Surviving Glycemic Diets (Ketogenic, Low-Carb or Atkins):

1.The first step to living a Glycemic Diet Lifestyle is knowing what you can have, and have lots of. This includes a large variety of vegetables and fruits. The best you can do is eating 5 vegetable servings of ½ cup per day and 4 ½ cups of fruits (Please be selective) per day.

2.Remember that eating refined white flour, white potatoes, white rice to your body, is like eating sugar, making a diet high in "White Stuff", typically, breads, rolls, bagels, pretzels, and crackers made from white flour - a high sugar diet. Whole grains mean extra fiber, which aids in weight loss. Not only does the fiber fill you us quickly with fewer calories, but is also eliminate some of the calories you eat. Fiber can go through the digestive system so quickly that some of the calories never have a chance to actually digest.

3.Try to eat 2 or 3 calcium - rich foods every day. Calcium not only supports your bones and helps prevent osteoporosis, but it also helps prevent colon cancer, high blood pressure, and PMS. Calcium may also lower your body fat.

4.Beans are the highest-fiber foods you can find, with the exception of breakfast cereals made with wheat bran. Beans are high in soluble fiber, which lowers cholesterol levels, and foliate, which lowers levels of homocysteine, another risk factor for heart disease.

5.People who eat nuts regularly have less heart disease and other illness than people who avoid them do. There are compounds found in most nuts called tocotrienols. You just have to limit the amount of nuts that you eat. The best thing to do is to chop your favorite kind, keep them in your fridge and sprinkle 2 Tablespoons a day on your food.

6.People who east fish twice a week have fewer fatal heart attacks. Fish is rich in Omega-3 fats, which have the ability to prevent the development of a dangerously irregular heartbeat. Fish is a good source of protein, which promotes satiety - the feeling of fullness you look for in a meal.

7.Drink at least eight glasses of water every day, plus a cup or more of tea. Water is so important to our body. Water also helps to metabolize the fat. Big water drinkers also appear to get less colon and bladder cancer. Every cup of tea you drink provides a strong infusion of anti-oxidants that help keep blood from clotting too easily and that may help lower you risk of cancer and rheumatoid arthritis.

8.Try to stay within a healthy fat budget and watch the type of fats you consume. Get most of your fat from Cold Pressed Virgin Olive Oil, Flaxseed Oil, Borage oil or Walnut Oil. You may use Butter and creams for your daily dose of Vitamin E, but remember that you only need a little.

9.What nutrition you can't get from your foods, you can take in a pill. Just remember to be sensible. Most vitamins will not dissolve in your stomach, or your intestines. Make sure that your vitamins are food source or they can cause vitamin toxicity in your liver. If you are eating correctly, non-processed foods being 95% of your diet, then you should be getting all that you need. If you feel you need more nutrition, only take ¼ of the amount of vitamins that have been recommended. Remember that your body will store what it doesn't use, and if it stores too much, you can be asking for trouble.

10.Be careful with the choices you have in your diet. You carry with you a guide for the amount of meat that you should eat in a day. Make of fist and put it down on a piece of paper with the little finger down against the surface. That is the size of meat that you should be eating in a day. Make sure that your choices in meat are free of other chemicals that can interfere with your health or medication.

D.S. Epperson is the top formulator for Home Blend Gourmet / South Pacific Health, a leader in the functional food industry in the U.S. With 20 years of experience in Nutritional Biochemistry, she has written reference books on botanicals and manufacturing of medicines from botanicals, and published articles on health, fitness and foods. She has formulated over 240 formulas and inventions for health, the environment and agricultural uses, and continues to research and study microbial advantages in nutraceuticals and functional foods. For more information or to view the articles that she has written: http://www.sugarblend.com