Last weekend, Anita and I celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary with a short trip and a stay in an historic bed-and-breakfast. I did my best to be true to both my wife and my diet. The B & B provided me with eggs, meat, and coffee in the morning. I ignored the platter of chocolate-chip cookies available 24 hours a day. (Anita did not.) We picked restaurants where I could put together tasty low-carb meals. All in all, things went fine, until I weighed myself the morning after our return. Did I discover that romance was an aid to weight loss? … [Read more ...]
What about dietary fat and fatty liver disease?
A while ago, I published my annual blood test results for the last seven years. In terms of cardiovascular indicators, the tests were good. I did a little victory lap, celebrating (1) that I was still alive and (2) that the test results showed my LCHF diet seems to be doing me more good than harm. Then I heard something that gave me pause. It wasn't about heart health or clogged arteries. It was about fatty livers. I heard the claim in a podcast, the Tim Ferriss Show for May 12, 2017. Ferriss was interviewing Art De Vany. De Vany is well-known figure in Paleo Diet circles, and he published … [Read more ...]
Why we cheat on an LCHF diet (LCN 59)
Cheating on an LCHF diet Low Carb Nugget 59 A little cheating may be helpful. True, you can't cheat with a sweet or carby treat every day, even if you do it mindfully. You won't get in or stay in ketosis that way. But a rare, planned indulgence is acceptable if it keeps you eating LCHF for the long-run. … [Read more ...]
Mindful eating: slow down and smell the pork chop
On Episode 6 of The Low Carb Nugget podcast, Jim examines the conflict between "grabbing a bite" and "mindful eating." There's an expression in American English, an idiom, "to grab a bite." Some variations include "grab a bite to eat," "grab something to eat" or just "get a bite." I haven't done extensive research on this idiom, but what I have done suggests it is, indeed, of American origin. That makes sense. The idiom perfectly suits the American mind-set. It turns getting a meal into a quick, decisive action -- quick and a little violent, even. It suggests a busy life-style, a full … [Read more ...]
Low-carb road-trip eating
When my wife was 11 years old, she was mesmerized by Peter Tork, a member of the Monkees. Depending on whom you ask, the Monkees were either actors in a TV comedy or musicians in a rock-band. Or both. My wife would say both, and more, but her focus was always on the blond, hazel-eyed Mr. Tork. It still is. All of this explains why she and I drove to Merrillville, Indiana, yesterday to watch the Monkees (three of the four, anyway) perform at the Star Plaza Theatre. It was a stop on the group's 45th anniversary tour. Since "the guys," as Anita calls them, were in their early to mid-twenties … [Read more ...]
Presenting The Best of Life after Carbs
Available across the Web! My ebook, The Best of Life after Carbs, is now in wider release. You can find it at multiple online stores: Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. Just click this Universal Book Link, and then select your favorite store. The book is part memoir, part how-to. The 30+ chapters in the book are based on posts from this blog. Yes, you could read them all here for free, in some form. But if you enjoy ebooks, and want to support my efforts, here's your chance to do us both a favor. I'll take it as a sign I'm doing something right! A few of the questions addressed … [Read more ...]
A classic low-carb breakfast for burning fat
The classic low-carb breakfast starts with eggs, in one form or another, and often ends there. Scrambled eggs and fried eggs are my mainstays. Sometimes, for the sake of variety, I might have hard-boiled or poached eggs, but the problem with those is too little fat. Remember, I'm eating a HIGH fat, low carb diet. I want a great fat-busting ratio of fat to carbs plus protein to start my day. (See my post on calculating the Skaldeman fat-burning quotient.) So eggs pan-cooked in butter or coconut oil are typically the core of my classic low-carb breakfast. And as I've written before, the best … [Read more ...]
Easy Eggs Florentine
In my low-carb, high-fat reincarnation, I find myself cooking more and trying new dishes. No longer can I slap ham and cheese between whole-wheat bread, garnish with potato chips, and call it lunch. A bit of creativity is in order. But only a bit. I am a simple man. My method as both a cook and a writer is the same: I simplify. As a writer, I compose a sentence, and then go over it to remove words. I’m hell on adjectives and adverbs. Call it the “blue pencil” approach (or maybe the "Twitter Technique"). I take the same blue pencil to recipes. An example is this recipe for Easy Eggs … [Read more ...]
A typical day in my life after carbs
Following up on my post "What is a low carb diet?" I'm presenting here a typical day of low carbing. The day was a Saturday. Breakfast (6:30 a.m.) Most days, I'm an early riser. The sun comes up, and I'm right there with it. no-filler salmon patty (leftover) two eggs scrambled with butter two mugs of coffee, each with two teaspoons of half-and-half one multi-vitamin for men Morning Snack (10:00 a.m.) Having this mid-morning snack was a-typical. Often I make it to lunch without a snack. I ate this one because Anita and I were planning an expedition to Costco, and … [Read more ...]
Eating ancient wheat
I fell off the wagon one night, landing mouth-first in a small serving of pasta with meat sauce. Actually, I didn't fall off so much as hop off briefly. It was a calculated act, not a moment of weakness. My wife and I decided to try some fusilli (corkscrew pasta) made with einkorn wheat (a variety now considered a relic, first having been cultivated 12,000 years ago). I had read about this ancient wheat in reviews of Wheat Belly, a new book by Dr. William Davis. (For instance, see the reviews by Dana Carpender, Joe Lindley and Tom Naughton.) According to the reviews, Davis draws a … [Read more ...]
DNA, diet, and weight
Can spitting into a test-tube tell you which diet is best for you? Earlier this year, Anita and I each sent in a sample of our saliva to 23 and Me, a company that does commercial genetic testing. I'm not plugging the service, and this is not intended to be a full-scale review. But some of our DNA test results are relevant to the topic of diet. We both opted to receive ancestry and health-related reports of our DNA. At first, I was only going to get the ancestry report, but changed my mind after getting that report and seeing Anita's full set of reports. (Note: Anita has agreed that I may … [Read more ...]