Low carb for new year!

TracyFlick

Ok I can put it off no longer, starting low carbing it tomorrow, have to lose this Christmas belly! Was hoping I could do a food diary here for 2 weeks and then move it to the food diary forum thereafter, when I start to reintroduce complex carbs. I would appreciate any advice from the experts here, as you all know your stuff!

Going to do some cycling and jogging as well. Ok statistics are: Female, 23, 5'7" and starting off at ~10 stone 8lbs, about 5lbs of which has gone on in the last month Would like to be around 9 stone 6lbs by May. Is this achievable?

Have looked at lots of recipes and bought plenty of ingredients so am feeling confident!

Kimia

Hi Tracy, not sure if you can put your diary here, it might be moved into the Food Diary sub-forum but best of luck with the new lifestyle! Best thing to do is to throw up what you plan to eat on a normal day and we can advise you on how it sounds?

Also have you anything in particular that you would like to ask?

TracyFlick

Hi Kimia, thanks for the response. Ok well today I ate:

Breakfast: Homemade thai chicken soup with coconut milk, mushrooms,
ginger and lemongrass (this is nommy!)

Lunch: 200g stir fry pak choi with onions, garlic and cashews.
2 strips of parma ham with cream cheese

In between: 1 portion of steamed broccoli

Dinner: Small pancake made with almond flour, 2 grilled rashers and
scrambled eggs. Sugar free jelly.

I'm trying to eat as many vegetables as possible, and will have more tomorrow, but I guess I'm wondering if the above is ok for weight loss? Also how do low carbers keep it varied? I'm trying to keep things interesting but tips are appreciated!

JackieBurkhart

Well done - that's an impressive day one - great variety.

Do you mind me asking about the almond flour? Is this low carb in some way?

Twenty10

Almond flour is made from ground almonds and as almonds are low carb so is the flour!

TracyFlick - can you post the full recipe for the soup you made?

Kimia

Wow Tracy you're off to a great start! I love the sound of the soup too - can you post up your recipe?

Keeping it varied is hard, I found that you really have to be interested in cooking new things but I love that anyway. Foodgawker is great for finding gorgeous recipes searching by ingredient.

The big paradigm shifter for me in terms of sustainably low carbing is understanding good fats vs. bad fats and therefore learning to really enjoy food using good fats liberally. To do this I had to ditch the silly notion that saturated fat kills.

By good fats I mean: coconut oil, butter, high fat cheeses, cream, animal fats. They can really transform a plain veggie or meat into something really special.

TracyFlick

Hey guys, well I woke up this morning with flu-like symptoms, felt very weak, achy etc, sore throat. Had a weetabix with milk as I literally couldn't stand the thought of anything else, and thought it would be gentle on my stomach. Popped some painkillers and feel a bit better now though, so gonna try keep up the low carbing. Hopfully won't have too much of an effect.

The soup recipe is from the RTE website Link here: http://www.rte.ie/food/2010/0301/chickenandcoconutsoup.html

I used lime rind instead of kaffir lime leaves, and ginger instead of galanghal. Also only used a tiiiiny bit of chilli sauce as couldn't find a sugar free one!

Ooh Foodgawker looks great Kimia, will definitely try some of those recipes!

Twenty10

Thanks for that, unfortunately too many ingredients for me to even contemplate making that recipe!!

This looks good (and easier...);

http://www.rte.ie/food/2008/0129/cauliflowersoup.html

Re your flu like symptons - I'm sure you know that's a sign that your body is getting used to being without carbs/sugar etc. Stick with it and you'll soon get over the feeling bad stage.

Good luck!

Kimia

Yep, think it's called 'carb flu' - when you're getting the sugar crap out of your system although I could be wrong?

I love low carbing - it's so easy but it's also very easy to fall into a food rut too. I never thought I'd be sick of sausages but I am now!