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Doing Low Carb Over Christmas

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This Christmas I’ve been with family. It’s been nice. Mostly.

What’s been hard at times is the food.

Trying to “behave” and stick to any kind of diet over the Christmas period is far from easy. It’s as if the entire Christmas season is designed to tempt you. Everywhere you turn there are calorie rich and carb laden treats to tempt you. Walk into the butcher’s before Christmas to pick up the ham etc., and you’re being offered mince pies! And don’t even get me started on selection boxes, chocolates, hampers and all the other things. (I really love mince pies and Christmas pudding by the way, so this has been like torture!)

In the run up to Christmas I’d normally have picked up a couple of panettone or pandoro. I’d probably also have got some freshly baked mince pies from one of the local shops.

Not so this year.

I am lucky that friends and family have been very supportive of my attempts to stick to the diet. So while there has been a crazy amount of temptation around me I’ve also been able to navigate most of it relatively unscathed.

Christmas dinner this year was an interesting combination. Between my low carb diet and my brother-in-law being vegetarian there were 3 sets of food, with some crossover laid out for us all. My mother made a low carb stuffing for me, which was really good. We’re in Ireland, so potatoes are a staple of any meal. However doing a low carb diet means that I end up swapping them for cauliflower mash or cauliflower rice most of the time. Christmas dinner wasn’t any different.

Of course after the main course has been cleared away and everyone has had a chance to digest the ham and spiced beef (I am from Cork after all) it’s time for pudding and cake. My sister came to the rescue and had produced a wonderfully decadent low carb paleo chocolate cake. Served with some cream it was absolutely out of this world.

It’s now almost the end of the year and we’ll all be back to normal in a couple of days. The level of temptation that reached its peak over Christmas will go back to normal levels and it should be easier for those of us trying to stick to diets.

If I’m still doing this low carb thing come Christmas next year I will definitely be exploring recipes for low carb alternatives to Christmas pudding and mince pies!

I’m still sort of dreading the weighing scales when I get home. Even though I’ve been doing my best to avoid carbs I know I’ve eaten more over the last few days than I would normally and of course I’ve enjoyed more than my average of wine, gin and whiskey. Though I haven’t had a single beer!

Weight Loss Progress Update

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I haven’t posted an update on my progress for a while.

So here it is.

Total weight lost to date: 13.1 kg. That’s 28.88 lb or 2.06 stone.

I’ve still got a long way to go.

The graph I pulled from MyFitnessPal shows how much my weight oscillates over time:

weight loss graph november 2017

The first section of the graph is from when I wasn’t actually weighing myself, so it’s flat.

Overall I feel pretty good and I’m doing my best to sleep more.

I’m definitely going to bed earlier and getting up earlier consistently, which is probably a good thing.

I have misbehaved a small bit over the last month or so, but not dramatically ie. I haven’t fallen off the wagon completely.

One noticeable and tangible upside to this weight loss is that I have had fewer issues with the seatbelts on planes in the last month! (It’s the little things!)

Weight Loss is a Marathon not a Sprint

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I’ve been on this diet for over 2 months now. So far I’ve lost over 10kg, which isn’t bad going, but I know I need to lose quite a bit more. Actually a LOT more.

But how much weight I need to lose and how quickly I need to lose it isn’t really an issue. Why?

Changing my diet as drastically as I’ve done was a significant change. My relationship with food and cooking has had to evolve. That evolution is still ongoing, as I’m now experimenting with different dishes that meet the requirements for the ketogenic diet and lifestyle.

When I’m at home I weigh myself religiously every single morning shortly after waking up. I’ve no idea if that’s the best time of the day to weigh myself or not, but I’m consistent, which I think is the most important thing.

Some days my weight will have dropped. Some days my weight will have gone the wrong way entirely.

That’s completely normal.

I keep a close eye on my progress (or lack of it) with the Nokia Health Mate app, which gives a very satisfactory push notification when I hit a new low.

My weight loss graph so far

I’m doing my best to log what I eat with MyFitnessPal. It doesn’t give me that same satisfying sense of accomplishment when I make big progress, but it does help me keep track of what I’m eating and how my weight is moving slowly closer to the goal I’ve set.

Apart from changing my diet I’ve also changed some aspects of my lifestyle.

I’m going to bed earlier. I’m still going to bed later than a lot of people, but these days I’m often in bed around midnight, which is a lot saner than going to bed around 2am.

I’m sleeping more. Overall my average number of hours sleep has improved. It’s still not optimal, but it’s been moving in the right direction. My brother-in-law installed blackout blinds for me a couple of weeks back, so I’m no longer being woken at dawn, which definitely helps.

I’m getting up earlier. I used to drag myself out of bed around 8am most weekday mornings and then struggle to get myself moving and into the office. These days I am usually up, showered and dressed by 745am. Having to cook breakfast every morning has changed my approach to mornings.

I have a fairly healthy salad for lunch 5 days a week. While repetition might seem boring having salad for lunch every weekday is far from boring. I vary the ingredients and I’ve been enjoying making rich salad dressings to go with my salads.

I have more energy. Sort of.

I feel more flexible. One of those things that you notice over time. Generally I feel a bit more flexible. I’m not going to become a gymnast, but I’ve definitely got back some of the flexibility that I’d lost over the past 10 years or so.

But as I mentioned this is all about being slow and steady.

Previously I’d tried diets that were either too finicky or just plain complicated for me to adapt to. The ketogenic (low carb) diet is relatively easy to stick to and seems to suit me. I still miss certain drinks and foods, but overall I’m not exactly miserable nor am I constantly hungry.

 

 

Travelling to Italy on a Low Carb Diet

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The Colloseum in the heart of Rome

I got back from Rome yesterday where I was attending a business event.

Italian food is wonderful, but most of the staple dishes you think of when you think of Italian cuisine are simply off the menu if you’re going to stick to a low carb ketogenic diet. When you’re going low carb you can’t have pasta, pizza or bread. So you’d think that a trip to Italy would be absolute torture.

Well you’d be close to the truth. It wasn’t torture, but it definitely was more painful than the trip to Stockholm a couple of weeks ago.

Everywhere you look in Italy there is amazing food. You walk down the street and you can literally smell it as it wafts from the many cafes, restaurants and pizzeria with outdoor seating.

However it is possible to eat out in Italy and avoid carbs. It just requires a bit of mental discipline. I simply refused to succumb to temptation. I could have misbehaved, but I was afraid that once I started down that route there’d be no turning back.

So what did I eat?

Cold meat, such as prosciutto and salami is on the menu in pretty much every restaurant in Rome. There’s probably a point in time where you feel you’re going to turn into a slice of ham, though I’ll freely admit that if that’s my fate so be it – it’d be a nice way to go!

Prosciutto and a selection of Italian cheese

Prosciutto and a selection of Italian cheese

Luckily there’s also cheese, because I don’t think I could have survived without it.

Of course vegetables, both raw (as in salads) or cooked in a variety of ways help a lot.

Grilled vegetables

Grilled vegetables

One Roman delicacy is artichoke, which was absolutely delicious. Unfortunately it’s pretty heavy in carbs, but I suspect I still managed to stay under my daily allowance.

Artichoke

Artichoke

I ended up eating quite a bit of meat over the few days that we were in Rome, though I also added plenty of simple side salads whenever I could, which isn’t a bad thing.  Especially when you’re able to get things like rabbit in a cream sauce, which was superb:

Rabbit in a creamy sauce

Rabbit in a creamy sauce

And of course I did have quite a bit of fish as well, though mostly as an appetizer:

Anchovies in lemon

Anchovies in lemon

Overall the trip to Italy was fine in terms of me “behaving”, though I definitely struggled more to stick to the regime I’ve imposed than I did when I was in Stockholm. Now I’m back home for a few days I can control my environment and my diet more easily. The next trip on the agenda is to Brussels, where the main temptations will be chocolate and beer. Two of my favourite things!

Recipe: Low Carb Cauliflower Mash

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Cauliflower mash with broccoli and grilled chicken

I’ll be the first to admit that I miss potatoes, rice and bread. I don’t miss them every minute of every day, but when I go to a supermarket that has its own bakery the smell of freshly baked bread is both appealing and pure torture.

And don’t get me started with patisseries ..

I’ve been eating a lot of vegetables since I switched over to the ketogenic diet a few weeks ago. Most of the time I’m quite happy to have meat or fish with steamed or boiled vegetables, or possibly some sautéed mushrooms.

However a lot of people have been telling me that cauliflower mash is a good option to try as a replacement for potatoes (or rice). I’ve never been a terribly big fan of cauliflower. I don’t hate, but it’s not a vegetable that I’d get terribly excited about either. The other issue I’d run into previously was that eating cauliflower when you’re cooking for one invariably led to a lot of leftovers. The upside to this diet, as I’ve discovered, is that you tend to eat more vegetables, so that vegetable that would have lasted 4 meals now only does 2.

There are plenty of recipes out there for making cauliflower mash. At the simplest level you simply cook the cauliflower and then blend it with some butter and maybe a bit of cream, season it and serve it.

However there are slightly more elaborate versions of the recipe out there that are worth exploring.

I’ve been making a version of cauliflower mash based of this recipe. I’m a strong believer in adding garlic to food where I can and I’ll probably make a few more tweaks to this recipe over time. Remember, recipes aren’t “written in stone”. You can tweak them based on what you’ve got in your pantry and what you have access to. (and why so many recipes refer to a single clove of garlic is still a mystery to me!)

Anyway this is super easy to make using a microwave:

Cauliflower mash with broccoli and grilled chicken
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Cauliflower Mash with Cheese

A very tasty low carb alternative to mashed potatoes
Course Side Dish
Cuisine Low carb
Keyword cauliflower, low carb
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 12 minutes
Total Time 17 minutes
Servings 1 portion
Calories 150 kcal

Ingredients

  • 50 g cheddar
  • 1/2 head of cauliflower
  • 25 g butter
  • 1 - 2 cloves of garlic
  • 2 tbsp cream
  • salt & pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Clean the cauliflower head and trim off the green stalks.
  2. Cut it in half and put one half away.
  3. Chop up the half cauliflower you're going to cook and put it into a microwave friendly dish without a lid. Add the butter and cream to the dish.
  4. Peel and dice the garlic. Add the garlic to the cauliflower.
  5. Microwave on high for about 4 minutes without covering the bowl or dish.
  6. Mix the butter and cream mixture so that it's coating the cauliflower.
  7. Microwave for another 3 - 4 minutes
  8. In a blender combine the cooked cauliflower with the cheese. It should give a fairly thick but pleasant mash.

Recipe Notes

Cooking times will vary depending on your Microwave. Mine is a 1000 Watt model so if yours is less powerful you might need to cook for longer.
Cauliflower shouldn't be overcooked, so if it's still a little crunchy when you're done that's okay.

It goes well with any meal where you could serve potatoes or rice as a side.

I suspect you could make a very nice version of this mash by boiling the veg or possibly steaming it before running it through the food blender.

Tip: don’t try using a hand blender to blend the cauliflower with the cheese unless you’ve chopped the cauliflower up quite a bit already and the cheese is already grated – I think I nearly killed my handheld blender making this tonight!

 

NSFW Portion Control Plates

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While a ketogenic diet might focus primarily on keeping your carb count low you cannot avoid reality. If you eat thousands of calories every day you will not lose weight. In fact you’ll probably put on weight. So keeping an eye on the size of portions is important.

When I’m cooking at home I’m able to weigh whatever I’m eating so I can keep track of what I’m consuming.

However there are a variety of tools on the market that can help remove some of the guesswork, including portion control plates like this one:

portion control plate

It breaks the plate out into 3 sections protein, carbs (or in my case their replacements) and vegetables (greens).

If you need to use one of these plates you’re probably overweight like me, so a slightly blunter (and NSFW) approach might be more suitable – and if not suitable, at least amusing:

fat fucker portion plate

I’m not sure if this will really motivate you, but at least it puts a more tongue in cheek spin on dieting 🙂

You can get the profanity filled plates, along with a selection of other rather profane crockery here.