Low Carb Meals - Tips For Sticking to a Low Carb Diet

South Beach Diet Recipe

Many of the most successful diet plans, such as Atkins, tell you that low carb meals are the best way to lose weight. There are also many other diet and nutritional books that say basically the same thing, though with some variations on the details.

South Beach Diet Recipe

So I will not go into all the reasons why low carb meals are the way to go. Let's assume you have reached this conclusion by your own research. That is the first step. The next, and more difficult step is sticking to your low carb diet!

South Beach Diet Recipe

If you want to focus on foods that are low in carbohydrates, that can be very beneficial to your weight loss program. However, it's important to realize that there are "good" and "bad" carbs. Good carbs are natural ones that are high in fiber. They have a low glycemic index, which means that they don't elevate your blood sugar rapidly. These include whole grain breads and pastas (though even these should only be eaten in small quantities on a low carb diet). They also include many vegetables and nuts, which are not often thought of as carbs.

South Beach Diet Recipe

A low carb diet should consist mainly of high quality proteins, like lean chicken or turkey, fish, eggs, tofu or tempeh or beans. This, combined with healthy servings of vegetables, including salads, green vegetables like spinach, broccoli and kale, squash, cauliflower and carrots are all good. Try to reduce or eliminate the bad carbs as much as possible. Foods like white bread, sweets with refined sugar, pasta made with refined flours...these are not only fattening, they have little nutritional value.

There are many meals you can make that are delicious as well as nutritious that will leave you feeling satisfied and not at all deprived. You should take your low carb meal plan one week at a time. Make a plan for a week's worth of meals and stick to it as much as possible. Substitute high carb items like bread and pasta with low carb alternatives. Some of these are quite tasty, and when you combine them satisfying protein dishes, you will not feel hungry. Here are some tips to keep you on your low carb diet:

* Have a supply of healthy snack foods with you at all times. Carrots and celery, low carb crackers, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds are good. Now these may not be as tempting as a candy bar or donut, but they will actually give you more long-lasting energy, not to mention help with your diet!

* Drink plenty of water. Try to avoid soda at all, as this is not a nutritious beverage, even the diet varieties. Even fruit juices and energy drinks are not good substitutes for water, as they contain lots of sugar (even if it's natural). Water helps to keep your metabolism running efficiently and can prevent you from feeling hungry between meals.

* Experiment with new low carb foods, whether they be protein or vegetable. Be adventurous and find some new dishes, and you won't miss the carbs so much! Get a recipe book or look online for recipes; try different ethnic foods, but remember to stick to your low carb resolutions.

* Add healthy fats to your diet, whether in the form of foods like olive or coconut oil, avocados or supplements that contain healthy fatty acids, like fish, flax and borage oils.

* Get regular exercise. No diet is going to work if you don't combine it with an exercise program. It doesn't have to be grueling, but it should be consistent. Thirty minutes per day at least three times per week minimum.

These tips should help you stick to low carb meals and help you to lose weight!

Low Carb Meals - Tips For Sticking to a Low Carb Diet

South Beach Diet Recipe

Eating Low Carbs - A Healthy Choice

South Beach Diet Recipe

There are many benefits to eating low carbohydrate diet, the most obvious is weight loss, but did you know that eating low carbs also helps with high blood pressure, heart conditions, depression, and diabetes.

South Beach Diet Recipe

A Low carb diet use to be the last resort when looking at dieting options due to the lack of variety in choices. The options tended to be boring and very limited, especially if we are trying to sustain a low carb diet for life.  The great news is there are many recipes and food products today that offer wonderful dishes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

South Beach Diet Recipe

Acceptable Carbohydrate Amounts

South Beach Diet Recipe

There is no way you can eat 100% carb free and stay healthy at the same time, so what is the acceptable amount to be considered a carb free diet. Dr Atkins who is a leader in the carb free movement and instrumental in promoting a carb free lifestyle suggests eating 15 to 20 grams when starting out for 3 weeks, then gradually introducing carbs while working up to a level of 25 to 90 grams and trying to maintain that level going forward. A more moderate intake would be 90 to 100 grams, and for the most liberal diet the maximum should not exceed 250 grams.

Going Overboard

Like with anything else, moderation is key. You need carbs to stay healthy, you cannot exclude carbs entirely, so please stay away from diets that promote zero carbs. Americans eat carbs in excess amounts; almost every processed food will contain an excess amount of carbs, Items like pizza, bagels, hamburgers, fries, pasta, and cereals, as well as most every snack food. But remember, you body needs good carbs like the ones found fruit and vegetables, but these also need to be consumed in moderation, the suggested servings are between 5 and 10 daily.

Tips for a successful carb free diet

Find foods low saturated fat but high in protein Use healthy oils such as olive, canola, and fish oils Snack on nuts, but in minimum amounts Cut out the white starches such as breads, pasta, and potatoes Choose nonfat dairy products Use whole grains Pay attention to labels to minimize carb intake Try to stay with suggested serving sizes especially when calculating carbs from labels

 Please check with your Dr. first before going on any diet

Eating Low Carbs - A Healthy Choice

South Beach Diet Recipe

Filipino Recipes for the Weight-Conscious

South Beach Diet Recipe

We've always been known for our love of food, but for most people, that hearty appetite comes at a price. With our increasingly hectic lifestyles, there's hardly any time to exercise or get fit. Add to that the fact that Filipino cuisine tends to be high in fat and calories. Yes, it's great food, but you have to admit it's not exactly healthy.

South Beach Diet Recipe

But before ditching that adobo or taking out those South Beach cookbooks, here's some good news: there is such a thing as low-fat Filipino food. In fact, you can make any dish diet-friendly with just a few simple tweaks-without giving up any of the flavor. If all that eating is taking a toll on your waist, start eating healthier with these tips and 1. Make substitutions

South Beach Diet Recipe

One of the secrets to low-fat cooking is replacing common ingredients with low-fat alternatives. Start with your oil: most people use regular cooking oil, which is made from animal fat and very high in cholesterol. Use vegetable-based oils such as corn, canola, sunflower, or if you can afford it, olive oil. When making salads, replace mayonnaise with mustard or vinaigrette, and use fresh instead of canned ingredients.

South Beach Diet Recipe

A common problem with substitution is that they don't always work. You can't expect them to taste the same as the original, but they don't have to taste bad. It takes some practice and experience to know which ingredients will work together and which ones will not. Feel free to experiment-you'll learn from your mistakes and get the hang of it in no time.

Fish is a favorite replacement for meat dishes. Try this low-fat recipe in place of steak and meat chops.

Grilled Tuna Steak

Ingredients:

4-6 fresh tuna steaks

1 bottle of Italian dressing

¾ tsp salt

pepper to taste

Arrange the tuna in a large baking dish. Coat each steak with the Italian dressing and cover the pan. Marinate refrigerated for a few hours or overnight. Grill or broil the steaks until done (when the flesh flakes off easily). Season with salt and pepper before serving.

2. Always go fresh

You don't have to give up dessert altogether if you're watching your weight. Just choose the right desserts-avoid those rice cakes and creamy salads they serve at parties. Instead, use fresh fruits to make your own Filipino desserts recipes. For a little variety, try some of our native fruits such as lanzones, durian and langka. Mix your favorite fruits together and you've got a nice low-fat salad, perfect for those cravings in between meals.

Remember to get your fruits and vegetables fresh. It's very tempting to get canned or pre-packed food, but those tend to be high in calories and packed with preservatives, not to mention overpriced. Get your fruits and vegetables whole and slice them up yourself. That way, you can control your serving portions and cut them any way you like.
This is great if you like to make quick salads and sandwiches.

3. Grill what you can fry

Most Filipino recipes involve deep frying, sautéing, or other methods that involve cooking in fat. Most of the time, you can do without the frying and use healthier cooking methods. Try grilling pork chops or chicken instead of frying. It helps preserve the flavor and gives a rich, smoky aroma. It also sheds some of the fat off the meat, whereas frying seals it in and makes it even fattier.

Explore other cooking methods as well. Steaming, broiling, and poaching are all excellent methods for low-fat cooking. Their main advantage is that you can cook your food more evenly, a common challenge in frying. If you're new to the kitchen and don't know how to experiment, just look for Filipino cooking recipes that you can prepare without the oil.

4. Watch your portions

The reason some diets fail is that the serving portions are bigger than recommended. People tend to overeat when they know their food is low-fat. Don't follow the recommended portions of Filipino food recipes. If the recipe says it serves 6 people, it often means tiny servings that don't even feed half a person. Read the nutritional information on your food labels; their serving sizes are usually more accurate. you don't have to count each calorie every time you cook, but you should have a general idea of each ingredient's nutritional value. If the dish already has meat or something heavy, balance it out with lighter ingredients such as leafy greens.

Filipino Recipes for the Weight-Conscious

South Beach Diet Recipe

Make The South Beach Diet Website Your Bible

South Beach Diet Recipe

If you are overweight and you feel the need to tug at your clothes and hide your body every hour of every day, it might be time to take some action and make life easier for yourself. Chances are that if you are as unhappy as is expected, you have already tried all the fad diets out there and surprise surprise, they haven't worked. This is because most diets encourage the elimination of food and not certain types of food which means that once you stop eating altogether, your body goes into starvation mode. It feels that it isn't getting enough to eat so it must hold onto the food that it does get and the result is that those numbers on the weighing scale will not budge after a certain point and you will definitely put on weight. Sounds like a nightmare, right?

South Beach Diet Recipe

Instead of going through all that, what you should do is make the south beach diet a part of your life immediately. The South Beach Diet website will tell you that the diet is divided into three phases:

South Beach Diet Recipe

The first phase is the hardest and it lasts for 14 days. During these two weeks, you will have to stay away from such food products that are rich in carbohydrates, every kind of sugar and fruits and vegetables that have a high-glycemic index. The South Beach Diet website will also stress on the fact that while this phase is difficult to see through till the end, if you are brave enough to do it, you will be able to lose weight at a much faster rate.

South Beach Diet Recipe

The second and third phases don't have time limits on them. The second phase relaxes the rules which means that the weight watcher can eat most vegetables, fruits and grains but will have to stay away from carbs. The south beach diet website says that the third phase is all about maintenance, that is, maintaining the goal weight that the weight watcher has achieved. Naturally, this is a diet you have to follow for life but as long as you know what food to avoid and what to do, it shouldn't be that hard.

Apart from these details, the South Beach Diet website also focuses on the importance of picking the bad fats from the good fats and the bad carbs from the good carbs. That said, no matter which phase you are in, you can't consume saturated fats and you have to stay away from those foods that are rich in carbohydrates. In addition to that, you can't consume trans fats either. This means that your diet will largely consist of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, fish and lean meat.

It may not sound as exciting as tucking into a large bowl of rock road ice cream and munching on chips in the middle of the night but the south beach diet gets the job done- what more can you ask for? Just make sure that you do everything the south beach diet website tells you to do.

Make The South Beach Diet Website Your Bible

South Beach Diet Recipe

Hypoglycemia Low Carb Diet - How to Manage Your Hypoglycemia the Right Way!

South Beach Diet Recipe

Popular hypoglycemia low carb diet such as Atkins and South Beach may have led some people to believe that low carbs is the right way to go in managing your hypoglycemia. I beg to differ as such a diet can be FATAL for people with hypoglycemia and it will certainly NOT help you one bit in keeping your hypoglycemia under control.

South Beach Diet Recipe

Carbohydrates give us energy. They provide the necessary fuel for our body to function properly. Thus, our body NEEDS carbohydrates for energy. If you have tried low carb diet such as Atkins, you will know what I am talking about; you will feel sluggish, tired, sleepy and disorientated all the time.

South Beach Diet Recipe

The trick here is to not eliminate carbohydrates from your diet, but instead eliminate the "bad" carbs and keep the good ones.

South Beach Diet Recipe

"Bad" carbohydrates, more accurately known as simple carbohydrates or refined carbohydrates, are carbs that are quickly absorbed by the body, thereby raising sugar levels.

"Good" carbohydrates, also known as complex carbohydrates, take much longer time to be broken down and thus, release sugar slowly into the blood stream. This is the carbohydrates that you want in your hypoglycemia diet; carbohydrates that do not cause sudden peaks in your blood sugar level.

A few examples for complex carbohydrates are brown bread, vegetables and whole grains.

In order to recover from hypoglycemia, it is not necessary to remove carbohydrates from our diet. In fact, doing so can be detrimental to your health and aggravate your hypoglycemia. Carbohydrates should comprise more than 50% of your diet. The trick here is to remove the "bad" carbs and replace them with the good ones.

Hypoglycemia Low Carb Diet - How to Manage Your Hypoglycemia the Right Way!

South Beach Diet Recipe

Diet Solution Program Books - Diet Solution Program Review

South Beach Diet Recipe

The Diet Solution Program is a series of books written by Isabel De Los Rios, a nutritionist and lifestyle coach. Let's get this out of the way - there are many books out there that sell false hopes and unhealthy gimmicks for losing weight - this is not one of them. The Diet Solution Program is not one of those popular crash diets like Atkins or South Beach. This program gives you the knowledge to create a healthy lifestyle that will help you lose weight and keep it off.

South Beach Diet Recipe

The Diet Solution Program is easy to personalize to fit your body type. It's not a book that tells you what you can and cannot do. The program consists of nine books that take you step by step toward a healthier lifestyle, and helps you listen to your body so that you can better understand what it needs. For instance, do you feel sleepy or tired after eating a big bowl of pasta. By reading through Isabel De Los Rios's books I learned why this happens and how I can eat foods that I really enjoy that are also healthy.

South Beach Diet Recipe

Diet Solution Program Books:

South Beach Diet Recipe

Top 10 Nutrition Mistakes Keeping you Fat The Success Journal Metabolic Typing Test The Shopping List Recipe Guide Quick Start Guide Done for You Meal Plans 14 Days to a Sexy Body in 2010 All books delivered as PDF files

Diet Solution Review - Diet Solution Program Recipes

Whats even better, the program comes with two very useful cook books: The Shopping List and The Diet Solution Recipe Guide. The former breaks down common food misconceptions and shows how organic and real (not processed) foods that will help you lose weight and feel better. The Recipe Guide provides over 50 recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Isabel De Los Rios constantly reminds the reader to keep your food interesting! This recipe guide provides easy to follow recipes that are healthy and delicious. By making little changes to the food you eat you will not only be able to lose weight, you will have more energy throughout the day.

I like the fact that she offers a full money back guarantee, as well. It shows how much she believes in her product, and how well it actually works. I also like the attitude Isabel De Los Rios takes to losing weight. It's not like other books that scold you for being fat or try to baby you through the weight loss experience. The Diet Solution Program tells you to listen to your body, eat real food until you are full, and provides you with all the resources to make this happen.

Diet Solution Program Books - Diet Solution Program Review

South Beach Diet Recipe

Avocado Recipe

South Beach Diet Recipe

I used to always shy away from avocados because of their bad reputation as being a 'fattening' vegetable. In one simple sentence I have written two false statements.

South Beach Diet Recipe

First of all, avocados do contain fat though most of it is monounsaturated, meaning that the fat is of plant fat origin, a natural fat, not animal fat and thus easily digested by the human digestive system. It's a "good fat" like olive oil. Though if over eaten, it can be somewhat damaging to the waistline.

South Beach Diet Recipe

Secondly, avocados are often referred to as vegetables though botanically speaking they classified as a fruit since they contain seeds, or in this particular case, a pit. Other members of the vegetable fruits are the famous tomato, cucumbers and bell peppers.

South Beach Diet Recipe

Now that I have unmasked some avocado myths, you may now savor this unique textured fruit with a healthy conscious.

Avo-History

Avocados were the first consumed by the Aztecs. Not so different from today's method of consumption, the Aztecs liked to mash the fruit then spread it on corn tortillas before devouring it.

They called it 'ahuacatl'. The Spaniards translated into 'abogado' and the French call it 'avocat' (also the same word for lawyer). Most likely, they were European attempts at pronouncing its native name.

But before making its way across the Atlantic, the avocado worked its way down south into Peru in the pre-Incan city of Chanchan. From Mexico, this green fruit made its way up through Texas and New Mexico. It wasn't until the end of the 19th century that the avocado made its way over to California and planted its roots. Carl Schmidt planted many varieties of avocado trees in 1911 in California. Only one type survived the 1913 freeze. It was name the Fuerte, remnant of its Mexican roots meaning strong and vigorous.

Today 95 percent of all avocados grown in the United States come from California. With a large variety selection, California avocados are available year-round. Florida is also a large producer of avocados.

Avocado Mousse

This dish can be prepared minus the tuna without sacrificing flavor.

Preparation Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: none
Serves: 4
2 avocados 1 small can tuna, packed in water, drained 1 tablespoon mayonnaise 4 tablespoons sour cream (low or fat free) 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard juice from one lemon sea salt

Cut avocados in two lengthwise. Remove pit; scoop out flesh and place in blender or food processor. Save skins.

Add remaining ingredients, purée until smooth and creamy texture. Distribute mousse evenly into skin halves. Chill if not serving immediately.

Can be made a few hours in advance.

Avocado Recipe

South Beach Diet Recipe