Tips to help you Stay Sane When Cutting Carbs from your Diet

The holidays are long gone and chances are you, like many of us, are a few weeks into cleaning up your diet in an effort to shed all those holiday cookies and tamales that are clinging for dear life to various parts of your body.  When it comes to weight loss, many choose to lower their carbohydrate intake to help reach their weight loss goal quickly and efficiently.  So if you’ve taken the low carb plunge, welcome to the club! I won’t sugar coat it, the first weeks of cutting the carbs out of your diet seriously suck.  You will likely experience withdrawal symptoms similar to an addict and you will begin to wonder if all this suffering is worth it.  Hang in there, it does get better and believe it or not there will be a day when you won’t even miss bread or pasta!  So if you are on the low carb band wagon here are some tips to help you stay sane those first weeks.

1. Clear out the junk- Seriously anything you can’t eat needs to go! Why torture yourself every time you reach in cupboard to get something by having to have enough willpower to resist that package of your favorite cookies you can’t eat? If you feel guilty about throwing perfectly good food away donate the food to the needy or give it to a skinny friend.
2. Stock your kitchen for success- Do a major shopping trip and stock up on plenty of lean proteins, eggs, low carb dairy, healthy fats, and non-starchy vegetables.  Take a look here for ideas of clean foods to have on hand and also here for essential ingredients to have on hand for healthy cooking.
3.  Make your carbs count- When you are limiting carbs you will want to select the ones you do eat wisely. Choose carbs that have more fiber content in them to keep you full longer.  Include plenty of high fiber vegetables such as spinach and broccoli and also some nuts and seeds such as chia and flax seed which have high fiber contents.  
4. Drink lots of water- There are many benefits to drinking a lot of water when trying to become healthier.  However it’s even more crucial to do so when you cut carbs because your body releases water quickly due to glycogen stores being depleted.  A good goal to aim for is to drink half of your body weight in ounces of water daily.
5. Think outside of the box- Do a quick Google or Pinterest search and you will find a bunch of crazy low carb friends who have come up with creative alternatives for all of your favorite high carb recipes.  Here are a few of my favorite substitutes that make eating less carbs more manageable:

• Almond Flour- I use this in place of breadcrumbs for breading meat and as a baking substitute to make everything from low carb pancakes to low carb pizza crust.
• Cauliflower- This vegetable reigns king as the most versatile vegetable, you may seem skeptical at first, but cauliflower can be used in place of rice, potatoes, and as a flour replacement in pizza crust and breadsticks.
• Zucchini- I’ve mentioned this in previous posts, zucchini can be spiralized into a low carb pasta alternative and it will bring you joy when you're cutting carbs and dreaming of pasta.
• Lettuce leaves- Use in place of buns on your favorite burger, as bread for a sandwich, or in place of a taco shells.

Stay the course my friend, the temporary suffering that comes from lowering your carbohydrate intake will be worth it in the long haul! Sooner than you know it, you will be looking and feeling great!