Life After Carbs

A real person eating (mostly) real food

Lunch today: low-carb, yes, but is it high-fat?

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For lunch today, I made salmon patties, which I ate with some canned spinach, butter, and a few olives. (Yes, canned spinach. I like fresh and frozen spinach, too, but canned spinach is what I ate as a kid -- what Popeye the Sailor ate to get strong -- so I have a soft spot for it. I like it, especially with melting butter on top.) The salmon patties were an experiment. I added a tablespoon of chia seeds to my usual recipe. I wanted to test the chia as a binding agent. It didn't work all that … [Read more...]

Walnuts in a healthy low-carb diet

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Walnuts are a good low-carb food. Like peanuts and almonds, walnuts provide protein, fat and fiber with relatively few net-carbs per serving. For instance, a quarter cup of walnuts has two grams of net-carbs (four grams of total carbohydrates minus two grams of fiber). Taste and Cost Some people find walnuts bitter. I admit I prefer the taste of roasted almonds and peanuts, and seldom eat walnuts as a stand-alone snack. The big drawback to walnuts is cost. Many consumers only encounter walnuts … [Read more...]

Progress Report for 2-4-2012

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Let me say up front that I am not dead.  Nor have I fallen off the wagon and gained 40 pounds.  In fact, I am continuing to lose weight -- if slowly and without thinking about it much. This morning, eleven months into my low-carb way of eating, I tipped the scales at a new low of 207.6 pounds.  That makes a total weight loss of more than 52 pounds. To celebrate, I mashed up half an avocado to mix into my scrambled eggs. OK, it wasn't really to celebrate.  I'd eaten the other half yesterday, … [Read more...]

Navigating the extended holiday season

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I was in neutral in November, both in terms of my weight loss and blogging. Will December be better? This will be my first holiday season following a low-carb diet. Or any diet other than "eat, drink and be merry!" Most people expect to pack on a few pounds over the holidays. I made it past Thanksgiving without gaining weight, but Thanksgiving is a single day. You need to watch it for one meal, ducking the bread stuffing and avoiding multiple slices of pie. I did eat a sliver of my mother's … [Read more...]

A windy, low-carb weekend in Chicago

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This past weekend Anita and I traveled to Chicago by train. I was attending a professional conference, and she came along for the ride. The train is our favorite way to get to the City of Broad Shoulders. It picks us up at a small town in mid-Michigan -- a major hub in the old days but now just a place that the train stops at twice a day, going west in the morning and east at night. A few hours after we get on board, the train deposits us at Union Station, a short cab-ride from the Loop. … [Read more...]

Eating fish makes mice fat, study claims

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Just when you thought it was safe to feed salmon fillets to your pet mouse, along comes a study entitled, "Chronic Consumption of Farmed Salmon Containing Persistent Organic Pollutants Causes Insulin Resistance and Obesity in Mice." You have to wonder how many mice are chronically dining on salmon, farmed or wild. It's more likely that if a mouse fell in the water, a salmon would eat it. That would be a better meal than most farm-raised salmon ever get. It's hard to imagine the mouse winning … [Read more...]

What to do when your vegan diet doesn’t work? Go “Beyond Broccoli”

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I've never been tempted to become a vegetarian, let alone a raw foods vegan, and after reading a new book by Susan Schenck, LAc, I'm glad of it. Schenck spent several years eating and promoting a raw vegan diet before realizing it was seriously compromising her health. She then curbed her carb intake and added animal-based protein. She has written about her experiences in Beyond Broccoli: Creating a Biologically Balanced  Diet When a Vegetarian Diet Doesn't Work (247 pages, Awakening … [Read more...]

Building your own breakfast special

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Back in my carb-eating days, my favorite meal to eat out was breakfast. There were a couple reasons. First, breakfast is an affordable meal to eat out.  You can usually get a hot breakfast for a few bucks. Even in Manhattan, on the edge of the theater district, Anita and I got a breakfast special at a Greek diner that included eggs, meat, toast, two cups of coffee and a small glass of juice for five dollars each.  In mid-Michigan, breakfast specials typically start at $2.99. Second, breakfast … [Read more...]

Low-carb eating at parties and events

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Eating low-carb at parties and events can be a challenge. For example, a couple days ago, I was talking with a colleague about the menu for the annual meeting of an organization we both belong to. The plan, he told me, is Italian, which basically means pasta, bread and a salad. There will be a pasta dish with meat and a pasta dish without meat.  I do not think there will be a pasta dish without carbohydrates. In the morning, there will be coffee, juice, ice water and pastries. … [Read more...]

Chia: yet another low-carb seed

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The stereotypical low-carb diet is heavy on meat, eggs, butter and cream. To be sure, I've eaten my share of such animal-based fare, but the most notable newcomers to my diet have been plant-based foods such as nuts and seeds. I've always eaten peanuts (which technically are not a nut), pistachios and the occasional cashew.  But on my low-carb diet, I've become a big fan of almonds, walnuts, sunflower kernels and flax seed meal. Now I have added chia seeds, the Aztec staple.  … [Read more...]