http://www.webmd.

com/diet/ss/slideshow-
ketogenic-diet
http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20031111/l
ow-carb-high-fat-diet-drops-weight#1
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb
http://main.poliquingroup.com/ArticlesMulti
media/Articles/Article/1143/Eight_Common_
but_Dangerous_Mistakes_of_A_High-
Fat_.aspx
A Low-Carb Diet for Beginners
Do you want weight loss without hunger? Or type 2 diabetes reversal and other health benefits?
Then a low-carb diet is a good choice.

You can eat all you need to feel satisfied theres no calorie counting required. No products. No
pills. No surgery. Just real food.

A low-carb diet restricts sugary foods, and starches like pasta or bread. Instead youll eat
delicious real foods, including protein, natural fats and vegetables.
1

Low-carb diets just work. Theyve been used for over 150 years and just about everyone knows
someone who has successfully tried it. Scientific studies now prove that compared to other diets,
low carb is more effective.
2

Below you can learn how to use low carb to achieve your personal goals.

Make low carb even simpler by signing up for our free two-week low-carb challenge. Get
unlimited meal plans, shopping lists and much else with a free membership trial.
Low Carb in 60s

What to Eat

Recipes

Low-Carb Living Guides

Benefits and How to Maximize Them

How it Works

Side Effects

Get Started
What is Low Carb?
A low-carb diet means you eat fewer carbohydrates and a higher proportion of fat. This is often
called a low-carb, high-fat diet (LCHF).

Most importantly, you minimize your intake of sugar and starches. You can eat other delicious
foods until you are satisfied and still lose weight.
3

Many high-quality scientific studies show that a low-carb diet makes it easier both to lose weight
and to control your blood sugar. And thats just the beginning.

Learn more about the benefits of low carb

The basics

Eat: Meat, fish, eggs, vegetables growing above ground and natural fats (like butter).

Avoid: Sugar and starchy foods (like bread, pasta, rice, beans and potatoes).

Eat when youre hungry, until youre satisfied. Its that simple. Here are examples of what you
could eat:

Hamburger Patties with Creamy

Tomato Sauce and Fried Cabbage4,195 Moderate low carb Easy 20 + 15 m
 Low-Carb Meat Pie4,613
Ketogenic low carb Medium 30 + 40 m

Pesto Chicken Casserole with Feta

Cheese and Olives4,041 Ketogenic low carb Medium 15 + 30 m

Top 30 recipes

You do not need to count calories or weigh your food. And just forget about industrially
produced low-fat products.

There are solid scientific reasons why low-carb diets works. When you avoid sugar and starches
your blood sugar stabilizes and the levels of insulin, the fat-storing hormone, drop. This increases
fat burning and makes you feel more satiated.

Who should NOT do a strict low-carb diet?

 Most people can safely start any kind of low-carb diet right away.
But in the following three situations you may need extra preparation or adaptation:

Are you on medication for diabetes, e.g. insulin? Learn more

Are you on medication for high blood pressure? Learn more

Are you breastfeeding? Learn more

If youre not in any of these groups, youre good to go. Great!

Video Course
Do you want to watch a high-quality 11-minute video course on how to eat low carb, high fat?
And about the most important things to think about? Sign up for our free newsletter and youll
get instant access to it:

The newsletter arrives once a week with low-carb news, recipes and tips free from ads or
industry influence. Your email address is kept 100% private. To unsubscribe just press
unsubscribe at the bottom of any newsletter.

What to Eat on a Low-Carb Diet

Heres a quick visual guide to low carb. For details check out the links below. Lets start with the
foods you can eat all you like of, until youre satisfied.
All the numbers are grams of digestible carbs per 100 grams (3.5 ounces). Fiber is not counted,
you can eat all the fiber you want.

All the foods above are below 5% carbs, as you can see. Sticking to these foods will make it
relatively easy to stay on a strict low-carb diet, with less than 20 grams of carbs per day.

More detailed low-carb foods list

So what do you drink on low carb? Water is perfect, and so is coffee or tea. Ideally, use no
sweeteners, and a modest amount of milk or cream if you like (beware of caffe latte!).

The occasional glass of wine is fine too (low-carb alcohol guide).

Try to avoid
Heres what you should not eat on low carb foods full of sugar and starch:

The numbers are grams of digestible carbs per 100 grams (3.5 ounces), unless otherwise noted.

A more detailed list of foods to avoid

Visual low-carb guides

Vegetables
Fruits

Nuts

Snacks
 Alcohol

Meal plans

14-Day Low-Carb Meal Plan

Get lots of weekly low-carb meal plans, complete with shopping lists and everything, with our
amazing premium meal planner tool (free trial).

Mon

Tue
Wed

Thu

Fri
 Sat

Sun

How low to go?

The fewer carbohydrates you eat, the bigger the effects on weight and blood sugar will be. I
recommend following the dietary advice as strict as you can. When youre happy with your
weight and health you may carefully try eating more liberally (if you want to).

Here are three examples of what a low-carb meal can look like, depending on how many carbs
you eat per day:

Ketogenic 0-20
 Moderate 20-50

Liberal 50-100

A strict low-carb diet is often called a ketogenic (or keto) diet.

Get started

For everything you need to get started meal plans, shopping lists, daily tips and troubleshooting
just sign up for our free 2-week keto low-carb challenge:
 Advice on LCHF in other languages

Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, (pdf) (another version), Chinese, Chinese (Taiwan),
Croatian, Czech, Danish (Word), Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew,
Hungarian (pdf), Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian,
Norwegian, Polish (pdf), Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Ruthenian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish
(Word), Swahili, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Uzbek.

Do you have another translation or a significant improvement of one of the earlier ones? E-mail
me (more info).
Success Stories
Heres inspiration: Hundreds of success stories. Slide image below horizontally to see more
stories.

"I Finally Kept My Promise to My Mom

A bittersweet ending. Read Christoph's story

Lindha Became Half the Woman She Used to Be

Impossible? Not really. Read Lindha's story

How to Reverse Diabetes and Lose 93 Pounds Without Hunger

What an amazing transformation! Read Peter's story

How to Lose 240 Pounds Without Hunger

Pure inspiration. Watch the interview with Lynne

This Is the Happiest, Healthiest and Most Energetic I Have Ever Been

The weight loss was just a bonus. Read Telaine's story

"I Finally Kept My Promise to My Mom

A bittersweet ending. Read Christoph's story



Lindha Became Half the Woman She Used to Be

Impossible? Not really. Read Lindha's story

<

>

Women 0-39

Women 40+

Men 0-39
 Men 40+

All success stories

How Low-Carb Diets Work

What are you designed to eat?

Humans evolved over millions of years as hunter-gatherers, without eating large amounts of
carbohydrates. We ate the food available to us in nature by hunting, fishing and gathering all the
edible foods we could find. These foods did not include pure starch in the form of bread, pasta,
rice or potatoes. We have only eaten these starchy foods for 5 10,000 years, since the
development of agriculture. Our genes only undergo limited adaptions in such a relatively short
time.

With the Industrial Revolution, 100 200 years ago, we got factories that could manufacture
large amounts of pure sugar and white wheat flour. Rapidly digested pure carbohydrates. Weve
hardly had time to genetically adapt to these processed foods.

In the 80s, the fear of fat gripped the Western world. Low-fat products popped up everywhere.
But if you eat less fat you need to eat more carbohydrates to feel satiated. And its at this time in
history that our disastrous epidemics of obesity and diabetes started. The most fat-phobic country
in the world, the USA, was hit the hardest and is now the worlds most obese country.

Today, its clear that the fear of real food with natural fat contents has been a big mistake.

The problem with sugar and starch

All digestible carbohydrates are broken down into simple sugars in the intestines. The sugar is
then absorbed into the blood, raising blood glucose levels. This increases the production of the
hormone insulin, our fat-storing hormone.

Insulin is produced in the pancreas. In large amounts it prevents fat burning and stores surplus
nutrients in fat cells. After some time (a few hours or less) this may result in a perceived shortage
of nutrients in the blood, creating feelings of hunger and cravings for something sweet. Usually,
at that point people eat again. This starts the process again: A vicious cycle leading to weight
gain.

On the other hand, a low intake of carbs gives you a lower, more stable blood glucose, and lower
amounts of insulin. This increases the release of fat from your fat stores and increases the fat
burning. This usually leads to fat loss, especially around the belly in abdominally obese
individuals.

Weight loss without hunger

An LCHF diet makes it easier for the body to use its fat reserves, as fat release is no longer
blocked by high insulin levels. This may be one reason why eating fat produces a feeling of
longer-lasting satiety than carbohydrates. This has been shown in a number of studies: When
people eat all they want on a low-carb diet, caloric intake typically drops.

So, no counting or food weighing is necessary. You can forget about the calories and trust your
feelings of hunger and satiety. Most people dont need to count or weigh their food any more
than they need to count their breathing. If you dont believe it, just try for a couple of weeks and
see for yourself.

Do you want to know more? Here are our top videos on the topic:

16747:30

24420:18

Health as a bonus

No animals in nature need the assistance of nutritional expertise or calorie charts to eat. And still,
as long as they eat the food they are designed to eat they stay at a normal weight and they avoid
caries, diabetes and heart disease. Why would humans be an exception? Why would you be an
exception?
In scientific studies not only is the weight improved on a low carb diet the blood pressure,
blood sugar and cholesterol profile (HDL, triglycerides) are also improved. A calm stomach and
less cravings for sweet food are also common experiences.

Here are the most common benefits:

Lose Weight

Reverse Your Type 2 Diabetes

Calm Your Stomach

Beat Your Sugar Cravings

Normalize Your Blood Pressure

Reduce Acne Problems

Increased Physical Endurance

 Control Epilepsy Without Drugs

Initial side effects

If you stop eating sugar and starch cold turkey (recommended) you may experience some side
effects as your body adjusts. For most people these side effects tend to be mild and last a just few
days. There are also ways to minimize them.

Common side effects in the first week:

Headache

Fatigue

Dizziness

Heart palpitations

Irritability

The side effects rapidly subside as your body adapts and your fat burning increases. They can be
minimized by drinking more fluids and by temporarily increasing your salt intake a bit. A good
option is to drink broth every few hours. Alternatively, drink a few extra glasses of water and put
more salt on your food.

The reason for this is that carbohydrate-rich foods may increase the water retention in your body.
When you stop eating high-carb foods youll lose excess water through your kidneys. This can
result in dehydration and a lack of salt during the first week, before the body has adapted.

Some people prefer to decrease their intake of carbohydrates slowly, over a few weeks, to
minimize the side effects. But the Nike way (Just Do It) is probably the best choice for most
people. Removing most sugar and starch often results in several pounds lost on the scale within a
few days. This may be mostly fluids but its great for motivation.

The 6 most common problems on low carb

Induction Flu

Leg Cramps

Constipation
 Bad Breath

Heart Palpitations

Reduced Physical Performance

Less common issues on low carb

Potential Danger when Breastfeeding

Gallstone Problems

Temporary Hair Loss

Elevated Cholesterol
 Reduced Tolerance to Alcohol

Keto Rash

All low-carb side effects and how to cure them

Low-carb myths

There are many unfounded fears about low carb, that are mostly based on myths and
misunderstandings. Read all about them on our low-carb fears page, or choose a specific topic
below:

Brain
Ketoacidosis

Gut Bacteria

Deficiencies

Thyroid
Kidneys

Depression

Osteoporosis

Saturated Fat
 Cholesterol

Environment

The Food Revolution

This talk from 2016 summarizes the history and science behind the ongoing LCHF revolution.

Top videos about low-carb basics

Several of the worlds biggest experts on the subject explain the theory and practice of carb
restriction:

20609:25
 19611:30

1501:00:45

More (for members)

Top low-carb movies

2981:00:07
 1511:14:40

2111:01:17

All movies (for members)

Low-Carb Tips and Guides

Choose a topic below for a thorough low-carb guide on it.
Breakfasts

Meals

Dining Out

Instead of Potatoes, Pasta, Rice

Bread

Snacks and Desserts

Traveling

No Cooking
How to Eat More Fat

Low-Carb Cheating

Low Carb for Kids

Making Low Carb Cheap

 Low-Carb Living in a High-Carb World

Low-Carb Fears

Questions & Answers

Low-carb breakfasts

Breakfast is a great time to eat low carb think eggs & bacon with coffee. And there are many
more great options. Below are a few of our most popular low-carb breakfast recipes.

No fan of eating breakfast? On low carb you may not feel hungry in the morning. If so, its fine
to skip breakfast many people do.
 Western Omelet690 Ketogenic
low carb Easy 10 + 15 m

Coconut Pancakes785 Moderate

low carb Medium 15 + 15 m
 Low-Carb Cauliflower Hash
Browns2,292 Moderate low carb Medium 10 + 20 m

Classic Bacon and Eggs3,837

Ketogenic low carb Beginner 12 m
 Mushroom Omelet2,204
Ketogenic low carb Easy 5 + 10 m

Coconut Porridge1,645 Ketogenic

low carb Easy 10 m

All 40+ breakfasts

Low-carb meals

Theres no end to the amazing food you could have for lunch and dinner on low carb. These are
the currently most popular low-carb meal recipes.
 Hamburger Patties with Creamy
Tomato Sauce and Fried Cabbage4,195 Moderate low carb Easy 20 + 15 m

Low-Carb Meat Pie4,613

Ketogenic low carb Medium 30 + 40 m
 Pesto Chicken Casserole with Feta
Cheese and Olives4,041 Ketogenic low carb Medium 15 + 30 m

Asian Cabbage Stir-Fry883

Ketogenic low carb Easy 15 + 30 m
 Low-Carb Pizza4,348 Ketogenic
low carb Easy 5 + 25 m

Creamy Fish and Broccoli

Casserole363 Ketogenic low carb Easy 10 + 30 m

All 130+ meals

Low-carb side dishes

 Low-Carb Naan Bread with
Melted Garlic Butter3,557 Ketogenic low carb Easy 5 + 20 m

Low-Carb Cauliflower Hash

Browns2,292 Moderate low carb Medium 10 + 20 m

All side dishes

Low-carb condiments
 Low-Carb Taco Shells341
Ketogenic low carb Easy 10 + 15 m

Ranch Dip278 Ketogenic low carb

Easy 15 m

All condiments

Low-carb snacks
 Mummy Dogs582 Ketogenic low
carb Easy 25 + 20 m

Oven-Baked Brie Cheese769

Moderate low carb Easy 5 + 10 m

All snacks

Low-carb desserts
 Oven-Baked Brie Cheese769
Moderate low carb Easy 5 + 10 m

Coconut Pancakes785 Moderate

low carb Medium 15 + 15 m

All desserts

Low-carb bread
 Low-Carb Naan Bread with
Melted Garlic Butter3,557 Ketogenic low carb Easy 5 + 20 m

The Low-Carb Bread4,642

Moderate low carb Medium 10 m + 1 h

All breads

Shopping list for beginners

Print this list and bring it to the grocery store:

Butter

Heavy cream (40% fat)

Sour cream (full fat)

 Eggs

Bacon

Meat (minced, steaks, stew pieces, fillets, etc.)

Fish (ideally fatty fish like salmon or mackerel)

Cheese (preferably high-fat)

Turkish yoghurt (10% fat)

Cabbage (cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale, etc.)

Other vegetables that grow above ground

Frozen vegetables (broccoli, wok vegetables, etc.)

Avocados

Olives

Olive oil

Nuts

Clean out your pantry

Want to maximize your chances of success? Especially if you have difficult cravings / sugar
addiction, its smart to throw out (or give away) sugary and starchy foods, low-fat products, etc.
These include:

Candy

Potato chips

Soft drinks and juices

Margarine

Sugar in all forms

Bread
 Wheat flour

Pasta

Rice

Potatoes

Breakfast cereals

Everything that says low fat or no fat

Ice cream

Cookies

Why not do it now?

The Serpent in Paradise

Be very skeptical of special low-carb products, such as pasta or chocolate. Unfortunately these
products usually work poorly. They have prevented weight loss for loads of people. Theyre
commonly full of carbs once you see through the creative marketing.

For example, Dreamfields low carb pasta is almost pure starch,

which is absorbed more or less like any pasta, albeit slowly:

The Dreamfields Pasta Fraud

The Dreamfields Pasta Fraud Finally Results in an 8 Million Dollar Fine!

How about low-carb bread? Be careful: if its baked with grains, its certainly not low carb. But
some companies still try to sell it to you as a low-carb option. Heres an example:

Julian Bakerys fake low carb bread

Low-carb chocolate is usually full of sugar alcohols, which the manufacturer does not count as
carbs. But roughly half of these carbs may be absorbed, raising blood sugar and insulin. The rest
of the carbs ends up in the colon, potentially causing gas and diarrhea. Furthermore, any
sweeteners may maintain sugar cravings.

If you want to be healthy and slim, eat real food instead.

Recipes
For all of our low-carb recipes check out our main low-carb recipe page.

Learn More

Low Carb is Fantastic for Reversing Type 2 Diabetes and Normalizing Blood
Sugar

Do you have type 2 diabetes? If not, you most likely know someone who does. And low carb is
fantastic for treating type 2 diabetes.
It only makes sense that eating less of what turns into blood sugar (carbohydrates) makes it
easier to keep blood sugar down. Low carb may be so effective that people with diabetes need to
reduce their medication especially insulin doses immediately.

A better blood sugar from day 1. Less need for medication. And weight loss as a bonus. Low
carb is a fantastic treatment for type 2 diabetes.

Learn more about Low Carb and Diabetes

PS: People with type 1 diabetes can also benefit from a low-carb diet. Learn More
 Losing Weight Effortlessly
on Low Carb

Some people lose weight fantastically well on low carb, immediately on the first try. Perhaps the
weight even stays off forever.
 For others it can be a more of a challenge. Do you want to lose more weight or lose weight
faster? There are many things you can do to improve your chances.

Read more about How to Lose Weight

Normalizing Blood Pressure on Low Carb

An elevated blood pressure reliably drops on low carb. This can be clearly seen in scientific
trials, and its a very common experience for people trying it.

In fact, this effect can be so marked that people on blood pressure medication may end up feeling
dizzy and tired from too low blood pressure. Theyve basically become too healthy for their
medication!
If this happens youll have to reduce the dose of your blood-pressure medication, or stop taking
it completely, with guidance from your doctor.

Learn more about Blood Pressure and Low Carb

Avoiding Side Effects on Low Carb

Do you struggle when starting low carb? Do you get a headache, leg cramps, constipation or any
of the six most common side effects? Its usually possible to avoid them and feel great while
losing weight.
The main solution to most common problems when starting low carb is to increase the intake of
water and salt. Its even better to do it preventatively during the first week. If you do, youll most
likely not experience any of these problems, or theyll only be minor.

Learn about the 6 common side effects on low carb and how to cure them

1984 Fear of Fat

2014 Eat Butter
Chances are youve heard that a low-carb diet will kill you. This as a low-carb diet normally
means we eat a higher proportion of fat instead.

This old idea is based on the belief that natural fat is not good for us. Even though humans have
always been eating fat, somehow its supposed to mess up our bodies, raising our cholesterol and
giving us a heart attack.

The good news is that we now know that this idea was simply wrong. Check out these two
covers of TIME magazine. The first one is from 1984 the start of the intense fear of fat. Instead
of natural food we got lots of low-fat products, loaded with added sugar and starch. This, not so
coincidentally, marked the start of the modern obesity epidemic.

The second cover is more current, from 2014. It says Eat butter and the story is about how
scientists are now realizing they were wrong to fear fat. What a difference 30 years make!

Just about everybody already knows that low-carb works for weight loss (and some other things).
The good news is that we now also know its safe and likely even a very healthy way to eat.

Learn more about the obsolete fear of fat

Learn more about the causes of the obesity epidemic

Cholesterol

The unnecessary fear of fat and cholesterol started the epidemics of obesity and diabetes.
Modern science shows what the mistake was.

We thought that all cholesterol was harmful. That a low cholesterol was always good, and that a
high cholesterol was always bad. This was wrong. The truth is as usual more complicated.

More important than having a low cholesterol is to have a good cholesterol profile. To have a lot
of the good protecting HDL-cholesterol, for example. And how do you get that? Well, the easiest
way is to avoid sugar and flour, and instead eat enough fat to feel satisfied.
Avoiding fat and instead eating a lot of easily digestible carbohydrates often causes a dangerous
cholesterol profile: small, nasty, dense LDL particles and a shortage of protective HDL-
cholesterol. This is probably why low-fat foods seem to cause more heart disease.

Read the science showing how low-carb high-fat improves the cholesterol profile

Read all blog posts on cholesterol

Low-Carb, High-Fat Diet Drops Weight
Atkins-Like Plan Won't Hurt Cholesterol Levels, but Critics Aren't Impressed

By Sid Kirchheimer
From the WebMD Archives

Nov. 11, 2003 -- Is it really possible to lose weight on a no-starch, high-fat diet, similar to
Atkins, without hurting cholesterol levels? Apparently so, even for people with heart disease,
according to the latest study on the topic.

The new study details the effects of a no-starch, high-fat diet on 23 patients at risk for diabetes.
All were overweight, were taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, and had been diagnosed with
heart disease. The high-saturated fat and no-starch diet was developed eight years ago by
endocrinologist James Hays, MD, in an effort to help his diabetic patients.

On average, those following his low-carb, high-fat diet lost 5% of their body weight after only
six weeks. For example, a 200-pound person would have lost 10 pounds.

Importantly, the high-fat diet did not have harmful effects on cholesterol levels. In fact, the
participants saw a lowering of the blood fat called triglycerides. "Bad" LDL and "good" HDL
cholesterol levels didn't change, but the size of the HDL and LDL molecules increased.

Larger LDL molecules are less likely to form artery-clogging plaques. Larger HDL molecules
stay around in the body longer to clean up more plaque.

"We also saw a significant drop in glucose and insulin levels," Hays tells WebMD. Higher blood
sugar (glucose) and insulin levels indicate the early signs of diabetes.

Lots of Fat Allowed

Under Hays' plan, half of the daily 1,800 calories come from saturated fats -- mostly red meats
and cheese. "We're not talking about protein, egg whites, and turkey and white-meat chicken," he
says. "We're talking about fat."

Just days ago, another study at the American Heart Association's annual meeting compared the
low-carb, high-fat Atkins diet to three other popular diets -- the very low-fat Ornish plan, the
high-protein, moderate-carb Zone diet, and the low-fat, moderate-carb Weight Watchers plan.
When devotedly followed, all produced similar weight loss and reductions in heart disease risk.

Hays tells WebMD that he believes the heart-healthy benefits of his Atkins-like eating plan are
because of its high intake of saturated fats -- considered by most experts to causeheart disease.