Life's Changes Instigate 'Automatic' Reflex

Last week I was attending a huge BBQ convention called the HPBA Expo where there were grills galore to see up close and personal (I've even got one I will be giving away in April). I brought my wife Christine along with me and this trip and she tried to get me to eat a muffin while we were on the plane ride there! What's up with that?! LOL!

Christine said she was nervous and fell back into her familiar routine somehow forgetting I am on the low-carb lifestyle now. Sound preposterous? Try this one for size. When we were in the hotel room last week, I had to access the Internet using a brand new laptop and an unfamiliar WiFi service to be online.

So here I am in new surroundings (albeit for just a few short days) in a hotel room I'm not normally in typing on a computer I've never used. Guess what happened--I fell into some of my old habits from several years back when I first started surfing the Internet in the 1990s! For example, my old e-mail address which I changed two years ago to livinlowcarbman@charter.net was musicbuyer@aol.com. I had this as my e-mail address for over ten years (I used to work as a Music Buyer for a chain of Christian bookstores in Virginia).

Guess what happened when I tried to look up my e-mail account while in Reno--I caught myself typing m-u-s-i-c-b...before I realized I was putting in my old e-mail address to access my e-mails. Why in the world did I do that? It was as if with all the unfamiliar surroundings I had slid into some sort of "automatic" mode to cope with the stress of the situation at hand. Sure, I was having lots of fun and wearing myself out in the process, but it was out of the ordinary for me.

How does this relate to the subject of diet and weight loss? I wonder how many of us, no matter how long we have been on our low-carb lifestyle, sometimes kick into "automatic" mode with our diet. Do you catch yourself doing some of those old habits that made you obese before even now? Man, I sure do from time to time.

Click here to read more about this subject, including an example of this very thing happening to me earlier this year and how I am attempting to prevent it from happening again so it doesn't sabotage my weight loss.

Britney Spears Goes On Low-Carb, Dance Diet

Britney Spears ditched the gimmicks and lost weight on low-carb

Remember back in February this year when Britney Spears was moaning and groaning about her weight following the birth of her first child? I was pretty hard on her about her attitude regarding her "excess weight" which amounted to maybe 20 pounds. That ain't no big weight problem compared to most of the rest of us!

At the time, she explained that she was "at her wit's end" about what to do about her weight.

"She wants to lose weight, but she's having the most difficult time doing it," a spokesperson for Spears said at the time. "Britney is feeling awful about herself right now."

It was sad really to see someone like her get so depressed and discouraged by something as natural as weight gain after having a baby. That's a part of life, Britney! Get on a plan and get the weight off. That's all you need to do.

What really got me was when she was offered a ton of money by several weight loss companies to become their spokesperson and she was actually considering them. Thankfully nature had a way of delaying what would have been a poor decision by her when Spears got pregnant with her second child.

That little one named Sutton Pierce was just born in early September to join one-year old Sean Preston, but this All Headline News story reveals that Spears has already lost about half of her baby weight since. That's not surprising since she is still a very young 24 years old and has a healthy body despite her previous poor dietary habits of Cheetos and French fries.

But check this out: Britney Spears decided against using a personal trainer, weight loss pills or any kind of weird gimmicky diets to lose weight this time. Instead, she chose to go back to the fun dance exercises ("it's more fun than the gym," Spears said) she has previously enjoyed, cut out fast food, and has eaten lots of healthy fruits, nuts and low-fat yogurt while cutting back on her carbohydrate intake.

YOU READ THAT RIGHT! Britney Spears is livin' la vida low-carb!

She has gotten back down to a size 8 one month after giving birth and celebrated by buying herself some new clothes in Los Angeles. Good for her celebrating her weight loss and showing that there is no reason to panic when you just need to take it one day at a time to get the weight off. We live in an "instant" society that demands satisfaction now, so it is predictable to see people wanting FAST weight loss results. And Britney Spears got it thanks to the low-carb lifestyle!

CONGRATULATIONS, Britney! I hope you keep on doing those new healthy habits you have added to your life over the past month or so. They will help keep you looking sexy and beautiful for many years to come and you'll never have to worry about your weight ever again. I encourage you to keep on livin' la vida low-carb!

Exercise Enhances Your Low-Carb Lifestyle

People who know me now can vouch for the fact that I am a bona fide workout nut. As in, I go to the gym ALL THE TIME for my regular sessions of sweating and getting my heart rate up. I absolutely love the fact that I have made exercise a permanent habit that I fully intend on doing for the rest of my life. It's THAT important to me.

This is a far cry from the 410-pound morbidly obese slob that I was in early 2004. No energy, no motivation, no willingness to change...I was the proverbial ticking time bomb from a health standpoint. I needed to lose weight and start exercising as soon as possible or my days were numbered. That's a serious place to let yourself get into, but there I was!

My blogging friend Kent Altena was also in that same boat when he weighed over 400 pounds before the Atkins diet came to save him as well. But Kent and I will both stand here today and proudly give credit to our regular exercise regimens as much as our low-carb lifestyle for helping us become 200-pound weight loss success stories. That's why Kent's latest Atkins education video is on this subject of exercise.

Check out the video below:

ATKINS & EXERCISE: IT'S NON-NEGOTIABLE (PART 1)



When I decided to write my book about my low-carb experience, I KNEW exercise would need to have a chapter of its own. I called the chapter "Exercise Is Not A Dirty Word." As much as we want to bemoan and run kicking and screaming away from this important element to a healthy lifestyle, exercise is extremely important not only for weight loss, but also for improving your health.

Studies have shown that exercise extends the length of your life, lowers cholesterol in tandum with a low-carb diet, and protects against heart disease with just 30 minutes daily.

Exercising causes people to notice you and is absolutely an integral part of your low-carb lifestyle. Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn't know what they are talking about! Wanna see phenomenal results with low-carb? Then you will want to start exercising as soon as possible.

Kent notes in his video to start off slow or even ignore exercise early on as you begin changing your dietary habits which are usually the bigger problem for most people. I took this approach and did not exercise until month 2 of my Atkins diet. I lost 30 pounds in month 1, but adding exercise in month 2 helped me shed 40 pounds. WOW! That just motivated me to keep on exercising to see how much MORE I could lose. Of course, I went on to lose 180 pounds in 2004.

Although I can easily get through a 45-minute workout today burning 750-800 calories on the elliptical machine, I remember those early days of being the "fat guy" walking on the treadmill at 3mph for 20 minutes gasping for air. HELP ME, I CAN'T BREATHE! LOL! It's funny NOW that I'm a lot more physically conditioned to exercise, but it was a tough road early on. You can find out more about my exercise experiences in my book. Let's just say it wasn't always very pretty. :-~

Kent makes the excellent point that regardless of how long you exercise when you decide to do it, just start getting in the habit of exercise so you can learn to schedule it in your life. People who say they don't have time to exercise are lying to themselves. They have the time but they choose to fill it with something else. I go exercise on my lunch break just as I have for the past three years. The fine folks at the YMCA know me by name and can almost set their watch for my daily arrival.

As was stated on the video by Kent, you may not FEEL like exercising at first, but soon something very special will start to happen. You will have so much energy coming out of your body that you will WANT to exercise to let it all out of you. You'll become an exercise monster and start craving it like you used to crave chocolate cake. Sounds absurd, but you will!

Post your comments about Kent's latest video at his blog and don't forget to THANK him for the outstanding service he is doing for the low-carb community.