O.T. (Sort of): Food for Thought

I would like to try this diet, especially since 30 pounds weight loss is desired. I have been eating healthfully and exercising well for a while, have lost a good amount of weight, but have been stuck at my current weight for a while now, and it is frustrating. I'm reading Taubes' book now, "Why We Get Fat...," am in the first 100 pages, and took note when he said the exercising makes your appetite go up, you eat more, and don't lose the weight. That may be where I'm at right now.

But I'm also seriously wondering, don't we give up some important dietary nutrients on this low carb diet?

For example, my breakfast meal is oatmeal with a banana. And for my evening meal I use brown rice. If I give up both of these foods, won't I lose a sources of building L-Tryptophan in the body? Does a protein rich low carb diet fall short of some of these nutritional needs? I've got a lunch meal worked out that obeys the low card diet (chopped chicken breast, mixed veggies, an egg, cheese, mixed nuts) but am not sure what meals to make to substitute for breakfast and dinner. I'm also using raisins in that dinner meal, and am likely getting too much sugar there, but that is one of my few indulgences I believe, and I love them. Peanuts and sunflower seeds are two of my foods as well, but I think they fit right in with the low card diet?

My other limitation is since I haven't been much of a meat eater at home for many years I'm out of practice cooking it on the stove or oven. So, I've also got to motivate myself to now buy more meat and figure out how to prepare it to replace say the breakfast and dinner meals I have been making that are high carb. When I go to the supermarket now, I stare into the deli counter window at all the meats there. I suppose an option is to get a 1/2 pound of sliced roast beef, 1/2 pound of turkey, etc. and figure out how to make a meal of them, like buying salad mix? Another option is eat out more often? It's tough too since I'm supposed to stay low salt for hypertension - it seems like the sodium is high in some meats.

Please, Slarty, share some more recipes! Or better yet, can I come over to your house to better learn from you how to eat this low carb diet? lol

Mike6977 as Guest wrote:

Otter wrote:Yeah, but every time I go whale hunting, these yahoos flying the jolly roger throw butyric acid at me.

Only if you're Japanese and in whaling fleet.

Put on an Eskimo suit, slide into a kayak, and you'll be fine.

My doctor told me not to go whaling in a kayak anymore, but the native clothing is a great idea. I'll try that.

Jeffster wrote:But I'm also seriously wondering, don't we give up some important dietary nutrients on this low carb diet?

Depends on which low-carb diet you're talking about. With rapid weight loss diets, yeah, probably. But rapid weight loss isn't such a great idea anyway. That tends to lead to rapid weight gain. And this yo-yo pattern is said to be even less healthy than being fat.

Jeffster wrote:But I'm also seriously wondering, don't we give up some important dietary nutrients on this low carb diet?

Even on a low carb diet, you can still eat almost anything in reasonable quantities. You can have that slice of chocolate cake, just not every day. It's OK to eat an apple or corn occasionally, just not with ever meal, and in reasonable quantities.

In fact, it's probably a good idea to have an occasional meal that's not on your diet with any diet. Just don't make your once a week "night out" be a super biggie combo meal followed by a whole chocolate cake. Or have your "off diet" meal too often.

Luckily, meat usually contains most of the nutrients needed to sustain life. If you think about it, it sort of has to. The proportions may be wrong, though.

I think we spend too much time worrying about minor nutrients. "I'm going to concentrate on eating this group of leafy greens and vegetables because I'm concerned I'm not getting enough selenium in my diet." Unfortunately, that diet has a deficiency of essential amino acids and several vitamins and minerals.

.

Jeffster wrote:[snip]
Please, Slarty, share some more recipes! Or better yet, can I come over to your house to better learn from you how to eat this low carb diet? lol

Take some more time to read. Pick up a copy of http://www.amazon.com/30-Day-Low-Carb-D ... 841&sr=8-3 I've been buying used books, these as cheap as $2.50 + 3.99 shipping. It's a great book that briefly and succinctly explains the science without making your eyes glaze over, then tells you what to eat. Much more readable than the Atkins books.

Then, look up Michael Eades, Gary Taubes, Richard Lustig (Sugar: the Bitter Truth) on you-tube and take a look at their videos. And one that's worth paying money for is "Fat Head" by Tom Naughton. It's funny, very educational and provides a wealth of information. You can view most of the video in bits and pieces on his website http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/about/. It's definitely worth the money to own a copy. Mine is circulating and friends are stacked up about 3 deep right now to see it. One of the things Mr. Naughton does is to eat all his meals at McDonald's for a month (28 days, actually), aiming for a 2200 calorie diet, and keeping the carbs to 100 or less/day. Before the diet he went to the doctor for a checkup including weight and bloodwork. At the end of the 28 days he goes back to the doctor who does the bloodwork and weighs him and . . . I really don't want to ruin the ending. Get the vid' for yourself and see. It's pretty amazing.

But since you asked, I just finished lunch. I'm at work (on lunch break). My lunch usually consists of a piece of barbecued chicken (I do those on the weekends, then freeze them in freezer bags and assemble my lunch each morning) placed in the bottom of a microwave safe container. Then I dump a large handful of frozen mixed veggies on top of the chicken, followed by a sprinkling of pepper and topped with some grated cheese. If you crumble a little feta cheese on top of it, it adds a wonderful flavor. Then put the lid on, put it in the 'fridge at work. By noon, the food has thawed out. 4 minutes in the microwave steams the veggies, melts the cheese and that's lunch.

There's also a wonderful spreadable butter (not margarine) that contains oregano. It's called Tuscan butter and comes in a yellow tub. It's out of this world. I use it for frying everything.

That said, I'm no gourmet. I can eat like a dog (same thing day in-day-out) and I'm fine. I eat not to be hungry, not because I'm a gastronome. So I'd defer to the Eades' book that I referenced above. This kind of eating isn't fancy. Dinner tonight will be a hunk of sirloin steak that I marinaded for 3-4 days in Italian dressing in a zip-lock bag in the 'fridge. Throw on the barbie on Sunday afternoon and when done, I put in a tupperware container in the 'fridge smeared with a little olive oil with chopped garlic sprinkled over them, and a little water in the bottom to keep moist, and eat those the rest of the week. Sliced into strips and microwaved to speed warming and cut down on drying, they taste great with a handful of broccoli stir-fried in the Tuscan butter I mentioned, then topped with cheese. Cheese makes any vegetable edible. Even asaparagus.

One thing I've noticed as I've gone off the carbs is that suddenly veggies are a lot more appealing to me than they were before. Just stay away from anything white. Sugar, flour, potatoes, corn, vanilla ice cream (no, you can't have chocolate ice cream!) and sweetened sodas. Don't look on it as a diet. A diet is something you go on, and eventually go off. Rather, tell yourself, and anyone who asks, that you're just eating differently now.

Jeffster wrote:[snip]
For example, my breakfast meal is oatmeal with a banana.

By the way, that breakfast is about as bad as it gets. Oatmeal = starch (+ sugar if you sweeten it). Banana= starch, sugar and fat. The sugar spikes your blood glucose which is toxic at high levels. Your body says, "I've gotta reduce that glucose level," so the pancreas dumps insulin into the blood which binds the sugar with free fatty acids floating in the blood to form triglycerides, which are stored away in fat cells. After some time the liver will have processed the fat in the banana as well making it available next time your blood glucose level spikes. Oh yeah, and once there is no more glucose entering the bloodstream, your insulin is still scavenging the available glucose from your blood, sequestering it away as fat. Only now, your blood sugar drops and if you're like me, you start getting wobbly-kneed and need something more to eat around 10:30 a.m. I've been that way all my life. No more! That ended a couple months ago when I reduced my carb intake.

If you're going to have a high carb meal, or a high fat meal, don't mix the two. Ice cream is the worst. High sugar, high fat. A great source of calories. Is it any wonder we love it so much?

Gary Taubes' book is great, but he goes out of his way to make clear it's not a diet book. It was written for the purpose of explaining the science in a way that's not too intimidating to the layperson. You need Michael Eades book.

Like I say, look at the videos now while you're waiting for the book, and you'll get it.

And by the way, watch the chopped nuts. They have an awful lot of carbs in them. Since you're trying to break a stall, you need to become a little more aggressive on reducing the carbs. A handful of almonds will flat out stall my weight loss. Once you're down to near your goal, then start adding the carbs back in.

You might want to get a cheap food scale so you can know what 10 ozs. of ________ looks like. Once you have a good idea of how many carbs or whatever, are in a given quantity of food, it becomes fairly easy to "eyeball" putting your meals together.

And if you have to eat at a restaurant, ask the server if they have any low-carb options. Substitute mixed veggies for baked potato. That even works for fast food. Carl's Jr. here has low-carb versions of their burgers. McDonald's will give you your burger in a container and you can eat it with a fork. Works fine, and I haven't found any fast food other than Mexican that doesn't have some option. Just ask for it without a bun and they'll wrap the burger and all the vegetable matter in a leaf of iceberg lettuce, and all that in a piece of paper to make it easy to eat. Sort of like getting a salad and a burger at the same time.

Jeffster wrote:Please, Slarty, share some more recipes!

I think this is one of the best low carb recipe sites out there:
Linda's Low Carb Menus

I don't know who she is, but she has done an incredible job with this site. Most recipes have a picture, nutritional content, and her personal rating, along with some of her notes. Those that are suitable for induction are marked as such. They look delicious. I've tried a couple, but I can't remember which ones. If you are able to click on a picture, you'll get close-up detail of the dish. Sometimes the notes will have a link to an alternative version of the dish.


My top suggestion is that you always be prepared for hunger when it hits. That means if you don't have a meal or snack prepared or don't have time, you MUST have something ready to eat at a moment's notice. I keep a variety of grab and go items at home so that I'm always ready for those moments. High carb items are far easier to have as ready-to-eat, so you'll have to work at this for low-carb items.

Slartybartfast wrote:And by the way, watch the chopped nuts. They have an awful lot of carbs in them.

Actually, nuts have been one of my best no-prep resources. A 1/4 cup of walnuts has only 2 g. of usable carbohydrate. I agree that almonds have more carbs in them, and people should be a little more careful counting carbs with almonds.

Because of their high fat and calorie content, nuts are a great addition to a low carb diet. This does not include peanuts or cashews, of course, which are not tree nuts, and have to be eaten more sparingly on a low-carb diet.

Upon starting a low carb diet, anyone know how long it takes for the physical "carb cravings" to go away?

Vader wrote:Upon starting a low carb diet, anyone know how long it takes for the physical "carb cravings" to go away?

It's very personal - you'll have to try.

About recipes:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com has many of those as well.

ozij wrote:

Vader wrote:Upon starting a low carb diet, anyone know how long it takes for the physical "carb cravings" to go away?

It's very personal - you'll have to try.

I think you are saying, it varies from one individual to another, is that right? Or am I misunderstanding?

Vader wrote:

ozij wrote:

Vader wrote:Upon starting a low carb diet, anyone know how long it takes for the physical "carb cravings" to go away?

It's very personal - you'll have to try.

I think you are saying, it varies from one individual to another, is that right? Or am I misunderstanding?

Yes, that's what I am saying -- sorry for the ambiguous meaning.

The big reason for needing snacks is that you don't get hungry when you eat protein and fat. I would forget to eat before it was closer to bedtime than I wanted to be eatin. I started using FitDay.com to track everything. Turns out I'm content at about 1200 calories a day. So 2 meals and a couple of snacks is about right.
I keep almonds, walnuts, tuna and cheese around for a quick snack. But when I'm out I just grab a McDouble off the dollar menu. The cheese is between the 2 burgers, not stuck to the bread.
BTW, McDonald's nutrition link breaks down the components. You can deselect the bun and ketchup, and see the totals.

Slarty, how many people have you converted?

I cleared the carbs out of my kitchen the day after I watched Taubes' presentation on Youtube and have never missed the carbs. When I see crunchy stuff in the grocery, I remember Pork Rinds!