When we started out we ate quite a lot of green vegetables along with beef, chicken, pork and some fish. Stuff like broccoli, asparagus, lettuce salad, stuff on that foods list that I listed in another post. On a low carb diet it is more about what you don't eat than what you do. We avoided starchy vegetables that had been a staple of our diet previously like potatoes. We might substitute a cauliflower (low carb) dish in its place. We cut out all breads and grains. Instead of corn (high carb) for a side dish we might have green beans (relatively low carb). We quit eating things like potato chips or Doritos and instead substituted low carb things like pork rinds. We cut out all fruit except berries which are the lowest level of sugar in them compared to other fruit. We ate quite a few avocado though which is a fruit but very low in sugar and high in fat. We ate things like tomatoes but kind of watched our portion size. The medium carb foods we just watched our portion size, trying to keep total carbs for the day under 20 grams.

A standard American diet following food guidelines I have read is around 300 grams of carbohydrates, following the food guidelines that recommend lots of whole grains and fruit.  Add in a quart of sugary soda pop and maybe a desert and it is not hard to exceed 400 or even 500 grams a day. That is a lot of insulin a persons pancreas has to pump out to handle that much sugar. Carbohydrates are simply long chains of glucose that get broke down to glucose.

Anything under about 100-120 grams carbs is considered "low carb" and 100 grams can give quite a bit of flexibility as far as "what" a person eats as long as portion sizes don't get carried away. For me being diabetic though to reverse my diabetes it takes a much lower level and under 20 a day is considered a very low level. For a metabolically healthy person under 50 grams a day will probably get them in nutritional ketosis and is considered a "ketogenic diet". For a person with insulin resistance or type II diabetes it may take as low as 20 grams to get them into a regular ketogenic state. When in ketosis the body is burning fat for a lot of its energy instead of glucose. That can either be ingested fat or body fat, but ketosis is fat burning.

As long as insulin levels are high the body considers it has lots of energy, so any excess energy is stored as body fat. If it is subcutaneous fat (the fat that giggles on the belly for example) that is not particularly unhealthy and is just stored energy the body makes to be used later when needed. This is why back before modern foods and storage came on the scene people would seasonally eat fruit in the fall, to fatten up for winter. Then in the lean winter months they would burn this fat off as energy till the more prosperous spring came. But in todays food supply we have surplus year round. There are no "lean" times to burn off this excess energy. So anything that spikes insulin it is telling the body to make fat out of this excess energy. A big problem is that not all of it always goes to subcutaneous fat but to visceral fat (organs get fat). Liver gets fat, pancreas can get fat. This is the dangerous fat, as our organs were never meant to be fat. Fructose type of sugar is particularly bad about producing liver fat (NAFLD) as fructose bypasses normal digestion and absorption processes and is processed by the liver. Fructose and alcohol are both processed by the liver. Drink too much alcohol for too many years and get FLD (fatty liver disease). Drink or eat too much fructose and get the same thing only it is called NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty  liver disease). See a problem with all the sodas sweetened with sugar (half and half fructose and glucose) or high fructose corn syrup (about the same as table sugar with slightly higher proportion of fructose compared to glucose)?

The body can not burn body fat (visceral or subcutaneous) when insulin levels are high. Carbohydrates cause insulin levels to go high. So to burn body fat insulin levels need to be low. The way to get low insulin levels is to not eat foods that cause insulin levels to go high. People like myself that ate too many carbohydrates too often eventually create insulin resistance. Once a person is insulin resistant it takes more insulin to do the same job it uses to. So a person ends up with almost continually high insulin levels and almost impossible to lose body fat. Severely limiting calories will do it but then the body feels like it is starving all the time and desires to eat. That is why traditional diets fail. A person is constantly battling hunger, and the battle is usually eventually lost. Yo-yo dieting. Lose a little feeling starved then gain it back when falling off the wagon.

So there has to be a better way to get insulin levels low so body fat can be burned. The answer is just eat foods that do not raise insulin levels so badly. This is why a person can eat meat protein and fat to satiety and still lose weight. It does not raise insulin levels significantly and so the body does not get the signal to store body fat. Instead the body becomes a "fat burner". It is possible to eat too much fat and not lose weight, but it is much less likely. And the reason is fatty meat gives good satiety signals. Eat a big ole steak or a pound of hamburger and pretty soon the body says "that's enough". But bring out a sugary desert like a piece of pie and "there is always room for desert". Eat that pie and not only does the insulin go up and the body is signaled to "store excess energy as fat" but it also takes the fat just eaten in the meat and stores that as fat also. If a person wants to gain weight as fat eat carbs and fat together. Say for instance, a hamburger with ketchup (made with sugar) and the bun (carbohydrate). Throw in some French fries (more carbs turning into sugar) and an apple pie for desert (more sugar) and you have the perfect recipe for spiking blood glucose along with insulin telling the body to store fat. On the other hand do as I do and order it with mustard only (mustard is low in carbs) with no ketchup (high carb), eat the meat and cheese and maybe onion and dill pickle (not sweet pickle, it has sugar), throw away the bun and nearly all the carbs are gone (that would spike insulin and tell the body to store fat) and maybe get a side order of cottage cheese (fairly low carb count but have to watch portion size) instead of the fries and there is a low carb meal that will not cause a person to "get fat" because insulin levels are kept low.

Insulin (and glucagon, but that is another story) is the key. To burn body fat or to not accumulate more body fat insulin levels have to be low. To create low insulin levels, simply don't eat foods that spike insulin. Instead eat foods that do not cause large insulin release.

Insulin resistance. What causes it? Eating stuff that keeps insulin levels high all the time. Sugary carby breakfast, insulin goes high. Mid morning carby snack (chips, candy bar, soda pop or whatever), insulin goes up. Lunch with bread and potatos, insulin again goes high. Felling a little peckish mid afternoon, another bag of chips insulin goes high to take care of it, supper another meal with carbs and sugary desert, insulin is high again. After a carby meal it takes several hours for insulin to get back down to low levels. By eating too often and the wrong foods insulin never gets a chance to go low except when we sleep and then may not reach levels till we break-fast (breakfast) and then back up again. How do you create Round-up resistance in weeds? By using it exclusively as the only source of weed control. How do you create "insulin resistance" that can eventually lead to diabetes? By keeping insulin levels high all the time and never giving the body a rest. Eating too often of the wrong foods is as bad as eating too much from an insulin resistance standpoint. While the food industry has succeeded in convincing us "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" it is the opposite for people with insulin resistance or diabetes. Skipping the breakfast and snacks between meals is the best thing a person can do if they have insulin resistance or weight problems. But I'm starving!!!! You will be eating a lot of carbs. Eat till a person is stuffed with potato chips and carby stuff and they will be hungry again in two or three hours. Eat a pound of steak and be satisfied till the next meal.

Controlling insulin levels is the key to losing weight or not gaining it unnecessarily. Satiety is the key to not being hungry all the time and falling off the nutrition wagon and eating all the wrong junk food too often causing the insulin problem. Eat fatty meat that satisfies till the next meal and no need for "snacks" in between meals.

I'm not a doctor nor am I a nutritionist. These are my opinions. Take them for what they are worth to you at your own risk.