One of the major criticisms of the Atkins/low-carb lifestyle is that it makes you feel sick like you have the flu. Headaches, body aches, shivers, cold sweating, dizziness, nausea and more! Who wants to go through all of this just to lose weight?

Well, that’s the topic of Atkins weight loss success story Kent Altena’s latest video entitled “Induction Flu: Signs of Problems or Progress?”

If you feel sick when you start the low-carb lifestyle, then that is a VERY GOOD thing. You WANT to get the Atkins flu because it means your body is transitioning from carb-burning to stored fat-burning. WOO HOO!

bq. Other than the first few days or weeks, low-carb is not that bad. But you will go through the pain up front, so BE READY FOR IT! Don’t let it knock you off course because this is arguably the most important part of livin’ la vida low-carb you will go through. Be tough and make it through. You WILL survive and be successful on the Atkins diet if you simply persevere in the early days.

Click here to watch Kent’s video and to learn more about what is arguably the most unpleasant part of going on a low-carb diet.

You’re on a low-carb diet and you purchase lots of sugar-free products to get rid of sugar and excessive refined carbohydrates from your life. Weight loss is happening and life is going great for you.

But then one day you accidentally drop a piece of sugar-free gum sweetened with the sugar alcohol Xylitol on the ground and you notice your dog Buster comes over and immediately eats it.

What should you do? Is it safe for your dog to consume?

According to the Animal Poison Control Center (APCC) division of The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), Xylitol can cause a sudden drop in your pet’s blood sugar which can lead to depression, lack of coordination and even seizures in as little as 30 minutes.

Click here to find out more about this dangerous situation for your household pets and what you can do in case of accidental ingestion.

When I started the low-carb lifestyle in January 2004, one of the last things I even thought about was what my stomach would look like if I lost a lot of weight. I had worse things to think about at the time when I weighed 410 pounds and was quite literally eating myself to an early grave.

But apparently this “loose skin” issue is a major hang-up with a lot of people and I don’t understand it. Sure, my tummy and inner thighs aren’t perfectly tight, but it certainly beats the alternative of having that fat stretching behind it again! When you go from a 62-inch waist to a 38-inch waist, you are bound to have some skin (CLICK HERE to see some pictures of my “loose skin”).

My blogging friend Kent Altena who also lost 200 pounds on the Atkins diet has been making some videos lately about the low-carb lifestyle and his latest one addresses the “loose skin” issue.

This is an extremely important subject because we are talking about helping people overcome obstacles that would stand in their way of losing weight. While not everyone has excess, loose, hanging skin after weight loss, you probably should expect it if you have over 100 pounds to lose. It’s one of those side effects of the Atkins diet that I would take every single day of the week if I can look and feel as GREAT as I do right now.

Read more about this issue and see a bonus video featuring Kent’s world famous Low-Carb Mock Danish recipe by clicking here.

A fascinating topic of discussion has ensued surrounding the following question:

“Does low-carb living ever stop working?”

The line of thinking behind this theory is that low-carb only helps you lose weight to a certain point and then stops working necessitating people to start counting fat, calories, and portion sizes.

bq. Nice try, but that’s just a sneaky way to tell me to eat less fat, less calories, and smaller portions as the way to manage my weight. BEEN THERE, DONE THAT! That’s why I went on the Atkins diet in 2004 so I wouldn’t HAVE to do all of those things anymore and it has been the most freeing aspect of my weight loss experience. If I started watching all of those things again, then I KNOW I would get frustrated and stop doing anything about my weight. And so would others.

Click here to read more about this controversial limit to low-carb weight loss theory.

World-renowed opera tenor Richard Margison is in the midst of losing close to 100 pounds thanks to the Atkins diet. But he has expressed concern about how his low-carb weight loss may negatively impact his singing voice.

bq. “I had to lose the weight slowly and sing through it all the time so your body becomes used to losing the weight,” he said. “I know people who have had the bypass surgery — the stomach staples — and who lost a lot of weight quickly and they all felt it on the voice. You lose your vocal stamina.”

As someone who has lost 180 pounds on low-carb and enjoys singing, I have not seen anything except dramatic improvements in my tone and breathing when I sing.

bq. My breath support has improved dramatically which gives me much better control over the tone and volume of my voice and that constant feeling that I had a frog stuck in my throat swimming in a bucketful of snot magically disappeared, too. I would have to say my voice didn’t change a bit for the worse and is even a little bit better overall than it was before my weight loss.

Click here to hear a sample of my singing voice now (don’t laugh too hard!) and to read more about Margison’s amazing low-carb weight loss success story.

I received an e-mail from a very active 26-year-old, 115-pound woman who started low-carb in April for the sake of improving her health. However, she said she is now having “a strange pain appear on my lower right abdominal side” ever since about a month after she began the low-carb lifestyle.

That pain is nearly constant and feels like she’s being “stabbed inside” and has not subsided despite various treatments. All of her blood work has improved being on low-carb and everything else seems normal except for her “messed up” menstrual cycle.

Could it be her low-carb diet? While I don’t think every little pain low-carbers experience necessarily has anything to do with their diet, this woman is admittedly “very scared” and wants to know if anyone else has been through something like this while on low-carb.

Click here to read more of her e-mail to me, including a typical day’s menu for her and the supplements she is taking on her low-carb plan.

In the last couple of days, I have been experiencing a tremendous amount of pain in my right ear. I’ve put drop in them, flushed them out with water, put alcohol in them, and NOTHING seems to be making them better. I was telling a few of my fellow coworkers about my experience and believe it or not, someone had the gall to say the following to me:

“It probably has something to do with that low-carb diet you’re on.”

Excuuuuse me? What in the world is that all about?

bq. Isn’t it interesting how every little pain or problem that your body goes through ever since you’ve been on the low-carb lifestyle is now under this gigantic microscope for everyone to analyze and examine as evidence of what low-carb does to you? Oh, that low-carber has a cold, he must not be eating enough fruits and vegetables to fight it off. Jeepers, you broke a bone in your wrist, your low-carb diet must not be giving you enough calcium. Have you heard any of these kinds of statements before? I’m sure you have and frankly it’s quite annoying.

Click here to read more about how the low-carb lifestyle gets blamed for every little ailment you may have while you never hear any such nonsense uttered about the low-fat or vegetarian diets.

I know, showing a picture of my loose skin is disgusting to display in public, but I think this is an important topic for people who are losing weight on low-carb to know about.

Whether you have 50, 100 or 200 pounds to lose, you may or may not need to deal with what to do about hanging excess skin after your weight comes off. The weight loss is phenomenal, but it can be challenging to stay motivated with this big blog of skin drooping off of your body afterwards.

bq. Some people tell me I should just be thankful for my weight loss and simply ignore the loose skin problem. However, it is a HUGE mental test that I have had to endure and it is one I am still going through and will continue to go through until that fateful day when I will FINALLY be able to get it taken care of. You can’t underestimate how discouraging this can be on someone who has worked so hard to get to this point. I could see someone with less emotional strength collapsing under the pressure of disappointment.

Read more about the subject of loose skin after low-carb weight loss and see some more pictures by clicking here.

After reading about my slight weight gain in 2006 after losing 180 pounds on the Atkins diet in 2004, a woman sent me an e-mail sharing she too saw her weight “bounced” after her low-carb weight loss.

bq. “I admit I’ve had some real struggles with my weight in spite of my commitment. I’ve bounced up about 20 pounds and even though my diet has remained virtually the same and I’m back up to exercising at my normal level, I cannot get the scales to budge. I’ve noticed the same basic thing occuring with many of my low-carb cohorts. They lose a significant amount of weight and then kind of settle back in at a 10-20 pounds level above their lowest. I wonder if this is some kind of low carb diet phenomenon. Have you encountered many people with the same problem?”

That’s my question for you. Has anyone else gone through anything like this personally themselves? I sure have. But for me, I can see some of the reasons for my slight weight gain.

bq. Most of it has been of my own doing, though — not eating quite as well as I should, stopping that workout just a little too prematurely, taking one bite of something with a whole lotta carbs in it. It all adds up over time and can have an impact on your weight and even your health. It has become a little harder to eat the way I did when I was losing weight because I am not that man anymore. I realize it may be time for me to adjust my eating again to fit my new body.

Perhaps this is something that needs to be discussed more often — when you lose weight there is one kind of low-carb eating. But when you are keeping that weight off and weigh less than you used to, there is another way to eat low-carb. People forget I’m still learning this process of eating healthy, too!

Read more thoughts about this interesting and very important topic of discussion and feel free to share your insights on it by clicking here.

I had the distinct privilege and honor to meet one of the greatest ambassadors for the low-carb lifestyle in January at a low-carb conference that took place in Brooklyn, New York. I’m referring to Dr. Michael Eades, of course, who along with his wife Dr. Mary Dan Eades wrote the bestselling “Protein Power” books.

Dr. Michael Eades always communicates an intriguing perspective on the nutritional science that comes out. While most of the health establishment tries to make the dietary data that releases to the public fit their low-fat agenda in their analysis, Dr. Eades quietly but effectively points out how science is finally pointing to low-carb living as a much healthier lifestyle alternative.

Take the issue of HDL cholesterol, for example. After my recent visit to the doctor for a physical, he was “alarmed” by my high LDL in my blood work results. Lost in the shuffle of his grave concern over my LDL cholesterol being 172 was the fact that my HDL cholesterol was a whopping 72.

bq. When I noted [my high HDL number] to my doctor after my recent physical, he wasn’t impressed. His reaction was, “Well, your LDL is still much too high and must come down.” But, but, but…oh, nevermind, I forgot he comes from the Dean Ornish School Of Nutritional Closed-Mindedness! It seems most people in the medical profession today have graduated from that school with honors because they’re not giving low-carb the respect it deserves.

Dr. Eades said we’ve got science on our side in the debate over which nutritional approach is more effective against heart disease. While people like Dr. Ornish point to fat as the enemy and base their support for their way of eating around that point, Dr. Eades views fat from the very opposite point of view.

Check out what Dr. Eades said about the role of fat in regards to cholesterol:

bq. If you want to get your HDL-cholesterol levels up, you have to eat fat. Fat intake drives HDL-cholesterol levels up; decreasing fat in the diet–as Dean Ornish has discovered to his chagrin–drops HDL-cholesterol levels. So, if you want to raise your HDL-cholesterol level by putting something other than your foot in your mouth, try a cheeseburger, hold the bun, hold the fries. It’s a lot tastier.

Read more about what Dr. Eades says about the healthy benefits of high-HDL cholesterol levels as well as how high-LDL levels may not be as bad as we’ve been told by clicking here.