At Home Dieting 101

Low Carb

If you want to diet at home, low carbohydrate is the way to go for several reasons:

• It’s a very simple program involving some very basic restrictions.
• You can eat pretty much whatever and how much you want as long as it’s on the list of acceptable foods.
• You can easily convert recipes to low carb.
• Just deleting grain flours and sugar will reduce carbs substantially.
• You can lose a lot of weight in a relatively short period of time.
• All items are available at your grocery store. Discount savings are available for many of the foods.
• You won’t need to join a group or pay high prices for your food.  

Carbohydrates are a necessity for your body.  They provide energy, help with cellular processes and are one of the main sources of nutrition used by the brain so it should not be completely eliminated from your diet.  You may want to look into discount savings on the special ingredients like almond flour.   

Prohibited Foods

• Grain flours of any kind, including but not limited to: wheat, corn, rye and rice.  These flours are all very high in carbohydrates.
• Sugars including but not limited to cane sugar, honey, syrups, maple sugar, and coconut sugar.
• Potatoes of any kind including both white and sweet.
• Certain fruits and vegetables can be used on a limited basis due to high carbs including: , bananas, apples, grapes, watermelon, carrots, avocados, tomatoes, peas and beans (green beans are fine).

Highly Recommended Foods

• Vegetables including: broccoli, cauliflower, green beans,  peppers, summer squash, lettuces , celery, mushrooms, olives, tomatoes on a limited basis and a multitude of others.
• Fruits consist of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, cantaloupe, pears, peaches and pineapple.
• Nut flours including almond and hazelnut are low carb flours.  Some include soy flour but there’s research showing that it may be an issue.
• Cheeses of all kinds including cottage, cheddar, mozzarella, cream cheese and others.

This is just a basic overview of low carb diets, you may want to purchase a book giving carb counts of all foods.  Just be sure you remember that it’s not a NO carb diet, you need carbs for energy and your brain.  You can’t live without carbs, but you can restrict them.  If they are “good” carbs from fruits and vegetables, you should do wonderfully.  There’s discount savings available  for low carb all over the Web.