Practical Carbs is a way of eating and living that doesn’t take “a one size fits all” approach. There are a wide range of factors that influence how each of us responds to what we eat, how much of it we eat, and how we respond to physical activity. And perhaps most importantly, what we’re capable of doing. Asking a busy mom with a career and family to only prepare the purest organic food for a family with varied tastes and then hit the gym for two hours a day is probably unreasonable. Similarly, expecting an overweight person with an otherwise normal metabolism to subject themselves to a severely crab-restricted diet is equally unreasonable, when simply cutting back on processed foods and sugar would benefit their weight and health just as well.
The Practical Carbs approach is to allow people looking to lose excess weight and to feel better the power of choice. Using a combination of subjective and objective results they can then choose an eating and lifestyle plan that best suits their specific metabolic type and is compatible with their personal views and lifestyle. Nothing will fail harder than having these two aspects of your life out of sync.
The content on PracticalCarbs.com is a mix of nutritional information, great tasting recipes, exercise articles, and trends and developments in the areas of nutrition and fitness. We’re also not afraid to tackle political issues with regard to diet and weight loss and the contentious areas of science and nutrition. Anyone who has spent any time at all reading on the subject knows there’s a metric ton of controversy out there regarding these topics!
A key area we also cover, and which is surprisingly neglected by other sites and diet books, is strategies for navigating the many challenges of healthy eating. Most anyone can change their eating habits, but the unfortunate fact is that far too many can’t stick with it. Hence our tagline: Strategies For Staying Slim in a Fat World.
Contributors
Rich Rojas
I first discovered low-carb eating during the early 1990s when marathon sessions at the gym lifting weights were no longer effective at burning off the beer and junk food he was brazenly consuming. A low-carb, ketogenic diet worked wonders to shed the accumulated weight, but sticking to that way of eating would prove to be another story.
I went on and off various types of low-carb diets, losing significant weight each time, but then eventually falling off the wagon. And straying from the diet wasn’t simply a case of going back to consuming junk food. For the most part, he was eating healthy while continuing to exercise on a regular basis, but something wasn’t adding up.
After passing 50, I was forced to confront the harsh reality that both age, with its slower metabolism, along with a diagnosis of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, were the cause of his excess weight as well as several chronic health issues. Resolving to not make the same mistakes as before, he developed an eating and exercise plan that were compatible with his metabolic condition and lifestyle. The lessons learned from putting together these plans in the form of recipes, diet, exercise routines, and survival strategies form the basis of the Seven Principles of the Practical Carbs Lifestyle.
Rob Rojas, PhD
Rob earned his B.S. degree in biology from the University of Miami in 1980 and a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Houston in 1986. Rob has always had an interest in health and the science behind it. He’s not content to accept conventional wisdom on most matters regarding health and looks to the research for evidence of any stated claims. He’s also willing to have his mind changed if the data warrants it. Rob currently resides in Fargo, ND. Despite it being the butt of many jokes, Fargo is a great place to live, even though it gets below -30F during the winter. Rob also eats lots of carbs – a lot more than his brother, Rich.