How to Maintain a Low Carb Diet

Low Carbohydrate

Typical Low Carb Meal

A Low carb diet does not use the ‘official’ food pyramid; therefore it can be difficult to know what you can and cannot eat when on the low carb diet. However, the Food and Drug Administration has made it easy for you to figure out what you can and cannot eat on your low carb diet. It may be a little difficult, but figuring out your carb will be a little easier after reading this article. As you may know, the key to maintaining your low carb diet is in counting carbs; however, it’s not the overall carb count that you need to watch, you need to figure out the net carb count. To figure out your net carb count, you need to identify the carbs that don’t have a high impact on your blood stream and glucose levels – those carbs that are found in fiber and sugar alcohol, and subtract that total from the overall carb count. To figure out net carbs, you need to take the total number of carbohydrates and subtract the total amount of dietary fiber and sugar alcohol content.

Let’s use an example. Right here I have a can of Campbell’s Select™ New England Clam Chowder Soup. The total amount of carbs for this bowl of soup is 16g. The amount of carbs from dietary fiber is 2g and alcohol sugar is 1g. Therefore, this bowl of soup has a net carb count of 13g. That wasn’t too difficult, was it?

Finding the carbs hiding in your house has become easier, how about when you are out running errands, going shopping, picking up your dry cleaning, and dragging yourself from one after-school activity to another? Since the easiest thing to do in these times of time-crunching is stopping by the local fast food chain restaurant, they’ve made it much easier for you to find something that will satisfy your appetite and maintain your delicate balance of carbs.

Many fast food restaurants, such as Blimpie’s, McDonalds, Arby’s, Subway, and Burger King even have low carb diet friendly menus. The really neat thing about the way the fast food industry is tackling the low carb diet trend is how they’re sidestepping the bread issue. As anyone with on one of these diets know, the bread is public enemy number one when it comes to your diet. So, instead of serving the usual bakery bread, they’ve created new low carb diet bread, so you can have your sandwich and eat it too! It’s a great way to bring the low carb conscious consumer into their restaurants without having to worry about all those carbs – it’s the best of both worlds.

As you can see, it’s now simple to figure out how many carbs are hiding in your pantry, and your local fast food restaurants have healthy low carb diet alternatives to your favorite McMeal. Your local supermarket will have healthy low carb diet alternatives that you can add to your next meal. If you continue counting your carbs using our simple formula you’ll be able to maintain your balance of carbs and lose weight and stay healthy – without much work at all!

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If you are on a low carb diet, one of the great things is your choice of fresh fruit and vegetables; you really have a large choice. On average vegetables have higher carb values than fruits, ranging from 4 to around 12 per 100 grams, and fruits range from 2 to around 10 grams per 100. Even if you want to stay with just the low end range, you have some really healthy options, with broccoli, cabbage, cucumber if its peeled, closed cup white mushrooms, Brussels sprouts next to broccoli are one of the healthiest vegetables you can get, the reason so many people don’t like them has nothing to do with the sprouts it’s the preparation, you have to cut the stem level with where the leaves start, and cut a cross in the stem and remove the outer layer of dark green leaves, before you boil them for about twelve minutes, and then you will never again have bitter tasting sprouts. Next we have green, red and yellow peppers, cauliflower, red onions, carrots, and green peas in the pods. The fruits are just as good, water melon being lowest, strawberry’s, avocado, cantaloupe, blackberries, honeydew melon and peaches are all good for you, grapefruit and the various oranges are next, with plums, raspberries, pineapples, apples, pears, blueberries and kiwi fruits, all of these are really healthy. To add some meat to your selection of fruits and vegetables, one of your best choices is chicken breast with no skin, which has a 0 rating. For some interesting low carb recipes try:

http://www.wannabebig.com/forums/showthread.php?36532-80-Low-Carb-Chicken-Recipes   You have plenty to choose from and there free.

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