can help improve your body's ability to access stored body fat. For that reason, it doesn't work well for everyone. If you don't have insulinemia or unstable blood sugars or metabolic syndrome -- and not all overweight or obese individuals do -- then a low-carb diet won't work any better than any other diet because the purpose of a low-carb diet isn't weight loss. It isn't even about getting into the state of Ketosis.

The purpose of a low-carb diet is to lower your basal insulin levels.

A low-carb diet can reduce your hunger and cravings. It can increase your energy, and make it easy to stick to a diet, but all of those things are a by-product of what happens when you restrict carbohydrates -- and, as such, it can be a dramatic help when it comes to shedding excess body fat -- but those "extras" are not the diet's purpose. The purpose of a low-carb diet is to correct any metabolic issues you might have. Period. When you fix what's biologically wrong with the body, the body can then begin to function appropriately.

Why Choose a Low-Carb Diet Then?

Why Choose a Low-Carb Diet?

Many people come to the low-carb table because they've heard about the dramatic results that many dieters receive from restricting their carbohydrates. They want to get a little bit of that ketosis magic for themselves and believe it will always be that way. What could be better? Low-carb success stories tell you that you can eat bacon and eggs for breakfast, cheeseburgers (without the bun) and salad for lunch, and pork chops, ribs, steak, or roast beef for dinner. You can have heavy cream in your coffee, nuts and cheese for snacks, and you can even use full-fat dressings on your salad.

That can appear heavenly to those who have been trying to shed the pounds by limiting fat and calories. However, you always have to keep the purpose of a low-carb diet in mind. In fact, it's essential.

The reason why carbohydrate restriction works so well isn't because you are in a state of ketosis. Ketosis is a by-product of cutting way down on carbs. Ketones are a by-product of fat metabolism. It's about the body moving to an alternative fuel source for the brain, heart, red blood cells, and some kidney cells. Low carb works because restricting carbohydrates lowers your body's basal insulin levels. That helps the body access its fat stores for energy, something it might not have been able to do very well before. If you are in a state of ketosis and your insulin levels are still high, the diet won't work very well.

Insulin levels HAVE to come down first.

To shed those unwanted pounds and lumps, you have to eat less food than your body needs to function. That is true for any diet. But on a low-carb diet, initially, that can be quite a lot of food -- a lot of fatty foods and a lot of calories that you don't have to count. At 256-1/2 pounds, I was able to eat quite a bit of food and fat on a daily basis and still lose weight consistently each and every single week.

But as time went on and my body reduced in size, I wasn't able to eat like that any more. As my low-carb journey continued, my dietary choices had to move toward a lower-fat, lower-calorie diet because that is what it took for me to continue shedding the fat. In fact, many people who have yo-yo dieted for years -- any diet, not just low-carb diets -- have a metabolic rate that is so low and/or functioning so poorly, that they can't eat high fat and high calorie even from the very beginning.

But that doesn't mean that a low-carb diet is a bad choice. Low carb has benefits that other weight-loss diets doesn't have.

What Do You Hope to Gain By Switching to a Low Carb Lifestyle?

Change always requires us to give up some parts of ourselves that we might find painful to let go of. In the world of diets, that usually means certain foods or lifestyles that have been near and dear to us. So once you have a low-carb diet's purpose rooted firmly in your mind -- it's about lowering insulin levels not Ketosis or weight loss -- it's time to take a look at what you hope to GAIN by switching to a low-carb lifestyle.

Eating lots of carbohydrates can be a mindless activity for some, but more often than not, it's driven by biology or suggestion. We eat high-carb foods because of the comfort they provide, because we've been brainwashed to believe that whole grains are good for everyone, or simply out of habit -- from the suggestion that bread and pasta and rice are necessary for a healthy diet.

What Do You Hope to Gain From Switching to a Low-Carb Lifestyle?

The truth is: society is saturated with carbohydrate foods at breakfast, lunch, and dinner because that's what makes manufacturers the most money. Not because they are essential for a healthy diet.

So for a lot of people, a low-carb diet offers a way to relearn the truth about biology, weight loss, health, and balanced diets. It offers biological helps, such as reduced hunger and cravings for sugars and starches, stable blood sugars, increased stamina, an increased feeling of well-being, food choices that are easier to live with, and a host of other benefits. And yes, a low-carb diet offers a way to lose those undesirable pounds.

However, losing body fat is only a very small part of a low-carb diet. It is only one small factor or by-product of moving to a healthy low-carb lifestyle.

If you can wrap your brain around the idea that the purpose of a low-carb diet is about lowering insulin, not getting into ketosis and not about weight loss, you'll have a much easier time making the switch. Because low-carb is a way of life. A new way of life. It is NOT a diet!