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Low Carb Cooking 101 If you have kids, you know that it’s difficult to get them to convert to a lower carbohydrate style of eating. After a while they greet every new culinary concoction with a fish-eyed glare and mutter, “Is that low carb?” If it is, they immediately inform …

When you first begin low-carbing, it can seem a daunting task to prepare your kitchen. Not only do you have to divest yourself of all those high carbohydrate staples in the pantry and fridge, but you'll quickly discover that many of the more interesting recipes call for ingredients you've never heard of! Xanthan gum? Soy lecithin? Vital wheat gluten flour? Rice protein powder? How are you ever going to know which items you really need and which are so esoteric that they'll take up space in your cupboards forevermore?

CarbSmart Low-Carb Success Stories from 2002.

OK, here we go. In the last article I wrote entitled "The Twelve Days of Christmas," I detailed my plan to avoid gaining those dreaded "10 holiday pounds" that everyone gains. Well, needless to say, IT DIDN'T WORK! You know when those low carb "gurus" warned us about the one bite being the "kiss of death" on this way of life? Well, they were right! It is so hard to control the cravings and binge eating that the "one bite" produces.

I am happy to report to my CarbSmart readers that Cathie from Florida reached her goal size of a 5/6 right before Thanksgiving!

Tonight's meal, featuring Italian Marinated Flank Steak, is a simple meal. It goes together quickly with a minimum amount of fuss, and leftover steak is wonderful to munch on for breakfast or lunch, and it is also a terrific addition to a simple salad to turn it into a main dish meal.

One of the most common refrains I hear from overweight women is their rebellion against the emphasis they feel our culture puts on impossibly perfect bodies. If Barbie were actually alive and full-sized, she wouldn't be able to carry her own weight and she wouldn't be able to walk without tumbling over. Yet little girls crave Barbie after Barbie, each one with a new look, a new outfit, a new hairstyle. Consciously or subconsciously, Barbie is a role model of style and grace to little girls, a mentor of feminine perfection that is actually possible only in molded plastic.

Mary Ann from Pennsylvania is 51 years old and 5' 1" tall. "I don't believe in 'weight.' The scale is the biggest deceiver in the history of dieting and weight loss," Mary Ann told me. "You see 'miracle' potions in a bottle that claim you can loose 10 pounds in a weekend, and you might. But it is not 'fat' you are loosing. You can be a skinny little thing and you might think you are wonderfully healthy, but when you starved yourself to get that way, you actually may have lost muscle mass and even bone because if you do not eat 'right' to loose weight, your body will actually begin to cannibalize itself!"

What should I buy for [fill in the blank yourself] for Christmas? That's a phrase guaranteed to send fear and panic in all directions. But, as usual, I'm here, to the rescue.