Health

For the last 2-3 years, there has been a crack down in the low carb food industry that is affecting all of the manufacturers of low carb products and the way you as a consumer look at their products. It is important for me as the owner of CarbSmart to let you know this because what I am going to describe is not being done with malicious intent, it is just a clever way for the manufacturers to bend the rules. The good news is that everything has mostly changed and most companies are complying with the proper way to list the Nutritional Information on their products as governed by the FDA.

If we're so sure we want to be thinner, why do we so often do things that are counterproductive to that? Why do we cheat? Why do we refuse further tweaking of our low carb way of eating when we suspect it would help us get thinner?

Digestion Of Simple Sugars & Supplemental Digestive Enzymes. Article 4 of the Science of Low-Carb & Keto Diets series. Those of us who are trying to lose weight, sometimes lose track of the fact that the body wants to take in food and use it to our best advantage. It does this by digesting the food, thereby making it ready for transfer into the body's tissue cells. The necessary factors are enzymes, which are produced in our bodies for this purpose. Only simple sugars can be absorbed into the cells of the body, and enzymes are necessary to break down the complex carbohydrates to the simple sugar stage.

Carol from California is 42 years old, and has been on the Atkins program for 16 months. She has lost a total of 84 pounds, 51 inches, and has dropped from a size 26 pants to a size 16!

In a cloud of utter boredom, I drag my feet to the school cafeteria. It's chaos, as usual. I blink in a slow, salamander-like motion and head toward my table, resigned. All around me are the wonderful smells of empty carbohydrates: soup, garlic bread, macaroni, French fries.... The list goes on, but it doesn't really matter, because I can't eat any of it. I'm a low carber.

Cinshad, from Michigan, is 39, has been married for 21 years. She is the mother of four children. Cinshad has been low carbing for a year, and recently reached her goal weight of 145. In fact she has dipped below her goal weight and now weighs 138!! That is 35% of me gone through low carbing!" she declares proudly.

Pasta in all its various types constitutes a large part of our fast living, fast food culture. Busy mums and dads can very quickly throw together a selection of meat and/or veggies in a stir-fry or casserole to produce a quick tasty filling meal.

You've been doing great. You've been losing weight by adopting the low carb lifestyle. You feel better. You have more energy. You sleep better. Your clothes are looser. And then you blow it.

In 1996 I weighed 208 (or maybe more) and wore size 22 jeans. Two years ago this month I hit a body fat percentage of 24% and realized that at 137 I had reached goal. At 5'-4", I wore sizes 8 and 10.

Mary from Alabama is 30 years old. She has been following the Atkins diet since February 29, 2000, and has lost 56 pounds, even though she takes the Depo Provera shot, which is known to cause problems with weight gain in some women. She told me she started having a problem with her weight at the age of 12, a time when many young girls will start to struggle with extra pounds. She has a wonderful support system.

Every human endeavor, it seems, has got to have its very own set of buzzwords. Why? I think it's because we like to think that we are in a secret club, like the ones we had in elementary school. Only certain kids knew the secret password or the secret handshake, and we felt really smug around those who did not share the secret. Well, low carbohydrate dieting has its buzzwords, some self-explanatory, and some downright scary. In the scary group, the scariest for a diabetic are ketones and its friend ketosis.