Fat is our friend. really! Copy
  • Why fat is our friend
    • LCHF - A beginners' guide >
      • Which fats to use? >
        • More on low-fat & sat fat
        • Demon Fat
        • Fatty Facts: Omega 3 & 6
        • Eat fat, don't get fat!
        • How fat became the enemy
        • Fats, oils & LCHF
      • Diabesity & Food to avoid >
        • Resolving the Junk Food Dilemma
        • More on Diabesity
      • Red and processed meats?
      • Exercise to slim?
      • Milk. Low fat or regular?
      • Going low-carb step-by-step
      • LCHF. Who started it?
    • Overweight? Take a low-carb step
    • Wheat ain't what it used to be
    • What is a diet?
    • We are the experiment
    • Calories in equal calories out?
  • Junk Food
  • The book
    • About >
      • Recommended reading
      • Contact
  • LCHF Recipe Index
    • Breads and crackers >
      • Gluten free crispbreads
      • Einkorn Bread
      • Savoury Cheese muffins
    • Basic ingredients >
      • Chicken Stock
      • Wheat substitutes
      • Roux, Bechamel and Souffle
      • Yogurt and cream cheese
      • Make your own Ghee
      • Mayonnaise
    • From Muesli to Granola >
      • Benchmarking commercial brands
      • New York Cheesecake
    • Frying fish
    • Meat ragout >
      • Cottage Pie >
        • Comparisons
      • Chili con Carne
      • Moussaka
      • Meatballs
    • Boeuf Bourgignon
    • Italian Chicken Wrap
    • Country Pate
    • Omelettes
    • Quiche
    • Sides and dips >
      • Bacon, Water Chestnut Crisp
    • Salads >
      • Simply Salad in a Jar
      • Chopped Chicken Salad (spicy)
      • Thai inspired beef salad
      • Salade Nicoise
    • Veggies made interesting >
      • Cauliflower Rice
      • Cauliflower Mash
      • Indian style aubergine mash
      • Zucchini noodles
      • Suspiciously delicious cabbage
      • Tastier Tomatoes
    • Pizza base
    • Desserts >
      • Chia Seed Dessert
      • New York Cheesecake
  • Blog

Low-carb, high-fat:
a beginner's guide

Low-carb, high-fat: a beginner's guide

Carbohydrates spike your blood sugar levels to a far greater extent than protein, and fat has virtually no impact at all. That's why a carb-rich lunch will leave you feeling tired just a couple of hours later, when your sugar-loaded energy boost has run out. And that's also why you then start feeling hungry and crave a mid-afternoon snack. This is just one of the ways you put on the pounds, and for many people, that's the start of a vicious cycle which ends in type-2 diabetes and worse.
        But things go quite differently if you eat a higher fat diet and drop the carbs. A low-carb, high-fat lifestyle (LCHF) has not just been scientifically proven to be the most effective weight loss programme, it provides you with a healthier way to eat. LCHF is based on eating real foods and after just a few days of 'low-carbing', you will feel more awake and more energetic.

What exactly is lchf?

Adopting a Low Carbohydrate, High Fat (LCHF) diet means eating fewer carbs - essentially that means less sugar and refined starch - and more healthy fat, surrounded by generous amounts of vegetables and some fruit.
Adopting an LCHF lifestyle has helped many people reduce weight and gain energy but for many, it's still pretty counter-intuitive!

       Dr Tim Noakes, Professor of Exercise and Sports Science at Cape Town university goes so far as to say: 'everything we've been taught about nutrition is wrong'. 
​
       Maybe that's one step too far but you will discover as you work your way through this site, that we are all suffering from an abundance of misinformation; some well meant, some clearly misdirected and some simply there because it preserves the status quo.
Eating in this much healthier way turns out to be a much simpler way too. The easy rule is that the fewer the ingredients and the closer your food intake is to the original raw material (be it fish, flesh or vegetables), the better it is for you. 
​
​Here on Sky TV Sept 1 2015, the cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra explains why 'fat is our friend'. 
​
Cut the carbs; make fat your friend
Carbohydrates, particularly processed flours and sugar should be cut right down and only eaten in strict moderation. But even if you're dieting and eating less, you need to replace those carbs with something. Protein provides the building blocks for the human body but you cannot just eat protein - and yet fats make you fat. Don't they?
       Errh no! The evidence is now overwhelming. Fats do not make you fat, just as broccoli does not make you green. In fact, dietary fat is essential to the digestion and absorption of many vitamins and minerals found in what you eat. 

Our motto: Eat real food, eat well and lose weight.


YES, You can eat: 
Meat, fish, eggs, cheese, cream and vegetables (especially those growing above the ground) as well as other natural fats such as butter, lard, coconut and olive oil.
​Fruit in small quantities is fine too.
​

​NO, You cannot eat:

Sugar and processed starchy foods (such as bread, pasta, rice and potatoes); sugar-rich fruit such as mangoes and bananas.
More on this here.

​GOODBYE... Yes, say goodbye to junk food
There's no surprise here: junk food has to go!
​Use fresh, natural ingredients to improve both your health and your figure.
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Above all, be sparing if and when you do eat from the NO list. Treat even mashed potatoes as if they were the most expensive item on your plate, there for pure taste and not simply to fill you up. Think of sugar as a condiment; the same way you currently think of salt and pepper... just a sprinkle now and then.
​
      And don't count the calories... or the carbs, unless you're going really low. Eat natural, full-fat foods until you are full; most people find they don't need to snack until your next LCHF meal.

Enjoy your food, because there's so much choice...

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HEALTHY: fresh veg & occasionally fruit
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HEALTHY: Cheese, butter, salad, lchf crackers
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HEALTHY: meat, fish, eggs and dairy products.
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HEALTHY: Fish, nuts, oil-rich fruit like avocados

... avoid starch

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...so that you reduce blood sugar spikes

avoid sweet pastries

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Cakes, cookies, buns all go


​... above all, avoid sugar

Picture A sweet taste but we eat far too much
Sugar has to become a luxury that you take in small doses and on an occasional basis! Imagine it costs as much as caviar!
​
     Above all, it is the liberal use of sugar in all its forms that has led to today's high obesity and diabetes levels. Whether in carbonated drinks, combined with processed flours or added to provide more taste when fat has been removed; it's causing harm.

MUCH More on low carb high fat (LCHF)

and eat fruit in moderation

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Want to know the full sugar story?
​Here's Professor Lustig's popular lecture.

So Kids: What's inside the nuggets, then?

When deciding to drop processed food, let’s remember that for example only about 50 per cent of a McDonald’s chicken nugget is actually made of chicken, the balance being made up of many ingredients... including sugar in one of its many forms.
Ingredients:
“Water, Food Starch-Modified, Salt, Seasoning (Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Salt, Wheat Starch, Natural Flavoring, Safflower Oil, Dextrose, Citric Acid), Sodium Phosphates, Natural Flavor."
Battered and Breaded with:
"Water, Enriched Flour (Bleached Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Yellow Corn Flour, Bleached Wheat Flour, Food Starch-Modified, Salt, Leavening (Baking Soda, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Calcium Lactate), Spices, Wheat Starch, Dextrose, Corn Starch.”
So if you're going to eat nuggets,
why not make your own
from fresh ingredients?
http://www.ditchthecarbs.com/2017/02/21/lchf-chicken-nuggets/
Then fried in:
​“Vegetable Oil (Canola Oil, Corn Oil, Soybean Oil, Hydrogenated Soybean Oil) with TBHQ and Citric Acid to preserve freshness of the oil and Dimethylpolysiloxane to reduce oil splatter when cooking”. 
​
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GOOD NEWS
​Are you looking for practical advice on how you can steer your kids away from a #junkfood diet?

​I recommend this joint post from Sweden's
amazing DietDoctor and Australia's
ditchthecarbs.com at: ​
​https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb-kids
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Sammy Pepys was the pseudonym used by James Capon when writing this book. He is not a doctor or a nutritionist. He is concerned and increasingly suspicious of today's conventional wisdom when it comes to diet, health and the lack of progress on tackling growing rates of type-2 diabetes, obesity and related diseases.
Since then, he has advised numerous people about the benefits of low-carb diets and seen their health and energy levels rise. Weight loss is associated with this eating approach (he lost 7 kilos) but feeling good and having more energy is the main driver!
Disclaimer: The information, recipes and results mentioned on this site may not work for everyone. They do not represent medical advice and it is best to discuss any significant dietary changes with your Doctor.
  • Why fat is our friend
    • LCHF - A beginners' guide >
      • Which fats to use? >
        • More on low-fat & sat fat
        • Demon Fat
        • Fatty Facts: Omega 3 & 6
        • Eat fat, don't get fat!
        • How fat became the enemy
        • Fats, oils & LCHF
      • Diabesity & Food to avoid >
        • Resolving the Junk Food Dilemma
        • More on Diabesity
      • Red and processed meats?
      • Exercise to slim?
      • Milk. Low fat or regular?
      • Going low-carb step-by-step
      • LCHF. Who started it?
    • Overweight? Take a low-carb step
    • Wheat ain't what it used to be
    • What is a diet?
    • We are the experiment
    • Calories in equal calories out?
  • Junk Food
  • The book
    • About >
      • Recommended reading
      • Contact
  • LCHF Recipe Index
    • Breads and crackers >
      • Gluten free crispbreads
      • Einkorn Bread
      • Savoury Cheese muffins
    • Basic ingredients >
      • Chicken Stock
      • Wheat substitutes
      • Roux, Bechamel and Souffle
      • Yogurt and cream cheese
      • Make your own Ghee
      • Mayonnaise
    • From Muesli to Granola >
      • Benchmarking commercial brands
      • New York Cheesecake
    • Frying fish
    • Meat ragout >
      • Cottage Pie >
        • Comparisons
      • Chili con Carne
      • Moussaka
      • Meatballs
    • Boeuf Bourgignon
    • Italian Chicken Wrap
    • Country Pate
    • Omelettes
    • Quiche
    • Sides and dips >
      • Bacon, Water Chestnut Crisp
    • Salads >
      • Simply Salad in a Jar
      • Chopped Chicken Salad (spicy)
      • Thai inspired beef salad
      • Salade Nicoise
    • Veggies made interesting >
      • Cauliflower Rice
      • Cauliflower Mash
      • Indian style aubergine mash
      • Zucchini noodles
      • Suspiciously delicious cabbage
      • Tastier Tomatoes
    • Pizza base
    • Desserts >
      • Chia Seed Dessert
      • New York Cheesecake
  • Blog