LCHF - Low Carb High Fat Diet Ver 2

[P.A.K.]

A good blog to follow: http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/

[McD23]

Probably hugely inappropriate post to put here, but you guys and gals feel like my Hub family. I was told towards the latter end of May that I would be retrenched at the beginning of June due to some aggressive restructuring of the company (in certain areas). So I find myself at the wrong side of 50 looking for something new to put bread on the table and that has been absorbing all of my energy - hence my absence on this thread. I do check in from time to time, but have not had enough time and mental resources to contribute. I know every dark cloud has a silver lining, so I just need to get out of the cloud in order to see that. Early days, lots of conversations with many people but nothing concrete in terms of an offer yet. I will keep eating loads of fat, as I find that this gives me an edge in interviews (I am actually serious here). Keep going, in the words of Arnie : "I will be back".

That is not good news, but 'the dragon bears a gift under its wing' more often than we care to realise..

What line are work are you in ? Put it out here, you never know, someone may know someone who knows someone. You know how it goes.

[Helpmytrap]

So far today, should I cut back on the fat?

[jcza]

helpmytrap log onto myfitnesspal and set your own targets for C/F/P.

 

Where is your training for today? (just kidding)

[Wet Ears]

Helmytrap,

 

I’ve been doing this for nearly 18 months now and so have a little bit of experience about all this. Only thing is I don’t have racing experience on LCHF (my last bike race was XCO Nationals in ’99). Anyway, here’s my long novel – hope you get something out of it (apologies if I’ve repeated what others have already said)…

 

The more committed/strict you are in the beginning, the quicker the adaptation process takes.

 

That said, the choice you make depends on whether you are prepared to stop racing for a few months during this transition or not:

 

-- If you want to keep racing through the transition period, use the regular carb-based fuel you’ve been successful with in the past. Mid-week rides: water only. Long weekend rides and racing: you don’t change your old ways. Just slowly wean yourself off carbs for fuel as the months go by. Less important and shorter races, maybe go water only.

 

-- If you are prepared to stop racing, then go strict LCHF for at least the first couple of months. Your performance will suffer during this time. It might even take as long as 6 months to get back to your old speedy self.

 

The move to LCHF has the following effects on your riding:

· You feel you can literally go forever at a certain pace (mid tempo, no high intensity bursts) without needing to refuel. You become almost unbonkable. After a time you start to find that you can head out the door on a 4-5hr ride with no fuel at all (only water) and it will be a totally normal thing to do.

· But: in this transition period any hill climbs or high intensity stuff, you’ll feel like there’s no power in your legs. Your body still wants to pull from your glycogen stores for fuel and hasn't yet learnt how to ‘switch on’ its fat tapping powers. If you continue to stick with not supplying it with carbs for fuel, the body (and most importantly your brain, where your perceptions of pain really reside – read up about Noakes’ ‘governor theory’) gradually starts to learn that this is in fact not the end of the world, that you’re not going to keel over, and “hey lookie here, what’s all this endless supply of fuel I’m already carrying on board so freely available – awesome, let’s use that!”. If you are not expecting that initial loss of power it can be very disheartening, and it’s where most people give up their LCHF experiment. But if you know it’s coming and accept that this is very normal and you’ll get through to the other side in a couple of months, then you just ride through it.

 

It’s not that you won’t want to ride. You’ll still have more than enough energy in the day to be enthusiastic about getting on the bike. Lots of energy, just a lack of muscle power.

 

This does change over time. Your power does come back, but in my experience it’s important to add focused power work in the gym and on the IDT. So I was very interested to read about David Zabriskie’s training program from jcza’s post. It’s exactly where I’ve ended up. This winter I’ve been almost exclusively in the gym and on the IDT, maybe only 1 or 2 longish bike rides a week. As spring nears, I’m going to move from power work to speed work.

 

Food:

-- Lots of fatty pork. Choose the really fatty cuts, cook them in a large corningware pot in the oven for a few hours (or in a potjie). If you chuck in some low carb vegies and let them in the liquid fat, when it all cools you have an amazing high fat dinner, and to take to work the next day.

-- Really fatty biltong for general snacking. Also macadamia nuts, almonds, walnuts. Biltong is getting expensive, so I'm making up a homemade biltong box. Should be finished this weekend.

-- Chicken with all the skin on. Try and steal the skin off everyone else's plate too .

-- Lots of bacon and eggs, swimming in kerry gold butter.

-- In fact, lots of butter on just about everything.

-- Cut out dairy, but cream and butter still good.

-- Generous helpings of avo oil/olive oil on salads. Actually pretty much on everything - vegies too. Olive oil is bad for cooking with. Avo oil is brilliant for cooking with (and tastes much better IMHO). I love the stuff.

-- Homemade macadamia nut butter and coconut oil.

-- Lots of coconut oil – esp. in htone fat shake.

-- Lots of avo.

-- Lots of fatty fish: mackerel, sardines, pilchards, tuna, salmon, etc.

-- Pudding: mascarpone warmed up in the microwave with a touch of honey. YUM.

 

Hi tombeej

 

Curious as to why cooking with olive oil is bad - does the heat cause some sort of molecular change (or something of the like) - as I predominantly use olive oil when cooking?

 

Also the cutting of diary, I know milk has loads of carbs/sugar so I pretty much stick with cream. What is the problem with cheese and yoghurt?

 

Is Noakes book not already out, I am pretty sure I have a magazine at home which reviewed the book - will double check this evening and report back.

 

I also have a question on micronutrients - currently I am taking 1 pharmaton tablet (multi vit) plus a magnesium supplement (2 tabs of ultimag) and 1 capsule of salmon oil (omega 3) - is that overkill?

 

 

[Wet Ears]

 

 

Been out of IT for 10+ years, so looking at other options around sales or team management... don't worry too much, if the going gets tough I am going to start charging for LCHF advice .

 

Thanks for the wishes everyone, much appreciated.

 

I am positive that all the help/advice you so freely dispensed with in this thread will be rewarded with an ever better position than your previous one. Holding thumbs!

[Helpmytrap]

helpmytrap log onto myfitnesspal and set your own targets for C/F/P.

 

Where is your training for today? (just kidding)

Going for a run later today, I unfortunately have a supplementary exam tomorrow so thought I'd skip the ride today. (Studying Electronic Engineering at Tuks)

 

It doesn't help I set goals if I don't know what to change them to. I cant seem to find any macronutrient ratios on google.

 

EDIT: Okay, changed the C/F/P percentage to 5/80/15.

Edited June 26, 2013 by Helpmytrap

[htone]

Going for a run later today, I unfortunately have a supplementary exam tomorrow so thought I'd skip the ride today. (Studying Electronic Engineering at Tuks)

 

It doesn't help I set goals if I don't know what to change them to. I cant seem to find any macronutrient ratios on google.

 

EDIT: Okay, changed the C/F/P percentage to 5/80/15.

 

Just watch that P number, from own experience I tweaked that too low and suffered overtraining symptoms from it. Keep protein to around 1.2g/kg bodyweight and work the rest from there, it should work out to about 20% protein. Remember if you embark on any physical training programme you are going to need that protein to rebuild muscle... and your heart is all muscle as well.

 

Just as an aside, don't confuse performance improvements due to a changing training regime with performance enhancements due to a change in diet. I am still loathed to ascribe any performance benefits (in terms of max performance) to LCHF. The benefits for me were broader health improvements and the ability to train without carbs. If I think back to when this thread originally started I recall many people first wanting to know if LCHF would make them FASTER rather than looking at the overall health benefits. Just saying

[Helpmytrap]

Just watch that P number, from own experience I tweaked that too low and suffered overtraining symptoms from it. Keep protein to around 1.2g/kg bodyweight and work the rest from there, it should work out to about 20% protein. Remember if you embark on any physical training programme you are going to need that protein to rebuild muscle... and your heart is all muscle as well.

 

Just as an aside, don't confuse performance improvements due to a changing training regime with performance enhancements due to a change in diet. I am still loathed to ascribe any performance benefits (in terms of max performance) to LCHF. The benefits for me were broader health improvements and the ability to train without carbs. If I think back to when this thread originally started I recall many people first wanting to know if LCHF would make them FASTER rather than looking at the overall health benefits. Just saying

Don't worry about protein; at 1.2g/kg I get 74.4g anyway. But I understand, my one training mate picked up a heart problem on stage 1 of the Epic this year because of a protein deficiency in his diet.

 

This brings me to my earlier question, am I overdoing it on the fat? Should I take fat down to 75% and protein up to 20%?

 

I'm not looking to go faster on this diet but more consistent.

 

These goals are at 5/75/20.

Edited June 26, 2013 by Helpmytrap

[Wet Ears]

I was wondering what to do about sugar substitutes, because I really like tea and coffee sweet.

 

Tried stevia tablets, but the taste is not to my taste!

 

Was wondering about using Canderel again, until I read this:

http://www.minds.com/blog/view/39057/the-shocking-story-of-how-aspartame-became-legal

 

So that's out too. (Is there anything Donald Rumsfeld has done in his career that isn't harmful to human life?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What's the thinking on honey for LCHF?

 

BTW: I tried double fat Greek yoghurt with Nomu skinny this morning, mixing the powder directly into the yoghurt (not first blending into milk to make a paste, as I usually do). As long as you keep the hand mixer at low speed the dust cloud isn't too bad.

The taste, however, is very different. Don't know why, but it came out really thick and tasting like chocolate mousse - no yoghurt taste at all. There's my new after dinner ice cream substitute.

Edited June 26, 2013 by Wet Ears

[Wet Ears]

Not entirely sure what happened to my above post as my reply does not seem to factor. In response to the question about sweetners - I just bought Xylitol ("Sweet Nothings" is the name of the brand - Google it) at Woolies - yet to try it but only comes in at 4g carb per tsp which isn't that bad.

 

[wonduhboy]

Not entirely sure what happened to my above post as my reply does not seem to factor. In response to the question about sweetners - I just bought Xylitol ("Sweet Nothings" is the name of the brand - Google it) at Woolies - yet to try it but only comes in at 4g carb per tsp which isn't that bad.

I've done lots of thinking and reading about this. Still not sure about the whole Non-nutritive sweeteners (NNS) debate.

 

The way I see it is that even if the NNS has limited carb(sugar) content, our bodies still see it as sugar.

This then elicits an insulemic response - causing your body to react to the insulin in ways you dont necessarily want.

 

I suppose it depends on why you are moving to this (LCHF) lifestyle. But for me, it's about health, weight-loss and cardio efficiency.

As such I've tried to remove all NNS from my diet.

[tombeej]

Hi tombeej

 

Curious as to why cooking with olive oil is bad - does the heat cause some sort of molecular change (or something of the like) - as I predominantly use olive oil when cooking?

 

Also the cutting of diary, I know milk has loads of carbs/sugar so I pretty much stick with cream. What is the problem with cheese and yoghurt?

 

Is Noakes book not already out, I am pretty sure I have a magazine at home which reviewed the book - will double check this evening and report back.

 

I also have a question on micronutrients - currently I am taking 1 pharmaton tablet (multi vit) plus a magnesium supplement (2 tabs of ultimag) and 1 capsule of salmon oil (omega 3) - is that overkill?

 

Nothing wrong with full fat yoghurt (don't touch low fat sweetened yoghurt with a barge pole) or many cheeses - in moderation.

 

In terms of olive oil, you've got it right - it has a very low smoke point. Once the temp goes above its smoke point it turns nasty (read trans fats). So I seriously advise not cooking with olive oil at all (only good for salads, etc).

 

Avo oil - like olive oil - is very low in polyunsaturates but also has a very high smoke point (well above 250 degrees Celsius), and tastes much nicer than olive oil IMHO. Avo oil is probably the best cooking oil, considering the very high polyunsaturate content of sunflower oil, etc.

[Helpmytrap]

Is this @htone's fat shake you guys were referring to?

 

150 - 200ml full cream milk

50g butter (Kerrygold or similar grass-fed origin)

(Heat the above two in the micro for 1-2 min to soften the butter)

30 - 50ml Coconut Oil (this will be almost solid in winter so you may have to pop into the microwave for a few secs to get it into liquid form)

25 - 35ml Flaxseed Oil (this should always be kept in the fridge, flaxseed is a MCT oil with BP lowering properties)

1 teaspoon Nomu Skinny Hot Chocolate (not the regular variety as that contains sugar)

1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon salt (Pink Himalayan or similar)

2 tbsp cream / heavy cream either added to the mix or used as a topping.

 

Put all of the above into a mixer / food processor for about 1 minute and you are good to go. Pour into your favourite beer mug.

 

I had the flaxseed oil separately as I didn't want to ruin the taste of the shake and instead of microwaving the butter and coconut oil (I avoid microwaves like the plague) I swirled it in a pyrex glass bowl over an open flame on the gas stove.

 

What I can recommend is instead of adding Nomu, substitute it with an espresso. The shake tasted amazing!

[HappyMartin]

On the olive oil thing. Did a holiday recently with an Italian cook. Part of it was cooking classes. He told us to never cook with Olive oil.

[Lotus]

 

 

The way I see it is that even if the NNS has limited carb(sugar) content, our bodies still see it as sugar.

This then elicits an insulemic response - causing your body to react to the insulin in ways you dont necessarily want.

 

 

That's the part I've been wondering about. I can see how that might happen with honey (even as healthy as it is).

 

But NNS? There is no glucose (or whatever it is that triggers the response) - surely it's just a taste enhancer?

 

But maybe I should follow your lead here. I suspect the coffee connoisseurs prefer unsweetened anyway, so maybe they know something about enjoying coffee that I don't yet.