Health

Confession: I am perhaps the only person in the entire state of Indiana who will not be watching the Colts play in the Super Bowl next weekend. It's partly that I simply find football - and other games - dull, and so does That Nice Boy I Married. It's also because having worked with some pro-footballers in my career as a massage therapist, I know all too well just exactly what they're doing to their bodies. I can't watch all those 300 pound guys run sideways into each other's knees. Ouch.

As we approach those middle years, we realize things are changing. Some are no big deal. Most people can handle a little grey here and there. And those little noises your body makes when you get out of bed each morning – nothing a little stretching can’t take care of, right? But what about that unexplained bulge starting to form around your midsection? Despite healthy eating and regular exercise, you may find you still have an unwanted spare tire. Doctors Mike and Mary Dan Eades have the solution for you.

We have ads touting low calorie soup, low calorie cereal, low calorie yogurt, as opposed to that "high calorie" yogurt - you know, with a whole 100 calories per serving. Oh, and the soup is advertised as having only 80 calories per serving "and no fat." Welcome to the post-100-calorie-pack advertising gimmick.

Oh, boy. This obesity research stuff just gets more and more interesting. Did you know there's research suggesting that there may actually be an obesity virus?

For quite some time now I have made a name and a some-time living as a nutritional heretic. I don't believe in a "balanced diet," I think animal fat and cholesterol are among the most healthful foods, I consider fruit juice to be little better than soda pop, I'm all for cutting whole categories of food out of my diet. Here's my latest heresy: I am unconvinced of the value of fiber.

Dana Carpender shares the many ways pumpkin can fit into a low carb diet including her Low Carb Chili Lime Pumpkin Seed recipe. If your only experience with pumpkin has to do with jack-o-lanterns and high-carb pie, rethink this tasty vegetable. Pumpkin is lower carb than most winter squashes, and one of the best sources of pro-vitamin A around.

The best perk of my job is free Low-Carb food. Manufacturers send me samples, hoping I'll like their products well enough to mention them. Andrew here at CarbSmart.com sends me food to try. And one year, my publisher subscribed me to the Bacon of the Month Club. I swear I'm not making that up. What a great gift! A new variety of small-farm, boutique, gourmet bacon every month.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who talks back to the television. Okay, what I really do is yell at the television. I yell at politicians, and the people on my soap operas. I yell with real gusto at food ads.

Each week Dana will be writing helpful and entertaining articles about the low carb lifestyle at Carb Smart Magazine healthy eating and anything else she wants to write about.

I have, over the years, resolutely kept my political views out of my writing about carb-controlled nutrition. Not that I don't have such views, you understand. I'm just as opinionated in that part of my life as I am about food. I just had this mental image of someone with severe metabolic syndrome reading my work, finding some political view he or she disagreed with, and saying, "I'm not going to listen to anything that nutcase says!" After which, of course, they'd get their feet amputated and go blind from diabetic complications, and it would all be my fault. Or at least partly my fault.

"Organic" is no kind of guarantee of nutrition. Please don't get me wrong. I am not against organic food. I buy a lot of local, small farm, organically raised stuff myself.

A story I've heard quite often is this: Someone will start out on their low carb diet, paying attention to their nutrition, feeling better physically and mentally. Then something awful will happen - a death in the family, a job loss, a divorce, something like that. The dieter will be derailed. They will start eating chocolate and pasta and anything else they can get their hands on in the vain hope that it will somehow make them feel better. The exercise program will go out the window. And pretty soon, in addition to the pain caused by the initial, awful incident, they'll be dealing with the unpleasant side effects of bad nutrition and physical stagnation.