There are many options for someone looking for a low carb diet to choose from. Here are just a few of them:

Dukan Diet – This high protein, low fat and low carb diet, developed by Dr. Pierre Dukan (French physician) consists of four stages that will help you redesign your eating habits, help you swiftly get rid of those unwanted pounds and stabilize your weight.

South Beach – Touted as a delicious doctor designed weightloss plan, this diet has 3 phases. Eliminate Cravings and Kickstart Weight Loss, Lose Steadily and Maintain for Life.

Atkins – This diet also has four stages: Induction, Ongoing Weight Loss, Pre Maintenance and Lifetime Maintenance. You may be able to lose up to 15 pounds in the first 2 weeks of the diet.

HCG – This diet combines hCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin) with a very low carb, 500 calorie diet. Some experienced dieters say that to get the best and fastest results, it's best to use certified organic foods on this eatng plan.

Weight Watchers – While Weight Watchers is not necessarily a low carb diet, in recent years they have included the calculation of carbohydrates in their PointsPlus system.

And then there’s the low carb diet my doctor put me on. It doesn’t have a name. Just a sheet listing what foods I can have and what foods I can’t have. Basically, what I can have is this:

Meats - Organic lean meats (excluding Tuna, Salmon, Pork and Hamburger)

Vegetables - Fresh organic, unblemished vegetables (excluding potatoes, corn and legumes)

Fruits - Fresh organic, unblemished fruits limited to apples, berries, avocados, grapefruit, lemons and limes.

Nuts – Raw nuts, including pecans, almonds, walnuts, cashews and pumpkin seeds. Excluding peanuts or any peanut products and pistachios.

Oils – Olive, grape seed, flax seed. Exclude partially-hydrogenated oils, corn and peanut oil.

Vinegars – Un-pasteurized, apple cider vinegar and black olives not aged in vinegar. Exclude, pickles, salad dressings, green olives and soy sauce.

Beverages – Limited to bottled/filtered water; non-fruity, herb teas; Stevia-sweetened, fresh lemonade or limeade

No processed foods, diary (except eggs), grains, yeast, sugars or artificial sweeteners (can have Stevia).

It’s a shock to the system. And I tell you all of this because if you are on a search for what to eat on a low carb diet, just know that at least you don’t have it as bad as this!

If you’re on any of these low carb diets (or one that’s not listed yet), don’t limit your recipe search to just one type of diet. Each type of diet can have low carb recipes that will cross over and with a little tweaking, be acceptable to eat for another type of low carb diet. Let’s take a look at very simple recipe for “Riced Cauliflower”.

RICED CAULIFLOWER

• 1 head of cauliflower
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• Salt and Pepper or other spices to taste.

Finely shred the head of cauliflower. Place the rice size cauliflower in a microwave safe dish and cook covered for 4 minutes. Add butter, salt and pepper or other spices.

Depending on the diet or phase of that diet, you can modify this recipe by either leaving out the butter altogether or by changing it to butter buds or olive oil. I’ve even modified this recipe by leaving out the butter and adding finely shredded onion and apple. It changes the whole flavor and allows me to feel like I have a greater variety of things to eat on my limited diet.

One of my favorite soup recipes, Gazpacho, I picked up from a Weight Watchers cook book. See how I adapted that recipe and others to my own low carb diet.