"Life Without Bread"

[mcb]

That's great that you've been able to transition so smoothly, but not everyone has. That's why I think we can only "go by feel" so much. If those having difficulty with a transition to low carb were going by feel, they would be right back to high carb. Again, I don't think we should rely on calculations, but they do have their place if just to get a rough idea.

I don't mean to say that "my way is better" or anything like that. I have had no end of problems with this body of mine, and this is one of the few things I have tried that worked well and predictably. I am rather surprised. I don't know why some people are having so much trouble except "every body is different." Maybe this approach just doesn't work for some people.

I had a few occasional mild headaches before I added cheese; I don't know if there is any connection. I have had leg cramps, but not much more than usual. They have been a problem for me for decades, and they come and go. Lately they have been less of a problem again. I have more problems in general the more I weigh. I am hoping now that I have a sustainable way to lose weight, but it is too soon to be certain, because the drop is so gradual.

The "feel" I use is subtle. I notice things about how I feel over time after eating this or that. I have noticed that ham is only OK up to a point. That I reach a limit where I don't want more protein even when I haven't quite had enough food for the day. I have always liked fat, but it is filling and I only want so much (unlike carbs, which I could eat until I exploded). So there are these little clues, and I might be wrong about some of them, and for someone else the clues might point to different foods.

I don't know if cheese is necessarily the right answer here. First off, it's not that low in protein. 1 cup of cheddar has the same protein content as a pork chop. Also, if casein is as nasty as the research here by forum members has indicated, cheese is the last thing we would want in our diets. Butter, particularly ghee, and high fat creams are low in casein. Cheese, particularly hard cheeses, are high in casein (an ounce of cheddar has close to the same casein content as a cup of milk). So unless we're testing out casein now, I think cheese should still be avoided. FWIW.

I also had a feeling about cheddar and I have been avoiding it. I found some good soft cheese including Monterey Jack. I also have a cheese limit -- past a point I just don't want any more, for a while. I will experiment with it for a time and then eliminate it again and see what happens. I certainly don't recommend that everyone do this.

[quote author=megan]
The sense I got from reading Why We Get Fat was that more research is needed to understand what causes us to gain and lose weight. Nothing I have read really explains it. Knowing that insulin regulates lipogenesis doesn't provide a complete picture -- it is just part of the explanation. There is more to it that is still unknown. I am still eating some carbs, in certain restricted forms, and yet I am losing weight without going hungry. Do I not have an insulin response to those carbs? I don't know. Maybe it is the specific forms of foods, or maybe it is something else. More than likely it is a combination of things. All I can do is keep trying different things and observing the results, while reading whatever I can find that might help.

Completely agree with you here. I've been reading some criticisms of Taubes and Eades and it seems that they're ignoring a good chunk of research. Insulin isn't the whole picture, by any means (especially considering protein consumption raises insulin too, in some cases more so than carbohydrates). I still think that low carb is the way to go (a hard conversion for me, truth be told) but I think the "why" of that is still yet to be established. And since Taubes and Eades seem to have the "science is settled" attitude, it's probably not going to come from them.
[/quote]
There was a lot that went by when I was reading Lights Out that didn't make sense at the time. I think I will go back through it again. I don't assume that anything in any of these books has to be correct, but there seem to be messages buried in all this material. Each author may be providing part of the picture, pieces of a puzzle.

 

[Psalehesost]

Regarding the discussion of finding ways of getting more fat:

Another thing full of fat is coconuts - two thirds of the content, with nearly a 1:10 carb:fat ratio. 100g of coconut will set you back about half a bread unit.

A possible downside is fiber. In coconut milk it is close to completely removed. (some new, soluble fiber is added in some brands for thickening to make it look better than it is, though, though still not much) Sometimes - in periods - I've been having a can a day of coconut milk, and/or plain, raw coconut, or the latter used in cooking. (a cheese grater can easily become a coconut grater - such slices can be fried, or blended with egg to make egg-coconut "blinis")

 

[Laura]

I think cheese is a big no for this reason as well. You can be totally fine and one day drop dead from an obstructed artery in the heart or the brain. It is tempting though, imagine all the fat the guys could get from dairy products...

Or perhaps a pulmonary embolism. But that was last year (2010) and I wasn't eating cheese at the time.

How many years before 2010 were you eating cheese/dairy? It takes years for the plaque to build up in the vessels. A change in diet can start the vessel cleansing process which could have triggered the embolus. If that is the case, taking dairy back could "calm" the process down by virtue of the fact that it is stabilizing and adding to the plaque build-up.

I had a few occasional mild headaches before I added cheese; I don't know if there is any connection. I have had leg cramps, but not much more than usual. They have been a problem for me for decades, and they come and go. Lately they have been less of a problem again.

The headaches could be due to detoxing which has been stopped by adding the cheese back. Also, the casein in the cheese binds the opioid receptors which can make a person feel better.

What seems evident is that when you make the changes to the diet that we discuss, after years of living on carbs, dairy, fiber, etc, things CAN get a lot worse before they get better. The worse condition you are in when you begin, and the older you are, the more drama there may be to the adjustment which can take a couple of years.

 

[Scottie]

I had almost forgotten about nuts as a fat source. What about cashews? I've been warned about them often enough (elsewhere, not here) because they contain "too much fat." Isn't that what we're looking for? Nuts can be rather high-carb, though.

Yeah, nuts can vary dramatically. For example, 100g of pistachios contains a nice amount of fat, but it's also 0.8 bread units or so. Pecans on the other hand contain way more fat, and are only 0.25 bread units. Then you have the problem that different sources give different figures for the amount of fat/protein/carbs for a given type of nut. And in the case of pistachios, sometimes they add other garbage to them like that silly red food coloring. No thank you!

And then there is the problem that some people have sensitivities to some (or all) nuts.

 

[Nimue]

Maybe my tipp for getting more fat is not for everyone, but graves -lard is a good fat supplier and a good alternative for cream.

For breakfast, lunch and dinner I eat a extra cup of lard mixed with graves and salt ( normally eaten on bread… I eat it naked, this goes a little bit in the direction of fat fasting, so I push my body on the lipid metabolism and milder the adjustment symptoms. ( I am on very low carbs). I have a very slim friend ( marathon runner) who in his training phase ( low carbs) eats self made herbal butter three times a day, to balance his metabolism, but butter naked is nothing for me.

Only my experience !

 

[SeekinTruth]

I'm using mainly ghee to increase fat. I plop it on everything. I also eat a tablespoon or more of organic virgin coconut oil every couple of days. It seems that the best all around solution for me is to eat as much bacon and eggs fried in lots of ghee and pork as possible. The bacon I get is from 50 to 60% fat and the pork is also very fatty -- a pork chop has about a 3/4" thick piece of fat running down the whole length.

I'm not willing to try cheese or any other dairy product other that ghee. Even though I love cheese and used to eat a whole lot of it, when I eliminated it along with other dairy and gluten, eating a few pieces after a couple of months of not eating it seemed to make me feel the worst compared to everything else - really low energy, constipated and sluggish and even caused headaches.

Besides all the negative health effects, casein is also addictive just like gluten and much of the other evil stuff. Doesn't casein also bind to the opiate receptors like gluten? So it's addictive and makes you "feel good" while it's doing all the health damage. So I'm going to continue to stay away from dairy except ghee, which is 99% fat.

 

[SolarMother]

Hey, y'all. Anyone making these 'pork rinds' or trying them out? As I feel my way through this high fat diet, I have had ideas but no access here to fat, etc-- to make these. This will change soon! :D
I noticed in France it's called 'grattons' and in UK, pork scratchings. In US consumption of 'cracklings' went way down after 2003's all time record high. I am craving these and will try out recipes as soon as we are settled and have access to and can find more FAT-rind/pork skin (ie: butchers or processing places.) Just wondering who has tried this out?

very interesting info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_rind
what a great idea for snacks...

I also wonder about buying 'rejected cut-off' organic fat pieces from a butcher and doing something with that. Anyone tried this? I love the gravy I have made with bacon fat thickened with buckwheat flour.

I am having either constipation or diarrhea in the process of lessening carbs and increading fats. We are not finding enough fat and have been eating too much protein/meat. I am still craving chocolate, and if I don't have a supply of raw cocoa powder, coconut oil and coconut milk and xylitol made (as a kind of mousse), I find myself going after a chocolate bar instead in the afternoons. According to what I have read on this thread this 'condition' may lessen as soon as I find sources of more fat.

 

[Laura]

We just buy a whole, fresh ham every week and smoke it on the grill. Now and then, I remove the skin and most of the fat attached, cut it into pieces, put it in a pot on low heat, and let it render for about an hour. It gives me a nice big jar of lard and a bunch of friend pork rinds that just need a sprinkle of salt to be a great snack.

 

[mcb]

Yeah, nuts can vary dramatically. For example, 100g of pistachios contains a nice amount of fat, but it's also 0.8 bread units or so. Pecans on the other hand contain way more fat, and are only 0.25 bread units. Then you have the problem that different sources give different figures for the amount of fat/protein/carbs for a given type of nut. And in the case of pistachios, sometimes they add other garbage to them like that silly red food coloring. No thank you!

And then there is the problem that some people have sensitivities to some (or all) nuts.

In my vegan days I made "cheese" from ingredients like cashews and turmeric. That sounds pretty healthy if you mind the carbs. I am sure it would be as good if the cashews were soaked first.

Some nuts give me mouth sores sometimes. It's odd, because it isn't consistent. Walnuts do it, and pecans too, I think. I have never had that problem with cashews, though. What bothers me about cashews is that I can eat and eat and never feel full, which may come from the high carb content. That's the kind of food I am trying to avoid now. Eating smaller amounts of high carb foods with other foods seems to lessen that effect, though. I wish we knew more.

 

[mcb]

How many years before 2010 were you eating cheese/dairy? It takes years for the plaque to build up in the vessels. A change in diet can start the vessel cleansing process which could have triggered the embolus. If that is the case, taking dairy back could "calm" the process down by virtue of the fact that it is stabilizing and adding to the plaque build-up.

I probably ate cheese for most of 54 years before 2010, stopping for a while during my "vegan phase." I also ate a lot of truly nasty stuff that I wouldn't touch now. I didn't know much of anything about nutrition before early 1996 when I finished my vegan cooking class. After that I was much more careful but, of course, much of the information I received was still wrong and as a vegan I ate relatively little sugar but lots of starch and flour products.

It is hard to remember, but I may have stopped eating cheese again as much as a year or more before the PE. I also eliminated milk again somewhere around 2007-2009, although I had only been using it for cooking. This is the period when I became involved with the group again through this forum. Stopping or resuming cheese has never had any visible effect on my health.

It's clear that casein can be a problem. It sounds as though a number of people here experience problems from having it. I am going through some of the threads here in the forum to see what has been found so far.

Cheese making alters casein, which could make it safer or more damaging. There is something else going on: I used to crave cheese without limit, but now with a low carb intake I only eat to meet my energy needs and cheese has no special attraction any more; it tastes good but like other foods it fills me up quickly and I don't want any more.

I am wondering, then, how a high-carb diet alters the effects of other foods. Can high carb intake make other foods harmful? I am thinking about various cultures that have traditionally eaten various "bad" foods without too much trouble. Of course that overlooks the initial die-offs that have long been forgotten, and the problems people learn to live with, and it may well be partly genetic adaptation (the genes of the survivors, that is). But it may also relate to the proportions of different foods in different cultural diets, or the absence of certain "trigger" foods. I don't know; I am just trying to make more sense of what I am reading and observing.

I acknowledge that it would be better to pass on the cheese and look for other forms of fat, given the present uncertainties. At least I know now that I do feel better when I increase the proportion of fat to protein in my diet, without gaining weight. That is what I wanted to see.

 

[forge]

In the 2-3-4 weeks transition period: during yesterdays athletic exercise i felt weakness in muscles, minute-by-minute changes from not really working/near collapse to quite good efficiency during top speed short distance running (was surprised). My heart feels better, lot less palpitations, only serotonin deficiency must be balanced by 5-HTP, because waking up in middle-night to heart problems.

Loss of (access to) long term memory during workday, dullness from leaving out carbs. Craving sweets. 2 days ago craved fats in the morning. As soon as i nibbed some buckwheat-bread i distinctly felt my body crying out for fat (6:45am), eating few grams of duck fat gave good heart stability until breakfast at workplace.

Ate dutch-cocoa based chocolate (sour) today - ~8grams - and discovered that it was the cause of IBS and heartburn: intense stomach irritation and disturbed bowel function. As if my guts were slowly getting used to high fat low protein, low carbs and they got a suprise attack of the old enemy: carbs. Decided to completely stop chocolate after eating the rest of cocoa bag, even eat the remaining expensive stock in very little amount /day.

It's exhilarating and exciting to feel this much promise in the new diet as my body transitions. Stability and longer endurance is noticeable. I really hope my health will stabilize vs. the high carb hell of past months. Looking forward to switching to full ketosis.

 

[anart]

Stopping or resuming cheese has never had any visible effect on my health.

Megan, considering the significant health problems you've had, I find it fascinating that it's going totally over your head that dairy likely (or most definitely) contributed. Could this be the addictive effects of dairy talking?

 

[Chacara]

[Taking into account that rice contains only 5% of gluten (Orzenin), I hope it's still OK (at least, better than other cereals).

CORRECTED: "worsening" to "Orzenin" in the above sentence. The switch of words occurred apparently due to a quick spell-check I was doing before sending my message. The correct word "orzenin" has been replaced by a wrong one (which actually does not make any sense in the sentence), but unfortunately I didn’t notice it on time. Since I don't have access to "edit" option yet, I'm trying to correct the error in this way. If one of the moderators has time and can make this correction in the original message, I'll be very grateful! I apologize for the inconvenience it may cause!

 

[Jacques]

[Taking into account that rice contains only 5% of gluten (Orzenin), I hope it's still OK (at least, better than other cereals).

CORRECTED: "worsening" to "Orzenin" in the above sentence...
If one of the moderators has time and can make this correction in the original message, I'll be very grateful! I apologize for the inconvenience it may cause!

Done

 

[Harold]

I think I've been following this thread since it started. I have been bread free for a week and more or less for the last few weeks. I have stopped drinking coffee also. Meat, eggs, fat, tubers ie. onions, garlic, ginger and yam... that sums up my diet. I have replaced bread with buckwheat and quinoa pancakes... hasn't been easy but it is getting better. I have had aches, lots of tummy grumbling, huge hunger at first and a head ache. Very little energy which has lessened gradually. A couple days of 16 hours of sleep. Very tired the first three weeks. I have added Chorella a month ago and Gaba a week ago. The first time I took Chorella I got a big headache. After the Gaba, my energy really picked up and my sleep habits have started to return... 8 hours of sleep is good enough again.

Prior to this diet change I was overworked for the past month, so my energy drain had to do with this also.

Adding new diet choices is my new challenge. So this thread is great.

I have to add that the recent April 9 transmission from Laura and company , my EE instructor's , ... and this thread are really supportive and have helped tip the scale so to speak.