At home I gobbled up the remains of last night's chicken - the wings, and some under-carriage meat, and then prepared a bacon and spinach frittata for our main course:
Simple and delicious!
Now for a few links to pieces that have blown my mind of late:
Tom Naughton has written a superb and hilarious 'what if?' hypothetical that truly hits home - What If Mechanics & Nutritionists Switched Jobs?
From Dr. A at Livable Low-Carb:
I have just been reading a very interesting paper by Joaquín Pérez-Guisado of the University of Cordoba entitled "Arguments in Favor of Ketogenic Diets".
As its title suggests, it reviews the benefits of ketogenic diets (ie high fat, very low carbohydrate diets) and concludes:
Low carbohydrate diets are a safe, effective way of losing weight, promoting non-atherogenic lipid profiles, lowering blood pressure, diminishing resistance to insulin with an improvement in levels of glucose and insulin. They also have neurological and antineoplastic (anti-tumour) benefits.
The author discusses the evolution of the human diet, the biochemical rationale of the ketogenic diet, its anti-tumour effect, its anti-inflammatory effect, its effectiveness in weight control, its cardiovascular benefits, its benefits in the prevention of and treatment of Type 2 diabetes and its neurological benefits.
(If anyone questions your decision to do a low carb diet, just give them this paper and blast them with science!)
The paper is very well-researched with 181 references at the end, and is definitely worth reading.
Personal note: my Dad currently takes a blood thinning drug as he has cardiac issues and has had incidence of troublesome clotting in the past. As he is a farmer, and is constantly getting himself into scrapes, this means that every cut ends up leaking for ages. This medication has distressed me for a while now, and I have been watching out for a safer alternative to help maintain his health more naturally and with less risk of him bleeding out up the paddock... Just recently, a saviour popped up in a couple of links, covering both sides of Dad's issue - plain ol' omega-3-rich fish oil!
Firstly, Dr. Stephan Guyenet explores the heart attack risk reduction potential of the essential fatty acids in fish oil in his post, The Low-Hanging Fruit.
Then, Dr. William Davis had me excited for Dad, then terrified at the arguments regarding 'bleeding episodes', then consoles and resolute that this was what Dad should take by the time I reached the closing statement of Does Fish Oil Cause Blood Thinning? I don't know whether fish oil alone would do enough for Dad's issues, but I'm certainly going to recommend he takes some every day anyway! I already do, so here's hoping 'preventing hereditary cardiac issues' is added to the lists of benefits I am experiencing thanks to upping my EPA intake!
I cut out grains, sugar and starches at the beginning of 2009. I have been keeping a journal as I have progressively shed my bulges and my processed foods. I am aiming to live a clean, primal lifestyle, and I wish to share my eating habits with those who wish to clean up their lifestyle and live happily and healthfully. As the cliche states - if I can do it, so can everybody else.
8 comments:
Hello: I used to eat my high protein pancakes with egg-whites (without the yolks), but now I've been eating 4 egg whites and 2 yolks in my morning protein pancakes and i feel fuller, as compared to when i made my protein-pancakes with just egg whites.
Another thing that i think it's good about low-carb diets is that i don't know but some how you can eat more calories on low-carb diets and still lose weight as compared to the traditional low-fat diets which are supposed to be real low in calories and fats, and make people feel hungry, tired, depressed and deprived the whole day.
Another thing i think about high protein, low carb diets is that they have anti-depressant qualities. I think it's because of the increased brain chemicals caused by higher intake of protein and fats.
Take care
.
Well of course you feel fuller chief; apart from eating more food, you're also eating the fatty, nutritious part of the egg at long last!
The reason you "can eat more" on a low-carb diet is that when insulin is lowered, fat is more readily able to leave the fat cells and be metabolised. But on any diet, if you eat more than you need, you won't burn stored fat. The reason people feel more comfortable cutting calories on a low-carb diet is that the food is more satisfying and their blood sugar remains stable, so there is minimal false hunger. There is also the 'gene expression' argument, that states when you eat the food we evolved to eat, our bodies process it more easily and can use the energy more readily, potentially allowing our metabolism to operate at full capacity. So it seems like we can eat more food and lose weight, but really we're expending more energy and can therefore get away with eating a bit more, because our bodies often want us to.
There are many studies on the link between high-carb diets and depression. Eating a clean, primal diet is not 'anti-depressive' but alternatively it is not a diet which causes depression, like high-sugar diets do. Insulin production and resultant hormonal imbalances often have a lot to do with mental imbalances. I don't think about primal eating as a 'fix' for lifestyle problems, I think of the alternatives as causes. :)
Jezwen
Love your links. I learn so much from them and more often than not I add them to my bookmarks. keep up the good work.
Steve
Dear low-carber Primal friend, i have a question about exercise. Do you exercise like in a gym, or in your home or do you walk, jog as part of your weight-loss low-carb program? Because i lift weights 4 days a week, and i walk 55 minutes 4 to 5 days a week. But i think that i will try exercising twice a day. Walking 60 minutes in the morning and 25 in the afteroons to burn more calories and lose fat and weight faster. Another great thing about exercising is that it kills hunger and it kills depression and boredom. Because some times i feel very bored and depressed and exercising a lot makes me escape this meaningless existance and the existential-vaccum that i feel
Thanx
.
I have another question about your diet. Do you eat green vegetables like brocoli, green-cabbage and other green fibrous vegetables low in glycemic index (GI) like brussel sprouts? I ask this because cooked green vegetables (broccoli and green cabbage) at lunch time are my only sources of carbohydrates in the day. I think i eat about 200 calories of green vegetables which is like 40 to 50 grams of carbohydrates at lunch.
Thanx
Hi M-S!
Exercise: for me, I don't add any extra activity into my day. I walk to and from work most days, and my average working day has me on my feet a fair bit, carrying a large tub of books to and from most classes. It's rarely enough to break a sweat, but somehow I have quite defined back and shoulder muscles (I always have been quite muscular, it's my genes). I also don't feel a need to exercise for the endorphin rush since I have very stable mood levels thanks to controlling my blood sugar (and being happy with my life, on the whole). So if you need to exercise for that reason, go for it! However, if you are exercising purely for physical health, here's what Richard Nikoley from Free The Animal has to say:
"I have never worked out more than 1 hr per week, 2 x 30 minutes. The power law aspect is that in such brief time you can get far more intense. Nobody believes I only do 1 hr a week, when many overweight people I know trudge along at low-intensity for hours per week and never make any progress."
So if I were to want to improve my body composition through exercise (through the wish to develop my muscles, since I'm under no delusion that exercise burns much in the way of calories, especially since it makes you hungrier later), I would go for sprints, and do a bit of body-weight exercise, Tabata- or CrossFit-style. If I found myself stuck in an office-job though, I would add some sort of daily activity in so that I would get outside at least once every day.
Veggies: I prefer to eat a carnivorous diet. Lately I have experimented with a serve of veggies (in my case, red cabbage sauteed in coconut oil) to see how my body responded, and I hate it! I haven't had any fluid retention or bloating, but farting is driving me crazy! I love that eating just animal products and the occasional handful of nuts means that my colon doesn't have to deal with fermenting waste. I never have to fart, and everything runs so smoothly. However, I only get away with excluding veggies because I have excellent access to high-quality, grass-fed, organic meat, and get all my nutrients that way, plus supplementation just in case. There is no biological need for carbohydrates, but if you like them and you don't have any problems or desires to try going without them, then go for it. Green veg are the safest bet in terms of insulin, though if you're trying to lose fat and you're stuck on a plateau, you might want to bring your portion down to 20g net carb (total carbs minus fibre) maximum. Spreading the carb intake over a number of meals tends to be better as well, so say Dr. Eades and others.
Do what works for you, and make sure you experiment with other options rather than rely on 'accepted wisdom' so that you truly know how you respond to particular lifestyle choices. :)
hello again, thanx a lot for taking your energy and time for answering me. Wow i didn't know that there is no biological need for carbohydrates. I thought that even on low-carb diets we still needed like 50 grams a day. Any ways thanks a lot again !!
No problem!
Yep, our bodies can make all the glucose we need from protein.
Lovely chatting with you!
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