My Low Carb Diet: Week 2

For the first week of my low carb diet, I was only eating about 20 grams of carbohydrates per day. I lost 6 pounds in the first 6 days, but on the 7^th day I cheated and had a glass of wine…okay it was two glasses! But I didn’t gain any weight back. It was just too hard eating that few carbs and I had absolutely no energy to play beach volleyball! After doing some research this week, I found out that athletes will struggle to find the energy they need to perform on low carbohydrate diets, so I decided that this week I will increase my intake of carbs to about 50-75 grams per day and see how I feel. I am only eating nutrient rich carbs like veggies, plain yogurt, and berries, still not eating pasta, bread, or rice. This is still a considerably low amount of carbohydrates to consume considering I used to eat about 300 grams a day.

Last week it was really difficult trying to find snacks I like to eat that don’t have any carbohydrates in them.  Here are a few snacks that I came up with…

1. Trader Joe’s Valencia Peanut Butter with toasted flax seeds mixed with strawberries, raspberries or blackberries.  It’s like an all-natural peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the bread!

2. Plain Greek yogurt mixed with almonds and berries of choice. There are a few brands that make plain yogurt with only 6 grams of sugar per serving but you need to read the nutritional labels carefully!

3. Fresh mozzarella cheese, grape tomatoes, & black olives drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper.