Re: confussing advice
Hi Allyx
First off - sorry if I seem to be hassling you! I'm not - I know you're very busy.
I think I may be inclined to agree with you, that an atkins-type diet is not necessarily overloaded with fat. The emphasis is, don't avoid fat, preferably obtained from unprocessed sources.
My fat intake comes from: butter; cheese; olive oil; Hellman's full-fat mayonnaise (the low-fat has sugar in it - makes your point perfectly); eggs; semi-skimmed milk (2 pints per week, for coffee); cream (but prob no more than 2 tbspns 3 times a week max.); 1 avocado about once a fortnight; oily fish at least twice a week; I don't cut fat off meat, and I eat hot and crispy poultry skin but can't bear it cold!
I also take 1 x 1000mg Omega 3 oil capsule, and 2 teaspoons flax oil, daily.
All the meat and poultry I buy is locally produced, and as free-range as I can get it (eggs too), though not necessarily organic. Our fell-raised lamb and native-breed beef is superb, and I buy rare breed free range pork. I eat (farmed) venison casserole at least once a month.
All the above translates into 2 eggs daily; no more than 4oz cheese, probably every other day; I fry with butter or olive oil or sometimes lard, depending what I'm frying, but I never fry very hot (except omelettes); I prefer to let things cook thoroughly and quite gently. Besides, I hate cleaning frying splashes off the cooker (I hate cleaning the cooker :shock: ).
Breakfast is almost always a 2-egg omelette, cooked in about half-an-ounce (10 - 15g)of butter.
Lunch is usually a salad (lettuce, 6 - 8 cherry toms, 6 - 8 radishes, maybe about 2 inches of cucumber, a couple of slices of red or orange pepper, a stick of celery) with whatever cold meat I have, or a tin (130g-ish) of tuna in sunflower oil with the oil drained off, or smoked salmon, or mackerel, and 1 - 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise. If I have an avocado salad it's a whole avocado, with flax-seed oil and cider vinegar dressing instead of the mayonnaise.
Evening meal is meat or poultry with either another salad or hot veg. Hot veg is usually broccoli and/or cauliflower, sometimes a few carrots. Butter on the veg - maybe 25g? sometimes mayonnaise too
but not as much as at lunchtime.
Meat portions - well, a chicken will usually last me 5 meals; a portion of red meat, eg in a stir-fry, will be about 6oz raw weight; the same for fish. I'll eat 3 or 4 pork sausages at a sitting, but they are always the lowest carb I can find - 1 or 2 g per sausage. I've no idea of the fat content. I fry them slowly with a little bit of lard. Sausages less than once a week.
Sometimes I make an enormous ratatouille (2 tablespoons olive oil is the only fat) and eat it once or twice with grated cheese (1.5oz?), then bake a piece of tuna or salmon in some, or sausages or a pork steak.
I will very occasionally eat bread (Tesco wholemeal multigrain, which doesn't affect my bg as long as it's occasionally. I freeze a small sliced loaf and pull out 2 slices at a time.). I eat either oatcakes or ryvita almost every day, one or two, with butter. I butter the ryvita on the holes not the smooth side!
Snacks are a bit of cheese (1 - 2oz), or a few nuts and seeds. I don't snack every day. I have one small apple daily. At this time of year I eat most fruit - strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, apricots, nectarines, greengages - but only one large portion daily. That's where the cream comes in! I also occasionally eat 'live' Greek yoghurt, sheep or goat if I can get it, for the good of my gut.
I probably eat more at my meals than most "normal" people. I also used to drink heavily, a bottle of red wine a day - when I think back I don't see how I survived, though I did try not to drink the night before I had any distance driving to do, and I never drink after about 8pm - I drink before eating and not after. Alcohol takes 48 hours to clear the bloodstream, if I remember correctly, and once you've drunk enough to be over the limit you need at least 12 hours without it before you are legal to drive in the UK.
The trouble is that the alcohol leads to overeating, apart from its own calorie content. It could be that it was not drinking when doing Atkins the first time that did the job - certainly weight loss this time is much slower, even though I am now only drinking at a weekend, and then only one bottle. I'm trying to stay off it completely - I know I can, I've done it before - but I do like it! I have noticed, whatever it does to my bg levels at the time, that they are just a little higher during the day when I'm drinking in the evenings, than when I'm not. My incentive to stay off the wine at the moment is my next HbA1c on June 20th.
I'll do a food diary next week, and calorie count, just for interest. If you'd like to see it (when you've time) I'd appreciate your comments.
There! another 10-page essay :wink: :roll: Sorry
Viv 8)