How to Make the Perfect Low-Carb Salad

How to Make the Perfect Low-Carb Salad

Low Carb Styles Special Event Diet The Brutal Way

Need an Easter Short Cut?
 Toss Vegetables into Your Salad!
(photo: Zaskoda, CC BY 2.0)

Easter is right around the corner. Do you have your low-carb menu all set up and ready to go? Done your shopping yet?

Me neither.

Our holiday plans for this year are a bit up in the air. We have a close friend that is in the midst of buying a house and was hoping it would close before Easter. If so, then we won't be cooking at home this year, so I've been dragging my feet, waiting to hear . . .

Low-carb Easter menus are not that difficult though. With ham the traditional centerpiece and lots of hard-boiled eggs around, all you need to round out your low-carb meal is a super-nice salad and vegetables with a little bit of extra perk.

If that sounds like too much work this year and you're looking for a holiday short-cut, simply skip the extras and toss those lightly steamed or leftover roasted veggies into the salad. Chill it all together and you'll have an extra-special mega-salad treat. When topped with a creamy homemade dressing, you can't help but have a memorable meal the whole family can enjoy together.

But I confess.

I have a hard time dragging out the salad fixings in the dead of winter. Winter and hot food just go hand-in-hand, but with spring knocking at the door and summer on the horizon, it's time to start thinking about how to make the perfect low-carb salad.

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Kicked Out of Ketosis? The Dirty Little Secret About Ketone Testing Strips

Kicked Out of Ketosis? The Dirty Little Secret About Ketone Testing Strips

Questions??

Kicked Out of Ketosis?
Ketone Testing Strip Secrets

If you hang out at low-carb forums for any length of time, you're bound to hear again and again how someone recently got kicked out of the state of ketosis and is looking for a fast way to get back in. Out of all the issues that you can have with a low-carb lifestyle, understanding ketone testing strips is one of the biggies.

“I got kicked out of ketosis,” is one of the most common complaints I hear.

And while that may or may not be true, depending on the situation, there are a lot of misconceptions about the role that ketones and ketone testing strips play in a low-carb diet.

If you think that you've been kicked out of ketosis, listen up. Here's the dirty little secrets about ketone testing strips that you probably won't hear in a low-carb forum.

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Does the Paleo Diet Actually Cause Weight Gain? (What the Researchers Did to Get that Result Will Surprise You)

Does the Paleo Diet Actually Cause Weight Gain? (What the Researchers Did to Get that Result Will Surprise You)

Questions??

Can You Gain Weight
Eating Salmon and Fried Eggs?

The latest study on the Paleo Diet coming out of Australia is sending shock waves through the media here in the U.S. Reporters are tripping all over themselves trying to get the word out that a Paleo Diet, defined by the researchers as a very low-carb high-fat diet, causes weight gain even though the Paleo Diet is NOT a low-carb nor high-fat diet.

On the surface, the study published on February 15th in Nutrition & Diabetes appears to look into the benefits that a low-carb high-fat diet has on beta cell degeneration and function in mice, but the methods used in the study are so shocking and contrary to low-carb, Paleo, and even diabetic diets that it's hard to believe that anyone is actually taking the study seriously.

But they are.

War has been declared on the Paleo Diet, with journalists insisting that the Paleo Diet causes weight gain, all because some researchers in Australia came to an erroneous conclusion after feeding pre-diabetic mice a Paleo diet that they defined as being low-carb high-fat.

“We are told to eat zero carbs and lots of fat on the Paleo Diet,” Associated Professor Sof Andrikopoulos told the Telegraph. “Our model tried to mimic that.”

Instead of reading the diabetic journal article for themselves to see what the Australia researchers did to create that result -- and the what is so outrageous that I was literally dumbfounded when I read the journal article myself -- journalists are reacting to the conclusions presented by the article, accepting them on faith.

While I'm used to researchers using their own definition of what a low-carb diet is when designing their research studies, the design of this particular Paleo study will really blow your mind . . .

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12 Low-Carb Breakfast Ideas to Make Your Mornings Easier

12 Low-Carb Breakfast Ideas to Make Your Mornings Easier

Low Carb Styles Special Event Diet The Brutal Way

Egg Fried in the Center
of a Bell Pepper Ring
Makes Great LC Breakfast!

Breakfast is hubby's favorite meal of the day. He loves a hearty, filling breakfast in the morning. In fact, when we used to go out to eat before I went gluten free, we almost always went out to eat on Saturday or Sunday morning. He loves all of the basics you normally find at a cafe:

• bacon and eggs
• sausage and eggs
• ham and eggs
• omelets with salsa
• fried potatoes
• french toast
• pancakes
• biscuits and gravy

When we went gluten free, going out to eat stopped, but eating a hearty breakfast did not. We simply started making a big breakfast at home on the weekends. During the week, hubby didn't eat breakfast. He simply took a large lunch with him to work. However, his latest job change has dramatically affected the way we eat now.

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What is the Easiest Way to Go Low Carb?

What is the Easiest Way to Go Low Carb?

Questions??

Here's the Secret for 
Making a Low-Carb Diet 
More Successful

January always brings a rush of folks to the low-carb fold. Some of them are new and are interested in the quick fat-loss claims that ketogenic diets are known to produce and want to see if they can lose weight as quickly themselves. Others have come back to Atkins Induction for a second or third time because it worked so well for them in the past.

Stories that second-timers tell vary in the details, of course, but most of the stories have the same thread running throughout the tale:

Something stressful popped up in your life, and you didn't know how to handle the challenge without eating all of your favorite foods.

Ketogenic diets work. Maybe not as quickly as you're hoping it will, but it's one of the easiest ways to lose weight due to the way it eliminates the hunger that is so typical on low-calorie diets. Even so, making it work takes a strong mental attitude adjustment. You have to want to change your lifestyle, but the easiest way to go low carb takes more than desire.

Whether you're brand new to a low-carb lifestyle or you've been around the block a time or two, 2016 can be the year that you decide to finally take back your health.

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