The FastDay Forum

Just eat what you enjoy. There is no way I could sustain eating things I wasn't enjoying long term be it 'healthy' or not!

I enjoy not having diabetes II, which I am strongly disposed for.

For various reasons, a high carb diet doesn't work for me. It makes me feel bad and I believe there are long term effects I will want to avoid.

At the same time, when I experimented with paleo eating, I found that a high protein diet also did not work for me, causing me heart burn and food revulsion.

What was wrong with getting calories from fats? From what I've been reading of late, more fat and less carbs is the way to go!

I would like to get more calories from fats, but I am unsure how best to achieve that!

A few days ago I rendered the fat from a few slices of pork belly, fried a huge heap of spring onions and cabbage on top of that, and mixed it all together well, coating everything in pork fat. It was a most excellent breakfast

The pork belly hadn't been salted or smoked, which I don't enjoy anyway, so it wasn't the processed meat everyone warns you about, but still, I'm thinking lots of fat from four legged animals is not the best way to go about it.

I've tried adding a spoonful of coconut oil to a smoothie, but that was a terrible idea, it gave me the runs.

Even if we can survive without carbs we DO need essential vitamins and minerals found in food with carbohydrates. C-vitamin for example. We can not survive on protein and fat alone without adding essential vitamins and minerals in some form - they just don't exist in meat and oil/butter.

True, and low carb vegetables will meet those needs for under 20g of carbohydrates (that's net carbs for our American friends).

Many people that eat carbs use supplements anyway, and it's quite possible to have a nutrient deficient diet on 3000 calories of any composition.

It was interesting to see that the body's response to fasting is largely a response to carbohydrate restriction, as the same effects were seen with pure fat providing a normal calorie intake without any carbs.

I would like to get more calories from fats, but I am unsure how best to achieve that!

Nuts ! Almonds, walnuts etc have most of their calories as fats. Cheese and egg is >60% calories from fats as is 20% fat beef mince, mackerel and other oily fish.

I think we've all been brainwashed to at lean stuff so it takes a while to figure it out - check for foods with at least as many grams of fat as grams of protein.

Glassmarble: if you tolerate lactose - full-fat milk,butter,cheese will all help to add fat calories, plus coconut oil and macadamia nuts (but these are both expensive). It seems wise to look for high Omega3 oils if you insist on polyunsaturates but I am convinced by the saturated=OK argument for now...

check for foods with at least as many grams of fat as grams of protein.

Thank you, that is a handy tip. I do love cheese, so that shouldn't be so hard. Eggs and more nuts I can maybe do, if I put my mind to it...

Now that I think about it, there was a period where I ate a lot of nut butters and tahin, and I really enjoyed that, and found it easy. I stopped because I got too lazy to bake nut bread. I'll have to start again!

Something that's not too onerous is baking a quick flat bread in the waffle iron from an egg whisked with coconut meal. I should do that, and put almond butter on it.

Glassmarble: if you tolerate lactose - full-fat milk,butter,cheese will all help to add fat calories, plus coconut oil and macadamia nuts (but these are both expensive). It seems wise to look for high Omega3 oils if you insist on polyunsaturates but I am convinced by the saturated=OK argument for now...

I don't tolerate lactose well, but I do okay with butter and cheese, so I will make an effort to eat more of those.

Thank you for the advice.

Oh I am such a happy bunny today!
This thread is emerging with all the excellent messages I have learned and found out to be the safest and most effective way back to my young, slim, healthy self!
Very low carb has been a revelation for me, and I learned about it from the resources I was directed to on the forum. Many thanks for excellent contributions from PhilT and others.
I am still having a few carbs, just to add variety to meals. I have returned to sprouting my own seeds, as I did years ago, and find that the 6 fold increase in volume and incredible nutrient quality hedge my bets, just in case I could be lacking some vitamins and minerals, ( although I doubt I am short of anything).
We are all struggling to shake off the faulty messages we learned over the years, and in my case passed on to many people, in my role as a Registed Nurse. We became hard-wired with certain beliefs.
4 things come to mind.
1) CHO is not a requirement for health.
2) fibre of any kind is not required for a healthy alimentary canal.
3) vitamin C is not required in any great quantities, UNLESS there is a high ingestion of CHO, ergo, reduce CHO, and down goes the requirement for vitamin C. Ill health associated with lack of vitamin C was noticed after a high carbohydrate diet became normal a couple of hundred years ago.
4) saturated animals fats are essential for health.
Sorry for not quoting the references to these points, but they are mentioned in all the Taubes, Harcombe, Lustig, Groves etc etc books being talked about.
Off to tend my mini veggie allotment, only 10 yards away in the kitchen. Lovely sprouted lentils, snow peas, sunflower, radish and brocolli seeds to make my interesting salads, dressed with high fat mayonnaise, and quality muscle meat proteins.
Brilliant ratio of macro nutrients, approximately :- Fat 70%, Protein 25%, CHO 5%.

I wasn't necessarily advocating carbs- which people seem to love or see as an evil devil. I was just suggesting you found things you like to eat, which you now seem to be doing.

I wasn't necessarily advocating carbs- which people seem to love or see as an evil devil. I was just suggesting you found things you like to eat, which you now seem to be doing.

I know, I'm sorry if I seemed defensive. My problem is that I feel I'm fumbling around blind in an undiscovered territory. I don't like cooking, and for years ate whatever I could buy ready-made or semi-ready-made. Public health advice and the culture I live in all reinforce eating the kind of diet I ate, which was very high in grains, starches and sugars.

Now I'm cooking for myself, and want to put into practice what I've learned but find myself at a loss. I know what not to eat, but don't yet know what I like to eat.

Very low carb has been a revelation for me, and I learned about it from the resources I was directed to on the forum. Many thanks for excellent contributions from PhilT and others.

It was thanks to your efforts and to the Peter Attia thread I decided to dig up the forum's wisdom on low carb diets and ask my questions here

I have returned to sprouting my own seeds, as I did years ago, and find that the 6 fold increase in volume and incredible nutrient quality hedge my bets, just in case I could be lacking some vitamins and minerals, ( although I doubt I am short of anything).

I'm very interested in sprouting, but I'm worried it might be difficult. Do you have problems with listeria or mold, and how often to you have to rinse the sprouts/change water?

Glassmarble. I have sprouted in glass jars and plastic trays and food quality wicker baskets over the years, but the kitchen gets cluttered up with them. When I had enough money, I invested in an automatic electric sprinkler, ( £80, ouch!!!), which just uses 4 watts, and is fantastic. It has sections to do a batch of 4 types at any one time. But I fell out of love with it because some of the very little seeds clogged up the mechanism, and when I saw some mold over one particularly hot week, that was it! I went off the idea. But, I got it out of retirement, and I have sterilised the whole thing, and am scrupulously clean with it. The seeds are so fresh and healthy. I have books on the subject, but there are lots of informative sites on internet to keep you on track regarding safety and how to go about sprouting the various types.
Of course I don't advertise the fact that I do this sort of thing, as people think I am crackers enough, but I think it is marvelous, living in the food desert where I live in!
E.g a small box of sprouted green lentils @ £1.49 in the foodie shops, is produced from about 30g of dry lentils, just a few coppers.

That does sound very cool, an automatic sprinkler to take out a lot of the work

The sprouts you make yourself are certainly cheaper, but the initial investment makes it something to consider carefully. I was looking at a package of broccoli seeds at the supermarket, and they're quite expensive, so it's a big outlay.

But it would be wonderful to be able to have sprouts whenever I wanted!