Low Carb Tiki Diet: Part 2: Making Sacrifices For The Things You Love

Sometimes you have to take inventory of your life and ask what’s really important …

Back in the 90’s a friend of mine went on the Atkins Diet and I remember how he sold it to me. You’ll lose weight eating all the bacon, steak, cheese, cream and hot wings you want!

There was just one catch …

You can’t eat any carbs.

Cutting out carbs meant cutting out most of the things that I ate! You can have a cheeseburger but you can’t have the bun.

You can order bacon and eggs but you can’t eat the toast or the hash browns.

Pasta and pizza? Forget about it!

I went on the Atkins Diet and lost a ton of weight, but after a couple months I gave up and went back to eating “normally” again. Looking back, I quit because eating on the Atkins Diet was kind of odd, and I got tired of going out to dinner and not being able to eat half of my meal! I paid for those French Fries!!

The Atkins Diet was considered very radical and possibly unhealthy, so its popularity came and went. Eating a ton of bacon and hot wings might not be the healthiest way to eat, but cutting down on the carbs may actually be a good idea. Let’s talk about sugar.

Sugar is worse for you than you think. Every time you ingest carbs/sugar, your body has to produce insulin to deal with it. The problem is that we eat WAY more carbs and sugar than we should. You don’t just wake up with Type 2 Diabetes. It’s brought on by years and years of your body producing way too much insulin to deal with the sugar taken in. And not to pour salt on a wound (Or should I say sugar?), but your arteries having been filling up with plaque as well. Oh yeah, let me throw one more inconvenient truth at you, sugar makes you hungry … for more sugar! This blood sugar roller coaster never ends.

Here’s the simple truth …

1. The less sugar you eat, the less hungry you become. Since your appetite decreases you end up eating less. If instead of eating carbs, you’re eating protein and fat, you will be satisfied longer thus helping you to lose weight.

2. The less your body needs to produce insulin the better. The more stable you can keep your blood sugars, the less you will feel tired and hungry.

3. The less you eat, the healthier you will be. The less time your body spends digesting food, the more time it can spend healing itself. Did you ever go to bed right after eating a big meal? How did you sleep? Not too well I’m guessing!

Let’s get real here. I’d like to say that I will never eat sugar again but I know I would be lying. I love cake, I love pizza, and I especially love tiki drinks! I’m never going to give up these things but I can do some cutting back for sure. I’ll save having a piece of cake for special occasions. The only pizza that I really love is on the East Coast, so I’ll wait till I’m back home to have a slice or two and, well, let’s talk about the tiki drinks …

The reality is that I’m living the tiki lifestyle quite a bit and if someone puts a Mai-Tai in front of me, I’m going to drink it! I’m going to make a point to cut down on the tiki drinks, not cutting them out entirely, just lowering that number down a little bit. There are some great sipping rums out there, so I’m trying to focus on ordering them more often than cocktails.

These are some things that I know I’m not going to give up, I love them too much. But you know what? There’s tons of other stuff that I’m more indifferent towards, like candy, chips, sodas, pretzels, fries, hash browns, and popcorn. These are foods that I know I can do without …

This is the philosophy of the Low Carb Tiki Diet …

Be honest with yourself about what you can and can’t live without. Say you love beer, then make a list of all the other things you’re willing to cut out of your diet so you can still enjoy beer. As long as you’re cutting down the amount of food you’re eating, you are on the right track! Less is More!

Bonus: Instead of making a food diary of all the things you eat, make a list of all the foods you would have eaten if you weren’t making a choice to better your health. Prepare to be surprised!