The ultimate guide to low-carb living in a high-carb world

1. Provisioning your low-carb home

 
 
A low-carb home is like a lifeboat bobbing alongside the enormous cruise ship that holds our toxic modern food environment. When you hop off the cruise ship and come home to your lifeboat, you can surround yourself with delicious real food, eliminating the highly processed choices onboard the cruise.

Provision your lifeboat with the best food you can afford. Time well spent in the grocery store is the most crucial step for setting yourself up for low-carb success. Shop wisely. And remember, if you don’t buy it, you won’t eat it.

Build your basic grocery list

You know what to buy — meat, fish, seafood, eggs, full-fat dairy, colorful vegetables, tart fruit, and nuts. Plus butter and olive oil, of course! Here is a more detailed grocery list organized by section of the store. Print it and bring it with you when you shop.

Master online grocery shopping

Some of us live in rough food environments. Your local grocery store may not offer the delicious fresh meats, tantalizing vegetables and the healthy low-carb extras you seek. Fortunately, online grocers are expanding. Here are a few who might deliver in your area:

Amazon for next-morning service
Amazon Fresh¹ offers next morning delivery to many locations.

Instacart and lookalikes for speedy deliveries
If you live in a major metropolitan area, Instacart might provide speedy grocery delivery to your home. Their model is grocery delivery in under an hour. Local players like this one offer similar services in many large or mid-sized cities.

Walmart and regional grocers for curbside pick-up
Walmart offers online ordering and curbside pick-up in many markets. Many regional grocery chains are also offering on-line ordering with curbside pick-up. This saves time and is usually free.

Safeway, etc. for home delivery
National supermarket chains like Safeway will accept online orders, pick out your groceries, and deliver to your door for a fee. See what is available in your area.

Thrive Markets for organic-ish non-perishables at a discount
As Fortune put it, “If Costco and Whole Foods had an online baby, it would look something like startup Thrive…” If you want to stock up on low-carb staples like macadamia nuts, jerky, dark chocolate, coconut products, and lard, all delivered to your door at prices that are better than Amazon’s, Thrive is a good option. Note that there is a membership fee of ~$60/year, but you can try it for a month free of charge.

Postmates delivers from grocers and restaurants
Whether you want groceries or a gourmet meal, Postmates is on duty, 24/7, in many markets. They promise speedy, courteous delivery in under an hour.

Consider a meal delivery service

 
 
Cook new recipes with fresh ingredients shipped to your door
Like to cook but hate to shop? Like variety? Upscale meal delivery services are newish and en vogue. They package whole food ingredients for meals, along with a recipe, and mail them to you in an insulated box. You do the cooking.

Perhaps you have heard of the mainstream choices – Hello Fresh, Plated, and Blue Apron. You could try one of these and simply throw out the starch and add some healthy fat from your refrigerator or pantry.

Better yet, for a meal service that is closer to low carb, check out the options at these three subscription services:

• Green Chef (scroll down to paleo offerings)²
• Sun Basket (click on paleo tab for offerings)
• Chef’d (many options — look for low-carb offerings)

Try completely prepared low-carb meals
For ready to serve low-carb meals that you don’t have to cook, delivered to your door, check out these national options:

• Diettogo.com (chose ‘Carb 30’ low-carb plan)
• Factor 75 (select paleo and look for low-carb options)
• Pete’s Paleo
• Trifecta
• modPaleo

Search for local Paleo meal services
Many enterprising chefs scattered about our country offer fresh, ready-to-serve Paleo meals that might satisfy your low-carb needs. Although these services may not deliver, multiple pick-up points can make them convenient enough to justify a weekly stop. Even mid-sized cities in the Rust Belt have local options, like Pittsburgh Fresh!

Atkins offers a line of frozen meals that can be purchased at a discount online as the Frozen Foodie Meal Kit, which includes 14 individually packaged low-carb frozen dinners. You also may be able to find Atkins’ frozen dinners in grocers near you.

Take advantage of farmers’ markets

 

 
If you have access to a farmers’ market, it can be a terrific place to shop. Most of what farmers sell is real, unprocessed food, so you will not be dodging aisles of processed snacks while picking out locally grown produce, meat, and dairy.

You might pay a little bit more at these markets, but you are supporting both a healthy local foodshed and the local economy with your food dollar – hard to do at most grocery stores.

Assemble meals without (really) cooking

Everyone has busy days and needs an easy meal. And some of us don’t like to cook and need an easy meal every night.

Our guide, “how to stay low carb when you don’t want to cook” can be a great resource for simple, low maintenance meals from items on your grocery list.

Understand organic and other labels

Should you buy organic? It depends. Is it available? Can you afford it? Focus on the food first and the pedigree of the food second. Organic is a nice extra, but it is not required for healthy eating.

For more on prioritizing the potential upgrades such as grass-fed/free range/wild-caught, this page addresses them all and suggests what matters most.
 
 

 

3. Living low carb away from home

 
You can’t spend your entire life on your lifeboat. You will want to venture back to the cruise ship for work, play, and social engagement. Fear not. Your low-carb habits travel with you like a life jacket. They can protect you from tempting food, anywhere.

Here’s how to survive dangerous food environments:

At work…

 
 
Office environments can wear you down.

Vending machines sell mostly junk; break rooms are full of cookies, crackers, and microwave popcorn. Some companies even offer refrigerators stocked with free soda. Then, there is the classic bowl of candy sitting on the receptionist’s desk, tempting everyone all day long. Ugh.

What is a low-carb worker to do?

Set a firm rule of no carbs at work
Commit to never eating the food at your workplace except in the rare instances that it is something completely safe, like cheese. Nibbling on freebies from the office is a slippery slope. A little bit here — a little bit there. Before long, you have ruined your eating plan for the day. Instead, draw a line in the sand and never cross it. No questionable office food. Period.

Pack your own food
Bring in leftovers from last night’s low-carb dinner for your lunch. Keep low-carb snacks on hand in your desk or in the refrigerator. When hunger strikes, you won’t be tempted by the high-carb offerings. Instead, you can feast on your own delicious food.

For more ideas for snacks, check out our guide: low-carb snacks — the best and the worst.

Choose drinks with care
Often working means finding focus and energy even when you are bored or tired. It is key that you find a way to avoid drinking sugar-sweetened beverages as a mid-day pick-me-up.

Here are a few ideas to make this easier:

• Embrace water. Buy a reusable water bottle with a filter³ for better taste if the office source has unpleasant flavors or odors.
• If water bores you, consider a reusable water bottle with an infuser for naturally flavored water. Citrus, berries, cucumbers, and herbs are popular choices for the infuser.
• Stock a variety of tea bags for tea or iced tea.
• A single-serve travel French press for coffee or decaf can replace poor quality office brews.
• Tuck heavy cream or butter into the office refrigerator. You can stir these into your coffee or tea to stave off hunger and give you a boost of energy. Coconut oil, which does not have to be refrigerated, is another nice option for blending into hot beverages.
• Pair water, coffee, or tea with low-carb snacks.

Craft your story
Be prepared for curiosity, concern, and perhaps even amusement from your office colleagues who watch you eat. When you are questioned, be ready to share your story.

Think through the basic narrative. What caused you to switch to a low-carb diet? What problems has it solved? Why does it work for you? Here are a couple of example:

“I was always hungry and had to work out constantly to not gain weight. Plus, I had pretty severe acne. As soon as I cut back on carbs, my skin cleared up and my hunger has changed — I’m just so satisfied by the food I eat. And, although I still exercise, I don’t need it to keep my weight stable.”

“I always struggled with my weight, even as a kid. I was ‘officially’ obese for 20 years. When my doctor told me I had diabetes, I knew I had to do something. After finding low carb, I completely changed my eating habits. I lost 50 pounds and haven’t looked back. And the best part of my story is that my diabetes is in remission — no meds!”

Practice your story a few times. Knowing what you are going to say makes these encounters less awkward. It can be fun to share your path to improved health! Perhaps you will spark an interest and change a life.

When dining out…

 
 
You can enjoy a low-carb meal almost anywhere — ethnic restaurants, buffets, or even Aunt Martha’s. Enjoy yourself without a setback by mentally preparing for your meals away from home.

Common sense should rule — say no to bread, and ask for double veggies instead of the starch with your main course. Sometimes a large salad with protein is the easiest way to go; choose olive oil and vinegar dressing. For a boost in fat, melt butter on your cooked vegetables and protein. Choose coffee or decaf instead of dessert.

Drink mostly water — champagne, dry wine, light beer, and straight spirits are okay in moderation. (Our guide to low-carb alcohol is worth consulting.)

For more detailed tips on how to order and enjoy low-carb meals at restaurants, check out our guide: how to eat low carb when dining out.

Don’t miss the section in this guide entitled at a friend’s place — perfect to consult when you are invited to dinner at a friend’s, colleague’s, or relative’s home. It also works for an invitation from your boss!

When traveling…

 
 
Are you headed out of town on vacation or do you have a business trip coming up? Don’t let travel interfere with your commitment to low-carb eating. With a little planning, you can stride through airports and hotel breakfast buffets with confidence.

As always, packing low-carb snacks can be a lifesaver. Eating well before you leave helps, too. In addition, you can use coffee to stave off hunger. You can even pack butter to add to your coffee in this BPA-free soap dish!

For a complete guide to hitting the low-carb road, please read our guide, how to eat low carb when traveling.
 

 

5. Knowing what you are up against

 

 
Look around. Unhealthy food is everywhere. And with it, we see the health destroying results one might expect — raging rates of chronic disease and an always hungry, always snacking, population of over-fed, undernourished citizens.

Knowledge is power. If you concede that mainstream food and ideas about food are deeply flawed, all the appalling junk food and junk science that surrounds you might drive you a little less crazy.

Realize people are woefully misinformed

The problem goes so much deeper than the piles of junk food in every grocery store and every office break room — the very ideas about food and health that dominate public discourse are compromised.

Turn on the news and you will hear our nation’s unconfirmed ideas about diet relayed as established facts. Understandably, your neighbors, colleagues and family members may have been swayed by this barrage of misinformation.

Take saturated fats. Almost everyone believes these naturally occurring fats in intact whole foods are bad, while vegetable oils, which are industrially extracted from seeds that aren’t traditional foods (and some of them, like cotton and soy seeds, were actually once considered waste by-products), are healthy. It’s backwards.

Most people in your social circles are likely to have believed in the health benefits of eating a grain-heavy, canola oil infused, low-fat diet for so long that they may think you are a little crazy when you skip the ‘whole-grain goodness’ and drop a tablespoon of butter into your coffee.

Understand that our authorities are dogmatic

Worse, the authorities we trust — our dietitians, doctors, scientists, journalists, and public health officials are painfully slow to change. The abject failure of low-fat dietary guidelines has NOT led to a ‘back to the drawing board’ moment. No.

Instead, misinformed ideas are tweaked and massaged into slightly less misguided ideas. We started, back in 1992, with a recommendation of 6-11 servings of grain each day (in the original Food Pyramid). Today, we dutifully fill slightly more than a quarter of our plate with processed whole grain products (if we are following MyPlate, introduced in 2011).

Terrible results cry out for a food revolution, not minor modifications, but the establishment is so sure its old, misguided ideas are correct, it can give us only same-old, same-old advice.

Know that what you do matters

A low-carb lifestyle is your lifeboat. You must navigate next to the cruise ship full of unhealthy food, outdated ideas, misguided advice, poorly interpreted science, and sick passengers. Stay out of its wake and set your course. Ride through the storm.

And know that you are a key part of the solution. Your commitment to low carb matters. Grassroots movements like low carb spread by word of mouth. As you share your success with others, some will come on board.