Daily Mail Live Below the Line Article

GreyQueen

AnnieO1234 wrote: »

That sounds like an interesting diet GreyQueen although I'm not sure I could get in board with that much liver! Xxx

It's a protein which has fallen out of fashion, which is a shame as it's incredibly good for you and a lot cheaper than chips. My two chunks of liver wrapped in bacon for tonight's supper are each about 1.5 inches long and narrower than they are long. The density of the nutrients is what keeps you going.

Scrimps

GreyQueen wrote: »

[/I]I'm eating along the lines recommended in a book called Primal Blueprint - probably available in your public library but you can get all the info off the excellent blog by the author http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

I read marks blog a lot and am trying to go primal myself. Its the discipline I am lacking. I first looked into primal well over a year ago as I would almost faint if I didnt eat every couple of hours which I knew wasnt right. I was starting a job as a healthcare assistant and knew that eating every few hours in a 12.5 hour shift just wasnt going to be possible. I had some success but have gone back to old habits. I think about food all the time and easy reach carbs/sugar are my go to when just mildly stressed. I am fully sold on the science behind it, my newly diabetic cat is on a 'primal' diet - no kibble for him! But myself....its easier to take good care of other people? - edit to say 'beings' rather than people...yes crazy cat lady enough to think of them as people

Its interesting about your appetite, I have been told I have the appetite of a labrador :rotfl: but that youre able to do it that well and frugally is an inspiration :T I really need to re-evaluate this for myself

right now though.....off to get the mac 'n' cheese from the oven:o

GreyQueen

I get the shakes if I eat a high-carb diet and then have to eat every couple of hours and still feel hungry and wobbly if I don't eat. Plus it triggers sugar cravings which is how I gained several stone of overweight, which I am intending to shift in the next 18 months or so - slow and steady wins the day.

For me, not having to eat constantly and not having to try to resist cakes, chocolate, biscuits, sweeties etc is wonderful. Spent a couple of days last week next to a workplace buffet which was essentially sugar in many forms and it was just a case of glancing at indifferently, totally not interested. It wasn't a case of exercising will-power, I just had no interest in it.

That's an immense change for me.

ariba10

I had a donkey once and I taught it to live without eating.

Just as it was getting the hang of it it died!

GreyQueen

ariba10 wrote: »

I had a donkey once and I taught it to live without eating.

Just as it was getting the hang of it it died!

Heh! Just for that I'm going to tell you another donkey joke.

Farmer John and Farmer Dave meet at a livestock market.

John; D'you want to buy a donkey, Dave?

Dave; No.

John; It's a really good donkey, c'mon, it's in the trailer, at least have a look at it?

* The two men go across to John's livestock trailer. He lets down the back and, sure enough, there is a donkey. Lying down in the straw.*

Dave: It's DEAD!!!

John: Yeah, I know, but it's still a really good donkey, wanna buy it?

Dave; NO!!! I didn't want to buy a donkey AT ALL but I particularly don't want to buy a DEAD donkey, you daft git! *Dave storms off*

Fast-forward one week to the next livestock market when Dave and John bump into each other again.

Dave: So what did you do with that donkey in the end?

John; Sold it. Got £500.

Dave; £500?! How the hell did you get £500 for it?

John; Raffled it, £1 a ticket and sold 500 tickets.

Dave; Did you tell them it was a DEAD donkey?

John; Only the winner, mate, only the winner.........

Bathory

GreyQueen, can I ask if you had any problems adjusting when you first went onto the low carb diet? I did low carb for a few days not long ago and had awful fatigue and brain 'fogginess'. Having eaten a lot of bread all my life I have noted that nothing seems filling the older I get and I've gained a lot of weight over the years. I broke off the low carb but really want to give it a go again as all this weight I currently carry is not good.

GreyQueen

Bathory wrote: »

GreyQueen, can I ask if you had any problems adjusting when you first went onto the low carb diet? I did low carb for a few days not long ago and had awful fatigue and brain 'fogginess'. Having eaten a lot of bread all my life I have noted that nothing seems filling the older I get and I've gained a lot of weight over the years. I broke off the low carb but really want to give it a go again as all this weight I currently carry is not good.

Not as such. I should explain that I have had CFS for 30 years and a rare life-threatening metabolic disorder requiring constant medication, and I'm going thru the menopause right now and I was 5 stone overweight (just over 4 stone now!) so odds are stacked against me. Brain fog is no stranger to my world.

I am presently eating precisely two slices of wholemeal bread per week, as a pal buys me a fancy-schmancy sarnie one day of the week. Other than that, I haven't eaten any bread for 7 weeks, and have had only a small amount of pasta (because I'm finishing up an opened packet) and a very few spuds.

I've always had a metabolism which hasn't run well on carbs. Even as a child I would be ravenous by 10 am if I'd had just bread or just cereal for breakfast, I very much need a protein like eggs or meat to keep me going. Lots of jokes about first breakfast and second breakfast and having a hobbit metabolism. Interestingly, my Dad is the same and we share the low blood-pressure/ very low resting heart rate, bro and I inheriting it from Dad, and he from his Dad. My resting heat rate has been recorded as low as 40 bpm and my postural hypotension has scared the stuffing out of nurses before now.

I originally read the Primal Blueprint book a few years ago and it made sense to me. But I got cold feet, because it seemed so outre and different from conventional dietary advice. But the conventional idea of building your diet around carbs and limiting saturated fats for health is increasingly being revealed to be a crock of s**t due to a partial and highly selective reading of research data. It's that damned sugar which is wrecking people's health.

I also had concerns about it being too difficult to follow, about people thinking I was weird, about it being too expensive. Heck, what if I don't get enough roughage and get horribly consitipated - lots of anxieties like that.:rotfl:

All the foods I've bought in March and April have been whole foods, but I am still eating some non-PB type things because I have them already and I'm not wealthy enough to chuck them/ donate them. I'm probably about 70% on a PB diet right now. Target will be to be about 80-90% eventually.

Experiences thus far; I eliminated the utterly uncontrollable sugar cravings which were causing me to binge on confectionery and gain lots of weight. Willpower failed and had been failing for decades, I just don't want that stuff any more.

I also stopped spending the last half of the morning ravenously hungry and only have a handful of mixed nuts for my lunch. Then, my energy doesn't crash, taking down my patience and my mood before the end of my mid-afternoon shift. I come out of work and don't feel hungry and then get to about 6 or 7 pm and start to think about getting some supper. A few nights, just wasn't at all hungry and skipped the meal altogether.

I no longer get the brain fogginess and the shakes I had when eating a conventional diet containing lots of wholegrain starches, and I sleep better, too.

Some people do find the first couple of weeks switching to a low carb diet leaves them feeling horrible. It isn't a defect of the diet, it's your metabolism adjusting to a different kind of fuel. If you don't feel able to cold-turkey on grains, wean yourself off them slowly. It's a lifestyle, not a fad diet, and many many people are finding it helpful. HTH.

Bathory

Thank you GreyQueen, that was very helpful.

I'm due at the doctors next week as I've had fluctuating high blood pressure this past year or so and know I'm gonna get told off for not losing any weight like they have advised. I think its best like you said that I cut the carbs slowly as the 'full on Atkins type of approach' floored me.

I'm sure I'm like many folk that have grown up on toast and cereals for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and an evening meal that's padded out with more slices of bread. My weakness is not so much chocolate but an addiction to doughy things like brioche, cakes and pastries but it all bloats me out like a beach ball. :eek:

You have done very well to lose a stone without feeling hungry and its slow weight loss too which is the best kind. My mind is done with all this 'lose 6 stone in 6 months' as it would most likely all go back on, and also the low fat diets that always started Monday and would be over and done with by about 2 days later.

GreyQueen

I had a serious addiction to bread, too. 800g loaf of bread in one sitting? Nooooo problems with that. And cakes and pastries, yum. Is that a cheesecake or a lemon meringue pie I see before me?

I realised some time ago that I had gone beyond having a sweet tooth and into the realms of sugar addiction. When you can't stop yourself buying a serves 16 party cake and eating it all in one or two sittings, even though it makes you feel sick, you're not in Kansas any more. :(

Because of my shakiness when eating sugary stuff, and shakiness between my very frequent meals and snacks, I was very afraid that I was trending towards type 2 diabetes. Intellectually, I knew what I needed to do (lay off the sweeties) but I seemed totally incapable of doing it.

As a healthy young adult, I never weighed more than 10.5 stone. I would settle for circa 11 stone (was just over 16 stone on 3rd March) and think it would be possible to get there in a year or 18 months.

Bathory

I hope I manage to break my sugar addiction like you have done. That would be wonderful and although the days when I had a 25 inch waist (sigh) may not be doable I certainly hope to get somewhere by cutting carbs down.