Atkins Diet Food List

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If you're ready to start the Atkins Diet for weight loss, the following Atkins Diet food list can be used as a tool to help choose the best foods.

Why an Atkins Diet Food List?

Too many people have the misconception that the Atkins Diet is a no-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat, free-for-all. It isn't. What the Atkins Diet does is teach you to eat the kind of carbs your body processes most efficiently--plant-based carbs. From day one, ample carbohydrates are allowed in the form of vegetables, which are one of the basic foods for a healthy diet. The Atkins Diet food list dispels the myths surrounding the diet and helps low-carb dieters find the best possible nutrition  , while they pursue their goal weight.

 

Free Foods

The following foods may be eaten without concern for quantity--eat until you are satisfied:

• Meat: all unprocessed meats, including beef, pork, lamb, veal, mutton, venison, and ham. Bacon is allowed if it is not processed with sugar; if nitrite-free bacon is available, it is preferable.
• Poultry: any unprocessed poultry, including chicken, turkey, goose, duck, cornish hens, pheasant, quail, ostrich, or emu.
• Fish: all unprocessed fish, including tuna, salmon, catfish, trout, snapper, sole, sardines, herring, and any other fish.
• Shellfish: any unprocessed shellfish, including oysters, clams, crab, shrimp, calamari, lobster, mussels, and scallops. Imitation crab or other imitation shellfish products are forbidden.
• Eggs: any real eggs are allowed, including chicken, duck, quail, or goose.

Vegetables

Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution divides vegetables into two groups: salad vegetables and other vegetables.

• Salad Vegetables: Any lettuce, including iceberg, romaine, Bibb, escarole, mache, raddichio, arugula, and endive. In addition to the lettuces, leafy herbs (such as dill, thyme, basil, oregano, and cilantro) and many other vegetables are listed as "salad vegetables." These other vegetables include bok choy, chives, cucumber, fennel (anise), parsley, celery, peppers (hot or sweet), radishes, daikon, sprouts, mushrooms, olives, and jicama are all considered salad vegetables.
• Other Vegetables: Among the other vegetables allowed on the Atkins plan are asparagus, cabbage, cauliflower, eggplant, kale, kohlrabi, tomatoes, onions, summer squashes (yellow, pattypan, and zucchini), okra, turnips, avocado, brussels sprouts, leafy greens (mustard, turnip, beet, collards,) broccoli, celeriac, and artichokes. In fact, just about any vegetable you might wish to eat is permitted, with the exception of corn, potatoes, green (English) peas, and other sweet or starchy vegetables.

 

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Walt Disney World Hotels

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Planning a visit to Walt Disney World? Other Theme Park Insider readers have submitted their ratings and reviews for the hotels in and around Walt Disney World, in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. You can click on any of the hotels listed below to read those reviews, or to submit your own comments about a recent stay.

If you are looking for ride, show and restaurant ratings to help you plan your trip, click the links on the right side of the page to read our readers' reviews for all the attractions at more than four dozen popular theme and amusement parks around the world.

Readers' Opinions

Disney's Wilderness Lodge

The design of this Walt Disney World deluxe resort was inspired by National Park Service lodges like the Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone and the Ahwahnee in Yosemite. Beyond the Lodge's soaring lobby, the hotel's 727 guestrooms feature Mission-style furnishings with quilted bedspreads.

Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge

The Lodge offers deluxe guestrooms with African-inspired decor and modern amenities, such as high-speed Internet access, coupled with views of exotic animals roaming the Animal's Kingdom's savannahs. Spa services and recreational activities are also available at this full-service resort, a multiple winner of Theme Park Insider's Award for World's Best Theme Park Hotel.

Disney's Polynesian Resort

One of the three Walt Disney World hotels connected to the parks via monorail, the Polynesian stands across the Seven Seas Lagoon from the Magic Kingdom, with wicker- and bamboo-furnished guestrooms in 11 longhouses, each named for a Pacific island.

Disney's Grand Floridian Resort

Considered Disney World's top hotel, this Victorian-themed hotel's look was inspired by the historic Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. The Grand Floridian offers a white-sand beach, a four-star restaurant (Victoria & Albert's) and monorail access to the Magic Kingdom.

Disney's Beach Club Resort

Disney's take on circa-1900 New England beach clubs offers deluxe-style rooms and an elaborate water play area within walking distance of Epcot's back entrance.

Disney's Yacht Club Resort

This nautical-themed resort is a short walk from Epcot's back entrance and offers 621 deluxe-quality rooms with details such as yacht-themed bedspreads and ship’s wheel headboards.

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Next Generation Business Planning

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Most entrepreneurs do extensive planning and research before starting a business. But, after they get everything up and running, they tend to fall back into a natural bias for action mode. Once your business has been launched, it doesn’t mean your days as a strategist are finished.  In fact, they are just beginning.

Ongoing planning is necessary because the environment in which your small business operates is continually changing. This has become more important over the last year or two. Many of the new marketing tools have created new opportunities. Challenges like the current downturn in the economy may arise that may be vastly different than those assessed during the start-up stage. Initial financial projections can be literally and figuratively on the money—or trending in a different and unexpected direction.

With just a few planning tips, you can keep your small business right on track for long-term growth:

Make your business plan a living document. Many business plans become nothing more than “artifacts” of business start-ups. Don’t let this happen. Refer to your business plan every quarter or six months to compare estimates against current realities.  Then, update your plan as needed with new or modified contingencies and adjust time frames for key milestones such as expansions or new product/service lines.

Capture and monitor the numbers. Financial statements can provide a snap shot of the health of your business. If you project cash flow several months into the future based on reasonable expectations for sales and income, customer demand, regular payments (e.g. loans and rent), and other factors, you can and then compare actual cash flow to projections. This process reveals significant deltas which represent opportunities to improve performance.  Companies that don’t do this often find themselves in a situation with no room to maneuver.

Keep your finger on the pulse of the industry.  In today’s global economy, even slight changes can have a profound impact on small businesses.  The influences may be as far-reaching as a shift in demand for a certain commodity, or as local as a new stoplight near your store.  Monitor macro (world) and micro (local) events; study sales records, and keep a running dialog with customers, suppliers, and colleagues.  You’ll have fewer surprises, and will be better prepared to anticipate and capitalize on changes.

Form productive connections and alliances. Although business growth usually means having access to additional resources, there may be other, more cost-effective options. Creating alliances with other businesses in your field and certain consultants, you can stretch your capabilities. These alliances can help you meet peak market demands and/or generate revenue from products/services that you may not have.

 

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Las Vegas History: 10 Greatest Vegas Urban Legends

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We'd like to live in hotels (just so we can order room service), but we don't. Sure, we'd like to look like showgirls, but we don't. And yes, there is life beyond the Strip. Lots of life. Just like in any other "normal" city, Vegas has schools, government buildings, parks, playgrounds, supermarkets (but with slot machines), community centers and all that stuff that makes a city function. Plus, we have more urban myths than sequins on a Liberace suit. Here are our top 10 (for now) Vegas urban legends:

1. Hoover Dam bodies: It is a widely repeated story that during the construction of the Hoover Dam from 1931 to 1936, as many as seven workers were buried in the structure as 4,400,000 cubic yards of concrete was poured. While officially 96 dam workers died during the construction of the dam, no one was permanently buried in concrete. Fact is, the concrete was poured in relatively small batches (about a 1,000 cubic yards at a time), and each of these slabs was allowed to cure (dry) before the next one was added. If someone had indeed fallen in during this pouring process, he would have easily been pulled out by others.

2. Kidneys on the black market: In 1996, rumors began circulating about a man who, after having drinks with an attractive stranger at a Las Vegas bar, blacks out and later awakes in a hotel bathtub, covered in ice. A phone is resting on the floor beside the tub with an attached note, "Call 911 or you will die." The story continues with this "victim" being rushed to the hospital, where the doctors inform him that one of his kidneys has been removed, apparently by a gang selling human organs on the black market. A shocking story, but just that, a story. The tale first surfaced in 1991 and has "reportedly" happened in several cities including New York, New Orleans, Houston and Las Vegas. To dispel this rumor, the National Kidney Foundation asked anyone who claims to have had his or her kidneys illegally removed to notify the foundation. So far no one has come forth.

3. Aliens at Area 51: The top-secret Air Force facility located 110 miles northwest of Vegas always has been, well, a secret. It wasn't until 1990 that the U.S. government finally acknowledged the base even existed. Contrary to thousands of believers who claim to have seen UFOs, little green men, grayish creatures with almond-curved eyes and many more incredible things, the Pentagon says there are no aliens in Area 51. However, this shouldn't stop you from driving the Extraterrestrial Highway (Highway 375) just in case the government is lying.

4. Hunting for Bambi: In 2003, Las Vegas promoter Michael Burdick finally came clean, admitting to city officials that "Hunting for Bambi" was a hoax and that his company never actually conducted "hunting expeditions" in which wealthy male patrons stalked naked women with paintball guns. "It was all staged," Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman told The Associated Press. "The purported 'Hunt for Bambi' was a scam. There were actors and actresses, and there wasn't even the real shooting of paint balls."

 

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My Best Presentation Tricks

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Giving presentations can be a complete and utter thrill. Too bad attending them can be a complete and utter bore. If you are on the giving side, I want to offer you up a collection of my best presentation tricks to date. I’ve written on presentation and the storyteller’s promise before at my site. I’ve written what has oddly become my top-rated post of all time, Bring out your inner David Lee Roth. This will draw from these concepts and more.

Stories and Characters

With few exceptions, a presentation is an opportunity for you to tell a story to an audience. You have the conch shell. You are the wielder of the fire stick. And your audience enters into a relationship with you from the moment they choose to sit in your presence. (Here’s a hack- what if you gave a presentation and provided no chairs? What would a standing audience look and feel like?) As such, your audience is expecting a story.

A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. You’ve heard this before, and you understand, but apply it to your presentation. And no, I don’t mean, “Here’s what we’ll talk about, talk-talk, that’s what we talked about.” Stories also have characters. So, start your story at the beginning with a character. If you’re describing a product, start with the user of the product. Or start with the person who moves your product from one business to the other. But put PEOPLE in your story.

At the beginning, your character should have a problem. Maybe she has too many spreadsheets and not enough linking, and people are starting to give her information in ways that her spreadsheets are overflowing their banks. In the middle, your character meets the new product, a database, and now she’s really excited because the database can do EVERYTHING the spreadsheets were lacking. By the end of the story, your character is poised on all the great new ways the database will save her in the future, and she’s looking forward to applying her new skills to a new challenge.

Ads are presentations. Watch TV for a few minutes and see the stories; think about them in terms of a story with a character, a structure, etc. Do you see it?

 

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Top 5 Reasons To Build A Shipping Container Home

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Shipping container homes are the latest trend in eco-friendly building.  Since cargo containers are plentiful and cheap, there is no lack of good construction material to build your unique dream home.  But is a shipping container home the right choice for you?  Here is a list of five compelling reasons why you should consider a house made from shipping containers:

1. Shipping container homes are environmentally friendly. By using reclaimed materials, you can build a comfy dwelling that does not use wasteful new building materials.  There are thousands of used shipping containers on the market due to their ubiquity in the freight industry.  Why not save a shipping container from being wasted, and instead use it for something useful?
2. Shipping container homes are relatively cheap. A used shipping container can be purchased for only a few thousand dollars.  You can create a cozy cabin by using only one, or combine two for a larger dwelling.  There is some foundation work and customization that needs to be done in order to transform a freight container into a habitable space, but since shipping containers already come pre-shaped into rooms, this can be done quickly and inexpensively if you hire experienced professionals.  You can build a comfortable house for under $100,000 with the right modifications.  This is far less than a traditional house built from new materials.
3. Shipping container homes make a unique statement. If you are looking for a truly original house a cargo container home is really the way to go.  There are some really interesting possibilities with shipping container architecture, so your new home is certain to have a unique look.  Building a house in this style tells your neighbors that you care about sustainable living, and the multiple possibilities for modification leave the look of your home entirely up to your imagination.

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14 Misconceptions about Being a Nutritionist

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Misconception #1: I only want to hang out with other nutrition savvy folks. Just because I eat a certain way, does not mean I only want to hang out with people that eat the same way as me.  I connect with different people for different reasons, and more often than not, those people do not share the same diet as myself.  My best friend in the whole wide world does NOT eat like I do.  In fact, I cannot say I have many (or any) close friends that do.  I can think of 1.

Misconception #2: I constantly think about what others are eating around me/in front of me. When eating a meal with someone, I do not spend that time thinking about how unhealthy that “someone’s” meal is.  Most of the time I am too invested in what I am eating to worry about what someone else is eating. Additionally, if we are enjoying one another’s company, I am also too invested in the conversation for someone else’s meal to be a large concern of mine.  I have spent some time working in a historically famed steakhouse in New Jersey—I have seen steak and potatoes.  I am not going to melt.  (That being said, there are certain obscure meat dishes that really creep me out… just thinking about them makes me cringe).

Misconception #3: Because I am a nutritionist, I want to talk about nutrition all the time. I do not want to talk about nutrition all the time.  Many assume that because I am passionate, and educated in nutrition, that I want to discuss it at all times.  I am like any person in that I have a lot of interests.  Nutrition is just a piece of who I am.

Misconception #4: I am 100% healthy, 100% of the time. I wish!  I am not perfect in my eating.  Just because I eat very well a greater percentage of the time, does not, by any means, mean that I eat perfectly 100% of the time.  I am human.  I have been known to cave for blue corn tortilla chips, chocolate, wine, or …  I am also not well versed in portion control, as I love food (so thankfully what I love, is healthy).  I have chosen raw coconut ice cream over greens on many an occasion.  I love raw “ice cream” for lunch, or a snack, (and I make up for it with a lot of green juice, and green dinners).  Do I wish I were perfect, yes!! Am I?  No. I think it can be really easy to beat yourself up for not being a certain way—and in reality it can make you feel worse.  Be conscious of your decisions, and make a better decision the next time…  You ultimately feel better– when I eat better, I feel better.

Misconception #5: I am one of ‘those’ “spiritual raw foodists” and I only eat within that realm of food. First of all, everyone gets into nutrition for different reasons, be it spiritual, or whatever.  I do not fit into any specific category of eating (aside from vegetarian, which does not at all describe how I eat).  I am not entirely one way, or the other.  As I explain in My Philosophy, I am not a strict vegan, or a strict raw foodist.  I think those words tend to segment people into sometimes unfair, and inaccurate categories.  I am a Foodie through and through, and my diet is largely plant based, and raw, but it varies seasonally– and depends on my mood.  Why I like raw foods.

 

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