[Chilled]

Hey guys, I've recently cut back on the carbs and have had some decent results, so I'm thinking about going full on LCHF and cutting out carbs entirely, other than alcohol.

I've been looking around the internet but haven't been able to find much in the way of recipes that will work for me. Because of my workout routine and language classes a few days a week, I don't really have a lot of time to spend cooking. Also, because of where I'm living at the moment, (Korea) some ingredients that are common in LCHF have been pretty hard to find. Does anyone know of any recipes or recipe sites for quick and easy LCHF cooking? Preferably sticking to more everyday ingredients.

[ersatz]

Reddit.com/r/keto sidebar and http://www.bulletproofexec.com/the-compl...roof-diet/

[Chad Daring]

*cough*

[Chilled]

That post was pretty informative Chad. Can I ask you a question? What's your workout regimen like? Are you able to keep a good amount of muscle while still doing low/no carb?

I ask because in my research I've found out that a lot of people who lift weights seriously while doing no carb will cycle (eat large amounts) of carbs a few times a week. Apparently no carb diets cause your body to use fat for energy, but also protein, so they can slow down muscle gain or cause you to drop mass. I'm a somewhat muscular guy, and while I want to lose about 10 or 15 pounds, I don't want to lose any muscle while I'm doing it.

I'm not sure if that is a concern only for serious weightlifters or not. How has it been in your experience?

[ersatz]

Intense exercise (like HIIT) requires carbohydrates. Bodybuilders intensely exercising will cause a mandatory demand for carbohydrates and your body will convert protein into carbs to compensate. If your not being intense, then your body will be okay with fat alone.

Basically to loose fat from your body, you need to force your body to use it. By going into a fat-metabolism (keto) from a carb-metabolism (use fat last) makes this far more possible.

Read this link from the http://reddit.com/r/keto/ sidebar:
http://josepharcita.blogspot.com/2011/03...tosis.html

Fat loss finally makes sense to me after reading that guide.

[Chad Daring]

When I do Atkins cuts I do them hardcore, I stay in Induction for 2-5 weeks, thats 20g of carbs a day, TOPS. All the times I've done Atkins I've stayed constant in the gym and never saw a loss in strength or mass. In fact after the first 2 weeks of settling in I usually saw a pretty strong increase in my strength.

Now I've heard from everyone and their mother that what you said, low carb = lose mass/strength is whats supposed to happen. I also know that I gain weight eating paleo which = minimal carbs in the form of fruits/veggies. Most people LOSE weight on a paleo diet, I gain weight, but I do exceedingly well on Atkins, so I'm willing to accept that I'm the odd one that was just made to be a carnivore.

What erstaz said might come into play as well. When I'm in the gym I lift really heavy and slowly and I dont do cardio, so it might just be that my personal workout routine doesn't require that heavy carb load to do.

[Chilled]

Guess the only way I can really know how I'll react to it is to cut carbs out and see how it affects me.

Thanks for the thoughts guys.

[kosko]

Me and Chad have already debated on this. My only advice would be to make sure at least your getting you fats from clean high quality fats like nuts, fish, olive and Coconut oil etc. I think that a lot of people whom follow this type of diet get things twisted and will drink the bacon grease out of the pan lol. Not all fats are created equal, sticking to high quality fats will be more beneficial long term. Also one tip I try to do is limit the amount of cooked fats I take in. Oxidizing/heating fats changes the structure of the fat and I believe the nutritional value drops. I will drown everything I eat in fresh from the bottle Olive oil after I cook it.

If I get fish in a can like Tuna I'll drain the shitty soybean oil in the can and replace it with olive oil. I don't touch vegetable oil either... white bread of cooking oils, its so processed you can put in you car for fuel in a mere few steps. lol

[Chilled]

I've been using a lot of butter lately to get my fat intake. Healthier to switch to oils, or maybe do both and balance them somewhat? Trying to make my foods MORE fatty is new to me, so I'm still figuring this stuff out.

What do you think of the dinner I ate last night? :

big piece of pork cooked in butter (just shy of a pound probably)
a few eggs cooked in butter
salad (lettuce, spinach, and broccoli) with a low carb dressing (probably around 8-10 grams of carbs from the amount of dressing I used)

I've looked around a bit, and from what I've read it seems like the nutritional value of fats only drops of you hit the smoke point while you're cooking it. As long as I cook with low heat, I don't think that's too much of a concern for me.

[Chad Daring]

I wouldn't try to work additional fat into your diet unless your a vegetarian. Eating meat will, by nature, get fat into your system. And why yes Kosko and I have debated this before, and I still disagree that animal fats are inherently bad for you, I do agree that you should maximize the health benefits of natural plant oils like olive and coconut oils and avoid unnatural plant oils like soy and corn oil (vegetable oil) like the plague.

If you want a good source of fat AND energy, go get a can of coconut milk, mix it with two packets of splenda and pour it over ice. Its fucking delicious and it has the effect of an energy drink. You'll bounce off the walls. One small can is about 700 calories of pure fat, but its quite good for you.

[kosko]

(12-15-2011 08:08 PM)Chilled Wrote:  

I've been using a lot of butter lately to get my fat intake. Healthier to switch to oils, or maybe do both and balance them somewhat? Trying to make my foods MORE fatty is new to me, so I'm still figuring this stuff out.

What do you think of the dinner I ate last night? :

big piece of pork cooked in butter (just shy of a pound probably)
a few eggs cooked in butter
salad (lettuce, spinach, and broccoli) with a low carb dressing (probably around 8-10 grams of carbs from the amount of dressing I used)

I've looked around a bit, and from what I've read it seems like the nutritional value of fats only drops of you hit the smoke point while you're cooking it. As long as I cook with low heat, I don't think that's too much of a concern for me.

Damn homie. This guy is going hard on that butter. I'm just picturing a big piece of fatty meat boiling in some damn butter with a big shit eating grin of yours going "mmmmmm mmmmmm" lol.

Yea I hear you on the cooking oil business. I have also head the stuff about "Smoke point" but by then oil is basically garbage, your degrading its quality as that temperature rises.

From what I've read it seems that the best game plan is to limit the amount of heat/process oils you come in contact with in general. The more a food is in its least processed state the better it is for you in taking away its nutritional content. Olive oil and Grapeseed oil have such high nutritional profiles because they are typically unprocessed, and virgin - same with Palm and Coconut oils.

As far as butter goes, butter is better for you then synthetic Margarine or that Bacel nonsense - but it is still a animal fat. You should probably switch to plant/ seed oils instead. A pound of olive oil. Like a pound of butter.. that's like 3K calories.. and your eating this at nite? That's kind of hectic but all the power to you. There is a lot of writings about the positive effects of butter but me personally I'm hesitant of them animal fats.

Poach your meat on a low slow heat with olive oil. I used to poach salmon and tuna steaks this way when I was balling on that grocery budget and it turned out quite nice. You set that shit low and just kick back and watch the game. Your meal is done by halftime.

[kosko]

(12-15-2011 08:39 PM)Chad Daring Wrote:  

I wouldn't try to work additional fat into your diet unless your a vegetarian. Eating meat will, by nature, get fat into your system. And why yes Kosko and I have debated this before, and I still disagree that animal fats are inherently bad for you, I do agree that you should maximize the health benefits of natural plant oils like olive and coconut oils and avoid unnatural plant oils like soy and corn oil (vegetable oil) like the plague.

If you want a good source of fat AND energy, go get a can of coconut milk, mix it with two packets of splenda and pour it over ice. Its fucking delicious and it has the effect of an energy drink. You'll bounce off the walls. One small can is about 700 calories of pure fat, but its quite good for you.

I hear you. I wonder if genetics have a play in it as well. I avoid animal fats because I think its a suicide food for black people. Its lead to health problems for African-Americans and Immigrants for many meany years now... its not part of our traditional diet at all. On the flip side many cultures traditionally used butter, the french and South Asians with their clarified version, all have great seen great benefits from them.

Americans traditionally consumed butter as their base fat also until the petrol-industry pawned of Margarine as food on us.

[ersatz]

Animal fat, cooking fat, organic/non organic, are minor details compared to the negative health effects of being fat. I'd push all of that crap aside and just focus on establishing habits, loosing fat and making it as easy and least financially painful possible for yourself. Otherwise it's too easy to stop and not get anywhere.

[Chilled]

Hahaha, Kosko I didn't mean a pound of butter, I meant I was eating a pound of pork. I just tossed a small chunk of butter in there to use as grease. Same with the eggs, just tossed a small chunk of butter in. Jesus, pound of butter hahaha.

@ Chad - I'm gonna see if I can find some coconut milk around here, that drink does sound good. Less popular ingredients like that are usually tough to find around here (Korea) though.

@ ersatz - I hear ya about the habits, which is what I'm trying to do now. It makes sense to me to set the best habits I can though, rather than just setting ones that are better than my current habits. Thus the research.

[ersatz]

Perfectionism ruins many plans because it makes the goal too much work to achieve. It can be a form of procrastination. I don't know your habits, but the typical bachelor has a hard time it seems finding time to cook all three meals and go grocery shopping. Just finding ways to make the basics fit into your life is the real habit change. Micro-optimizing and shopping can come later and usually is easier. You swap out eggs for organic eggs, etc. You add some pills you eat at night. Figuring out how to quickly prepare all of your food to follow a diet takes experimentation and skill practice. Forming new habits is a lot like learning new skills.

For example, I got a microwave egg cooker so I can spend about 2 minute preparing my freshly steamed eggs, 7 minutes doing other things and having a 5 minute breakfast of 2-4 eggs a day.

[Chilled]

Oh I'm very much trying to optimize how I do this. I have a bigass salad in tupperware in my fridge right now, so I can come home, cook some meat and eat a quick healthy meal. I get what you're saying about making it convenient for yourself, to be honest the only reason I've had some success at changing my bad eating habits is because I made it easier to eat healthy than it would be to eat junk.

I'm trying to nail down a recipe I can make on Sundays for lunches for the week. These days I eat the lunches my school provides, but a lot of the time they're not great. That's part of the reason I'm trying to learn about nutrition, so I can figure out what kind of recipes I should be looking at. I'm the farthest thing in the world from a perfectionist, just a dude trying to figure out the best and easiest way to eat better.

[Chad Daring]

(12-15-2011 09:01 PM)kosko Wrote:  

I hear you. I wonder if genetics have a play in it as well. I avoid animal fats because I think its a suicide food for black people. Its lead to health problems for African-Americans and Immigrants for many meany years now... its not part of our traditional diet at all. On the flip side many cultures traditionally used butter, the french and South Asians with their clarified version, all have great seen great benefits from them.

Americans traditionally consumed butter as their base fat also until the petrol-industry pawned of Margarine as food on us.

I almost guarantee it. I've talked to a handful of Latinos that have tried Atkins and almost all talked about how they felt terrible, even beyond the first week and didn't see much of a change, where day 1 I feel like a million bucks and I drop weight like crazy.

For many generations back their ancestors would've eaten a lot of fruits, legumes, and grains (rice) so carbs would be very prominent in their historical diet. My people come from Northern Europe where main staples are fish and very rich dark animal meat like reindeer

I'd imagine black people would have a hell of a time nailing this aspect down though, since most wouldn't be able to pinpoint the exact area of the continent their ancestors came from because records like that weren't really kept. I'm sure, depending on which area you were in the general food staples would change. Now add in the possibility of nomadic ancestors and yeah, you'd never know. Though I've personally known more then a few black guys who've made Atkins work very well for themselves.

[CrackerJack]

From what I understand LCHF diet is based around the principle of keeping low insulin levels.

High Insulin = fat storage/inefficiency of burning fat.

Efficiency of burning fat = Ketosis

Ketosis is attained by steady low Insulin levels that correspond to almost no carb intake. To reach Ketosis takes up to 6 weeks.

During the initial weeks the body adjusts to burning fat and is going through carb withdrawal period. Symptoms are hangover like with irritability, palpitations, headaches etc.

Once you're in Ketosis you will not overeat if you stick with LCHF.

Protein vs Fat intake depends on your own body fat. If you have 26% body fat and eating lot's of protein than that's all good (remember you still are burning fat even if you're not eating that much fat), but if you get down to super low body fat levels, well you need to eat probably around 70-80% fat to feel at optimum. You can actually have protein poisoning if your body doesn't get fat. FAT = GOLD.

That's what I think is the problem with bodybuilders with 2% body fat spreading this myth that you need carbs and protein for strength. You only put your self out of Ketosis and are on an Insulin roller coaster. It only takes one day of splurging on carbs to kick your body out of Ketosis, after which you will need 2 weeks AGAIN to put your body back in Ketosis mode.

Be careful what veggies you eat, and especially careful with fruits, it's a natural candy bar.

Now I don't know if this is the healthiest lifestyle, but to me it makes the most sense.

FAT-->Organ meats-->certain vegetables-->some fruit-->muscle meats-->carbs

[WesternCancer]

The one thing that leaves me iffy on this kind of diet is the fact that your energy is mainly coming from ketone bodies which are formed in the liver using acetyl-coa (from beta-oxidation of fatty acids). my biochem class/prof had mentioned that high levels of ketone bodies = ketoacidosis in extreme cases and just straight up not so good effects in the long run. I'm going to do more research and find more studies before I make an opinion about this though.

[ersatz]

(12-16-2011 11:39 PM)WesternCancer Wrote:  

The one thing that leaves me iffy on this kind of diet is the fact that your energy is mainly coming from ketone bodies which are formed in the liver using acetyl-coa (from beta-oxidation of fatty acids). my biochem class/prof had mentioned that high levels of ketone bodies = ketoacidosis in extreme cases and just straight up not so good effects in the long run. I'm going to do more research and find more studies before I make an opinion about this though.

Go read the link I posted http://josepharcita.blogspot.com/2011/03...tosis.html . It addresses that specific worry ( nothing to worry about ) plus more.

[Chad Daring]

(12-16-2011 11:39 PM)WesternCancer Wrote:  

The one thing that leaves me iffy on this kind of diet is the fact that your energy is mainly coming from ketone bodies which are formed in the liver using acetyl-coa (from beta-oxidation of fatty acids). my biochem class/prof had mentioned that high levels of ketone bodies = ketoacidosis in extreme cases and just straight up not so good effects in the long run. I'm going to do more research and find more studies before I make an opinion about this though.

Atkins style diets aren't meant for the long run. I've read studies (dont have links sorry) that compared Atkins to other traditional diets and after the 6 month mark the other diets begin to catch up, and at the 12 month mark Atkins style diets and other traditional diets are almost neck and neck for total fat loss.

I use Atkins ONLY for short term blitzing off of fat, which it seems to do very well. I eat a paleo style diet normally, consisting still of lots of meats and fats, but also fruits and veggies in much higher quantities then on Atkins.

After about 5-6 weeks of that I'll go back on Atkins, dropping my carb intake to about 20g a day, and shave off a few more pounds of fat.

I have a very fickle body type that gains weight easily so I must do this to maintain a good physique. If I stayed on a paleo diet indefinitely I WOULD eventually gain weight, but from what I've seen I'm the oddball because most paleo advocates maintain or lose weight.

Regardless, as big of an Atkins advocate as I am, I would never tell anyone to do it for more then three months.

[WesternCancer]

thanks for the info guys

[samsamsam]

(12-14-2011 02:32 AM)ersatz Wrote:  

Intense exercise (like HIIT) requires carbohydrates. Bodybuilders intensely exercising will cause a mandatory demand for carbohydrates and your body will convert protein into carbs to compensate. If your not being intense, then your body will be okay with fat alone.

Basically to loose fat from your body, you need to force your body to use it. By going into a fat-metabolism (keto) from a carb-metabolism (use fat last) makes this far more possible.

Read this link from the http://reddit.com/r/keto/ sidebar:
http://josepharcita.blogspot.com/2011/03...tosis.html

Fat loss finally makes sense to me after reading that guide.

That link to the blog is fantastic. Thanks so much.

[Grizzly]

(12-12-2011 07:36 PM)Chilled Wrote:  

Hey guys, I've recently cut back on the carbs and have had some decent results, so I'm thinking about going full on LCHF and cutting out carbs entirely, other than alcohol.

I've been looking around the internet but haven't been able to find much in the way of recipes that will work for me. Because of my workout routine and language classes a few days a week, I don't really have a lot of time to spend cooking. Also, because of where I'm living at the moment, (Korea) some ingredients that are common in LCHF have been pretty hard to find. Does anyone know of any recipes or recipe sites for quick and easy LCHF cooking? Preferably sticking to more everyday ingredients.

Cool, post back in a few weeks with updates.

Personally, the problem I've always had with super-low or no carb diets is lack of fiber. I've never been able to get enough from green vegetables alone, so I try to have 3 or 4 helpings a week of something like beans, lentils, split peas, etc. I avoid white rice and pasta like the plague.

I'm curious, is canned/prepackaged food over there any better quality than what we have in the U.S.? Most of the stuff here is total garbage. A lot of it is loaded with corn syrup or other sweeteners and insane amounts of salt. It seems like there's sweeteners in everything.

[iknowexactly]

The reason calorie-counting is a hard way to lose weight and the fact 90%+ people gain the weight back should be a primary concern in your diet plan. If you can't stick to it you're screwed, you have to do it all over again.

I'm doing LCHF right now, like after I type this I'm going to buy some cheese at discount grocery.
I've read a lot about Atkins who was the original legitimizer of this way before mainstream docs accepted it.

Anyway, what I've been doing for a few weeks and is working

I'm over 50, so losing weight is quite difficult for me. I must be precise, but if I do my system right it works.

My goal is to ride bikes in the mountains, so I'm not real concerned with muscle mass, I lift weights only about 1-2 x per week for about 5 sets to try to retain muscle, but I think I'm losing a (very) little muscle anyway. My increased definition and reducing gut are more than compensating judging from female looks I get. I ride a bike an average of 1.5 hours per day usually pretty low intensity. My goal is to never be really exhausted, when I am super tired I take a good 2-3 hour nap. I can sleep enough because I don't work very much. I make my own schedule.

In my experience I can lose weight quickly easily, but it leads to a sense of desperation that knocks me off my diet somehow, although I won't think of it that way at the time, I'll think of it like "I'm going crazy I've got to eat something to calm down.

For that reason I am deliberately losing weight very slowly, making sure I never feel deprived. I'm losing about 1/3 -1/2 lb per week. I think that is critical, I feel like I could stay on this diet happily indefinitely.

This leads to another problem, determining "am I losing weight at all" through the water noise from day to day.
I dealt with that in another little-read post here dealing with moving averages.

1) Enough fats helps prevents the above meltdowns.

2) Research ( I lost the article) indicates that variety is bad in diets. People who eat more different stuff don't lose weight as well. It's too easy to kid yourself about the total calories that you are eating when you keep changing shit. "Oh, I'll try this new cheese/this doughnut doesn't have THAT many carbs....etc."

3) This conflicts with the idea that you need some variety or your diet will be unhealthy.

So what I've done is found a combination that :

a) I THINK gets just about everything, at least for the period that I need to be on it.
b) I find enjoyable. I like all the items I eat.
c) Has a very strict list of items I can eat.
d) Never leaves me feeling desperate with low blood sugar.
e) Keeps me HYDRATED

I haven't eaten red meat in over 30 years, I just don't like it, chicken and fish sometimes
I eat:

--MetRX protein powder (Whey plus Casein) with Trader Joe Almond milk ( almost no carbs, low calories)
3-4x per day. I also add Trader Joes "Very Green" algae/other stuff powder to help overcome the limited variety in my diet.

--one of : (Greens, broccoli florets, green beans) 2x daily with about 25 garbanzo beans per serving for fiber/carbs/minerals

Frozen Broccoli and green beans I prepare by:

Steam for 15 min with 1.5 teaspoons of Curry powder( lowers rate of Alzheimers), 1 tbsp butter, 1 tsp olive oil, salt to taste

--Hard cheese ( not cottage or munster) 4-8 oz most days. This is very satisfying and keeps me from going off diet.

-- About once a week, 1000 calories of nuts ( walnuts are best quality fats, followed by almonds or peanuts)
I love nuts but it's too easy to scarf down 1000 calories in an hour to eat them every day for me.

-- Multivite, Fish Oil capsules 2-5, B12-Folic capsule ( heart health) Vit E, Zinc,

right now I am also on a small dose of blood pressure medicatiion which disgusts me, is why I am losing weight,
and I hope to taper off of it once I am really slim.

Dieting itself is not real rocket science-- caliries in calories out-- but the whole system including the psychology of monitoring it and understanding the satiation-variety-satiety-exercise-information feedback realtionships IS complex.
I've also thought a lot about motivation-food relationship.