1) Learn All About It
It's great to be able to find free Protein Power information here and other places on the net. But there's really no substitute for reading the original books by Michael and Mary Dan Eades. Before embarking on any diet, it's important to know what you're getting yourself into over the long haul and to thoroughly understand the reasons for the food choices you'll be making. Here's a list of the Protein Power Diet books with links to the best prices for each. Many of these books are probably at your local library as well. In the meantime, check out the Protein Power Diet Resources on this site.2) Learn How to Count Carbs (or see alternative)
The Protein Power Diet plan relies on knowing how much carbohydrate is in everything you eat. Therefore, it's of the greatest importance to learn about carb counting. There are books with carb counts (including one by the Eades), and also software you can buy or use online. Find some of these resources here, or plug a food into the box at the side of this page or most pages on this site. This will bring up information from the Calorie Count site.Alternative to Carb Counting: In their book The 30 Day Low-carb Diet Solution, the Eades present an alternative to carb counting, and that is specified servings of carb-containing food. They list what constitutes "small", "medium" and "large" servings depending on the phase of the diet you are in. So, for example, in the first phase you can have 2 small servings of carb at each meal. Examples of a small serving would be:
- 2 cups raw broccoli
- 1 cup cooked green beans
- unlimited spinach
- 2 apricots
- ½ avocado
- ½ cup raspberries
- 1 slice low-carb bread
3) Learn How Much Protein You Need
As the title of the diet would suggest, getting enough protein is crucial to the success of the diet. The Eades have come up with several ways to determine this in the different books they have written. They started out in Protein Power using a formula based on lean body mass. They then simplified it by providing charts based on height and weight in the Protein Power Lifeplan (these give most people 100-120 grams of protein per day, which is above the minimum recommendation, but well within the guidelines of the National Academy of Sciences). In The 30 Day Low-carb Diet Solution, the Eades provided an option for those who don't want to count protein grams. Similar to the way they do carbs, they have several serving sizes of protein, with pictures to illustrate how large some of the servings are. Helpful Resources:- How Much Protein Do You Need?
- List of High Protein Foods and the amount of protein in each
4) Plan Ahead
It's very important when starting out on a new way of eating to plan your food ahead of time. This really cannot be emphasized enough. Plan at least a week's worth of menus, and have food on hand a few days ahead of time. Then you won't be caught wondering what to eat.Resources on This Site:
- Low-Carb Breakfast Ideas
- Low-Carb Lunch Ideas
- Low-Carb Dinner Ideas
- Low-Carb Snack List
- Low-Carb Sample Menus (20-50 grams of carb per day)
- Low-Carb Recipes
- Low Carb Super Foods
