The CarbSmart Podcast

How to Have a Fun & Healthy Low-Carb Halloween
Links and Show Notes

Let’s talk about the scariest thing about Halloween. All that sugar.

Several years back on a website I frequented, there was a discussion of Halloween plans. It was there that I first encountered the concept of trunk or treat, a Halloween event that is apparently gaining popularity across the country.

Other than trunk or treat, my vote would be a return to the Halloween party with spooky games and music and at least some non-candy food. Read ghost stories by firelight, hang apples from strings and see who can eat theirs without using their hands, carve jack o lanterns, have a scary laugh contest and a costume judging with lots of prizes, scariest, prettiest, funniest, most creative, etc.

The more kids get prizes, the better. If you have space, how about creating a haunted path in your backyard? I have a big backyard with a path through the woods that would be perfect for this. Alas, I have no children. The drawback to this is that private parties are invitation only events, and some kids could get left out.

This is a great reason for organizations, from scout troops to neighborhood associations, to create their own Everybody Welcome Halloween events. If you’re still in a trick or treating part of the country, may I make a few gentle suggestions? Focus as much attention as you can on the many fun and creative Halloween activities that don’t involve sugar.

CarbSmart Podcast on YouTube

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Website

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Find Hundreds of Articles and Delicious and Easy-to-Make Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender

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Show Notes

https://www.carbsmart.com/podcast-21-have-a-healthy-low-carb-halloween-html.html

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Read the Full Transcript

https://www.carbsmart.com/podcast-21-have-a-healthy-low-carb-halloween-html.html

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3 Question Interview with Fred Hahn
Links and Show Notes

Welcome to another 3 question interview from CarbSmart. I’m your host, Dana Carpender, your trusted guide to everything low-carb. Today, I’m interviewing Fred Hahn, owner of Slow Burn Fitness, author of The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution, and Strong Kids, Healthy Kids, not to mention my friend and strength training guru.

He’s also a long-time low-carber. Let’s hear what Fred has to say about low-carb nutrition and fitness.

DC: I have long felt you can’t out-exercise a bad diet. Yes. So what degree is weight loss about diet and to what degree is it about exercise? And I will say regarding the kids that there was just a lot more background exercise in my childhood. There really was. I walked to and from school twice a day because back then you walked home for lunch.

CarbSmart Podcast on YouTube

https://youtu.be/SObc61Q1RQY

Website

https://CarbSmart.com

Find Hundreds of Articles and Delicious and Easy-to-Make Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender

https://www.carbsmart.com/author/dana

Show Notes

https://www.carbsmart.com/podcast-20-3-question-interview-with-fred-hahn.html

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Read the Full Transcript

https://www.carbsmart.com/podcast-20-3-question-interview-with-fred-hahn.html

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Why I’m Not a Low-Carb PuristLinks and Show Notes

Are you a food purist? Do you insist that everything be natural and organic? I’m not, and I don’t.

So let me explain why. I have been accused of not being a low-carb purist.

I have, over the past many years in general, taken some heat for not being a low-carb purist. Not pure enough, or restrictive enough, or something enough about the diet I eat and the ingredients I use in my recipes.

Years ago, I was accused of something very close to a major character flaw in a discussion about Sucralose by a woman who was infuriated that I would use such an evil, evil ingredient and that I dared to suggest that perhaps Stevia was not in it.

Utterly safe beyond all question. I’ve been taken to task for using and eating polyols I’ve been told that I should only use and only recommend Organic grass-fed meat and that suggesting it’s okay to eat battery eggs That is factory farmed eggs is just not safe. Sorry to disappoint, folks, but I’m not a purist.

I will readily admit that grass-fed meat is better both for one’s health and for the environment than meat from confined animal feedlot operations. For years, we kept chickens in our backyard and therefore regularly ate eggs that were superior to grocery store eggs, especially in the summer when the chickens would free-range and eat lots of bugs and clover.

I have no problem with people using stevia if they prefer it to sucralose. That’s fine. I use stevia more than sucralose myself. That said, I have grocery store meat in my freezer and thawing in my kitchen. Before we had chickens, and since the last got eaten by a predator, I mostly bought and buy pastured eggs, but I’m not above buying grocery store eggs when they’re super cheap.

Read the full article https://www.carbsmart.com/podcast-19-why-im-not-a-low-carb-purist.html

Website

https://CarbSmart.com

Find Hundreds of Articles and Delicious and Easy-to-Make Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender

https://www.carbsmart.com/author/dana

Show Notes

https://www.carbsmart.com/podcast-19-why-im-not-a-low-carb-purist.html

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Are You NOT Getting Enough Sodium on Your Low-Carb Diet?Links and Show Notes

Sodium Deficiency – hyponatremia

I got to the piece in the beginning of The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living about the symptoms of sodium deficiency, also known as hyponatremia. And guess what? It sounded very familiar. I looked up hyponatremia online and found this: Symptoms of hyponatremia include nausea and vomiting, headache, confusion, lethargy, fatigue, appetite loss, restlessness and irritability, muscle weakness, spasms, or cramps, seizures, and decreased consciousness or coma. Sounded all too familiar. (Except for the coma part, thank heaven.)

I got to thinking about it, and it seemed possible I’d been eating less salt than I used to. I’ve been eating less in general since I went on the blood sugar medication Victoza. Too, I haven’t been eating a lot of dishes that have much salt mixed in, soups and stews and the like, because of the hot weather. There’s a limit to how much salt you can shake on your eggs or steak, you know? More than once I’ve substituted Greek yogurt with strawberries and nuts – very little sodium there – for supper. And of course, like everyone else, I sweat more in hot weather, losing sodium that way. Been eating a lot of veggies, so my potassium intake has been up, and potassium and sodium need to balance. All told, it seemed very possible that I had become hyponatremic.

Salt is an essential nutrient – our body needs sodium

The take-home message here is that despite the demonizing of sodium, it is an essential nutrient; without it we die. Low carbohydrate diets both normalize the body’s ability to excrete excess sodium and dramatically reduce our intake of processed foods, baked goods, chips, and other “snack foods,” the biggest sources of sodium in the modern American diet. So pay attention.

Read the full article https://www.carbsmart.com/podcast-18-are-you-not-getting-enough-sodium-on-low-carb.html

Website

https://CarbSmart.com

Find Hundreds of Articles and Delicious and Easy-to-Make Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender

https://www.carbsmart.com/author/dana

Show Notes

https://www.carbsmart.com/podcast-18-are-you-not-getting-enough-sodium-on-low-carb.html

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Can Low-Carb Slow The Aging Process?Links and Show Notes

We all know that carb restriction causes weight loss, controls blood sugar, and can help treat all of the ugly effects of metabolic syndrome.

But what if carb restriction could make you younger?

It should be noted that this is, to some degree, a reworking of an article I wrote in November of 2010. But the information is still fascinating and very useful. So, here we go.

In 2010, University of California gerontologist Cynthia Kenyon hit the news with an animal study showing exactly that she’d actually discovered what she calls the Grim Reaper gene and another she calls the Sweet 16 gene, Insulin. the switch that turns on the former and turns off the latter.

Insulin and insulin-like growth factor or IGF-1, which means that by cutting carbs and lowering insulin you can reverse the process, switching off the Grim Reaper gene and turning on your Sweet 16 gene.

Or, at least she can in roundworms. Dr. Kenyon started with roundworms. presumably because A) they’re inexpensive and plentiful, and B) they have short lifespans. I mean, you try this stuff on a Galapagos tortoise and you’ll be passing the experiment on to your great-grandchildren. But roundworms generally hit old age in 18 days and croak by 20 days.

Dr. Kenyon managed to extend some of their lifespans to 144 days. That’s like you or me making it to 450 years. Woo hoo! Many people tell me that they don’t want to live to be old. I have long aspired to make it to at least 120. When I tell people this, they look at me as if I just said I was planning to paint my house fuchsia or wanted to take a vacation to Chornobyl.

Read the full article https://www.carbsmart.com/podcast-17-can-low-carb-slow-the-aging-process.html

Website

https://CarbSmart.com

Find Hundreds of Articles and Delicious and Easy-to-Make Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender

https://www.carbsmart.com/author/dana

Featured Recipe

Low-Carb Toasted Almond and Coconut “Cereal” Recipe

Show Notes

https://www.carbsmart.com/podcast-17-can-low-carb-slow-the-aging-process.html

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Serenity Prayer for a Dedicated Low CarberLinks and Show Notes

Years ago, a reader told me that they admired me because I had stuck with my low-carb diet even though it had not given me the body of my dreams. Surely you’re familiar with the Alcoholics Anonymous Serenity Prayer – “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” I don’t care if you’re a praying person or not, nor to whom you pray if you are. But there is something important here.

Growing Up Overweight

When I was a kid, I desperately wanted to look like my Skipper doll. (Is Skipper still around? She was Barbie’s little sister.) I wanted to look like the girls in the magazines. I wanted clothes to fit me the way they fit Skipper, the way they fit the models in Young Miss and Tiger Beat (yes, I am that old).

They never did, and I never did. I could grow my hair to look more like Skipper’s, and I could even lose weight – I was on Weight Watchers starting at age eleven. But the hip clothes just didn’t look so hip on my body. I went straight from having the body of a child to having the body of a matron; I never had a gamine phase.

The things we can change and the things we cannot.

I could and did change my diet, my mental and physical health, my size. I learned to dress to flatter the body I have. But my skeleton? That sucker is literally graven in stone. There’s no changing it.

So there it is: my low-carb diet cannot give me the body of my dreams. Nor can exercise. Hell, radical surgery couldn’t do it, and pain, risk, and expense aside, at sixty-three it seems beside the point.

Read the full article https://www.carbsmart.com/podcast-16-serenity-prayer-for-a-dedicated-low-carber.html

Website

https://CarbSmart.com

Find Hundreds of Articles and Delicious and Easy-to-Make Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender

https://www.carbsmart.com/author/dana

Featured Recipe

Low-Carb Blue Trout Recipe (La Truite Au Bleu)

Show Notes

https://www.carbsmart.com/podcast-16-serenity-prayer-for-a-dedicated-low-carber.html

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Check out more CarbSmart Podcast Episodes.

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Calories In/Calories Out vs Carbohydrate Restriction - What Works Best??Links and Show Notes

There is a long-established truism that weight loss is all about “calories in, calories out,” and along with it the apparently unshakeable assumption that all calories are created equal.

It’s all bunk. Sheer bunk. But it’s bunk with so much weight of belief behind it that it’s very hard to shake people’s faith in it, even people who should know better.

So, we’re still bombarded with propaganda from the calorie police. One of their favorites is to tell us that low-carb diets only work because they “trick” you or “fool” you into eating fewer calories, by making you feel less hungry. I have actually read exactly that: “Oh, that diet just works by making you less hungry.” As if that were a bad thing.

If that were true, I’d be okay with it. I mean, I’d rather be tricked or fooled into eating fewer calories by reducing my appetite than try to muster up the willpower to tolerate being ravenous half the time. (Oh, Lord, the memories. . . When I was in my mid-twenties, I worked at a health food store. Every day I’d buy my lunch from our cooler – a sandwich on whole grain bread, a bottle of juice, a piece of fruit or a whole grain, honey-sweetened cookie. Such a healthy lunch. By two o’clock I’d be starving.

But it’s simply untrue.

Unlike your car, which will happily run at sixty miles per hour until it sputters and dies for lack of fuel, your body is a complex living organism, with powerful homoeostatic mechanisms designed to keep you from starving to death. If you follow the common advice to just cut a hundred or two hundred calories per day, your body will simply burn a hundred or two hundred calories less per day – and you will have that much less energy.

Can you hear Dr. Atkins saying “I told you so” from the Great Beyond?

Website

https://CarbSmart.com

Find Hundreds of Articles and Delicious and Easy-to-Make Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender

https://www.carbsmart.com/author/dana

Featured Recipe

Low-Carb Green Eggs & Ham Easter Recipe by Dana Carpender – Includes Video

Show Notes

https://www.carbsmart.com/podcast-15-calories-in-calories-out-vs-carb-restriction.html

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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What About Cheat Days on Your Low-Carb Lifestyle?Links and Show Notes

“How often should I have a cheat day?” There seems to be an assumption that cheat days are a good idea, something that should be built into a low-carb diet to keep people from feeling deprived.

I beg to differ.

Indeed, I’m not sure where the idea of a cheat day even comes from.

Obviously, it’s meant to appeal to people who cannot imagine just giving up carbs, not eating their favorite carby foods again. But people seem to think it’s a good idea, and that I cannot see.

I have written of the occasional indulgence – a term I prefer to cheat. “Cheat” implies that you’ll get away with something, and you never, ever do. Your body will notice. And I admit to a few handfuls of potato chips at a party now and then. I recall a cousin’s wedding where I ate a mini-chocolate cheesecake about an inch-and-a-half in diameter – maybe fifteen years ago.

When I first started, I would have an Indulgence for a holiday meal like Thanksgiving dinner – but I would eat a high protein breakfast that morning, eat one modest serving only of the carbs that really mattered to me – and be done. No leftover potatoes or stuffing or pie that night or over Thanksgiving weekend. Nuh-uh.

But never a whole day! And never a weekly, or bi-weekly, or even monthly thing. That way lies madness, not to mention failure.

Why? I’ll respond with a question of my own: If someone you loved was fighting alcoholism and had finally gotten sober, would you suggest that they have a cheat day once a week – start the day with mimosas, down some beers with lunch, go through a bottle or two of wine at dinner – and then expect them to be right back on the wagon the next day? No?

How about a two-pack-a-day smoker? If they finally managed to quit, would you suggest that they have a smoking day every couple of weeks so they wouldn’t feel deprived?

This is no way to kick an addiction.

Includes Dana’s Backwards Pizza Recipe

Website

https://CarbSmart.com

Find Hundreds of Articles and Delicious and Easy-to-Make Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender

https://www.carbsmart.com/author/dana

Featured Recipe

Dana Carpender’s Backwards Pizza Recipe in the Show Notes.

Show Notes

https://www.carbsmart.com/podcast-14-what-about-cheat-days-on-your-low-carb-lifestyle.html

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Let’s Go to the Fair! How to Stay Low-Carb at Your County FairLinks and Show Notes

Summer is here! And for many of us, especially those of us who live in rural-ish areas, that means a trip to the county fair.

Ah, yes, the county fair, home of deep-fried Snickers bars, corn dogs, elephant ears, and so, so much more. Too many folks simply assume that “It wouldn’t be the fair without !” and give themselves permission to gobble every carb in sight, many of them deep-fried in questionable oils, for the duration.

Should You Pause Your Low-Carb Diet for Special Occasions?

I will, therefore, start by denying that “special occasions” give you a pass nutritionally. Your body neither knows nor cares that you’re at the fair; your blood sugar and inflammation levels will rise as high as the fireworks. Yes, I think that an occasional indulgence can work for some people.

But once you give yourself a pass for one special occasion, it’s amazing how many special occasions appear. “I can have one slice of cake on my birthday” becomes “I have to have cake because it’s my kid’s birthday,” then “It was Sheila’s birthday at the office, and everyone was eating cake, so. . .” In the same way, “It wouldn’t be the fair without cotton candy!” starts to bleed over into, “We’re at the shore for the weekend, I have to have frozen custard!” and “The Robertsons brought such a pretty red-white-and-blue cake to the Fourth of July barbecue, it would be rude not to have some.” Next thing you know, you’re indulging for International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Also, some people can, indeed, have a modest indulgence and be right back on track with the next meal. I do this maybe three times a year with potato chips at a party, potato chips being my personal kryptonite. But many of us are addicted, whether to sugar, to wheat (William Davis, MD opened my eyes to the opioid-like addiction wheat can cause), or to carbs in general. I cannot count the times people have told me that they’d been doing great, lost a ton of weight, made huge strides in their health and energy, and were not even having cravings, until they decided, “I’m on vacation!” or “It’s Christmas!” or whatever other occasion they thought merited a “treat”, only to be sucked right back under. I hear from them ten months and forty pounds later. You must be ruthlessly honest with yourself.

Website

https://CarbSmart.com

Find Hundreds of Articles and Delicious and Easy-to-Make Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender

https://www.carbsmart.com/author/dana

Featured Recipe

Seared Rib Eye with Gorgonzola Basil Butter Recipe

https://www.carbsmart.com/seared-rib-eye-with-gorgonzola-basil-butter-recipe.html

Show Notes

https://www.carbsmart.com/podcast-13-stay-low-carb-at-your-county-fair.html

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Dana Carpender’s 3 Question Interview with Christine Moore, Functional Nutritional Therapy PractitionerLinks and Show Notes

Welcome to another three-question interview from CarbSmart. I’m Dana Carpenter, your trusted guide to everything low-carb. In these interviews, I ask a professional whose job, in some way, involves carbohydrate restriction, three-questions, and of course, listen to their answers.

In Episode 12 of the CarbSmart Podcast, I am interviewing Christine Moore, a functional nutritional therapy practitioner. Having talked to registered dietitians who embrace carbohydrate restriction about the fact that food corporations are a major source of funding, or college dietetics programs and the effect that has on what they are taught and what they are permitted to say to their clients.

What is a Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (FNTP)?

A Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (FNTP) is a professional who uses a holistic, foundational approach to nutrition to help individuals achieve optimal health. FNTPs focus on bio-individuality, recognizing that each person has unique nutritional needs. They emphasize nutrient-dense, whole foods and support overall wellness through dietary and lifestyle changes.

What do FNTPs do?

FNTPs assess clients’ health through detailed consultations, dietary evaluations, and functional assessments. They develop personalized nutrition plans tailored to the individual’s specific needs. These plans often include dietary modifications, lifestyle changes, and targeted supplementation. FNTPs educate clients on the importance of nutrient-dense foods and how to implement these changes in their daily lives.

How can FNTPs help someone with diabetes or who is overweight?

For individuals with diabetes or those struggling with weight management, FNTPs can offer significant support:

1 Diabetes Management

2. Weight Loss

3. Holistic Support

Website

https://CarbSmart.com

Find Hundreds of Articles and Delicious and Easy-to-Make Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender

https://www.carbsmart.com/author/dana

Featured Recipe

Keto Low-Carb Cajun Chicken Packets Recipe

https://www.carbsmart.com/keto-low-carb-cajun-chicken-packets-recipe.html

Show Notes

https://www.carbsmart.com/podcast-12-3-question-interview-with-christine-moore.html

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