Do Low-Carb Diets Really Work?

Anyone embarking on a new way of eating wants the answer to this question. And although we can usually find "success stories" associated with almost any diet, that doesn't really tell us what we want to know, which is the facts. (We've all seen those ads for a weight-loss miracle cure, with the tiny words at the bottom which say "results not typical".)

First, be clear on what you mean by a diet "working".

What are your goals? We tend to think of weight loss first, but reduced-carb diets are now being used to treat a number of conditions, as well as for prevention of diseases like diabetes. Weight loss will be the focus of this article, but there are lots of other health benefits that are associated with low-carb diets. What's the short answer? They can work if your eating too many carbs and most of us do. Processed foods are loaded with carbs. Anything made with wheat flour. 

Low-Carb Diets Work for Weight Loss and More

 Forms of low-carb diets are some of the most popular weight-loss diets, and science bears out that in general, they are at least as effective, and usually more effective when compared to other weight-loss diets (which mainly focus on controlling calories). For example, a 2012 journal article reviewed the science and found 17 high-quality well-controlled randomized diet studies which included a low-carb group. In analyzing these studies, they found that the people on the low-carb diets lost weight (and usually more than the other diet groups), had lowered blood pressure, lower blood glucose, lower insulin, lower triglycerides, higher HDL ("good cholesterol"), and lower C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation.

If the people in a study are more carefully chosen (NOT entirely random), so that people who are likely to benefit the most from low-carb eating are assigned to that diet, people tend to lose more weight. For example, here I describe a randomized study where the researchers went back and analyzed the data to see who did best on which diet.

The results were dramatic: even though the average weight loss was modest for the groups as a whole, people who had signs of insulin resistance (one sign of "sugar sensitivity") lost the most weight on the low-carb diet and did very poorly on the high-carb diet. The people who were insulin sensitive (the opposite of insulin resistant) did well on either diet. 

How Are Low-Carb Diets Different?

Low-carb diets function differently from other weight loss diets, in a way that seems to make it easier to lose weight once your body adjusts to the diet.

Most weight-loss diets are based on the idea that we cannot trust our bodies' signals about hunger and satiety. Instead, we must ignore those signals and carefully and consciously regulate the amount of food we eat.

(This works for awhile, but often not for long, which is a whole other topic.) Carbohydrate reduction works differently (especially for people who are sensitive to carbohydrate), in that it helps regulate our appetite system so we naturally want to eat less. How it does this is not yet fully understood, but we do know that food which raises blood sugar more make people hungrier. In addition, a low-carb diet lowers insulin levels in people who have high insulin. Since insulin regulates fat storage, many experts think that it makes it easier for the body to access stored body fat for energy.

When I ask people what they like best about following a low-carb diet, they will often mention not feeling hungry, not having food cravings, and having more stable energy levels compared to other types of diets. This seems to be true even after the weight loss phase of a diet.

How Much Carbohydrate is "Low"?

When we hear about low-carb diets, it can be challenging to know what people are actually talking about! Diet studies have labeled everything from 5% to 45% of calories from carbohydrate as "low-carb". And, indeed, different amounts of carbohydrate are best for different people, due to something variously called "carbohydrate sensitivity", "carbohydrate tolerance", "metabolic resistance" and other terms. Basically, it has to do with how our bodies respond to sugar - the more problems we have with it the more likely that we will respond positively to eating less of it. (All carbohydrate breaks down into sugar in our bodies.) So how effective the diet partly depends on how close it is to the amount of carbohydrate your body does best with. This is why popular diets such as Atkins and South Beach try to help people find the best amount of carbohydrate for the individual.

Low-carb diets aren't for everyone, but they have a place in the dozens of diets that we have to pick from. Many overweight people have the insulin-resistance problem and low-fat diets won't work very well, but low-carb may be for you. 

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Define "Clean Eating"

Eating "clean" is gaining traction — but what does it actually mean, and how is it good for the body? You hear about it almost every day if your reading food blogs or watching cooking shows.

Clean eating is a deceptively simple concept. Rather than revolving around the idea of ingesting more or less of specific things (for instance, fewer calories or more protein), the idea is more about being aware of the food's pathway between its origin and your plate. At its simplest, clean eating is about eating whole foods, or "real" foods — those that are un-processed, refined, and handled, making them as close to their natural form as possible. However, modern food production has become so sophisticated that simply eating whole foods can be a challenging proposition these days.

Stores like Whole Foods have changed the food scene. We have more mini grocery's that specialize in fresh foods, organic foods, and healthier brands. Ten or fifteen years ago we had 3 major grocery's where I live, and we had Whole Foods and convenient foods in gas stations. Today the scene is much different. Healthy foods are becoming commonplace in the majors and small grocery chains are springing up throughout the city selling organic, fresh, healthy food. Restaurants are starting to offer healthy food on the menu. The difference is today the public demands it. The menu will have to show the calorie count. And recently the FDA what's food manufacturers to put the amount of added sugar on food labels. These changes won't happen immediately but the changes will be a good thing for consumers.

Not eating processed foods is the biggest part of "eating clean". I was surprised to learn how many people don't really understand what foods are considered to be processed foods. Most people don't realize that bread is processed food and that some cheese is processed. These new kinds of milk like soy milk and almond milk are processed foods and may have chemical additives.

I just finished a sugar detox recently. For 10 days I couldn't eat anything with added sugar. I'm glad I did the detox, but it's difficult finding foods or drinks without sugar.  I had to just buy the basics and make my own food. It's very healthy and I learned a lot and I have no regrets. The hardest part was not eating in restaurants. The other hard part was only drinking water, tea, and coffee. I could add lemon for flavor and add cinnamon to black coffee. I could eat salads in some restaurants but no salad dressing, only lemon, oil, or vinegar.

The reason I mentioned the sugar detox is if you want to get a taste of what it's like to "eat clean", try a sugar detox.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Why You Have To Keep A Food Log

A cookie here. A bowl of pasta there. A handful of veggies drenched in ranch dressing. We think we know what we're taking in nutritionally, but reality is often pretty far off base. If you have trouble keeping weight off, there's usually a simple reason why. 

Most of us that watch the scale often know pretty quick that we're gaining weight. Gaining weight, if your not a body builder like those people on Venice Beach in California, probably means your increasing body fat. And if you're like most of us when we want to lose weight, we cut back on food. That's wrong. Most of us don't overeat, we just eat the wrong things and drink most of our calories. The average American will drink half their daily calories. You can probably lose weight simply by "stop drinking calories". It's very easy to drink more than 1000 calories a day.

In particular, calorie intake when dining out -- which, let's face it, most of us do more often than we should -- is usually grossly underestimated. Even so-called "healthy" meals can get derailed in a hurry, thanks to poor nutritional choices. Salad dressing is the number-one source of fat in [many] women's diets, which attests to how many women turn a good salad into a cardiac disaster. Most restaurant salads with dressing are about 800 calories, some can be even more, like a Chef Salad, Taco Salad, or a Cobb Salad.

When it comes to diet, we do a lot of things right, but most of us manage to make some serious blunders. Keeping a food log can help us get back on track, and it's not as difficult as you might think. See if any of these excuses sound familiar:

But... I don't understand what the point of a food log is. You know those contests where people fill a huge jar with jellybeans and you guess how many the jar holds, but you're wayyyyyyyyy under? That's pretty much what happens when it comes to "eyeballing" your calorie, fat and sodium intake. We think we know what we're consuming, but we're usually light years away from reality. A food log will help you keep track.

But... I don't have time to keep a food log. Back before the World Wide Web, my dad had a book full of foods and their calorie content. He painstakingly researched and recorded each and every meal and added up the calories himself. Let's all raise our voices in thanks for apps that now do the work for us. (I particularly love My Fitness Pal.)

But... I already eat healthy. Keeping a food log isn't only about the obvious culprits, like calories and fat. Most people unknowingly put away far more sodium than they realize in a given day, and we often overestimate our fruit and veggie consumption. A food log can be a wake-up call to improve habits we didn't even know needed fixing.

Fruit and Vegetables should be 3/4 of every meal. When watching calories, never drink anything with calories. You might not realize it but half the calories we consume come from drinks. If your gaining weight it's all about the calories. You can't exercise away a bad diet. Keeping a food log with an App is the quick easy way to keep track of calories. 

Someone was telling me, you can find an App that tells you the calories in any item on any menu. If I find the App I will post it.

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Can't Do Yoga, Think Again

If you think you're not the yoga type, think again. Just about anyone can do it, and it's not about bending yourself into a pretzel. For men and women of all shapes, sizes, ages, and abilities, yoga builds strength and balance. It's also a great way to ease stress. 

"In a gym, you're really pushing yourself to go further when you're working out. In yoga, it's the opposite. The poses encourage all the range of motion that the body is designed to do," says Megan Dunne Krouse, a yoga instructor in Chicago.

Doing Yoga When You're Overweight

When Megan Garcia signed up for yoga at Smith College, she felt intimidated because she was the only overweight person in the class. She stuck with it, though, and noticed she started gaining strength, plus feeling and sleeping better, too.

Now she is a plus-sized model and Kripalu-certified yoga instructor who teaches in New York and specializes in teaching yoga to people of all shapes and sizes.

Garcia found that yoga changed her in unexpected ways. "Before I started doing yoga, I really lived life from the neck up," she says. "After yoga, I began to really feel at home in my skin. If I didn't have yoga, I can't imagine feeling so good in my body. Yoga has made it comfortable for me to sit on the floor, to twist, to bend. It grounds me in my body."

RaeAnn Banker, who owns River Yoga in Lahaska, PA, started taking yoga classes on her 42nd birthday as a present to herself.

"I was overweight, and since my mother was morbidly obese, I knew I better do something or I was going to end up just like her," Banker says.

"It took several months of driving by the yoga center before I got up the courage to go in. But once I started, I loved the classes. I was the weakest student in the class, but I kept going," Banker says. "I ended up losing 35 pounds over the next 2 years and becoming a yoga teacher. Yoga literally changed my life."

I personally started yoga at the age of 70. They were offering free classes at the senior center so I thought I'd try. I felt a little out-of-place at first, but after a few weeks, I was getting the hang of it. The instructor was older than me and most of the students were my age. After a few months, I started to lose body fat and build strength. The senior center only offers a class twice a week, but I do Yoga at home on the other days. I'm always trying to do the poses better each time. I don't have to go to class anymore. I know most of the poses but I go anyway, the instructor always adds new poses when she has time to fit them in. 

Today I'm a happy, confidence and stronger. I don't care how old I am, it's about how old you feel and I feel 30 years younger. If you're not ready for a class but your interested, pick up a book at the library or find a book at the store orr on the internet. 

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Can You Think Your Way Thin?

It’s obviously not that simple, but there are little mind tricks you can use to bolster your efforts to lose weight. Try these smart ways to put your brain to work for you:

1. Imagine Yourself Fitter. You’ve undoubtedly heard about the power of visualization. And when it comes to exercise, an important part of any weight loss program, your imagination can be an effective motivational tool. One small study published in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology in 2010 found that adults who imagined their future selves -- either as slimmer and fitter or out-of-shape and inactive – were more apt to stick with their exercise routine. So whether it’s hope or fear, choose whichever motivates you to keep moving. 

Yes, think positive and always imagine you as a fit, healthy person who jogs or bikes with friends and having fun. This is the best way to keep motivated.

2. Tweak Your Attitude

You may occasionally catch yourself thinking things like, “There must be an easier way,” or “I wish I could have potato chips instead of carrot sticks.” When this happens, cognitive behavioral therapy expert Judith Beck, Ph.D, author of The Beck Diet Solution, suggests countering those thoughts with an “oh, well” attitude. In other words, say to yourself, “I may not like this, but I’ll accept it, do what I have to do, and move on.” A shorter version? “I want the potato chips but I’m going to skip them. I know better now".

3. Focus on the Habit, Not the Calories

You’re really not hungry, but that 100-calorie snack is only … 100 calories. Will it bust your calorie count for the day? Not likely. But here’s the problem: When you cave to that urge to nosh, it doesn’t matter if it has 20 calories or 200. Eating when you’re not hungry reinforces the habit of giving in to temptations, according to Beck. Instead of focusing on calorie count, stop and think about why you’re reaching for food. Are you bored or upset? Is it time for your favorite show and you always eat in front of the TV? Whatever the trigger, go for a walk, work on a hobby or call a friend --anything that distracts you from feeding a bad food habit.

Losing weight is a lot like quitting smoking. It is mind-over-matter. The ones that succeed are the ones that don't give up. Study everything you can find about weight loss and remember that we can't all lose weight the same way. What works for me probably won't work for you. You have to find what works for you.

After 30 years of struggling to lose body fat, I hit across something that worked for me. I had little success losing body fat until I retired. I took the time to study about losing body fat and after about six months of a healthy diet and exercise, I lost my last 20 pounds of fat.

Losing body fat should be your goal. Read up on weight loss and losing body fat. It doesn’t cost money to lose weight. The internet is full of free information.

But the quickest way and cheapest way is to buy an ebook online and get everything you need in one short read. I have two ebooks on Amazon:

How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight

Getting To A Healthy Weight

Check out one of them, I think you can find all the info you need and plenty of tips on how I lost my body fat. 

Look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find these e-books. These books give you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my books at Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Why Do We Have Fat?

Good question. Human and other mammals are built to store body fat for times when they have no food and to insulate their organs in the cold weather.  Some body fat is necessary; we need it to cushion the organs in our body. Also, our body burns good fats like fats from plants, like avocados and nuts, as fuel to create energy.  Approximately  30% of all the calories burned every day to create energy come from fat that you eat or stored fat that your body keeps in reserve.

So why is fat bad? you might ask. There is good fat and bad fat, I'll explain. Your body will try and process all the food and drink you consume, but some things that we eat can't be processed; it has no value to the body, so it's stored in fat cells for an emergancy. But in modern times we have no need for stored fat we wear clothes to protect us from the weather. When your body processes food it separates it into food it can use and the waste it can't use, but if your body can't process something or you over eat and the body hasn't the time to process it, then it gets sent to fat storage cells before the body can process it.

Our ancestors needed this system of fat storage because Man  never knew when he would find food again. Because of the active lifestyle of our ancestors, always doing physical work, always walking about, there was never any thought about Man storing too much fat. Man was not designed to deal with excess body fat. Man was designed to store fat whenever possible for the purpose of survival. And yes we were given brains to deal with our evolution because over time we would evolve. But in spite of the brains we were given, we haven't done a very good job of maintaining our bodies. The body has no mechanism  to control our weight. We have no way of knowing that we are eating too much.

Our activity level is much lower than our grandparents even. Today we do most of our work with our mind's. Yes, we do small things to keep us active, but the average office worker is only on their foot about 4 hours a day.  So we do have to be more active all day long whenever possible. But that's not our only problem; American are in the habit of eating whatever and whenever they want. We have food available 24/7 and on average we consume twice the calories we should.

Her lies the problem. To stay healthy and keep a healthy weight you have to burn the calories you eat. Simply right? Not really. If man had a fresh food diet and only fresh food like vegetables, fruits and lean meat and some whole grain like brown rice and there was no other food; than Man wouldn't have a weight problem. As long as you were moderately active you couldn't eat enough to gain weight. But today we eat all types of food that give us no nutrition; the body can't process this type food and stores it as fat. We consume too much fatty foods that overload the Liver, so if the Liver can't process all the fat  it passes through into the blood stream and clog up the arteries.

To be healthy and stay healthy you have to stick to a fresh food diet. Look up "The Mediterranean diet" and look for the food pyramid that shows all the choices. If you eat healthy you will lose body fat over time. By walking more, and I recommend the 10,000 step a day program for beginners that don't exercise regularly,  you can lose the weight quicker. But losing weight does take time. Don't get discouraged, stick to the program and don't cheat. Cheat days only ruin all the good that you've done.

The Atkins Diet is an alternative. It's a little more restrictive, but it works. Check out both those, they are the best one I know.

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

A Post From The "Hungry Woman" Website

I reblogged this from one of my readers. She writes a good post on a subject that we all need to pay more attention to. Let me know what you think.

So I have decided that…I am going to start my diet…tomorrow.  I have assigned an official start date, in writing!

Now, this is going to be a little bit more difficult, as I am still in holiday mode but I just want to feel good about myself… that is all.

I am not egotistic or suffer from vanity (clearly). Looking HOT would be great but it is way down on my priority list. I want to FEEL good…it has nothing to do with how I look. I just want to have confidence. I want to not care what anyone else things about me. If I feel happy in a black plastic bag then damn it I want to wear that black plastic bag with pride. I think we have all at some point started a diet and within a few days we are thinking “Damn – I feel good” and although the dress may be a size 20-22 we feel different.

That is what I want. I want that feeling EVERY SINGLE day.

Lately, there are a lot of people saying that you should be big and proud and that big confident woman are an inspiration to us all. I am a big woman and I completely disagree. Of course, if you want to be overweight and feel good about that – then good for you! But the bottom line is it is unhealthy …and is just as unhealthy as an anorexic person. We need to see ourselves in the same bracket as a person with an eating disorder… because we too have an eating disorder. We are no better or no worse but fat people are called lazy and presumed to be unmotivated to change their lives but that is not the truth… we have an addiction.

Now I am not looking for pity. I am just trying to explain the difficulties of having this kind of eating disorder. I know I choose to eat the 10 packets of crisps but in a way… it feels like I have no control! You see a “normal” person becomes LESS hungry or LESS interested in food the more they eat. They become SATISFIED. The more I eat; I become hungrier and more interested in food. If I don’t feel stuffed to the brim then I need to keep eating until I can’t possibly eat anything else.

I am really determined that tomorrow will be the answer to all my prayers. That tomorrow I will wake up and finally everything will make perfect sense and this “diet” will be a lifestyle change and I will be a new positive ball of loveliness.

I have great admiration for this women who know that she has a problem and knows she has to fix the problem. She has probably tried several times with little success but she doesn't stop trying. She will succeed, I know it and she knows it.

Not everyone can lose weight the same way. I personally think the Mediterranean diet could help her. You don't have to deprive yourself. No calories to count, just stick to the food pyramid for your food choices.

Spend more time walking. I like the 10,000 steps a day routine. That's enough activity to lose weight. 

The chart above is broken down in 3 parts. It's not a skimpy diet. You can fill-up, but stick to the plan. The bottom half of the pyramid you can eat every day. The walking you should do every day and only water with one glass of wine everyday. The top of the chart you can only eat once a week and meat only once a month. So if you've noticed the emphasis is on carbs. Animal fats are in the diet but only sparingly. The reason this is a heart healthy diet is because the animal fats are the ones that raise your LDL or Bad Cholesterol.

Fats from plants like avocados or olives are good fats and will lower your cholesterol. I know many people who have changed their diet and have been able to get off their medications.

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of website looking for the material you want.

My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon.com, BN.com, iBook, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smashwords.com. If you use the smashwords' promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (TL96R). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.