Low carb diets, to be considered low carb and also to keep insulin levels down pretty low where the body starts to burn fat instead of sugars and carbs, actually needs to be pretty low. About thirty grams of carbs and under is the ideal number to actually shed quite a bit of weight. This means that you should really eat a lot of protein and meat and cheese, which a lot of people shun because these foods tend to be higher in fat than others.

However, being on a low carb diet doesn’t mean you have to shove fatty foods in your mouth at every turn. There are leaner options like turkey sausage, turkey bacon, low fat egg scramblers, low fat cheese and chicken and lean fish.  You just have to be careful to not totally shun veggies, as they give you the fiber, which makes you go the bathroom. Not having any fiber in your diet will definitely screw things up and have you in pain for a while!

Low carb diets work by essentially keeping your insulin levels low. When the blood sugar or insulin levels are low in the body, the body does not burn the sugar and carbs in the blood stream as energy. Instead, it pulls fat from the blood and burns fat. This means that over time, your body’s fat stores begin to whittle down, as do you behind and your belly with it!

That’s essentially why low carb diets work so well, and the lower carb you go, the quicker you will probably take the weight off. It’s amazing how fast I took off a few pounds that just would not come off after a typical high carb, low fat diet.  They just melted right off after just a week of really watching my carbs, so it does work to get fat off the body and maintain lean muscle.

Whether it can be a way of life – well, that’s up to you – and you also have to be careful to not make it unhealthy by taking in all fatty foods with no nutritional value. That takes practice, but you can do it and you can find foods that fit this bill well.

Basically, you watch the carb count in your foods rather than the fat or calorie count so much.  However, if you want to be heallthy, I think you should still watch the fat intake as well, so for instance, buy low fat cheeses and meats for your low carb diet lifestyle.

High fat diets aren’t good for your body, and you may be losing weight if you indulge in bacon and eggs every morning, but you may also be putting your body through a lot of processing, and the less fat you take in, the less processing and stress your digestive system has to take on, which is a good thing, and makes your working parts – well – work a lot longer!

Another risk with Atkins is if you don’t get enough fiber in your diet and you shun  fruits and veggies, you will definitely get constipated.  So make sure you at least eat an apple here and there, and make big salads with chicken in them for at least one meal a day so that you are still getting roughage or some form of fiber in your meal with each bite.

Eating just cheese and meat will put you in serious pain if you don’t get that fiber in there too.  My personal favorite is to do a combination of Atkins low carb and a fiber diet.  I simply can’t eschew all fiber containing foods in favor of lower carb options, my system isn’t built to be regular under all circumstances like some people are.  I need fiber and bulk in order to have any sense of regularity and comfort, and it’s just not worth the weight loss if I can’t have that.

I also try to eat a lot of fiber containing nuts, like raw walnuts and almonds. Almonds especially are a great nut to eat for low carb diets because they contain tons of omega 3 fatty acids which are ultra healthy, and they also contain lots of natural fiber to help you stay regular.

I use spinach leaves and dark leafy greens in my salad for higher vitamin and fiber content instead of plain old iceberg lettuce, which has poor nutrient and fiber value. It’s the little choices like that which make my Atkins style diet a bit healthier – and keeps things moving along!

Now, I love to add a hard boiled egg to my salads. But the difference is, I only allow myself half of the yolk. As you know, the yolk is the fattiest part of the egg, and it also contains a lot of cholesterol. It’s really good tasting though, and it actually does offer some nutrients that the egg white, it’s lesser calories, high protein counterpart, does not.

In one large hard boiled egg, there are about 77 calories, and just the yolk accounts for 59 of those calories. The egg white, even though it’s larger in surface area than the yolk, only has about 17 calories in it and it’s a great source of lean, fat free protein.

So, my low fat egg salad alternative is as follows. All you do is take a hard boiled egg, I like to use jumbo eggs since they give more egg white. Throw away half of the yolk.  Chop it up into small squares like you would for regular egg salad. Mix with about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of low fat, small curd cottage cheese.  I like to add a dash of sea salt and pepper – voila – low fat, high protein, no mayo egg salad – yum-o!!!

I actually discovered this little trick one morning at work because I was running low on my usual cottage cheese and had brought a hard boiled egg with me to eat plain. I’m pretty adventurous when it comes to mixing foods and experimenting, so I figured why not mix the two, they’re both low fat sources of protein that are filling and nutritious.

So I mixed them and add a little salt and pepper. It’s a nice low carb snack or part of a meal if you like egg salad but don’t want all the fat.  Kept me full for a few hours too!

In other words, they make you feel like you’re indulging, but really you’re saving about 30-50% of the calories that are in their higher fat, non low calorie counterparts.  Wish Bone has the best low fat and low calorie cream dressings I think, hands down.

Their zesty Sweet and Spicy red french dressing is one of mine and my husband’s favorites. And another favorite is their low fat Creamy Caesar, which unfortunately is really hard to find at grocery stores any more.

Another good low fat creamy caesar dressing that’s good, but not as good as Wish Bone brand, is Marzetti.  It’s got that same pungent taste that a lot of good caesar’s have, thanks to the anchovi oil (I know, sounds gross, but it really makes for a tasty caesar dressing!), but just not as much flavor overall as the Wish Bone.

I really like mixing the Sweet and Spicy French lowfat dressing with a low fat ranch. It makes a nice sort of thousand-island-ish sort of flavor, and creams up the french a bit more too, making it taste a bit more indulgent. Believe it or not, Wal-mart has a pretty tasty low fat, low cal ranch dressing that’s also easy on the wallet at less than two bucks for a bigger bottle.

One thing you have to be careful of when you’re using low fat or low calorie dressing is that you don’t use more of it than you would a normal dressing, since we tend to do that subconsciously when we use a low fat/cal product. You can easily over do it on a light dressing too, and defeat the purpose of a healthful, low calorie salad in a couple extra pours of the bottle.

Try measuring it out into tablespoons, and keeping it to one serving or 1 1/2 servings, depending on how big the salad is. You’d be surprised at how far some dressings go in coating your lettuces and veggies with just the right amount of zesty flavor!

Actually, I dare say that portion control is the most challenging part of dieting for just about everybody.  I think that’s why diets that promise you can eat all you want are so popular, like the Atkins diet which doesn’t focus so much on portion control, but rather the amount of carbs you are taking in at each meal.

I still think though, that weight loss is best achieved by using portion control in conjunction with whatever type of diet you choose – low carb, high carb but low fat, or something like the Zone diet (which is portion controlled, but uses specific combinations of food to rev up your fat burning potential).

We have a lot at our disposal as far as tools to enforce portion control in our meals, but it’s not always easy to actually execute it because you’re often still hungry after consuming a “portion controlled” meal.

It’s really how we’ve become programmed to eat because we were brought up on the super size mentality many times. Some of us are lucky and have a built in “stop” button when we’re full, but most of us have that other button that tells us we’re still hungry when we’re really not needing the extra food.

Natural appetite suppressants can certainly help, but it also take discipline to do it at first, and shrink that stomach so you become accustomed to eating less.  There are even special plates and bowls you can buy that do the portioning for you that have helped a lot of people do it without just eyeballing it.

There are also a lot of portion controlled foods available, like 100 calorie snack packs and prepackaged meals that are a preset amount of calories that can help you start off on the right foot when trying to control portions for the first time, or re-learning it.

I’ve found that for me, the initial first week is the toughest, when I’m trying to reform my portion control and make sure I’m only eating what I have to in order to be “full” and at least satisfied til my next meal.  A lot of it is the idea that we eat as a way to pleasure, instead of eating to “live”.  If you can get over that idea and only eat what you need, then your body will follow and reduce it’s fat content and all that excess baggage it’s been carrying around in response!