Every now and again you see me post about low carb and avoiding complex carbs. A couple years ago I divorced. I've always maintained that out of blue comes green and one good thing that came out of my divorce was my renewed interest in my own health. At first it was because I couldn't eat. I was heartbroken, ask any divorcee and most all lost weight simply because they accidental starved themselves. LOL But once I lost 20 or so pounds that I had been wanting to lose for sometime I swore to myself I'd never let that happen again (among other things). LOL
Now don't get me wrong. I wasn't a bad eater for years. I simply didn't pay enough attention and part of me didn't care enough. While I didn't give my kids soda, I didn't know that apple juice has more sugar than soda! But I was beginning to key in on what was more healthy for me and my children.
Enter the Atkins diet. No I didn't go Atkins. But I did draw from it an important lesson. Keep the carbs low, more than the complex carbs... I consider the simple carbs. I didn't have to avoid them completely but by trying to avoid them I would be keeping enough out of my diet to allow me a better chance to stabilize my fat burning. The girlfriend scoffed, the kids got annoyed that it meant less juice, but everyone realized eventually, I wasn't turning back.
You want the body to burn fat first if you want to lose weight. To do that you have to take away the things the body would normally burn first in order to get straight to burning fat. Not easy I know. But if you cut back on the simple carbs, the body can burn protein then fat in that order. This means, eat less of the first two, rely more on the proteins and let your body do the rest.
Remember fat is stored energy, sugars that were converted to fat. If you are eating complex and simple carbohydrates, the body has no need to go after fat to convert it to energy.
If you do nothing else. Stay away from processed foods. Eat more veggies than fruits (sugar) and do what you can to avoid bread and starches. If you eat them, keep it lite. Open faced sandwiches or wraps instead of rolls. If you eat bread, keep it healthy. Try rye which has flavor! White bread is a joke, you may as well be eating cardboard.
Listen to your body and practice the French philosophy, when you are 80 percent full. You are done. Don't do seconds, and don't put a lot of food on your plate. We eat what we put on our plate because we think we are wasting food if we don't finish. So think in reverse. Put less on your plate, finish that and don't eat more.
Drinks are a serious issue in our home. We drink water, OJ, Concord grape juice and tea. Do my kids get soda or gatorade? Sure, when they do McDonalds or Taco Bell, they can have a soda, it's a treat. But it's the exception, not the norm. Again, as the world is not black and white, your thinking doesn't need to be either. Sure you can have pizza, in moderation. And when you do, don't overdue it.
So in the end, my advice to you if you are going to eat low-carb. Don't worry about cutting them out completely. But work as if you wanted to eliminate them in your life and at some point you'll see that you have eating under control and that you don't rely on them so much. Your waist will shrink (assuming you excersize too) and you'll find yourself waking in the morning getting more done by 6:00 am than most people do by 10:00 am.
If you are dieting to lose weight, this is not where you start. You need to do more. I'll write an article on that soon. But if you want harmony and balance so that you don't put on weight, follow this advice.
