For the first couple of days with this new way of life, you may feel a bit sluggish. This is because you're body isn't yet used to burning fat for energy.
Imagine that? Your body is so unfamiliar with burning fat for energy, that even when you lack carbohydrates, your body has no idea what to do! But, we're going to change all of that...
During the first two weeks, if you need something to snack on, you can eat some Macadamia nuts. Not the whole container though! Another crunchy snack you can eat is Pork Rinds (get the barbeque flavored ones!). They're not bad when you're craving something crunchy. And you'll still lose weight if you eat them (You’ll need the fat for energy).
Another nice thing about pork rinds is that you can crumble them up and use them as bread crumbs. Try this on chicken… (I’ll tell you about the really cool snacks a little later on. For the first two weeks, it’s important that you keep your regimen as simple as possible.)
Use cream instead of milk (not too much, though. Remember, you don’t want much more than five carbohydrates in one setting.) – Don’t use skim milk or regular milk. You need the fat that comes with cream. Skim milk has too much sugar and no fat.
During the first two weeks (often referred to as induction), you'll need to be very strict. No sweets! No diet soda, no sugar substitutes. No low-carbohydrate shakes. This is really the only difficult part of this new way of life. Two weeks! You can do it!
Most people believe that our bodies are so used to releasing insulin when we eat sweet sugar, that even when we eat something sweet that is not sugar, our bodies react the same way – releasing insulin!
So give your body two weeks to become less familiar with associating anything sweet with the need to release insulin. This is what induction is all about. If your body releases too much insulin (not used for energy) it gets stored as fat.
Tip!
If you ever do go off course and have a day or two of carbohydrate filled meals, go back to induction for a week or two and you should be right back on course. We all make mistakes every now and then – don’t sweat it!
You're going to keep your carbohydrates at a maximum of 20 grams per day – stay as close as you can to 20. It won’t do you any good to go under. Eat fat! Eat butter! Eat some cream cheese! Eat mayonnaise! Eat some sour cream! Have bacon and eggs with sausage! Eat it all! Throw some butter on those eggs! Have a chef salad and throw on some ranch dressing or creamy Caesar! (Just be careful, some salad dressings have more carbohydrates than others)
I loved having grilled chicken with creamy Caesar dressing during my first couple of weeks. In fact, I liked it so much, I made it part of my daily regimen for a few months! I had it every day!
Find your own favorites! This will make things a lot easier. There are certainly foods out there that you would love to eat but don’t – because they’re high in fat. No need to worry about that anymore!
I eat lots of meat with plenty of mayonnaise! My cholesterol tends to be normal, but you should have your cholesterol checked after a month or so just to make sure you're doing okay. If for any reason your cholesterol is up, lower your intake of mayonnaise, butter and stuff like that).
It’s a good idea to keep your saturated fats (red meat trimmings, poultry skin, whole milk, cream, butter, cheese, lard, solid shortenings) as low as you can.
Monounsaturated fats (olive oil, canola oil, peanut oil, sesame oil, almonds, peanuts, peanut butter, avocados, olives) actually help lower total blood cholesterol without lowering the good (HDL) cholesterol. (Yes, some cholesterol is actually good for you.)
Polyunsaturated fats (fish oil, soybean oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, safflower oil, soft margarine) lower total blood cholesterol as well, but they also lower the good (HDL) cholesterol at the same time.
Drink at least 8 glasses of water per day and eat as little salt as possible. It seems that the more water you drink, the more fat you will lose. A simple thing like drinking an extra few cool glasses of water to lose weight – imagine that? Well, it works! Do it!
Salt makes you hold water (It doesn’t stop the burning of fat on your body, but it does make you bloated). I once knew a guy training in the police academy. They simply put him on a low-salt diet and he looked like a different person two months later.
Salt makes you look fat by holding water beneath your skin. If you have a chubby face, lowering your salt intake will make a difference right away. Also, using Flax Seed Oil (found in almost all health stores) will help Men lose some of the water in their body. Women should use Borage oil (also found in almost all health stores).
The sooner you start to lose the fat, the better. As you age, you’ll have a harder time losing weight. No matter what point you're at now, it will be better to lose the weight right now than later. So let's get to it!
