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 1)
Add variety to your meals
2)
Increase your water intake
3)
Cut the Caffeine
4)
Watch out for hidden carbs
5)
Don’t under eat or over eat
6)
Stop consuming products made with aspartame
7)
Count every carb every time
8)
Consider a one-day meat fast to break a stall
9)
Start or increase exercise
10)
Start at the beginning
1)
Add variety to your meals
What’s
the hardest thing about your low carb diet and the most
common reason that people quit? Boredom. After a few weeks of eggs and ham for breakfast, a breadless
sandwich for lunch, and a steak and salad for dinner,
day after day, people can get bored and quit. If
you’ve been getting bored with your low carb diet,
purchase some low carb snacks, desserts and breads to
add into your daily eating plan. Also, find some new
recipes on the Internet or purchase a low carb cookbook.
There are many great low carb dishes that you probably
haven’t thought of.
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2)
Increase your water intake
Fat
is mobilized through a process called hydrolysis. As the
word suggests, hydrolysis requires plenty of water.
Insufficient amounts of water in your body will hinder
effective breakdown of fat. If you're exercising, or if
your environment is warm and/or dry, you need to drink
more water. If you are in active ketosis, you need to
drink more water to flush the ketones out of your
system. Water
is vital to your health it helps flush toxins from all
the fat you are burning from your bloodstream and keeps
your kidneys functioning properly. Generally you should
drink 64 fl oz per day plus another 8 oz for every 25
pounds you are overweight. Coffee, tea, and soda are in
addition to your water intake.
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3)
Cut the Caffeine
In
select persons, caffeine can be in the way of their
weight loss. Try cutting caffeine from your diet
completely for a few days and see if it speeds up your
weight loss.
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4)
Watch out for hidden carbs
Generally,
plain meats such as beef, poultry and fish contain no
carbs. However, commercially processed meats can have
carbs added that you may not suspect. For instance,
sausages and meatloaves may contain breadcrumbs, milk
ingredients and sugars. Bacon, ham, pastrami and other
cured meats are made with sugar, corn syrup or dextrose.
Many canned fish products contain sugar or starch-added
sauces. Avoid anything "lowfat," as they are
almost always high in carbs. Always read the label to be
sure.
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It’s
important to know that the government lets food
manufacturers put 0 grams of carbs on the label if a
food has less than .5 gram per serving and less than 1
gram of carbs if a food has between .5 and .9. Even some
diet sodas contain trace amounts of carb. These amounts
aren’t much but they do add up if you eat enough of
them. So if you’re having trouble losing weight count
foods that say 0 grams as .5 gram and foods that say
less than 1 gram as 1 gram.
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5)
Don’t under eat or over eat
It's
difficult to grasp the idea of a "diet" that
instructs you to eat when we are so used to restricting,
cutting back and denying hunger. Avoid the temptation to
eat less, thinking that this will boost your efforts and
speed up the process. In fact, under-eating is one of
the surest ways to stall your efforts and bring your
weight loss to a grinding HALT. When you go for more
than 4 or 5 hours without eating, your body interprets
this as a fast, and will adapt very quickly by slowing
down your metabolism and conserving your fat.
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In
general, it's not necessary to restrict or even count
calories while following a low carb program. You should
eat when you are hungry, and eat until you feel
satiated. But don't go overboard - it's not a license to
stuff yourself to the point of being overfull. Studies
have shown that eating smaller but more frequent meals
lead to more weight loss success.
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6)
Stop consuming products made with aspartame
More
and more people are finding they react unfavorably to
aspartame (Equal, Nutrasweet) and are choosing to avoid
it, although it is certainly the most commonly used
sweetener in commercial diet products. Instead choose
products sweetened with Spenda.
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7)
Count every carb every time
It’s
a good idea to count how many carbs you are eating each
day. Carbohydrates can sneak into your food without you
really noticing! A gram here and there and pretty soon
they add up to an extra 10 or more grams a day that you
may not realize you're eating. Make sure you are
accurately measuring your allowed vegetables and
remember to count the carbs in dressings and condiments.
Watch your coffee intake as well, which has 1
gram in a 10-ounce mug before you add cream and
sweetener. Read labels carefully, and get yourself a
good carbohydrate gram counter.
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8)
Consider a meat fast to break a stall
One
extreme technique for spurring on weight loss is the
meat fast. For one to two days, total carbohydrate
intake is kept as close as possible to 0 grams by eating
only meat, oil and water. Many dieters who have tried
the meat fast report it produced a quick weight loss.
They say this rapid loss is similar to what they
experienced in the first couple of weeks on their diets.
Further, they claim that once their plateaus were
broken, their weight loss continued even after they
returned to their normal reduced carbohydrate diets.
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9)
Start or increase exercise
Exercise
will boost your metabolism and burn fat. Exercise,
especially weight-training, will build muscles, and
muscles are more metabolically "active", thus
will increase fat burning as well. If you have been
exercising, and have hit a plateau, perhaps your body is
signaling for you to change your routine. Increase the
duration and/or the intensity. If you've been jogging or
cycling only, try adding some weight-lifts to your
workout - and vice-versa, if you've only been
weight-training, you should add some aerobic activity as
well.
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10)
Start at the beginning
Refresh
your memory about your diet plan by rereading the book.
Go back to the basic principles and begin the program
again. For example, if your chosen plan recommends an
introduction stage, repeat it. A couple weeks practicing
the basics can give you some great insights into what
works for you.
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