Hi all,

When I first started going there, I met with the nutritionist because that was what Dr. Schwarzbein had you do. But the nutritionist said I got everything right pretty quickly so I knew I was on the right track. They also told me I was the most compliant patient they ever had so you could probably get well being less perfect than I was trying to be.

I do not follow meal plans since I cook for a whole family and feel like the meal plans box me in. I feel you really have to find what work's with your lifestyle since this is a life plan, not a diet. Nothing wrong with the meal plans if they work for you. My way is to plan every meal around protein, healthy fat, vegetable, fruit, dairy and some grain or starchy vegetable. My breakfast is usually 3 chicken tenders or 3 eggs, a cup of milk or nonfat yogurt, 1/2 cup steel cut oats, 1/2 apple, 1/2 cup sugar snap peas, and 8 macadamia nuts. I will switch the fruits or vegetables around or the type of protein but I stick to this way of eating. My lunches are usually 2 oz. meat, 1 oz. cheese, 1/2 orange, 2 cups of peppers, 1 cup milk or yogurt and a starchy vegetable like 1/4 yam. Dinner is a salad with avocado, peppers, cucumber, carrot, tomato, lettuce, radishes, and cabbage, with olive oil dressing, with 3 oz meat, a cup of milk or dairy, a cooked grain or starchy vegetable (yes I eat rice and pasta, just a small portion like 1/8 cup) and some grapes. My snacks are usually wasa crackers with natural peanut butter, 1 oz turkey, and some baby carrots and I'll have popcorn with my nightime snack.

My only caution is that if you have been low-carbing for some time, start small and work your way up gradually. Your body adjusts to these carbs and eventually loves them, but you will gain a lot of weight and feel horrific if you just start eating them after not having them for a long time. So do it gradually. Also I change the components of my meals often so i have less chance of food sensitivities and for variety of nutrients so these are just examples, but you can see the framework I use to put meals together.

Now my life is so much better. I can eat this way in restaurants and I can taste anything I want. The Atkins way is a way of deprivation. Now I feel free to live. I have been doing this for four years and if your metabolism is really damaged as mine was, it takes a long time to do this and you can feel very bad in the beginning. That's when many people ditch it. But I'm glad I stuck with it because I will never go back to the dieting way of life again. I really believe women especially are being done harm with the advice a lot of doctors are handing out these days. I had to avoid other doctors while I was first healing because all your tests look worse and doctors will want to put you on prescription drugs all the time. They don't understand healing, just covering up symptoms. Anyway, I'm off my soapbox.

It was also really hard for me to cut down the exercise. Now I do more yoga and ball work and weight lifting. Sometimes, I'll go for hard cardio but I listen to my body. I'll do the level of exercise that feels right on a given day. When I first started Dr. Schwarzbein told me to do no cardio at all. That was really hard but now I see I needed to give my body a break. Cardio now seems like stress to my body so I don't do much. And I only exercise 5 days a week.

Anyway, good luck with your health. I hope I helped some.