Atkins and Paleo Challenge Box Set (10 in 1): Over 400 Atkins and Paleo Recipes With Pressure, Slow Cooker and Cast Iron for Busy People (Atkins Diet & Paleo Recipes) (27 page)

1. Make a schedule that suites you and your routine
   

Take the suggested schedule provided in Chapter 3 and adapt it to your already established routine to easily incorporate the best time-saving tips into your busy life.

1. Set goals
   

Your time-saving goals are just as important as your weight loss goals. Remember you want to stay on track with life outside the kitchen just as much as you want to build a healthy and active lifestyle.

1. Utilize the tools available to you
   

Saving time and energy is all about utilizing the tools available to you. From the newest app to the latest zany kitchen appliance, technology provides the means to accomplish your goals.

1. Find your Zen
   

Incorporate your own personal likes into your Atkins Friendly recipes. You’ll find more enjoyment in the preparation of meals and discover a spirit that enjoys experimenting.

1. Abandon your goals
   

Don’t abandon your goals, rather reevaluate them. Use your successes as a basis for setting new realistic goals.

1. Force Zen
   

Make your list of best practices and discard those practices, tips or tricks that don’t fit into your lifestyle. You’re a busy person, and forcing Zen in will only complicate things.

When you started your weight loss journey you probably never imagined that it would mean a heavy time investment. After all, it was just a matter of incorporating a few changes into your already existing eating habits. But preparing and serving up Atkins Diet approved meals has given you the kitchen blues.

As a busy person you are looking for a way to remain focused on your weight loss goals while saving time that’s better dedicated to the important things in your life.

Thank you for choosing “Atkins Diet For Busy People: Time Saving Tips and Recipes For Healthy Weight Loss” to help get you past the funk and back on track with your weight loss goals.

Now that you have explored some of the most popular time saving-tips for grocery shopping and food preparation, given a few recipes a try within a new weekly schedule, crafted inspired dishes with your own personal touch and reevaluated and assessed your goals, you are ready to get back into the kitchen and on with your weight loss journey.

Best of luck as you continue to work your way to a healthier, happier you!

• Good Housekeeping Magazine, “Ten Commandment of Grocery Shopping” by Jill Provost,
  http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/recipes/cooking-tips/save-time-grocery-shopping
  
• This Old House Magazine, “Fifty best gadgets under $5o” by Cricket Azima,
  http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20369345_last,00.html
  
• “How to Cook Your Life: From Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment”, Eihei Dogen,
  http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Your-Life-Enlightenment/dp/1590302915
  
• Atkins Diet Online,
  http://www.atkins.com/Home.aspx
  
• “Instructions to The Cook,” by Bernand Glassman,
  http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/803998.Instructions_to_the_Cook
  

The Atkins Slow Cooker Cookbook

60 Atkins-Approved Recipes to Try in Your Slow Cooker

It is difficult to find a diet that works for you and it can take years of failed attempts, physical and mental torment, and fluctuations of confidence in yourself, and I am sure you know the rest. But this is only because not many of us choose the right path from the beginning: going to a nutritionist or a dietician and letting them decide what type of diet will function the best for your body condition. Otherwise, the situation is harder for us, both during the actual weight loss process and later, in the maintenance phase.

Things are even more complicated when we talk about a diet that restricts you from consuming almost entire food groups. The Atkins Diet is one of them,and the apparent paradox is that this eating program has helped as many persons reach their ideal body shape as it has “disappointed” others. The main reason for this is, of course, the one mentioned above, but a poor understanding of Dr. Atkin
s’
rules (that need to be respected entirely at least until you get to know your body well enough to decide what is good and bad for your health) is also a problem.

The Atkins Diet is a low-carb diet that will help you lose the extra weight by making your body burn the extra fat in energy. This is an extremely simplistic way to put things, but it gives you an idea about the way in which things function. Contrary to the popular opinion, the Atkins Diet is not a high-fat diet (it does not encourage you to eat immense quantities of fat). In fact, this idea (which will be further explained in the first chapter) has started a great number of contradictory opinions. As you will see in the list of recommended foods, this diet promotes healthy fats as a source of necessary nutrients that are lost once you completely exclude carbohydrates. And the idea that any quantity is accepted is just a myth.

As you can see, it’s very simple to make mistakes when you don’t have trustworthy documentation sources. This is why this book is more than an ordinary cookbook. Besides the amazing recipes that I’m sure you won’t resist trying for yourself, it has put together the most important details and explanations that you need to be aware of when keeping this diet. And this is not even the best part: all the recipes can be prepared with the help of a regular slow cooker. It’s time to put this amazing kitchen tool to a right use and discover what a big difference it can have on your overall health if you know when and how to use it.

There are many other aspects and so-called FQA that this book will give you details about in logic and easily comprehensible manner. The three chapters included in Part I will focus on this theoretical information. Part II, on the other hand, is centered on the recipes: 36 different recipes for you and your entire family (vegetarians/ vegans or not, fans of dessert or not). The recipes have been divided in such a way as to make things even easier for you: the ones that can be consumed in the troublesome first phase of the diet were put separately from the rest. Everything was done for you to have a pleasant reading activity and an easy diet.

You do
n’
t want to waste any more time. Let’s learn more about the original rules of this diet and, then, you will hurry up to your slow cooker to prepare these breathtaking recipes.

In this chapter, you will learn:

• About the original idea behind
  Atkins Nutritional Approach
  
• How is this diet structured
  

Le
t’
s be honest: what most of us know (before making any research) about Atkins Diet is that it is a low-carb/ high-fat diet, that it has four phases and that there are plenty of rumors circulating about its efficacy. And nothing else about the origins or the multiple studies that have been made in time about it. Obviously, this is the main reason why the diet program does not function properly for all the people. Like any change in your eating routine that influences directly your metabolism, this diet needs to be understood and accepted in all its aspects in order to show the expected results.

The starting point of this diet is represented by Dr. Robert Atkin
sˈ
personal experience of losing weight. His successful attempt to reach the healthy weight level was influenced by a 1958 paper,
Weight Reduction
, published by Alfred W. Pennington. Thus, in 1972, Atkins published his first diet book entitled Dr. Atkin
sˈ
Diet Revolution, which was to become one of the most popular (and controversial, at the same time) diet programs.

Why is this diet so debatable? Because it tells you to exclude an entire food category in the first phase, an action that, if i
t’
s not done properly, can cause serious imbalances in your organism. The Atkins Diet excludes (completely or partially) carbohydrates with the purpose of making your metabolism use the fat stored in your body for energy. Normally, the main fuel that our body uses for energy is represented by the glucose produced when carbohydrates in our food are processed.

When we limit the quantity of carbohydrates, the liver turns to fat as the next energy source and transforms it into fatty acids and ketone bodies. This state is known as ketosis. Thus, the annoying fats in our body are used for energy, which is exactly what we want in our condition because, as Dr. Atkins himself said in his book, “burning fat takes more calories, so you expand more calories”. This is why Atkins allows us to eat normal quantities of healthy fats, which he sees as less damaging and even recommended. A direct consequence for this is an evident decrease in the hunger level because the digestion of fats (and proteins) is longer than that of carbs and delays the feeling of an empty stomach.

Although, at least, in theory, all diets are based on a certain sequence of steps (from the attack phase to the maintenance one), Atkins Diet emphasizes the necessity to respect and make a clear distinction between the normal stages of the diet. Thus, Dr. Atkins suggests four phases for the diet wearing his name: the first one – Induction, the second one – Ongoing Weight Loss, the third one – Pre-maintenance, and the fourth one – Lifetime Maintenance.

Being the attack phase, this is when most pounds are lost in a very short time. The phase should normally last for about two weeks, but the time varies according to the health condition and eating necessities of each person. In this period, the quantity of carbs ingested should be less than 20 grams per day in order to let the body enter the state of ketosis faster. The allowed carbs should come mostly from green vegetables (legumes are completely excluded).

The second stage is harder to be explained because it varies from person to person. This phase refers to the stage that starts with the incorporation of 5 more grams of carbs per day and lasts until you have very few pounds to lose (about 5 pounds). In this phase, you need to be extremely cautious with what you eat and especially with the way in which your body responds to the new foods. The original rule is to add 5 more grams of net carbs every week, but only by following a certain order (the list is presented in the chapter dedicated entirely to foods). However, the list is just for your orientation; it is not mandatory to add all the ingredients in this phase. The point is to find and observe your personal level of necessary carbs to lose weight.

The third phase changes the focus towards maintenance. You have already lost most of the extra pounds, and it is important to find the level of carbs that your body accepts without gaining the weight back. The rules say that you should add 10 more grams of carbs every week, but, again, this depends on your own organism. You can be sure that you can move to this phase only when you have maintained your weight for at least a month. If, however, you realize that your body was not ready, and you start gaining weight back, you should just gradually decrease the amount of daily carbs.

This is not necessarily a phase, since it is supposed to last forever, but it needs to be perceived in this way because too many persons understand their diets as temporary processes and, once they reach their desired weight, they go back to an unhealthy lifestyle. In this phase, you should maintain the level discovered in the previous months in order to keep your weight under control. Whenever you feel like you have added extra pounds, you should return to the previous phases.