It's January. I've allowed my weight to grow UP with the Covid curve and somehow it still has not come down. Thanks to a large part to me using up a number of hot chocolate bomb "fails" just before Christmas I think. Wall of text alert - I don't plan on ever writing about this ever again.
To be clear, I've never been a fan of carb-cutting. Cutting an entire food group seems wrong. Carbs, as we were taught at school, are cornerstones for growth. I felt like decking a "doctor" at an annual work health check when he told me to cut carbs as a way to get my weight down. The fact he then pushed a blog which was at its infancy at the time felt like a distinct conflict of interest.
Anyway, I do absolutely agree I need to cut sugar, and I will never disagree that whole grains are better for you. It is also very, very effective dieting wise on me. We don't know why, I do know I have a lot of water weight which fluctuates a lot in the month and also it does kill my appetite. Good luck getting me to limit myself to 1000 kcal a day normally. By the way, usual minimum calorie diets suggest 1200kcal, 800kcal if you're doing something like fasting. What I did note was that there are calculations out there which are a bit more bespoke, and account for the fact that in situations like lockdown, you may not be moving much at all. On a normal work day I would do 10k steps without thinking (I live in the UK, we walk to a train station, to work, out to lunch, the tea point was pretty far from my desk...) I'm also Chinese in origin and apparently BMI graphs need to be adjusted for that, not that they will ever be great, there's still a vast difference between some of our light as a feather Asian friends and myself who comes from a family of short but physically robust plough-pulling by design humans.
Bear in mind - carb-cutting will reduce your appetite, a lot of people will try to fast as well as apply carb-cutting. There are also many pro-fasting people. Personally, I should not fast because I have some historic ulcer issues which can be aggravated by an empty stomach, so I actively snack much to the disdain of others. At the moment we are on week 3 of carb cutting (I started 2nd January after someone rocked up with a cake collection for me on the 1st). My friends are dirty keto fans with a keto meter, I just cut carbs and try to keep as healthy as possible. In comparison to the Dukan diet (popular awhile ago round when Kate Middleton got married), keto basically tells you to eat fat. Dukan tells you to eat lean and even restrict vegetables on certain days. That was hard going for two weeks.
All low carb has some side effects, at least temporarily. Dukan made me feel like I was freezing because I had no fat to burn until it figured out what I was asking my body to do. Keto gave me massive dehydration headaches every morning for three or four days when we started. It all seems to have flattened out, I've lost 7lb in the first two and a bit weeks. I'm planning on carrying on till the end of the month and then maybe bringing back limited healthy carbs in February, stepping back into low carb if my weight jumps up. It is going to be a lifestyle change for me I think. Wolfing down a box of chocolates or half a loaf of freshly baked bread didn't feel wrong or twisted. If carb cutting can allow me to properly moderate my diet to maybe a half slice of cake a week or a slice or two of bread a day, I think it's probably a good thing.
As I love writing food plans, diet or no diet, here's a taster of what I've been eating and the calorie estimates. Bit of background for context: I'm about 5foot and a bit, 11 stone 3lb at the start of January, apple shaped and let's say post-30. I am far too sedentary, albeit my weight doesn't change much even if I walk, yoga and pilates a lot. I'm taking up doing a lot of squats (about a hundred a day) and cycling for about 200kcal a day in front of the tv. The weight has been on for a good few years now. This is by no means dietary advice, people have actually died on the keto diet because it did not suit them. Atkins died fat. I can't cope with the amount of fat keto calls for as it will give me the runs instead of constipation. I find with enough water and vegetables I don't get constipated which is why I like my version of low-carb. I also use dairy milk and eat a contraband apple a day. This is, essentially, my diet "rules" which if it ever develops a following, someone else will market and make money off. Hope it provides inspiration. I'm not a nutritionist. I'm not a doctor. Moreover, I'm not you. End of the day, lose weight if you need to for health reasons. For you. Diet and exercise in conjunction will always prevail - low carb is just a short term aide to help your will power along the way. Good luck!
My "Rules"
- Eat lots of veg. Leafy is good. Starchy/potato-esque is out and replaced by cauliflower or broccoli.
- Buy a lot of eggs, you'll need them. You will also get sick of them.
- No sugar. Welcome to sweetener. I'm also not a fan of sweetener anyway but I use Xylitol which seemed to be the most "natural" one? You will find that because the packets are so small as well, and more expensive than sugar, you will start thinking twice about any bakes you make. I occasionally let it sneak in e.g. I accept it exists in soy sauce, balsamic vinegar etc because you use so little. If you followed Dukan you'd obsessively read labels and have a bad Muller Light habit because their carb count was JUST under the acceptable line - but only for certain flavours. See why restrictive dieting rules can work? Food obsession replaced by label obsession.
- Most fruit is "bad". On the net carbs (carb vs fibre), most fruit is pretty bad. You probably already know grapes are pretty sugar packed. Keto suggests raspberries or blackberries as acceptable in small handfuls. I do these, I also had stewed rhubarb with a tablespoon of sweetener (not sweet enough but I refuse to miss the rhubarb season.) I also limit myself to one contraband apple or tangerine a day with peanut butter, carb count be damned. NHS says you should really only have two portions of fruit a day anyway.
- Nuts are good. Cashews are bad. Weird rule. Keto. No idea but since there are alternative nuts I don't care.
- Drink lots of water. I drink hot water. I also drink English tea, green tea, buckwheat tea, corn tassel tea (yes I like the weird.)
- For some insane reason, recipes online make a lot. Then give you a portion and carb count for one tiny pancake or something. Halve them or reduce to make one egg's worth (for ease of division). You can try them out better cos I guarantee you they don't look like the picture. Still tasty most of the time. Because of the use of coconut and almond flour they are quite "yeet hei" in chinese terms. i.e. imbalanced in a way eating a lot of deep fried food can make you feel. Drink lots of water, counter with veg which is generally cooling. Less science, just experience.
- I still love baking. I'm still baking bread and giving it away. I'm making mousse cakes and freezing them before the final glaze so we can use them for birthdays later. If you can resist the eating but not the activity, it's not a bad way of going about it. I need to work out the long term plan with this. I've always baked with less sugar, but I think it's either adding more wholegrain or making more time consuming and smaller bakes. No answer.
- Meat
- Fish
- Shellfish
- Tofu.
- Eggs.
- Veg. - Cauliflower, Broccoli, Spinach, Lettuce, Courgettes - all hugely useful.
- Cheese. (Mozzarella and Cheddar are very useful, I'm trying to reduce the fat and moving back to cottage cheese and quark)
- Raspberries/Blackberries/Contraband
- Peanut butter (no sugar, Meridian is good when it's on deal. Lidl and Aldi do some. Read the labels.)
- Nuts (not cashew)
- Cream cheese
- Cocoa powder/matcha powder/cinnamon
- Ground Almonds
- Coconut flour (Lidl is good)
- Flax seed (found some in Sainsburies for £2)
- Sweetener
- Cheese strings (I need to find a lower packaging alternative)
- Biltong
- Contraband fruit
- Carrot stick (reality check, it's a peeled carrot. It's no stick.)
- Sugar free jelly (Hartleys jelly powder)
- 90% dark chocolate (max 2 squares a day - note, tastes disgusting in normal sugar consuming days, tastes ok in sugar drought. Don't try to eat it in the first two weeks or so. You will also find you can live without it.)
General menu looks like:
Breakfast:
- Keto Pancakes;
- Egg (scrambled, poached, boiled) with fresh spinach or salad leaves; or
- Flax seed porridge (two tbsp ground flax seed, 2 tbsp ground almonds, 1/2 cup milk - microwave for 2minutes and stir in between. I had with raspberries and some cacao nibs which smells chocolatey and adds crunch because this makes a TINY portion which is lacking in texture.)
- Eggs with veg if I didn't have for breakfast;
- Egg mayo (low fat mayo, mustard powder and boiled eggs) wrapped in lettuce;
- Cauliflower soup (boil florets, blitz, season, serve with grated cheese, bacon etc); or
- Mackeral Pate (Smoked mackeral, cream cheese, seasoning, capers/horseradish)
- Burger (yellow sticker moment) with salad mix;
- Mince cooked with fish sauce (some sugar in this), sweetener, soy, lots of mushroom and coriander served in lettuce wrap (look up vietnamese pork mince recipes);
- Bolognese on courgette noodles;
- Seafood. With Garlic;
- Pork carnitas (yes they are cooked in orange juice. I can live with that. I just cook the meat and no salsa etc);
- Roast chicken thighs with lemon and veg (35 minutes at 220C); or
- Keto fish pie (fish pie mix, white sauce made with a spoon of coconut flour, milk, butter, cheese- still watery, cauliflower mash on top.)
- Keto cookies
- Biltong
- Cheese
- Cheese crisps (grate cheese on baking parchment, oven for about ten minutes till it's slightly crispy.)
- Sugar free jelly
- Blackberries
- Apple and peanut butter
- Nuts
- Keto basque cheesecake (I made one with matcha)
- Keto mug bread (word of warning, a) REALLY calorific b) Intense indigestion after eating too much too quick.
My week 1 on low carb:
FYI: If you're not a diet freak, you might not know that more often than not we underestimate our calorie intake because we forget food we've eaten. I've been relatively good in terms of real time tracking but I ignore negligible calories like garlic, herbs, tea with a slug of milk. Estimates were also via "My Fitness Pal" which I find to be a useful if depressing app which shows how much my weight has gone up over the years. I also have a strong feeling I woke late on quite a few of these days hence the absence of "lunch". I also acknowledge this would be supremely difficult if we didn't work from home. When I low carbed at work, lunch was almost always sashimi which gets very pricy. You also look like a freak eating a packet of ham and not much else. Those were the days. I think there's a lot more offerings these days for low carb, but a cold boiled egg and spinach is definitely less appealing than a hot runny egg version.
Day 1: 1,140kcal
Breakfast:
- 2 Poached eggs (148kcal)
- Mushrooms in Brine (13kcal)
Dinner:
- Braised red cabbage (69kcal)
- Roasted gammon (430kcal) [Xmas period leftovers and did have some sugar in the glaze
Snacks:
- Keto chocolate chip cookies (using cacao nibs, flavoured some with cinnamon/nuts etc) (320kcal)
- Slices of manchego (120kcal)
Day 2: 883kcal
Breakfast:
- 2 eggs scrambled (182kcal)
- Smoked salmon (132kcal)
- Keto cookies (160kcal)
- Medallion steak (232kcal)
- Lettuce (7kcal)
- Fried red onion (48kcal)
- 2 keto pancakes (148kcal) [Make a batch for the week, looks nothing like the picture]
- Flora light (40kcal) [You can buy sugar free syrups e.g. from Skinny Food Company which I saw in Morrisons, I chose not to buy it. I have enough normal banned syrups and I would like to make better habbits for myself]
- Whipped cream with cocoa (204kcal) [Definitely unnecessary, this was leftover cream from baking. Bad.]
- Clams with garlic (192kcal) [Love clams. Can rarely find them and tend to be pricy fresh from fishmongers/Waitrose. Found some frozen ones, not as good, but makes me happy.]
- Braised Red Cabbage (69kcal) [Jesus, this leftover kept on going. Fairly sure I cooked this batch with sweetener.]
- Tofu (45kcal) [Silken tastes better]
- Pork floss (51kcal) [Definitely has some sugar in here but probably a tablespoon of floss means not much by way of sugar.]
- Thousand year egg (20kcal)
- Savoy cabbage - boiled (32kcal)
- Keto pancake (222kcal)
- Cream (85kcal)
- Mushrooms (18kcal)
- Halloumi (96kcal)
- 2 Fried eggs (180kcal)
- Gammon (277kcal)
- Blackberries (62kal)
- Cox apple (45kcal)
- Peanut butter (119kcal)
- Sugar free jelly (8kcal)
- Keto pancake (222kcal)
- Nuts (63kcal)
- Octopus salad ( defrosted frozen cooked octopus leg, sliced, salt, olive oil and parsley) (139kcal)
- Aubergine (roasted with cherry tomato and melted mozzarella) (23,18,118kcal)
- Breaded Lemon sole fillets (274kcal) - yes there was breading. I couldn't resist the yellow sticker deal.
- Cox apple (45kcal)
- Peanut butter (119kcal)
- Peanut butter Keto cookies (71kcal)
- Keto pancake (222kcal)
- Gammon (227kcal)
- Peanut butter Keto cookies (213kcal)
- Soft boiled egg (77kcal)
- Asparagus Spears (25kcal)
- Biltong (80kcal)
- Cabbage (22kcal)
- Mushrooms (21kcal)
- Pork mince (178kcal)
- Coconut keto cookies (144kcal)
- Sugar free Jelly (8cal)
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