30 day update on Primal Blueprint

 Low-Carb Lifestyle, Uncategorized, Weight Management  Comments Off on 30 day update on Primal Blueprint
Jun 032013
 

primalblueprintSo about 30 days ago I posted that I was going to make some pretty fundamental changes to my health and wellness plan. I researched quite a few different eating and living philosophies that meshed well with my low-carb lifestyle. I was pretty firmly committed to the concept that sugars spike the blood sugar levels causing fat storage, so I wanted to find an eating plan which supported that theory. Thankfully there has been a lot of progress on that front in the last few years. Gone are the days where the Atkins diet was the only alternative for someone seeking a low carb lifestyle. While I have enjoyed some success over the years with Atkins, I never could really get it to stick. I would lose the weight when I went into benign dietary ketosis, but then gradually would all come back as I introduced grains and refined sugars back into my diet.

It was also important that I find something that I felt was sustainable from an ease-of-use point of view as well as a food consumption point of view. As you know from my prior article, I decided to go with primal blueprint. This is very similar to the Paleo diet, but is slightly less restrictive when it comes to dairy.  There is also  an emphasis on organic foods, stress free living, and exercise which more closely resembles the type of activities that our ancestors would have been naturally enduring in the more primitive world.

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Low-carb Cheesecake

 Recipes  Comments Off on Low-carb Cheesecake
Sep 092012
 

I know it seems crazy to consider, but it is actually possible to make a cheesecake (that most indulgent of deserts) with only 2 grams of carbohydrates per serving.  The following recipe was proclaimed by my daughter Lauren (who is quite the Cheesecake lover) as “Yummy!”   I think the almond-meal crust actually comes out better than a traditional graham cracker crust.  The first time making this it might seem that it is complicated because of the two step process of baking the crust and then the cake, but the second time around it should seem much simpler.  I also think the water bath might be intimidating to some, but really it turned out to not be that big a deal.

Each serving has 2 grams effective carbohydrate plus 1 gram fiber, 6 grams protein, and 221 calories
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Low Carb Apple Caramel Muffins

 Recipes  Comments Off on Low Carb Apple Caramel Muffins
Aug 122012
 

forms-1.3.0-src.zip forms-1.3.0.jar images pom.xml src target temp-testng-customsuite.xml test-output tmwo-test.dat tmwo.datThese low carb treats will make you forget you don’t eat bread anymore! There is less than 2 (non fiber) carbs per muffin and so your blood sugar will not spike when biting into this moist, delicious muffin.  This is an easily adaptable recipe.  You can experiment with different flavors or different combinations of flax and almond meal.  As this recipe stands, each muffin has 134 calories, 5 gm of protein, 11.2 gm of fat, only 1.2 gm of sugars and 2300 mg of omega-3.

Flax seed is good for overall health. In the book “Cholesterol Down: Ten Simple Steps to Lower Your Cholesterol in Four Weeks,” author Janet Brill notes that flax seed can help protect against breast, colon and prostate cancer and also can lower cholesterol. Nutrients such as B vitamins, which are an intricate part of energy production in the body, and vitamin E, which is connected to skin and hair health, are also prevalent in flax seed. Finally, flax seed has been linked to increased brain function due to the omega-3s present in the food.
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Low Carb Egg Muffins

 Recipes  Comments Off on Low Carb Egg Muffins
Aug 082012
 

Egg muffins are super easy to make and provide a tasty breakfast or snack that can be prepared in advance.   They are basically like mini quiches in which you can make in many different varieties.  Because it is made with egg and vegetables there is no explicit carbohydrate component to the recipe.  It only takes about 10 minutes to mix the ingredients together and most of that time will be in chopping up some veggies to add to the mix.  Because of the egg and cheese I do recommend a good no-stick spray like Baker’s Joy.
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 Posted by at 11:31 am

The real truth

 Low-Carb Lifestyle  Comments Off on The real truth
Aug 082012
 

I read this great quote today which nicely sums up the solution to weight loss:

Forget calorie counting – fat cells accumulate fat under the influence of insulin.  Insulin is excreted in response to blood sugar levels.  Only one dietary component elevates blood sugar levels – carbohydrates.  Weight is a matter of how your intake is partitioned into, or out of fat cells, and that is driven by hormones, not by caloric value. Stop eating carbohydrates.   It’s simple.