Tracking Carbs/sugars
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How do you know about the fats and lower protein? First I've heard of it.... There's a nutritionist telling me to cut back on my fats... My goal was 30% fats 35% of the other two...
I've done quite a bit of research on the matter. One of the big reasons most people who fail on low carb do so is because they replace the carbs with protein instead of fat. This is in no small part due to doctors being stuck in the 70s and encouraging "low-fat." Combining low-fat with low-carb is downright dangerous, due to the risk of protein poisoning (aka rabbit starvation), and at best, it's a road to sustainability failure, because the body will actively cause cravings for fat or carbs that are insatiable by anything else.
Protein is for building and repairing tissue, not fuel. That's what carbs and fat are for. Get enough protein to maintain lean mass (.5-1g/lb of lean body mass).
Fat is essential for hormone function, cell building, and neural function. You need at least .45g/lb of total bodyweight.
For any leftover calories, you can fill in with fat or carbs how you see fit. For those with PCOS or metabolic disorders, I suggest capping at about 100g of carbs, filling the rest with fat, and getting your carbs primarily from non-starchy vegetables.
And no, saturated fat is not bad. The only hands-down bad fat there is is artificial trans fat. Some saturated fats, like the lauric acid found in coconut oil, has actually been shown to improve all the things conventional wisdom claims saturated fats worsen. Get your fats from a variety of sources, including animals and cold-pressed plant sources (namely olive, coconut, avocado, and nut oils).
I recommend checking out Dr. Peter Attia's talk on the history of the politics around saturated fat, and his blog on the details of how low-carb/high-fat improves health:
http://eatingacademy.com/how-low-carb-diet-reduced-my-risk-of-heart-disease0 -
I've totally been reading like every post you and the others have made in here for the last year lol. I think that once our budget evens back out and I can afford good food again (hoping to find some cheap produce at the farmers market this weekend if I can get my hubby up lol) I'm going to give this a try. Carbs are my all time fav so it's hard, but I think manageable with some substitutions I'm already ok with doing (zoodles and spaghetti squash), it's getting the fats in that I'm having trouble with...0
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I've totally been reading like every post you and the others have made in here for the last year lol. I think that once our budget evens back out and I can afford good food again (hoping to find some cheap produce at the farmers market this weekend if I can get my hubby up lol) I'm going to give this a try. Carbs are my all time fav so it's hard, but I think manageable with some substitutions I'm already ok with doing (zoodles and spaghetti squash), it's getting the fats in that I'm having trouble with...
Eggs and butter are good, fairly cheap sources of fat (egg yolks are actually mostly fat, the whites are where most of the protein is). Fatty cuts of meat also help to up the fat ratio, and they tend to be cheaper (this is especially true for organ meats, which are packed with nutrients and fats, but aren't in much demand).
Also, talk with the farmers at your farmer's market, and see if you can get any scrap fats from the animals they butcher. Most of the time, they'll give you all you want for free (and maybe a look like you have three eyes, but oh well), and you can render them into lard (pork fat), tallow (cattle fat), or schmaltz (poultry fat). Things like duck fat is actually quite valuable, so if you can get the unrendered form from a farmer, you've basically struck gold. As an added bonus, you get what essentially amounts to pork rinds (a great snack with lots of proteins and fats) as a byproduct of rendering the fat. Then, include it in most/all of your cooking -- cook things in it, coat things in it after cooking (grilled asparagus coated in lard and butter = delight), add it to smoothies or whatever (well, the lighter tasting fats, anyway).
Also, if you can swing it, cream is a great way to add fats, but it can be pricier. Replace part or all of the milk/liquid in a recipe with cream and you've just seriously racked up the fat content (and richness) of that item. Once you've had a smoothie with cream instead of milk, you will never want to go back!
ETA - oh, and harvest the marrow from the bones in some of those cuts of meat. That's that squishy stuff in the round bones in some bone-in steaks. It makes a great (rich!) spread or dip, and it's packed with fats and nutrients.0 -
I've totally been reading like every post you and the others have made in here for the last year lol. I think that once our budget evens back out and I can afford good food again (hoping to find some cheap produce at the farmers market this weekend if I can get my hubby up lol) I'm going to give this a try. Carbs are my all time fav so it's hard, but I think manageable with some substitutions I'm already ok with doing (zoodles and spaghetti squash), it's getting the fats in that I'm having trouble with...
Eggs and butter are good, fairly cheap sources of fat (egg yolks are actually mostly fat, the whites are where most of the protein is). Fatty cuts of meat also help to up the fat ratio, and they tend to be cheaper (this is especially true for organ meats, which are packed with nutrients and fats, but aren't in much demand).
Also, talk with the farmers at your farmer's market, and see if you can get any scrap fats from the animals they butcher. Most of the time, they'll give you all you want for free (and maybe a look like you have three eyes, but oh well), and you can render them into lard (pork fat), tallow (cattle fat), or schmaltz (poultry fat). Things like duck fat is actually quite valuable, so if you can get the unrendered form from a farmer, you've basically struck gold. As an added bonus, you get what essentially amounts to pork rinds (a great snack with lots of proteins and fats) as a byproduct of rendering the fat. Then, include it in most/all of your cooking -- cook things in it, coat things in it after cooking (grilled asparagus coated in lard and butter = delight), add it to smoothies or whatever (well, the lighter tasting fats, anyway).
Also, if you can swing it, cream is a great way to add fats, but it can be pricier. Replace part or all of the milk/liquid in a recipe with cream and you've just seriously racked up the fat content (and richness) of that item. Once you've had a smoothie with cream instead of milk, you will never want to go back!
ETA - oh, and harvest the marrow from the bones in some of those cuts of meat. That's that squishy stuff in the round bones in some bone-in steaks. It makes a great (rich!) spread or dip, and it's packed with fats and nutrients.
Not knocking it, but ewe lol. I've always hated the organs, my parents once tried to trick me into thinking liver was steak....lol yeah soooo didn't work. And lard really? I was being told by a nutritionist on here to avoid pretty much everything here lol! She said I was getting too much fat and that it was bad fat, but none was trans fat.... Won't these animal fats clog your arteries though? I've never eaten the skin on chicken, just grew up without it, and while I like beef with some fat, was told it clogs my arteries... Why must food be so confusing lol. I know we're friends on here, would it be ok if I looked through your diary?0 -
Not knocking it, but ewe lol. I've always hated the organs, my parents once tried to trick me into thinking liver was steak....lol yeah soooo didn't work. And lard really? I was being told by a nutritionist on here to avoid pretty much everything here lol! She said I was getting too much fat and that it was bad fat, but none was trans fat.... Won't these animal fats clog your arteries though? I've never eaten the skin on chicken, just grew up without it, and while I like beef with some fat, was told it clogs my arteries... Why must food be so confusing lol. I know we're friends on here, would it be ok if I looked through your diary?
Haha, yeah, I'm still working on getting over the "ick" factor for organs, too. Some tips I've seen including grinding them up and including them in hamburger dishes like meatloaf. The rest of the meat masks the taste.
As for it being confusing, you can thank politics for that --
The science is actually quite clear -- there is no significant evidence that saturated fat increases cardiovascular risk.
From this meta-analysis http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009.27725.abstract :Results: During 5–23 y of follow-up of 347,747 subjects, 11,006 developed CHD or stroke. Intake of saturated fat was not associated with an increased risk of CHD, stroke, or CVD. The pooled relative risk estimates that compared extreme quantiles of saturated fat intake were 1.07 (95% CI: 0.96, 1.19; P = 0.22) for CHD, 0.81 (95% CI: 0.62, 1.05; P = 0.11) for stroke, and 1.00 (95% CI: 0.89, 1.11; P = 0.95) for CVD. Consideration of age, sex, and study quality did not change the results.
In other words, no, animal fats do not "clog arteries." That's a completely and total fallacy. Think about it this way, and you'll see just how absurd that idea actually is:
Your body stores fat to use as fuel elsewhere.
Like other animals, the composition is roughly 40-50% saturated, 40-50% monounsaturated, and ~10% polyunsaturated (with the details varying based on diet composition), and consists primarily of palmitic, oleic, and linoleic acids (among a number of other fatty acids in smaller amounts).
Your body breaks that fat down when using it to fuel itself (such as when losing weight).
In other words, your body uses animal fat when making up for "insufficient" caloric intake.
Why, then, would these same fats from other animals "clog our arteries"? Like I said, extraordinarily absurd.0
