Support and ideas for those on low-carb diet

OH and well done Anya's OH. Mine is sooo happy to be off statins. He has got more energy too but is currently mixing mortar and building a wall in 27 degrees so it may not last long today!

I find that people's first reaction is to say they couldn't give up carby food and then ask afterwards about the diet!
We had a veg curry last night with our chickpea flour fritters which we just love. Salade Nicoise today as it is horrendously hot and humid here.
We still have a small slice of our own spelt bread at breakfast and will soon have all the excitement of our spelt harvest. I am thinking of asking some of our farming friends in the village round to show us how to flail, thresh and winnow (or something).

Those 'friends' who try to scupper us like that are a pain the the proverbial, aren't they Jane? If I want cake, which I very rarely do anyway these days, then I'll have a slice. But I won't be bullied into it.

That's really impressive. I find I am happy as long as I have just one small carb item a day. So yesterday that was a sweet corn and onion pancake, the size of a small dropscone, with two poached eggs, for breakfast. Another day it might be a slice of toast, or a tablespoon of grain mixed through a salad, but I spent yesterday afternoon trying on skirts to throw out the ones I never wear and I could get into most of them, which I couldn't a couple of years ago. Today though I am going out with a friend, and she announced that she needed cake, and that I had to 'slide down the hole with' her, I take It she meant the slippery road to hell! I just thought, I hope they don't have any gluten free! I have found it the best shield against people determined to keep me fat ever. Don't get me wrong, but I have been halving the amount of sugar in cake recipes for years, and I often find cakes far too sweet when I am out, so they aren't always a treat, more of an endurance.

Bumped into someone I've not seen in ages, plus it was warm so I wasn't bundled up in layers of jumpers, and they commented I'd lost weight. So naturally they asked what 'diet' I'd been on. I explained it wasn't a diet as such just cutting out excess carbs....such as bread, potatoes, pasta, rice and sugars.

And back came the, by now expected and standard response ' but what is there left to eat?'
Followed by 'I couldn't give up bread...'

We're off camping at the weekend. First night will be lamb and vegetable (mushroom, onion, courgette, peppers) and haloumi cheese, kebabs.

Breakfast bacon, eggs, mushroom and tomatoes.

I think DH is going to have to come off statins as his cholesterol has dropped to 2.8. Also, his blood glucose two hours after breakfast was a healthy 5.9 , which is excellent as he was pre-diabetic and this is the reason we started this régime in the first place. He's delighted with his weight loss and has so much more energy he's clocking up an average of 15,000 steps a day on his pedometer.

Règime! Got it, thanks Mamie

At Hyde Hall the apricots were full size, but still green. The peaches were still funny and only an inch long!

I keep boiled eggs in the fridge now, I was hitting the cheddar a bit too often! Also a bag of carrot sticks and a bowl of houmous.

What did a friend ask me the other day... Oh yes, she asked how my eating plan was going. I thought, how nice that she didn't call it a diet. I find that now that we have tons of salad stuff, it all goes in a thick layer on a plate, then I end up crumbling cheeses, or sprinkling chopped chicken, sunflower seeds, pine nuts and that sort of stuff all over the top of it. It takes ages to eat it all and makes me feel very full up.

Slide your finger across to the right one and press it.
Market was good today. We have tuna steaks for tonight and tomorrow will be roast tarragon chicken to help tackle the enormous tarragon bush in the garden.
Lots of apricots and cherries from the south too.

Yes, I can see them but how do I 'get' them?

Press on the e a bit longer and they are all there for you! éèêę

I like that term regime (forgotten how to add the accent on my iPad) I think I'll use that in future.

And I can't find halloumi, even in Lidl.

It is funny how people don't get it isn't it? I get lots of questions about how long I have been doing it (nearly eighteen months) as if I am suddenly going to stop and put the weight back on. I like the French word régime better as "diet" does tend seem to me to have more of the meaning of something temporary in English now. It isn't a diet, it is a way of eating.
We eat more cheese too but almost no cream and less butter. I need to get better at varying protein sources for lunch though. In winter we had a lot of soup, but now it is all salad and though we do have egg and tuna days it is sometimes a bit too easy to grab cheese or garlic sausage or paté from the fridge, after a long morning in the garden.

Have to add. Never had ANY heartburn/reflux (call it what you like) since starting this.

Forgetting to eat lunch has happened to me a couple of times, probably a combination of being busy and not feeling hungry??

My family, who've been a bit 'worried' by this diet eating plan and warned of dire consequences are gob smacked absolutely incredulous at the reduced cholesterol. They can't seem to 'get it' and I suppose the 'low fat' message has been flogged for so long (and is still being recommended) that it's going to take a long time to get the message across.

I don't actually think I'm eating that much more fat anyway. More cheese, probably. Less butter definitely. But what I feel I now have is a really healthy relationship with food.

That's a really good reading, well done!

I spent yesterday back at Hyde Hall, and they had done as I asked, stopped using wheat flour to thicken their sauces and had marked a big menu pinned to the door stating all GF choices. It was such a relief, not just for me as there were 6 of us out of 51 on that tour. I chose a smoked salmon and prawn salad - which didn't come with any bread at all! I was so used to being carb free that it didn't strike me as odd, but one lady was a little irked. She went in to buy some brown bread, and emerged with what looked like half a loaf. It cost a whole 75p.

Tonight I had a little steak and masses of mixed salad. I forgot lunch somehow, due to shopping I suppose.

Brilliant Anya, well done.
I hope the doctor was suitably impressed.

That's brilliant, Anya

Just devoured a 2-finger Kit-Kat to celebrate my cholesterol reading of 4.78 (down from 5.4) and a ratio of HDL to LDL described as 'excellent' .

So bottom line, eating low/moderate carbs and more protein and fat does not raise this GNetters cholesterol or BP (113/75)

Fingers crossed for the heatwave! merlot I had several very nasty explosions last year with my elderflower champagne. I had to take the bottles (plastic) outside after having had to scrub down my entire kitchen twice. One bottle punched right through the side of a large beer bucket. I thought someone had shot me. Every time I opened one I had to wear gloves and a full apron and be aware that I was going to get wet face and hair - but it's delicious. One glass at weekends is fine. However I am going to make more cordial this year for the GCs. And buy a new bucket.

Thanks JR - that sounds about the same stage as ours. Lots of thinnings here too! We had rocket for lunch with avocado, hard-boiled eggs and tuna mayo.
Too windy to do much gardening here today, but we managed to cut the grass, ready for the heatwave at the end of the week!

Can't do any gardening today. Not just the weather but my left knee is the size of a melon and very painful. I was hoping to finish weeding the strawberries and put down some straw.

Never mind. When the pressure rises my knee will start behaving again.

I'll be making elderflower champagne on Thursday. Lots of sugar, I know but the everyone loves it so it doesn't last long.

Spinach beet, various lettuces, radishes, I had my first red onion yesterday, rocket, I grow some peas just for the shoots, I harvest the broad bean shoots so that they don't get blackfly and the leaves are lovely too, asparagus, my squashes are going in today. I'm growing Hasta la Pasta, I thought I had better! Welsh onions, and I use garlic still in the green as I plant loads of it. Do you use rocket? It's lovely cooked.
I'm going to make strawberry mats for mine today, out of a leftover piece of membrane. I'm also eating baby leek thinnings, and I grow Hamburg parsley, which is wonderful, as it is parsley tops with parsnip roots, but without the earthy flavour. Only the parsley currently. What else- kale thinnings. I love all the baby veg at this time of year. Carrots soon!

What are you cropping now JR? We have salad leaves and spinach, but the peas, courgettes, broad beans are nowhere near yet. The brassica and squashes are in, the potatoes are up through the straw but most other things are still very small. We have 32 veg beds but they are so slow at the moment that the stuff in the greenhouse is waiting to go in the garden and the stuff in the potting shed is waiting for the greenhouse. The strawberries are cropping though.
Sorry for thread derailing....

I use ME recipes every day, usually. They use so many veg, it was logical when I have a big veg garden. I've just had a huge salad with a load of mixed roasted veg on top spiced up with ras el hanout (sometimes harissa) and a little diced chicken, mixed with a tbsp. of maize couscous.