Your trusted guide to the low carb lifestyle
It’s been a spectacular journey over these past year, testing the concept of nutritional ketosis on myself. What started out as a simple n=1 experiment to learn if a very high-fat, moderate protein, very low-carbohydrate nutritional approach could make a impact on my weight and health once a traditional Atkins or Paleo-style diet wasn’t working for me anymore, has now become much more than that.
Hello low-carb cronies, Atkins admirers, Paleo pals! So happy to be joining you here at CarbSmart. I am excited to share my love of all things Paleo-tastic with you, and hopefully provide some insight into this similar, yet different approach to weight-loss and wellness gains!
Most of us have adopted a low carb lifestyle for health reasons and have had tremendous success, both with weight loss and reversing diseases of modern civilization. When we first start out, the weight loss and energy we feel from reducing our carb intake keeps us motivated. Once we’ve reached our goals, it can be tricky trying to navigate adding carbs back into our diets without completely going off the rails.
I’m happy to introduce Sandi Russell, our latest success story. A 37 year old stay-at-home mom of two boys, Sandi was a tall, healthy youth, standing 5′ 9” and wearing a size 7. She was one of those people that could eat just about anything she wanted without visible consequences. As the story goes, one day things changed.
Comedian Tom Naughton started out with the intention to film a rebuttal to Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Super Size Me but what he ended up with was so much more. After he started looking into the nutritional science behind our national dietary recommendations, Tom realized something was very wrong – the science and the recommendations didn’t align. Fat Head quickly morphed into a funny and educational combination that teaches you to look critically at the science, understand how the body/food connection actually works, and to think for yourself with this snazzy little thing called a functioning brain. He reminds us that we aren’t stupid, despite what certain organizations would like us to believe, and we can make smart decisions all by our little ole’ selves.
Many things happened when I switched from a low carb approach to a Primal lifestyle, but perhaps the biggest change was my attitude. I started questioning things. I no longer ate something simply because it was low carb; I now needed to know everything that was in my food, where it came from, and how it was made. Since a Primal diet didn’t allow for legumes, grains or processed foods, a lot of the foods I had eaten in the past – Atkins bars, low carb tortillas, and tofu to name a few – were off the list.
My first few days of low carb eating were incredibly easy. I found that I wasn’t as hungry as I used to be and I had more energy. I was propelled by adrenaline – excited to finally be trying something I was sure was going to work. In Tara Grant’s Journey to Low Carb Part 2, like many of us, she learned she had to commit and recommit to Low Carb Eating.
In her first column for CarbSmart, Tara Grant, Primal Girl, explores her history with sugar addiction and how after finding the right doctor to diagnose and treat her Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), she started her journey to better health. This journey includes the steps she took to the low carb lifestyle and eventually to refining it the Paleo/Primal way.
Secrets to a Healthy Metabolism by Maria Emmerich covers the science behind nutrition and how our bodies use different elements of our food to function. In this book you will learn the tools to lead a healthy lifestyle that you can sustain for the rest of your life. It is based on the food science of how our bodies react to different ingredients.
Looking for the signs and symptoms of insulin resistance is only the beginning of the journey – there is a bigger issue. A major problem lies in the attitude and standards of practice for health care professionals. Valerie Berkowitz continues to look at her history with insulin resistance to help guide you to learn how to feed yourself with what your body really needs.
