Health & Family My low carb weight loss journal (LCHF)

Been insanely busy over the past few weeks, so haven't been able to keep on top of things as well as I'd like.

Plus school holidays and a week of taking the kids out, plus a couple of kids birthday parties (close family friends plus my daughter), all makes it difficult to follow an optimal diet.

I've been having difficulty with hunger levels for the past few weeks and I've only just worked out what the problem is. I'm not eating enough fat! I've spent some time thinking back over what I've been eating and it's been a lot lower in fat than what I would normally have, so I'm not getting that "I really don't need to eat now" feeling and so tend to snack more than I find ideal.

I actually blame my mother-in-law partly for that - the in-laws have been staying with us for the past 6 weeks (other than the 2nd week of the school holidays when they went to stay with their other daughter instead) - and my MIL has been doing most of the cooking in the evenings. Now, she is very much a follower of a low-fat, low-salt, not-much-protein kind of diet - which I find I struggle with because you need to eat a large amount of food to fill you up, and then you're hungry again a few hours later. It may work for some people - but it simply doesn't work for me.

So I'm looking forward to getting back into a more normal routine and I need to spend some time thinking about how I'm going to increase my fat intake to make sure I'm not snacking and can start aiming for one meal a day several times a week, rather than the 2-3 meals plus snacks I've been eating.

Interestingly, although my weight has plateaued a bit in recent weeks, my waist hasn't and I've lost 7.5cm off my waist now since I started measuring again towards the end of May.



I've experienced this in the past where my weight loss would pause for a bit and then I'd lose a few cm off my waist before the weight loss started up again - so perhaps I'm just going through an extended period of body composition changes or something? Not sure - but it is rather interesting.

I have been doing a bit more walking of late and trying to get more incidental exercise - even though I haven't had time to do any real exercise at higher intensity. So perhaps I'm just converting fat into muscle which might explain the weight plateau while still losing fat around the waist?

I'm also going through a bit of a change in the way I eat - I've been finding that dairy isn't agreeing with me as much as it used to (or perhaps it always disagreed with me but I just didn't notice it!) - so finding alternative sources of fat (other than cream which I have relied on to this point) that I can work into my diet is a new challenge I face.

I also want to try some longer fasting periods - but I need to do some more planning and find time to try some meals to help with that strategy so I don't simply end up starving.

 

I've not done any real research into this side of things - but I've developed a theory on why some people struggle to adapt to burning fat for fuel and weaning themselves off carbohydrates - liver function.

As we know, once your body stops being fuelled primarily from the carbs you ingest, it turns to fat for fuel.

But the body still needs glucose - and so it is the liver which is called upon to convert the glycogen stores into glucose it can then send to the muscles and the brain and whatever else needs it.

Now I'm wondering what happens to your body's ability to perform this task if your liver function is somewhat diminished for whatever reason? If the liver isn't able to generate enough glucose for your brain - you'll get brain fogs. If your liver isn't able to generate enough glucose for your muscles - they will be unable to perform at the level you need them to.

I also don't know how quickly the liver can perform this task and if there is a limit as to how much glucose the liver can deliver if your demands are high enough?

So while it's true that you don't need carbs for energy - I think if you are exercising at a high enough intensity (or perhaps if your liver function is impaired somehow), your liver may not be able to provide all of the glucose your muscles need, regardless of how much fat you have available - once your glycogen stores run out, then you'll basically hit the wall.

Tim Noakes did some research with distance runners and found that even the most lean ultra-marathon runners still had enough latent body fat naturally stored to supply fuel for around 2 hours of race-pace running before they needed to supplement their energy stores. So we're basically talking about being able to theoretically run a full marathon (at record pace) without actually consuming any fuel at all - as in, wake up, and then run a marathon without eating anything before or during the race. Now I'm not sure anyone is actually doing this - but it is theoretically possible.

But then you get elite cyclists who are riding for 5-6 hours during a stage race, quite often at extreme levels of intensity. Even those athletes known to be eating low carb (Froome / Bardet etc), I'm sure would be ingesting glucose or other forms of carbs during the race to help keep their glycogen stores topped up. I very much doubt they are relying on fat/protein alone. But of course, these examples are at the extreme end.

Anyway - I guess my point is that I think there's more to it than simply "your body can run perfectly fine on protein and fat" - I suspect that there may be other factors at play which determine how effectively an individual's body is able to cope in a very low carb environment and I wonder how much the function of the liver has to do with that? Just speculating.

 

Do you drink much alcohol? I'm wondering if that may have an impact - if the liver is busy cleansing the alcohol from your system, it may struggle to function optimally for glucose generation? Again - I'm only speculating here - I don't know if that's the way the liver works and haven't done any research.

 

You would love Mexico. Chicharrón (Which is the pork skin in Mexico, but elsewhere in Latin America it's just deep fried pork) is available everywhere, often in big sheets. It can be eaten with lime and chilli, hot salsa of avocado. In Mexico it's always light, without hard bits. The stuff available in Australia is often nowhere near as good, but will do.

There's a big Mexican influence in Phillipine cooking, so can be made there.

For something as crunchy and good as this, it almost seems sacrilegious to cook it in liquid, but the Mexicans cook it in green salsa.

 

Sorry, that should have been "or" avocado. It's optional!

The Mexican one is plain, you add what you want. It's not even salted, like many packets. It can be bought in supermarkets or street markets in sheets.

It's apparently possible to make it yourself, though it takes time. How to Make Chicharrones at Home

 

There's no fat attached to the Mexican one. You didn't mention that before. It's made from the fat, with most of the fat rendered off, so is completely dry, but very light and crispy.

 

The past month has been incredibly busy - haven't had time to focus on working out ways to break through this plateau I'm in, nor to do any serious exercise or to find more recipes I can try.

After struggling with progress I've come to the realisation that I've found myself not feeling as full/satisfied as I normally do, which has lead to more snacking between meals and I think feeling like I need to eat more at mealtime.

I think I've been struggling to find ways to add more fat to my diet, especially since I'm not having as much dairy as I have previously (I'm beginning to think that my guts aren't especially fond of dairy). Previously I tended to rely on cream for the bulk of my fat intake - but I'm not sure that's the best choice for my body.

I don't drink coffee - so bulletproof coffee isn't an option.

However, I did try making something I found was surprisingly good - I call it a liquid bounty bar.

Basically 1 square of Lindt 78% dark chocolate (10g for 2.2g carbs and 4.8g fat) plus 100ml of Bulla pure cream "pouring style" (3.1g carbs, 45% fat content, so 45g fat), place in a mug and heat in the microwave until cream is hot (don't let it boil!), and then stir in about 20g of extra virgin coconut oil (20g fat) until melted and mixed through.

This is very filling, only about 5.4g of carbs total for nearly 70g of fat and the coconut taste isn't overpowering - blends well with the dark chocolate (hence the "bounty bar" name).

I need to try adjusting the mix a bit to see how low I can go on the cream and still make it work.

I did try it once using olive oil rather than coconut oil, but it just tasted like I'd crushed some leaves or grass into it - wasn't that pleasant.

I've ordered some silicone ice cube trays (used for creating ball shaped ice), which I'm going to try using to make fat bombs - but I'm not sure how edible they are going to be.