So how's it been?
Been? You mean since I started a diet based on a low carbohydrate and high fat intake?
Yes that 'been'.
Easy. In fact I'm pretty much over it and forget that I am on "a diet". It's all about style....and habit.
Style?
Yes: I'm eating Swedish. In Sweden the LCHF food regime is so popular that as Denise Minger writes," in 2011 a whopping 25% of Sweden’s population was trying to eat more fat and curb their carbohydrate intake, with 5% of Swedes identifying as hardcore LCHF adherents." Wow! How about them Swedes!
Yeah, I guess, that is some life style I suppose ... But what's with this"more fat"?
That's the wonder. So go read up. I'm too busy not eating stuff to spend time preparing info so you can digest it. However, the main takeaway is that it ain't exotic at all. You eat cheese, cream, olive oil, butter and similar fatty tucker while cutting back on high carb vegetables (and fruits).
That seems easy enough if it would work...
Oh, it does work.I'm losing weight again and I don't bounce around the scales...
That's good.
Sure. But I pay a price: No cereals. Always I gotta chase the very light-in-carbohydrate foods. I used to aim for foods that had less than 15 grams of carbohydrate per serve but now I pitch for under 10 grams of carbs for each serve. The complication is that if you cut back on your total carbs you have to make it up somehow in way of caloric intake and I do that not so much by adding more protein ( such as meat, fish and so) but by upping my fats.
So how does one do that?
'One' does it simply. For breakfast I may have sauerkraut or kimchi with a sausage or an egg or bit of bacon. For lunch I have a soup or sardines or a pawpaw (or pawpaw and avocado) smoothie on Greek yogurt or a salad. Evening meal is culinary open within the LCHF parameters.
And that is eating the LCHF way?
Indeedy do it is.I have the blood sugars and the gradual weight loss to prove it. Mind you it's all customized. I don't see it as a strict regime as individual results will vary and you have to tweak it. But I guess I'm eating maybe under 50-70 grams of carbohydrates per day when you, eating a 'normal' diet, are consuming perhaps over three hundred. And I like the food. I cook, you see, and I appreciate the challenge offered by such a diet. And I eat well. It's all delicious stuff.(At least the way I prepare it). For instance, tonight I cooked a Shepherd's Pie but instead of high carb potatoes I used mashed cauliflower.
So there are work arounds?
For pasta there isn't. But I can eat Chinese food or a curry without rice. No noodles unfortunately. For high carb tubers like potatoes I substitue pumpkin. The only thing I miss is the ready use of thickening agents like corn flour. My substitutes are Almond Meal or cream. I eat mixed nuts every day as a snack.. and red wine: I drink red wine. So it's all do-able. No sweat.
But high fat?
I used to wonder about that. I mean it seems so naughty, right, so obscene? When I started this diet I tried to seriously up my fat intake but ultimately what decides how much grease you eat is how much fuel you need. That's because fats are gonna be your energy resource -- maybe more so than from carbohydrates. The body, you see, changes its preferred method of energy harvesting. But then fats are more satisfying --- more satiating -- than carbohydrates.So over time my body and my preferences adapted. I thought I'd be eating heaps of fat if I cut back further on carbs -- but the actual shift was much less significant. While I eat fat without a conscience -- I'm not obsessed with eating grease and don't have to force feed myself with butter or oil. Low carb eating also means living with less hunger. I eat more cream than I used to and I don't hold back pouring on the olive oil nor do I trim the fat from any meat ... At issue is ('bad') cholesterol, of course, but I dont have the path results to share...yet.
