atkins | Everydayclimb's Blog

The above photo shows what many, many health professionals still believe should be a staple of our diets for breakfast, lunch, dinner, even snacks. Have you taken a look at the Food Guide Pyramid lately?

Please don’t take this guide seriously. I’m living proof that this way of eating is NOT healthful for every adult. Too many carbs. They are telling us that they majority of our eating should contain carbohydrates. After decades of fighting my overweight body (yet using doctor-recommended and professionally recognized “well rounded” diets), I figured out why I didn’t feel well most of the time and why I couldn’t maintain weight loss.

I tried a very low carbohydrate way of eating. I felt 75% better after just the first day!

I have several low carb eating plans but stayed with Atkins because it was more familiar and because I needed the structure of their Induction phase. I used to think that the more variety I was given, the better I could work the diet. Not so this go round. I went a different route, and it’s working well. After reading much research on carbohydrates, I realized I was likely carb-sensitive. Another phrase that stuck with me was Insulin Resistance.

What is carb sensitivity? It’s How your body processes sugars and starches. Some of us can down a pint of ice cream and not be affected. Others, like me, can eat a half a cup and stall their weight maintenance. I know, it’s not fair but that’s life. All bodies are not created equally. “Carbohydrate-sensitive people have exaggerated responses to sugars and starches that set the stage for increased appetite, carbohydrate cravings, and very efficient fat storage (Georgia Ede, MD).”

Try a low carb diet and see if it helps you lose unwanted pounds. Fat pounds, not lean muscle. Look up Atkins Diet or the Keto Diet and see if they’re for you. I’m glad I did!

The difference between Atkins and Keto Diets

Good luck on your journey, and enjoy the natural foods you eat.

I’ve made a discovery. I had to choose a path to travel when I approached a fork in the road. Ironic that it’s called a FORK when my diet is what drastically changed. Over the last couple of decades, I made junk food my go-to when I felt stressed, bored, afraid, or whatever other emotion I was dealing with. I was alone a lot in my first marriage and fell to food as a coping mechanism.

You’ve heard this tale before by many others BUT mine hit me square in the face tonight. With hubby number two off at a meeting, I was bored and hungry. Instead of choosing the low carbohydrate foods in my pantry, I turned backward and drove to a taco stand. It sounded so tasty, and it HAD been a month since I’d changed my diet. I deserved one meal I craved, right?

I crushed the tacos in a bowl and added salsa. I sat down to watch a sit-com – anticipating the first bite of an old delicious friend, a taco with an actual crunchy shell on it.

Boom! There was the taste. Only it wasn’t what I remembered. It had a stale, kind of burned taste, and the texture of the meat was odd. It was packed together tightly but get this . . . there was almost no taste at all. It WASN’T delicious. It was greasy and bland and not even close to what my mind remembered.

I finished the tacos anyway, secretly hoping each bite would find me enchanted again with my old habit. Nope. So, I ate until I was too full (like I once did) and felt like crap! Within fifteen minutes, I had a headache. I kid you not. MSG? I knew there was no “going back.”

I had taken a path of clean eating over the last month, and it prevailed. I was both encouraged and disappointed. I didn’t have the old habit I once counted on as my Band-Aid.

Yet, I faced a new path . . . one with a healthier destination.

I now walk in the light of health and won’t have the old unhealthful habits. I guess that’s one way to quit a habit you hate. It becomes something you detest after a while.

My bare feet take me to a happier and tastier place, and I do enjoy the journey much more than I used to. Soon, there will be no fat, headaches, mood-changing sugars, or any other detriment that I once held so closely.