Mild GI problems on OWL

pink-owlHere’s something that I’ve been suggesting to people for a number of years now simply because I find that it works.

Before, during and after induction it’s a good idea to take both probiotic supplements as well as digestive enzyme supplements as these will help the body deal with the various changes in diet that you go through at the beginning and at the end of induction.

Also by the way, by increasing your proportion of healthy bacteria in your stomach you tend to make yourself much more immune or at least suffer less from any stomach bugs and viruses that are going around simply because the healthy bacteria outnumber any of the nasty ones that get in there.

Hope that helps,

Mark

A copy of another comment I made on a low carb forum post 

Let Them Eat Fat

 

???????????????????????????????????????You know the strange thing is even though I’m the most healthy person amongst my group of friends they still marvel or actually complain at the amount of fat that I eat when we’re eating together and even after all these years I still get “Oh aren’t you afraid your cholesterol will go through the roof?” Of course to which I reply “I don’t have cholesterol problems. Why would I be afraid of it going through the roof?” It’s still often met with gasps and half joking and half sincere offers to phone the ambulance when I have a heart attack.

But sometimes you know I don’t think this semi lighthearted banter is really so much out of concern from my health and well being. I think a lot of it is purely out of jealousy because I obviously enjoy what I’m eating whereas many times my eating companions don’t really seem to be doing so.

Don’t you just love being low carb?

Cheers,

Mark

This is just another one of my comments on a forum post about low carb

Oil vs Coconut Oil

185px-Italian_olive_oil_2007_smCoconut oil like many things may not look very good but it does taste quite nice if you get a good quality one and when you use it for cooking it does have a certain flavor that can’t be beaten particularly for African, Caribbean and Far Eastern dishes.

Olive oil in the other hand is great for Mediterranean food. That’s’ where it’s been used for centuries in cuisine and most of the dishes that it’s used in really do compliment the flavors that come in  the different varieties of olive oil.

Personally having lived in France for so long I tend to use butter when I’m cooking things whether that’s roasting in the oven or even cooking on the hob top but there again I’m following Northern European standard cooking practice and like olive oil, butter and cream is something that is used quite extensively in Northern French or Belgian or other cuisine from this area.

The key thing here of course is to stay away from the man made ones such as canola and others like it that have a dubious manufacturing process that doesn’t at the end give us a good quality product.

Another key thing here is staying as close to the natural product as you can and like most things the more gently you treat them the better they tend to taste.

Cheers,

Mark

This is actually a comment I made on  forum post about oils

Low Carb Treats

Here’s a tasty low carb and homemade sweet treat: 12395758796JDgVV

Take a pot of full fat soft cheese and set it aside to warm up a little for half an hour. In the meantime take one dried fig and five or six blueberries and chop them up into very small bits. Add two or three chopped walnuts and mix both the fruit and the nuts into the soft cheese. Cover and return to the cooler for 24 hours.

Now for the treat: Take half a spoonful of the fruity cheesy mixture and sandwich it between two pecan nuts.

So if you’re using 100 grams of pecans, a small pack of cream cheese, one fig, five blueberries and 14 or 15 walnut halves, the whole lot comes to 27 grams of carbs and those of you who would like to follow net carbs will come with an even smaller number so it really is a guilt free treat.

This is a response I made on a forum post about low carb diet

What to eat before gym

gymI used to be quite a keen body builder when I actually changed  to eating low carb during what I could consider was the peak of my bodybuilding  efforts and I found that my stamina and endurance actually got better through eating low carb. 

However I must point out that I was doing most of my exercises whilst my body was in ketosis that way it could make full use of any stored body fats as it required them.

So the question is are you in ketosis? Because whether you are or not will make a huge difference when exercising for an hour or so. If you’re not in ketosis but are happy with the way that your weight loss is going I would suggest that you only exercise for half an hour as quite frankly that’s more than  enough providing you are challenging your body sufficiently and up the speed and or weights that you are moving.

One of the best exercise systems I can suggest for low carbers is Al Sears’ PACE system. It’s a far more rational system than any other I’ve come across and works with the body to promote muscle growth and fat loss.

This is just another one of my comments on a forum post about exercise

Butter

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Before the 1920s heart disease was rare in most of the western world. Yet through the 20s right up until the 70s the incidence of heart disease rose to become one of the most deadly ailments of modern times. In fact some have said that it is actually the West’s number one killer.

The strange thing is that during the same time the amount of butter that we consumed dropped by over 25% from which we could all conclude that butter is not a cause of heart disease.

So what is the truth about butter? Why should we eat it and if our conclusion is that butter is actually good for us then why have we been told for so long that it is actually harmful to consume lots of quantities of butter or indeed any animal fat for that matter.

Well firstly let’s look at what butter has got in it that’s good for us starting with the vitamins. Butter is very high in vitamin A and that’s needed to ensure that both our adrenal and thyroid glands function properly and here’s where the time that heart disease comes once again in that both of these glands are important for proper functioning of both our hearts and cardiovascular system.

Vitamin E which is also found in butter as well as vitamin A are quite strong antioxidants which again play an important part in keeping the body healthy. Butter also contains lecithin and that’s used for ensuring that the cholesterol and other fat constituents in butter are properly assimilated and metabolized.

Yes I mentioned cholesterol and butter is a good source of dietary cholesterol but did you know that cholesterol is also an antioxidant? In fact cholesterol is a highly potent antioxidant that is quickly released into the blood when our body senses that we have eaten too many foods containing harmful free radicals.

Now here’s the strange thing. Would it surprise you to learn the fact that some of the foods which contain the highest levels of these harmful free radicals are actually the very same that had been touted over the last few decades as being healthy for us that is margarine and other highly processed vegetable oils.

Now in this short response I won’t go into details but it’s worth knowing that butter is beneficial in aiding the immune system for good gastrointestinal health, in the growth and development of children and over the years a number of studies have found that butter consumption is helpful to guard against arthritis, osteoporosis and as it’s a good source of iodine as I’ve mentioned earlier good functioning of the thyroid gland.

Now when you consider the damage that other man made hydrogenated fats have caused mankind over the last few decades it strikes me as odd that intelligent people are still touting the supposed benefits of these types of fats. But there again I suppose some people will say anything if they’re paid enough money to do so.

This is a copy of the comment I made on a low carb forum post