Low Carb Diet Restaurant Trick: How to Magically Turn Any Sandwich Into a Salad

I was never a big fan of Subway (even before the creepy Jared revelation), mostly because its meat seems to be a little on the mystery side. But one thing that restaurant chain does right is offer the option to turn any sandwich into a salad.

Ditto for Togo's, a west coast sandwichery known for über thick rolls stuffed with so much meat and vegetables you practically need pliers to get your mouth around them.

In my early Medifast/low-carb diet days, I would find myself looking longingly at a menu's sandwiches,  wishing some of them were salads instead. If none of the salads looked good, I would sometimes order a sandwich sans bread.

Until I got smart.

Philly Cheese Steak Salad

These days, I look at menus as mere suggestions, assuming any ingredients in a sandwich can be plopped atop romaine lettuce, spinach or other salad greens.

At work the other day, the in-house food vendor offered Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches as its Friday lunch special. I politely asked if I could have the sandwich as a salad and ended up with such a gorgeous looking meal a bunch of other people ordered it that way, too.

Many low-carbers are huge fans of protein burgers, which are bunless hamburgers wrapped in lettuce. I find these kind of awkward and messy to eat; so I even order my cheeseburgers as salads (or just eat with a knife and fork).

Of course, most restaurants do not mention the option to turn any sandwich into a salad. Bread and rolls are a lot cheaper than salad greens; so they offer only a limited number of salad choices.

But if a restaurant has lettuce and tomatoes in its kitchen, it should be able to accommodate your request. And you should be willing to pay a buck or two more if asked (although that has yet to happen to me).

To borrow a phrase from Taco Bell, "Think outside the bun." Then imagine which of your favorite sandwiches could become your favorite new salad.

My Kimchi and Roasted Cauliflower Rice For Lunch Every Day Science Experiment

So I'm on day three of my own personal science experiment to eat kimchi and roasted cauliflower "rice" for lunch every day.

Mmmm... lunch
Kimchi and roasted cauliflower "rice"

Before the science police come to my house and handcuff me, I realize it's not a valid study since I'm not measuring anything and there is no control group. But I'm cool with collecting anecdotal data and hope to achieve a perceptible change in my overall health, energy levels and appearance.

At this point you may be wondering why I'm eating this weird combination of foods for lunch every day and what I hope to gain. And for that we need to start with kimchi, a Korean food staple as intrinsic to that country's cultural identity as the hot dog is to America's.

Since starting this blog, I have become a nutritional research hobbyist and recently noticed an increasing amount of literature on the importance of our microbiota. I did not even know I had something called a microbiota until a few months ago, but it turns out I have several in different parts of my body, including my mouth and skin.

The microbiota I'm going to focus on here is my gut microbiota -- the cluster of bacteria in my colon. (Biologists used to call this bacterial soup gut flora, but maybe they thought it sounded too much like something you'd find at a goth florist shop.)

Anyway, the factoid about gut microbiota that really hijacked my attention is that many scientists now consider this collection of bacteria a body organ, just like the heart. To me this revelation was as mind blowing as finding out Pluto was not a planet (although I think it may be re-instated. Could you please make up your mind already astronomers?)

I was equally amazed to learn we have ten times more bacterial cells in our body than human cells. So in some ways we are walking bacteria nesting in a human host, which is kind of creepy when you think about it

The bottom line is the adult gut contains thousands of different species of known bacteria that collectively weigh as much as the brain. And that's a $#!+load of bacteria!

The health connection to all this is that only one third of these bacteria is common to most people -- the other two thirds is peculiar to the individual. And its composition -- big surprise here -- is impacted by what we eat.

The reason it's so important that we have a good combination of gut bacteria is that our gut microbiota affects our health and mood in a major way. Everything from getting cancer to being depressed to gaining weight is affected by the health of our gut. There may even be a link to autism.

This recent New York Times article explains the mood association way better than I ever could; so I suggest you read it at least three times, along with this intriguing piece on the obesity link from Scientific American last year from which I will share this intriguing excerpt:

"New evidence indicates that gut bacteria alter the way we store fat, how we balance levels of glucose in the blood, and how we respond to hormones that make us feel hungry or full. The wrong mix of microbes, it seems, can help set the stage for obesity and diabetes from the moment of birth...."

This pre-riced cauliflower
should be back in stock
at Trader Joe's in August

So, I figured if I had an opportunity to improve my gut microbiota, one of the best ways I could do this was to eat more foods associated with good gut health. And when I did the research on this, one of the most popular suggestions always turns out to be fermented foods like kimchi.

I purchased my kimchi from the neighborhood health food store, which stocks a brand local to Sacramento called The Cultured Kitchen. For the caulirice, I hoarded stocked up on the pre-riced frozen organic cauliflower when Trader Joe's still carried it and roast it in the oven with some olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic. (You can also make your own caulirice from a real cauliflower using a Vitamix, box grater or most any food processor or blender.)

In addition, I am taking probiotics in tablet form and eat only yogurt that contains live cultures when I'm in the rare yogurt mood.

Whether my gut flora will now bloom -- or whether I will even notice -- is hard to predict. But as my dear departed Grandma might have said, "It can't hurt."

Chris Christie Fat Jokes

So you don't get to be more than a hundred pounds overweight without eating a few more doughnuts or cheeseburgers than you should. But does that mean it's okay for Jimmy Kimmel to joke that the White House chef is worried Chris Christie will turn the presidential mansion into a White Castle?

Chris Christie eating a doughnut
on the David Letterman show

Or that the New Jersey governor should select a running mate who is 600 pounds so he'll look thin in comparison?

Or that he's not fit for the Oval Office ... unless they widen the door?

While these monologue fillers may elicit a mild chuckle, are they really funny? And how do they affect people who are overweight and struggle just to get through the day?

Recently Jerry Seinfeld said he refuses to play college campuses any more because young people are so politically correct you can't make a joke without offending them. Our society in general has become so prickly and sensitive it's practically impossible to make a jab about any group without hurting someone's feelings.

That said, certain groups are off limits -- unless you are a member of that group. Which means gays can make jokes about gays, Latinos about Latinos, blondes about blondes, etc.

Should Jimmy Kimmel
pick on someone his own size?

Maybe Kimmel's jokes would be funnier if he were fat like Christie because he'd be poking fun at himself at the same time. It's okay to laugh with someone -- not so much at someone.

If I were morbidly obese and had to hear fat jokes night after night, it would probably make me feel worse about myself. Which would make me depressed and less likely to take action to change my situation.

I would also be subject to discrimination by people who judge others based on their weight.

"Overweight people have much less of a chance of getting a job, they have much less of a chance of keeping a job ... (and) they are paid less than those who are thin," David Birdsell, dean of the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College in New York, told ABC News. "In this era of exercise, we impute moral failings to people who don't rein in their weight." 

Still, it's not a comedian's job to make society fair or increase the self-esteem of people who don't fit a socially ideal mold. Whether in good taste or not, comedians like Jimmy Kimmel will continue making jokes about Chris Christie and other outliers when the audience stops laughing.

Diet Etiquette: Is It Rude to Discuss Other People's Diets?

So yesterday a member of one of my Medifast Facebook groups -- let's call her Carol -- started an interesting thread about co-workers who make derisive comments about her diet. She had declined to partake in the chicken tenders, rolls and potato salad served at a lunch meeting, and someone remarked, "Oh, are you going to be eating your special diet food?"

What's weird is that Carol could have easily responded with some equally snarky comment about her co-worker's hyper-carby meal and how sleepy she and the others would feel after lunch. But having been raised by non-wolves, she just smiled and said "yes" while smarting inside over the rudeness of being called out for eating differently.

While everyone on the thread agreed there is really nothing you can say to jerkwads who try to make you feel like an oddball for not eating what everyone else is eating, the thread digressed to a more general discussion of whether it is ever polite to comment or ask about other people's diets.

To me this dilemma is similar to asking to touch the belly of a pregnant woman. Some expectant mothers are extremely offended when someone requests to touch their belly while others think it is cool that someone wants to share in their miracle.

Though some people who deviate from the standard American diet don't like to be asked what they're eating or why, others welcome the question and relish the chance to talk about it.

The problem is you don't always know who is who.

Personally, I am fascinated by what other people eat, but I always test the water before diving into the pool. I'll ask a simple question or make a comment about someone's meal and then check to see how they react. If they act like I just asked how much money they make, I'll back off immediately. But if they seem comfortable with my food question, I usually follow up. More often than not, I learn something beneficial and forge a tighter bond with that person.

Like weather, food is a great universal ice breaker; and it's a far more interesting topic.  I mean how many times can you say, "Wow, it's really hot outside today!"

My only advice is to refrain from criticizing the way other people eat or suggesting that your way of eating is superior to theirs. How we eat is a deeply personal subject, and if someone is trusting enough to discuss this subject with you, it's not cool to show disdain for their choices.

Why You Should Give Your Maintenance Diet a Name

Now that I have successfully maintained my Medifast fueled weight loss for over a year I am increasingly fascinated by the topic of weight maintenance.

I used to think of weight loss dieting as a finite process. Once I sprinted to the goal, I had won. The race was over.

So even though I had "won" this race many times over with the help of Weight Watchers, Atkins, Jenny Craig and their ilk, I failed to grasp that weight loss is just the beginning of a much longer and more complicated journey called weight maintenance.

Which isn't even a race at all (though if it were, it would be more marathon than sprint).

In the course of our lives, the amount of time it takes us to reach our ideal weight is a sliver compared to the huge slab of pie that forms the rest of our days.

And just as we need a specific plan for how to lose weight, we need a specific plan for keeping that weight off for good.

The cool part about weight maintenance is that we get to figure out that plan for ourselves. Which brings me to why it's important to give our new way of eating a name.

I just finished reading Refuse to Regain by Barbara Berkeley, which provides a very specific guideline for weight maintenance that revolves around something I'm pretty sure the author made up called the Primarian Diet. This diet plan contains a contradictory jumble of concepts, simultaneously claiming to be to be primal and natural, yet including such "foods" as diet Jello and Lean Cuisine. If you are interested in reading this book and learning more about the Primarian Diet, you can check it out here.


One thing I like about the Primarian Diet is that it has a name; so when Aunt Betty offers you a slice of birthday cake you can say, "Oh, sorry, I'm a Primarian; so I can't eat that." She will be too embarrassed by her ignorance to ask you what the heck a Primarian is and refrain from cajoling you into eating just one little piece.

So as you approach your ideal weight, I encourage you to start researching all the various ways of eating out there and develop your own plan that will allow you to maintain your weight loss once you reach your ideal weight. Just because you lost weight with Medifast does not mean the Medifast maintenance plan will help you be successful at keeping your weight off. You may be better off with a Paleo type diet or adhering to some kind of daily carb/protein/fat macro range -- or just avoiding certain food categories like flour and sugar.

Most likely you will tweak your maintenance diet along the way, but ultimately you will create a customized way of eating that will help you maintain your weight loss over many years.

Oh, and do give your new diet a name. Naming something makes it real and present instead of amorphous and easily forgettable. Not only will your Impressivesoundingname Diet help you fend off Aunt Betty and her carb-riddled cake, it will also help remind you not to eat those nachos or cookies and provide you with self-imposed rules for what you can or cannot eat most of the time.



More from Diet Skeptic:

Why I'm Addicted to Chia Seeds

Why Fat Head Pizza Is the Holy Grail of Low Carb Pizzas 

The Shocking Truth About Imported Olive Oil 

Making Cauliflower Rice in the Vitamix 

Why WebMD Doesn't Want You to Get Well


Follow Nancy's board Low Carb Recipes on Pinterest

The KonMari Method as a Perfect Metaphor for Weight Loss

I admit to being a little late to the game in hearing about the life-changing magic of tidying up made popular by the younger, non-felonious Martha Stewart of Japan, Marie Kondo, who has paradigm shifted the formerly dreary and anxiety filled chore of de-cluttering one's living space (and, dare I say, making it almost enjoyable).

In case you are even further behind the 8-ball than I on this pop cultural phenomenon, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing is not only an international best seller whose author was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2015, the KonMari method (as it's known) is a metaphor for ridding yourself of the emotional baggage tied up with your $#!+ load of stuff.

Which includes clothes that are toolargeortoosmall, the stuffed bear your 16-year-old boyfriend wholatercheatedonyouwithyourbestfriend won at the county fair, and the tapioca beads sitting in your cupboard because two years ago whileinashoppingtranceatSafeway you had the ephemeral desire to make scratch tapioca pudding. Which, of course, you never did.

The signature concept of the KonMari method is to pick up each item in your home and ask yourself the profoundly simple question, "Does this spark joy?"

(Obviously, there is a lot more to it and I highly recommend you purchase the book to learn all the secrets, including how to properly fold socks.)


I have already begun applying the KonMari method to my clothing and am astounded by how many items I was able to discard by asking myself what I wanted to keep instead of what I wanted to get rid of.

Now that may seem like a small difference, but it turns out this counter-intuitive filtering method yields dramatically different results in how many Glad bags you tote off to the Goodwill or dump in the trash. We tend to hold on to things for perverse reasons, such as feeling guilty that we bought them in the first place or having a sentimental attachment because someone gave them to us.

For instance, using the KonMari method on a scarf your mother gave you for your birthday, you would ask yourself "Does this spark joy?" And if the answer is "no," you would thank the scarf for being a reminder of your mother's love and inform it you are now going to help it find a new home where it will be loved and appreciated.

Or let's say you bought a dress on a whim two years ago but never found an occasion to wear it. You might say, "Thank you for that moment of joy I felt when I purchased you, but it turns out we are not really a match; and now I will set you free so that you can find you a better owner."

Of course, you do not really have to make a goodbye speech for each item you discard, but if you're having trouble letting go it is surprisingly helpful.

The main point is the items we hoard store in our homes that we do not use or love impart negative energy every time we interact with them. They figuratively weigh us down by making us feel guilty, wasteful or ungrateful. They also create clutter, making it harder to find the items that do bring us joy.

By lightening our physical load we lighten our emotional load, and this liberating feeling carries over to other aspects of our lives.

Whether it's a friend to whom we no longer feel a connection or a food we eat just because it's sitting on the table, once we get in the habit of choosing things that bring us joy we are less likely to reflexively settle for whatever happens to be there.



I was reminded of this principle the other day when a friend at work offered me a Keebler chocolate chip cookie from her lunch sack. At one time I might have accepted it, even though packaged cookies don't really appeal to me. But these days, I am more selective, and on the rare occasions I eat a cookie it has to be home made or from a good bakery.

Interestingly, the KonMari method promises that if we follow its principles we will never rebound and have to wade through a huge household mess again, which is similar to losing weight and never gaining it back. By consciously seeking joy instead of driving through life on autopilot, we are bound to make better choices that will ultimately make us happier and healthier.

For more information on the KonMari method, watch Marie Kondo's Google Talk or check out my favorite KonMari vlogger Lavendaire here.

What's the Point of Pasta?

What's a meal without pasta? Healthier.

Thinking back on my pre-low-carb life,  I can't believe how much I used to count on pasta to complete my meals. If I wanted to prepare a recipe that contained sauce, I thought I needed pasta to ferry the savory liquid to my mouth -- an edible mini van, if you will, whose main purpose was to transport something from one place to another.

Who ever heard of meatballs and marinara sauce without spaghetti? Or Chicken Alfredo without fettuccine?

Of course, there was another "vehicle" that sat humbly on my plate all along that could have done the job just as well -- and with far less damage to my fat cells.

Yep. Good ol' vegetables.

Turns out these colorful foods, which spring from the ground instead of being made in a factory, have the same amazing ability to carry sauce as pasta or rice.

And even though vegetables also contain carbohydrates, they have far fewer grams and way more fiber. Not to mention other healthy stuff, like phytonutrients and vitamins that are not first stripped out and then added back.

Last night I was musing on how much my meal composition mindset had changed when I was contemplating what vegetable to serve with my tomatillo chicken, which had slow cooked all day and was now Tindering for a partner.

Sure I could have served this delicious protein dish over rice or noodles. Or wrapped it up in a tortilla.

But I had some fresh baby spinach in my fridge; so I sauteed it a few minutes with some good olive oil and a few grinds of Trader Joe's garlic and sea salt blend. Then I added the chicken and topped the melange with a handful of Italian four cheese blend until the whole thing was melty and gorgeous. The only thing I forgot to do was take a picture; so you will just have to imagine how good it looked.

The point is that these days, instead of figuring out what shape of pasta will go best with my meals, I consider instead which vegetables will best complement them and leave pasta and rice out of the picture altogether.