Sneak Peek Behind the Scenes of CarbSmart Magazine!

CarbSmart Magazine available in iPad and iPad Retina

I promised you a behind the scenes sneak peek at CarbSmart Magazine (digital version) and by-golly I’m gonna do it! Now, I may be a little tall in the saddle from excitement, cuz I am not only a writer, but the company I freelance for helps produce the magazine. And oh by the way, if you look to the right, I have my affiliate link up where I get a little spiff from iTunes everytime you buy an issue or suscription of CarbSmart Magazine through my site...it helps support Fluffy Chix Cook a little bit, but regardless of that, CarbSmart Magazine is really an amazing team effort and each issue is an interactive compilation of science, lifestyle articles, recipes, health and fitness, and community support and feedback.

Huh? You ask? That's right. CarbSmart Magazine is more than a magazine, it's an interactive tool for living the low carb life! You click icons to moderate exactly HOW much information you want to receive. You can communicate with our team, share stories with your friends, bookmark your favorite pages, access links on the internet all without leaving the magazine. Cool beans!

CarbSmart as you know has been a publisher of low carb news and information in addition to being a very prominent on-line retailer for over 13 years. Andrew DiMino, the chief cook and bottle-washer, decided earlier this year, along with Dana Carpender, CarbSmart’s managing editor, to move in a new direction…he decided to get out of the retail business to focus on becoming the leading, trusted source of low carb, Paleo and diabetic information on the internet. And we’re working hard to make that happen. I believe we’re doing it!

Not only will we continue to publish free and vital information to the website, CarbSmart.com, but we will publish a digital magazine. In fact, as you know, we published CarbSmart Magazine Issue 01 last month. It concentrated on bringing everyone up to speed on the Fat Fast, a system developed in Dr. Atkins' practice to help his patients break low carb weight loss stalls. We also shared the best of 2012. We published in iPad and iPad Retina formats. Currently, we’re working on converting past issues to Kindle and Android. Be patient, it will take a bit of time! We’re also discussing the possibility of making a pdf version of CarbSmart Magazine. We’ll let you know when/if that happens!

But ok, here’s the REAL skinny. Dana Carpender at Hold The Toast and also Amy Dungan at Healthy Low Carb Living are much better at sharing things in an informative and clever way. Hayull (Texan for hell), let me just say it…they are better ‘n me at this stuff, but I’m gonna just try to muddle through and apologize profusely to anyone I might unforgivably omit through sheer “knuckle-headed-ness” (is that a word??)!

What’s CarbSmart Magazine about and why do you need it?!!! Well…let’s see. Think of it like this…imagine Cooking Light, Shape Magazine, Popular Science, and Good Housekeeping walk into a bar…

Wait!

No, no, no. That’s not it.

Imagine that Cooking Light, Shape Magazine, Popular Science, and Good Housekeeping have a love-child. Yeah. That’s the ticket. So they have a love child. And this love child combines all the great qualities of each parent, but expresses those qualities in their own unique flare and voice?? And just suppose, just suppose, this love-child is a little more evolved and lives in a world inhabited by low carbers, Paleo and Primal peeps as well as people who travel through the fires of the diabetic landscape.

That’s us. We might as well have Diana Ross and the Supremes singin’ “Love Child” over us, cuz that’s who we are. We are a compilation of science, low carb news, fitness, food, international men and women of mystery...cape crusaders...but I digress.

Dana Carpender is a stupendous writer and editor (a la managing editor) and whips up enlightened articles and interviews and she also develops the most amazing recipes (as you well-know) and teaches us how to make those recipes in a straight-forward, unpretentious, friend-next-door way that takes all the fear out of learning to cook—and learning to cook low carb! In fact, Dana has an exclusive column with CarbSmart Magazine called oddly enough, Dana’s Kitchen. And OMG. The smells coming from that kitchen are incredible. Let me tell you!

Each month CarbSmart will have feature articles focused on one resounding theme or subject. In Issue 02 we’re focused on the Suprising Health Benefits of Ketogenic Diets and we have articles from some of the leaders in the field, including an intense and informative interview by Dana Carpender, with two of the “wunderkind” of the present-day ketogenic diet movement. Exlusive and only found in CarbSmart Magazine!

Each month CarbSmart Magazine will bring you standing feature departments such as:

Worth It – Reviews on books, movies, documentaries, food, products and gadgets that can help you live your low carb, ketogenic and Paleo Primal lifestyle with ease! You’ll find Amy Dungan there, who brings you amazing and in-depth reviews on books and movies. Yippee!

Healthy Living – So much is happening in this department, it’s hard to share it all! Ask Dr. Jim Carlson what the heck is up with “fill-in-your-blank-medical-question-here” in his monthly “Hey Doc” column. Kent Altena of Atkin's Diet Geek, Among Friends Cookbooks, and Atkins Diet Videos on You Tube, shares his motivating and inspirational first-hand experiences and gives helpful tips, information and advice about exercising and living a fully empowered low carb lifestyle…the whole 9-yards-- in his monthly column, “Fit To Live.” Amy Dungan shares our Low Carb Success Stories in her monthly column, “Success Stories” and you just would not believe the transformations! Beautiful! And she writes about them so eloquently! Just tell me low carb is all about water loss! When was the last time you lost a small 5th grader-worth of water?

Whew! There’s a lot going on in the Healthy Living Department! Misty Humphrey has a monthly column dedicated to Feeding Your Family Well and it’s filled with helpful tips about how to transform your family's nutrition in a delicious and wholesome whole foods way! In addition to these regular columns, we might just have visits from notable leaders in the Health and Wellness Industry, who might grace us with their knowledge and presence. This might be people like Fred Hahn of Slow Burn, and Strong Kids, Healthy Kids. Fred has revolutionized the way entire generations use weight lifting regimines to improve fitness and build muscle. No promises yet, but Fred might agree to do a fitness article or two for us on various subjects. We are hoping to have visits from awesome nutrition experts, doctors, nurses and writers such as Valerie Berkowitz, Caitlin Weeks, Vicki Cash, and so many others it's impossible to list them all--and even you!

Yes mam, you!

Kitchen Table Wisdom depends on input from you, the low carb community! Send us your tips, tricks, advice and common sense information and we just might publish you in our Kitchen Table Wisdom column moderated by Dana! Yay!!! 

In Issue 03, we’ll hope to have even more additions to our line-up. We'd like to bring you a gardening column that gives you help with organic gardening and help ease us into producing some of our own food. Heck, we’re even working to bring you a beauty column along with a Mind, Body, Spirit column in coming issues.

Science of Low Carb –This section is dedicated to bringing you up-dated information on studies, events, and publications that impact your low carb lifestyle.  Jacqueline Eberstein, RN the clinic director of the Atkins Weight Loss Center for over 20 years will stop by regularly to write feature articles as well as pinch-hit here in the Science Section. Dr. Richard Feinman, professor of biochemistry at SUNY Downstate Medical School, will teach us the important facts about nutrition, biochemistry and organic chemistry, so we can learn how to accurately assess all those studies flooding the media! Let’s learn how to talk to our doctors and which articles to provide to them to better help our healthcare experience. Through Dr. Feinman, you'll also learn more about becoming involved with the Nutrition and Metabolism Society (their website is being re-constructed so please pardon the dust!)

We’ll hope to have guests such as Dr. Eric Westman a leading author of New Atkins for a New You, Jimmy Moore, author of 21 Life Lessons. Jimmy and Dr. Westman are writing a book scheduled coming towards the end of the year. Dr. Stephen Phinney and Dr. Jeff Volek of The Art & Science of Low Carbohydrate Living and The Art & Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance could also be stopping to visit. In the upcoming issues we will be adding more writers and guests from the low carb, Paleo and Primal and diabetic community and we don't mind tellin' you how excited we are to bring you the opportunity to be part of this community and network of information.

Dish—We have a heck of a recipe section. As I mentioned earlier, you’ll find Dana’s Kitchen here--a CarbSmart Magazine exclusive! You will also find articles and recipes spotlighting Fresh & Seasonal ingredients and also focusing on Healthy Traditions. You’ll find Amy Dungan in “Eat What?” as she explores unusual ingredients you may be unfamiliar with. Maybe you want to learn how to add them into your low carb lifestyle? You’ll get to read about the “Best” foods of the month in a spread dedicated to beautiful ingredients and how they fit into a low carb lifestyle. And you will even see little old fluffy me. I’ll chirp up here or there to tell you about the Fluffy spin on Budget Low Carb Cooking, explaining how to feed a family of 4 for under $10—low carb. Did I mention it is low carb for UNDER 10 semolians?

And lastly, we’ll leave you with “And Another Thing”. And here’s where we need your help!!!!  This is another opportunity for you to participate in CarbSmart Magazine! Send us your “Life in the Low Carb World” anecdote, story, funny, cartoon, or comic and we will pay you if we choose to publish you. Yep, that’s right, just like in Reader’s Digest, you could be published in an international digital magazine that can be shared globally in the iTunes Newsstand, on Amazon, in Barnes and Noble and in other online book store venues! But it has to be original content for which you retain the rights. Look for the announcement and invitation on Issue 02 “And Another Thing” page!

Remember, YOU, are the most important part of our low carb community. Without you there would not be a “we.” And that’s my deep thought for today!

So please go buy a subscription, so you won’t miss out on all this action-packed and beautifully presented information!!! It is sure to make living a low carb lifestyle 10x easier! And share us with your friends…tell everyone about CarbSmart Magazine. One other thing…if you love us, go rate us with a top score in the iTunes Newsstand store so that more people will get to learn about our existence!!!???

Thanks so much for letting me give you this exhaustive sneak peek into CarbSmart Magazine, the digital magazine that will help you “get fit to live.”

Drop me a line will ya? I'd love to hear from you and your thoughts on the magazine!


XOXO

Susie T.