1: Drink 8-10 Glasses of water each day. Drinking water 8 to 10 times each day gets easier the more you actually do it. It is simply a matter of conditioning your taste buds, and yourself, so that it becomes easier to do. Once you get started, you will begin to crave water.
2: Eat Breakfast. Do not skip breakfast. If you need to go to bed a little earlier so that you can get up 20 minutes earlier each morning รข€“ do it! Breakfast is so important to your good health and to weight control. According to Dr. Barbara Rolls a professor of nutrition at Penn State University, "Your metabolism slows while you sleep, and it doesn't rev back up until you eat again."
You can always keep a couple of hard-boiled eggs in the fridge or some high-fiber, low starch fruit around. If you plan to eat fruit at all during the day, breakfast is the perfect time to do it.
3: Eat at least 3 meals and 2 snacks each day. Just like eating breakfast will increase your metabolism, so will eating more often. This will also help you curb your bad-carb intake by making sure that your snacks are planned and occur regularly throughout the day.
Really, it will just take a minimal investment of planning time at the grocery store and at home each morning before you head out for the day to make some healthy food choices and prepare a few healthy snacks and meals. For suggestions, just see the handy list of snacks and appetizers listed later.
4: Avoid white foods. This is one easy way to remember what not to eat. If it is made from sugar, flour, potatoes, rice or corn - just say no. Remembering this rule of thumb will make it easier to recognize those rice cakes as an unhealthy high-carb snack.
5: Eat your veggies. It is so easy to use a low-carb diet as an excuse for poor nutrition. Resist this temptation. If the only vegetable you have eaten in the last 5 years has been the potato, now is a good time to begin experimenting with other vegetables. This is important for your overall health and to avoid some nasty side effects of not getting enough fiber in your diet.
6: Prepare your own food as much as possible. While more and more restaurants are offering low-carb friendly menu items, many of them are still not ideal low-carb fare. There are many recipes for quick and easy meals that you can prepare yourself at home. Try to do this as often as possible.
If you cook your own foods, you know exactly what the contents are and you will be able to better control for hidden sugar and otherwise processed foods.
7: Invest in a good set of food storage containers. Having food storage containers of various sizes on hand will make it so much easier for you to plan your meals and snacks. When you buy nuts, fruits and vegetables in bulk you can simply prepare, separate and store them for easy use later.
8: Eat some Protein at each meal & as a snack. Eating protein will also help you feel full so that you are less likely to crave unhealthy snacks.
9: Drink a glass of water after each snack. This will help you get in your 8 to 10 glasses of water each day but it can also have other benefits. Drinking water after a snack will also help remove the aftertaste from your mouth and can help curb your desire for more.
10: Eat slowly & enjoy your food. Eating slower will help you enjoy your food more, pay attention to what it is you are actually eating and get a better sense of when you are actually full.
11: Eat your larger meals early & smaller meals later. Eating larger meals during the part of the day when you are most active will help you to feel satisfied throughout the day and curb cravings for unhealthy snacks.
12: Consider eating salmon or mackerel for breakfast. You can try canned salmon or mackerel in croquettes for a healthier sausage substitute. Or you could simply eat cold leftover salmon the next morning with dill sauce.
13: Use lettuce leaves instead of bread. You can make a double cheeseburger with onions, pickles and tomato wrapped in a whole lettuce leaf. Or you can make tasty wrap sandwiches with lettuce instead of tortilla and bread.
14: Eat a fruit dessert. Berries are sweet and high in fiber and nutrients and dairy products are high in protein. If your low-carb plan will allow it, this is a sweet and tasty alternative to more sugary desserts. An added benefit is that the protein in the dairy products and the fiber in the fresh fruit will make these desserts more filling.
15: Get your fruit fresh not squeezed. Fruit juice can be very tempting as a replacement for soda, but just how healthy is fruit juice? If you read the labels you will soon realize that in many of the commercial juices available at your local grocery store there is very little actual fruit juice.
16: Go easy on the meal replacements. New meal replacement shakes and bars go on the market almost every day. These shakes and bars may claim to be healthy, but almost all of them, even the Zone Perfect bars, contain hydrogenated oil and sweeteners.
17: If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. While low-carb pastries may be tempting remember that they still contain all of the usual carbohydrate suspects: sugar or a sugar substitute and flour. They may be healthier than your typical muffin as an occasional treat, but remember to stick with the basics for continued low-carb success.
18: At the grocery store & shop the outer aisles. You only rarely need to enter the center aisle areas in those few stores that stock butter and cheese in the center near the frozen foods. For the most part all of the foods that you need for your low carb diet can be found on the perimeter of the grocery store. Train yourself to start on one end of the outer aisle and work your way around. It will be much easier to avoid carb cravings and fill your basket with healthy items if you do so.
19: Invest in good cookbooks. Cookbooks are great reference tools that often contain handy tips on purchasing cuts of meat and preparing meats, fruits and vegetables in new and exciting ways.
20: Take a good Multivitamin. Check with your doctor first for recommendations and you should be tested for anemia to see if you need a vitamin with iron. However, the longer you eat low-carb and the more red meat you eat, the less anemia will be a problem and you should be able to take vitamins with less iron.
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