Lo Carb Diet Tips

This is a pretty good list of lo carb diet tips from Scot Standke. We would all do well to follow this advice completely, but following most of it should prove beneficial as well.

Start your diet with a food diary, record everything you eat, what you were doing at the time, and how you felt. That tells you about yourself, your temptation, the emotional states that encourage you to snack and may help you lose once you see how much you eat. For a great piece of Diet Tracking Software, please check out Weight-By-Date.

Instead of eating the forbidden piece of candy, brush your teeth. If you're about to cheat, allow yourself a treat, but make sure it's a low carb treat. Literally hundreds can be found in your copy of 1001+ Low Carb Diet Recipes.

When hunger hits, wait 10 minutes before eating and see if it passes. Set attainable goals.

Don't say, "I want to lose 50 pounds." Say, "I want to lose 5 pounds a month." Get enough sleep but not too much. Try to avoid sugar at all costs. Highly sweetened foods tend to make you crave more. When baking, use Splenda, a great tasting sugar substitute that can be found, along with about any other low carb snack, treat and item at Synergy.

Drink six to eight glasses of water a day. Water itself helps cut down on water retention because it acts as a diuretic. Taken before meals, it dulls the appetite by giving you that "full feeling." Diet with a buddy. Support groups are important, and caring people can help one another succeed. Start your own, even with just one other person.

Substitute activity for eating. When the cravings hit, go to the "Y" or health club if possible; or dust, or walk around the block. This is especially helpful if you eat out of anger.

If the pie on the counter is just too great a temptation and you don't want to throw it away, freeze it. If you're a late-night eater, have a low carb snack, such as some pork rinds or a few cheese curds, before bedtime to cut down on cravings.

Keep a glass of water by your bed to quiet the hunger pangs that wake you up.

If you use food as a reward, establish a new reward system. Buy yourself a non-edible reward. Write down everything you eat - - everything - including what you taste when you cook. If you monitor what you eat, you can't go off your diet. Again, the easiest way I have found to track my eating habits and records is with Weight-By-Date.

Weigh yourself once a week at the same time. Your weight fluctuates constantly and you can weigh more at night than you did in the morning, a downer if you stuck to your diet all day. Make dining an event. Eat from your own special plate, on your own special placemat, and borrow the Japanese art of food arranging to make your meal, no matter how normal, look lovely. This is a trick that helps chronic over-eaters and bingers pay attention to their food instead of consuming it unconsciously.

Don't shop when you're hungry. You'll only buy more high carb inpulse food. Avoid finger foods that are easy to eat in large amounts. Avoid consuming large quantities of coffee & diet sodas, which are so easy to overdo. And this includes alcoholic beverages.

Keep plenty of crunchy foods like raw radishes, cauliflower & brocollli on hand. They're low in carbs, and are very satisfying and filling. Leave something on your plate, even if you are a charter member of the Clean The Plate Club. It's a good sign that you can stop eating when you want to, not just when your plate is empty.

Lose weight for yourself, not to please your husband, your parents or your friends. Make the kitchen off-limits at any time other than mealtime. Always eat at the table, never in front of the TV set or with the radio on. Concentrate on eating every mouthful slowly and savoring each morsel. Chew everything from 10 to 20 times and count! Never skip meals. This is perhaps the most important low carb diet tip at all. If you skip a meal, it signals to your body that it may need to store fat in case the meal does not come soon. You can actually lose more weight by eating each low carb meal in the day rather than skipping one, believe it or not.

If you are just beginning the low carb diet, limit your carb intake to the suggested rate of 20 grams a day or less over the first two weeks. After only a few days of doing this, your appetite will decrease dramatically.

I hope you find this article helpful in your low carb lifestyle. If you have not done so already, please check out our Low Carb Newsletter and snag a free copy of our eBook "150 Salad Recipes" for FREE! http://www.lowcarbdietrecipe.com

This article courtesy of http://www.idietnow.com. You may freely reprint this article on your website or in your newsletter provided this courtesy notice and the author name and URL remain intact.

Again, this list of lo carb diet tips should help in your journey along the low carb way. It can serve as a troubleshooting guide, too. If you get stuck, maybe you're violating one of the rules of lo carb diets!

Best wishes

--Jim

Low Carb General Index