Breakfast shakes WITHOUT protein powders

by | Jan 31, 2013 | Food Choices, Low carb diet, Sensible Eating | 0 comments

Below is a copy of the recent comment I made on a post at lowcarber about breakfast choices

 

Hi Thump,

When I was in the Middle East we often used to have cottage cheese for breakfast. That and a  very tasty avocado and onion salad  that was finely chopped and went  down a treat especially with a good dash of lemon juice over the top and salt and pepper to taste.

Another thing you can have is fresh yogurt made with some raw milk. That will act as a nice base for all sorts of different things that you could put in it which if it’s a nice fresh one made with unpasteurized milk will charge up the bacteria for when you start eating solids later in the day.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Atkins and fruit

by | Jan 31, 2013 | Low carb diet, Weight Loss | 0 comments

Another one of my comments over at lowcarber forum about a post on Atkins

 

I’m not a fruit eater except if it’s mixed into salad and then not too much because I find it too sweet. Now if you were to slice an avocado cover it with mayonnaise and sprinkle cayenne pepper over the top, it wouldn’t last long if it were put in front of me that’s for sure.

But getting back to your question Firefly428, your getting more tired and want to have a snooze, if I’m having a hard day physically I can sense my blood sugar level dropping and yes you can get a bit shaky. In cases like that I normally turn to cheese as that’s a good safe source of energy and I find if I let my consumption of cheese drop too much or fat on general, come to that, and I do feel a little bit lethargic.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Ketosis question

by | Jan 31, 2013 | Low carb diet, Weight Loss | 0 comments

Here is a comment I made on a post at lowcarber forum about ketosis

 

Hi mfergi_200,

Well done for staying on induction for 4 weeks. I hope you’re pleased with your progress.

Generally speaking most people are fine if they stay under 50 gms of carbs per day but I would counsel you to add in those carbs slowly because it can be so tempting to treat ourselves just as once when we come out of induction and frankly the more gently you approach your CCL the better as that gives you plenty of time to gauge what’s going on in your body and the so approach does tend to lessen the chance of going over and moving out of ketosis.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Milled Flax seed causing stall?

by | Jan 30, 2013 | Low carb diet, Stalls and Plateaux, Weight Loss | 0 comments

Here is another comment I made over at lowcarber forum on a post about a stall on a low carb diet

 

Myers728 asked:

You all know me and my posts by now. So 2wks 10 lbs gone, week 3 and 4 nothing. Need to get the pounds off. I have removed heavy cream, peanut butter, added veggies for lunch and dinner, what about my breakfast of milled flax seed? I have 1/4 cup. Could this be causing my stall? I am removing this week to see if the scales move? Dr atkins says no more than 2T, my comment is that with 2T = 4 carbs, 4 dietary carbs, so zero carbs. Maybe this is too much to be having, causing stall?

 

My response:

When we follow a low carb diet there are so many changes going on in our bodies. It’s hard to keep up with what’s going on.

Providing we’re giving our bodies the types of food it needs in order to thrive, we then simply need to be patient while it works through the various processes it has to go through to firstly adjust to the change in diet and secondly start dealing with the excesses that our old diet caused in the first place.

The simple fact is that none of us got fat overnight, it’s something that slowly crept up and by the same token none of us will get thin overnight.

So the bottom line of what I’m trying to say here is stick with your plan, don’t be tempted to add in things just because they seem like they might be okay and be patient. You will get the body you want just give it time.

As for milled flax seed, that’s one of those things that I stay right away from. I’m not sure it has any nutritional value but it certainly contains lots of temptation.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Grass Fed Beef

by | Jan 30, 2013 | Food Choices, High Protein Diet, Meat Products | 0 comments

A recent comment that I made on a lowcarber forum post about naturally fed beef

 

JoreyTK’s post:

Hey all,

I asked a local farmer if their cattle are grass finished. I’m pretty clueless about cattle raising but is this basically just as nutrient devoid as the supermarket meats?

 

My comment:

Great question JoreyTK and a super response from Jacki too.

From my perspective there are really two different criteria that needed to be looked at whenever we buy beef. The first thing are the animals fed natural food as opposed to food that is laced with antibiotics, hormones and other drugs and is it GM free? Generally speaking if those criteria are met then the meat product is usually pretty good simply because any farmer who is willing to go the extra mile not to use drugs and hormones and to ensure their feed is GMO-free will tend to take care of their animals far more conscientiously than those brought up on vast feedlots.

Whether or not they are finished on grass or corn fed or any other type of grain for that matter, as Jacki has said, will affect how quickly they come to kill weight and that will obviously  affect in many ways both the texture and the taste  as well as the look of the meat as well.

Then there is a third option for finishing cows off and that’s one they use quite extensively in Europe which is once the  growing season has stopped the cattle are transitioned on to silage which if you don’t know about it is fermented grass. This has the advantage of retaining a much larger proportion of all the good stuff, the nutrients as compared to say, dried hay or something like that.

Another popular feed in Europe is also root crops such as turnips, carrots parsnips, sugar beets and even sweet potatoes. Kale is also a very popular hereabout and it seems to last in the field quite well where the farmers will allow the cattle to strip graze it progressively each day.

So even though there may not be grass growing through the winter where you live, farmers do have a choice to feed their cattle in as natural a way as possible according to the resources they’ve got at hand. Whether they’re finished on grass, whether they’re finished on corn or whether they’re finished on solid or kale or whatever, the key issue for me is more is it natural and free of drugs and other additives that I just don’t want passed on to me through the meat I eat. The rest is really just more of a question of taste.

Cheers,

Mark