Low-carb diets support thread

mazzers

No. i wasnt aware of the flaxseed bg link. Thanks for that.

My friend has had days off too but i know i was surprised last year when looking back for a recipe, how many 'days off' i actually had

Alias, it would help if you could actually cook the bread that i used to make makes a great pizza, also, oopsies with a burger and cheese slice and sliced gherkin?

That bread is really easy ( if a bit fiddly with the kneading) and makes a great sarnie along with a pkt of pork scratchings.
Unfortunately, its still down for maintenance and dont think i copied the recipe but will look tomorrow.
Heres the link incase you wanna check if its back up.
http://www.low-carb.org.uk/

There's the lasagne, very like the real thing, also, the dreamfields pasta to go with a bol sauce.

Always_Harassed

Morning all. Hope you are all feeling refreshed and looking forward to new week. Those of you that are mums hope your day is good.

aliasojo

mazzers wrote: »

Alias, it would help if you could actually cook................

I know. :rotfl:

It's akin to pulling teeth for me though, I find it so boring and tedious. Give me a plank of wood anyday.

Mmmmm, wonder if Sarah Beeny cooks? :rotfl:

As is always the case, I tend to do things for the kids that I wont do for myself so I guess I'd better start taking note of easy (and quick!) things to do and start cooking for real.

Site's still down but I'll keep checking.

sistercas

mazzers wrote: »

the dreamfields pasta to go with a bol sauce.

mazzers where do you get the dreamfields pasta?

think I've got some choc coming my way today I heard the DD's arguing about wrapping them up :cool: of course they watch you eat every choc ( except the ones that they will trough )

feeling a bit more in control now after my PMT, going out for a meal today , dug my 'smart' trousers out of mothballs yesterday to wear and they are way too big :j so now going out in my jeans

Alias I sometimes have prawn cocktail from the co-op (2.3g carbs per 100g) with salad and crispbread
or bacon and mushroom butties with oopsies,
smothered chicken is nice too ( chicken breast grilled or oven baked then spread a dot of bbq sauce ( not low carb so just a bit but needed for flavour) a slice of cooked bacon on top grated cheese on that and stick under the grill for a few mins or back in the oven for 5 mins ) its lovely and tasty and great with turnip chips:D

aliasojo

sistercas wrote: »

.........dug my 'smart' trousers out of mothballs yesterday to wear and they are way too big .......

:T Whoooo! Good when that happens isn't it?

From what I can remember. :rotfl:

mazzers

Yay, sistercas on having too big troosers.

I got the dreamfields pasta from lowcarbmegastore
is like normal pasta but only a small amount is allowed, and you have to be sure you dont go past al-dente as the carbs go up (think its 12 mins cooking)
saw it on a USA site and they were raving about it, i expect they pay peanuts for it from the local store, its expensive here and only worth ordering if your having quite a few cos of the postage.
Personally, i'd rather eat summat else cos of the price

Alias that site has been down for aaages, am gutted i didnt copy it, thought being on my favourites was enough
It does require gluten though and that is only available online (lcmegastore)

I have found an amazingly interesting blog by an American lady who is insulin resistant and she has discovered some interesting and conflicting facts about lc, i will post the basics later and a link for anyone who is interested.

Gers

Had my breakfast and coconut oil and now ready to face the world.

Have you decided which one of the 9 obstacles is holding you back? Or is it a combination?

1. Information - I don't know what to do and I don't know where to find out

2. Skill - I don't yet have the skills I need to succeed in this area

3. Belief - this is impossible or at best unlikely to ever work/happen. Other people might be able to do this but it's just not possible or likely for me

4. Wellbeing - I'm way too stressed/tired/unwell to deal with this

5. Other People - my boss/spouse/children/friend etc makes it difficult for me. It's just not up to me

6. Motivation - I just don't care enough/I can't seem to get started/I can't seem to create or sustain any motivation

7. Time - There's not enough time in the day

8. Money - I'd love to but I don't think I can afford to

9. Fear - I feel sick at the thought of pushing myself through this

Yesterday I ate my birthday present of chocolate which has been in the back of my car since I got back.... however, my house is now a sin-free place and so it will remain!

I spit in the face of temptation, albeit with Hotel Chocolate breath.

mazzers

Found this recipe for crackers if anyone wants to try them
They sound great.

These are so gorgeous, have them with butter, cheese or pat!.

Ingredients:

• 100g ground almonds
• 100g sesame seeds
• 50g butter
• 1 egg white

Mix all the ingredients together well to form a paste. Line a shallow tin with non-stick baking parchment. Spread the mixture thinly over the bottom of the tin, score into 12 portions and bake at 175°C for 10 minutes or so until the crackers are golden and crispy.
Let them cool on a rack. 0.7g carb

aliasojo

I suggest everyone ignore Mazzers last recipe. I actually made these once. I ate the lot in one go, they were so moreish. Will not be making them again. :rotfl:

mazzers

A brief summary of what i was reading earlier...


It's absolutely mind-blowing to me that the very basic principles of low-carb that are held onto so tightly by the low-carb community, do not fit my own experience with all of this.

Now maybe that's because we are all individuals, and react differently to various foods and macronutrients. But...when the very foundation you've been standing on for months, and even decades (since I first was introduced to Dr. Atkins and low-carb living way back in the 70s), is ripped out from beneath you, you kinda feel a bit let down.

Okay. What am I talking about? I'm talking about the fact that when you lower your carbs, you automatically lower your blood sugar, and thereby lower your insulin. Right?

WRONG.

Or, at least, that doesn't hold true if you lower your carbs down to biologically zero. Which makes me kinda mad, because to those of us who are sitting on the fence of pre-diabetes, that's very important information to have and KNOW "before" one embarks into zero carb territory.

Now...was that stuff withheld deliberately? No. The ignorance sits on both sides of the fence it seems.

I lasted 5 weeks on zero carb. And even though my original intent wasn't to go that low, that's still what I ended up doing.
Biologically zero carbs.

When I began that journey, my basal blood glucose was around 84. With my blood sugars not ever going up higher than 120 (even on as many as 100 to 150 carbs per day) provided I stayed away from gluten. I DID have problems before my gluten intolerance was discovered, but absolutely no problems since then. So I was of the mind-set that my problems were in direct relation to gluten sensitivity.

The first week without carbs I felt absolutely great. My energy increased, my sinuses improved, my digestion issues went away. My teeth felt cleaner, and the pain I was having in a broken tooth went completely away.

But after that first week things started to do an about face. Slowly, I started to go down hill. Starting with not feeling very well, and suddenly having to endure a lot of tiredness. Excessive tiredness. Which at first, I thought was just because my body had run out of glucose and was trying to convert to burning fatty acids predominantly.

WHY DOESN'T LOW CARB AND/OR ZERO CARB WORK FOR ME?

What one person found was that sometimes it's a problem about eating too much fat. Sometimes it's a problem with eating too much protein. And sometimes it's a problem with eating too much food in general.

I tried cutting down on my protein. I cut it by 50% yesterday, because I wanted to clearly see, real quick like, if excess protein really is converted into glucose as they say.

I ate a normal low-carb breakfast of sausage and eggs. A few carbs for lunch, about 24, rather than protein. And a mixed dinner of a 4oz hamburger pattie and another 24 carbs.

My bloodsugar before dinner was 93
My bloodsugar one hour after dinner was 103
My bloodsugar two hours after dinner was 92
My bloodsugar three hours after dinner was 91

So protein most definitely is converted into glucose. No doubt about that. At least in MY body. But...I woke up in the middle of the night, about 3 am, extremely hungry. So cutting it down as much as I did was obviously too much. Plus I'm not beyond the idea that I ate too many carbs. But it did show me, that excess protein is definitely an issue. But I ran into an interesting post by someone who has type 1 Diabetes. She said she has to inject 8 units of insulin to cover a normal 12oz steak. Yet she only has to inject 3 units of insulin to cover a meal of 45 carbs.

Now that caught my attention, because it means that protein raises insulin HIGHER than carbs do!!!!

And that's exactly what I'm finding in myself. Now whether that is a different rule of the game because I have pre-diabetes, and am post-menopause, or whether that is true for everybody, I don't know. What I do know is that for me, carbs are not the bad guy. And that they affect my blood sugars way less than protein does.

It's my current understanding that carbs are converted to glucose, which is then burned for energy. What isn't burned is sent to the liver, converted to glycogen, and then stored in the liver/muscles. It's only when the storage depots are full that carbs are stored as fat. Perhaps when glycogen stores are low, they get more preferential treatment. Maybe only a part of the carbs we eat are converted to glucose and burned
I sat there staring at high blood sugars and a roll of belly fat that was continuing to accumulate. But it didn't make any sense, because low carb was supposed to be about burning fat for energy. Not protein. It was supposed to be about taking a different metabolic pathway. That's what the Atkins' books all told me. That's what all the folks in the low carb community kept telling me. Yet I was firmly, and solidly in glycolysis.
But then, after about a month, I started having SERIOUS issues. The Neuropathy had resurrected itself, and I started having heart palpitations. Not a good sign. Because it meant I was waaay above my blood glucose threshold.

BUT HOW COULD THAT BE????

I wasn't eating any carbs for heaven's sake. I was just eating meat and eggs. Insulin should be basal. Blood sugar should be low. But my body was telling me that it wasn't.

About that time, I read on one of the zero carb forums that B, the original zero-carb guru, had told folks that protein is not converted to glucose through gluconeogenesis except under starvation or emergency conditions, and that his blood sugar constantly ran in the 100s all of the time. That the goal of zero carb wasn't low blood sugar, but stable blood sugar.

At which time, I thought...SAY WHAT????

At a blood glucose level over 100, stable or not, insulin doesn't shut off! Because it sees that degree of blood glucose as a threat!

I took what the BodyBuilding community would call a "complete diet break."

During the break, I ate absolutely anything I wanted. And within a few days my blood sugars completely normalized!!!!!

Considering all of the insulin-blood sugar theories running around these days, that didn't make any sense to me, but that's what happened. At zero carbs my blood sugars were going through the roof, and at 150 carbs a day, or so, they were back down in the mid 80s.


Ooops.. did i say 'brief'