Support and ideas for those on low-carb diet

Hello fellow newbie! Well done on your weight loss. How have you found the low carb approach?

Hi Wilma. I have been a mindful eater for 15 years and that worked well for me but for the last 3 years I have not been able go shift some weight I had gained. So I did some research and decided that eating really clean and lowish carb was the best way forward. I have also cut out all dairy to avoid the hormones and my hot flushes completely stopped. I have lost over a stone and don't get hungry. So to answer your question......I find it really really brilliant. What about you?

Welcome Blodyn.
We had daurade royale from the market, which I think is gilt-head bream in English. Wilt the spinach (glad to here about chenopodium stillhere), fry the fish fillets lightly in butter and remove, add lemon juice to deglaze then add creme fraiche, put fish on spinach and pour over sauce, garnish with parsley. We usually do salmon, but I think turbot would work well too.
This morning is egg and bacon. Hurrah!

Thanks Mamie and still I'll have a go at one of those tomorrow as DD and family (we are having to live at their house) are away for a few days.

Hello Blodyn, I shall have to google clean eating as I am not sure what it is, but I do know that I had to cut out cream and cheese when my hot flushes started, and only really eat dairy stuffs maybe once a week in any volume. That is because that is the night when DBH cooks, usually. He does love cheese sauce. I settle for just a sprinkle of grated cheese, or a tbsp. of something like crème fraiche between the two of us. No milk in tea or coffee. The hot flushes do sometimes return on the nights when he cooks, but nowhere near as strongly as they used to.

Mamie Chenopodium - it doesn't disappear in the way spinach does, I grow the giganteum with the lovely magenta tips, so is very pretty in my garden too. It can get to 5' tall, so that is an awful lot of spinach, we eat far more of it as a result. I cut each plant down to halfway in the summer and have a big microwaving and freezing session, then let them grow away again to have seeds for the next year. I love poached eggs in a spinach nest for lunch.

We used to grow Chenopodium Bonus Rex Henricus in England many years ago, but found it a bit bitter after the first few weeks. This year we have been growing Cima di Rapa (Italian turnip tops) which is very nice; it went in quite late and should overwinter.
Apologies to newcomers to the thread, we do diverge into gardening from time to time.
Dinner tonight will be roast chicken with roasted beetroot, Jerusalem artichokes and onions.

The cooking and growing and eating go hand in hand here, sorry too, I hadn't thought.

This one doesn't go bitter and needs sun, mamie.

Will look out for it stillhere. Funnily enough we went to an open organic garden day earlier in the year ( organic gardening still seems to be a bit alternative and hippy here) and the owner, who lived in a yurt, was growing it.
Also kale with garlic and butter tonight

Tonight - I am slipping on here in between making apple cheese and tonight's beef casserole. The casserole is basically beef and onion and squash and carrot just slowly stewed for hours, but I have yet to pick the mangetouts and purple sprouting broccoli to go with it, I have just finished preparing the pseudo-spinach that will also be on the menu.

I am keeping the kale for when the pseudo-spinach has ended. It is finally making a good recovery after its caterpillar attack, which is good because we start the winter every year with nice new leaves.

stillhere Its great to hear that your hot flushes stopped when removing dairy too. I had read a lot about lactating cows and all the hormones in dairy being too much for us at certain stages so thought I would give it a go and hot flushes just went. Mine only return on the odd occasion if I get stressed. I use olive oil, walnut oil and coconut oil. I will have coconut yoghurt and drink other milks like almond, rice, coconut, hazelnut etc.

Thanks for the welcome everyone.

So how much weight have people lost on this?

hundredweights!

I wish...

I have gone down a whole size, but haven't got any scales so I don't know. I am at that stage where my favourite clothes look wrong. I thought all my clothes would just drape more becomingly, but it appears that my bust (now 36D instead of 38D) doesn't want to be in the same places as the darts in my tops, and all my jeans are baggy at the backs of my legs. I had to go out and buy a whole load of new bras a couple of weeks ago.

Three stone and am now just under nine stone, BMI 21, down from dress size 16 to 10. I have basically lost all the weight I piled on in ten years of menopause. At stable weight now for over 6 months.
How is everyone doing with the eating régime? Is the book helping, Wilma?

We are currently living with DD until we find some other accomodation following the fire on the 19th. My best guesstimate is it will be about 3 months before our house is ready to live in again. I'm doing my best under the circumstances but it's not easy when you don't have your own kitchen.

Goodness Anya, I didn't know about the fire. Poor you, how difficult. Bon courage.

I hope you find somewhere suitable (and dog friendly) to rent soon Anya. 3 months sounds about par for the course - that'll mean you move back in the new year I expect. It isn't easy to eat well away from your own home imo.

Thank you. I just wish these insurance companies would move more quickly.

Was thinking I can add to this thread by describing what happens when you go back to eating too many carbs. I've had to regress because firstly healthy eating was the last thing on my mind and DD is feeding us and I haven't the energy or will to decline what she has lovingly cooked for us.

Almost straight away a vague tummy ache reappeared, and my reasonably flat stomach became bloated. I've started to suffer from wind which is new.

A couple of days on and my arthritis, which had been much, much improved flared up to the extent I couldn't walk from the pain in my left knee. This is unheard of.

I'm noticing my jeans are harder to get into and do up in the morning. This might be because I'm having to shower and dry off quickly so it's a bit like getting dressed after swimming when clothes stick a bit. I can't weigh myself as DD is one of those stick insects who doesn't have and doesn't need scales.

No sign of heartburn returning yet (that's gone completely since going LC) happily.

Of course this may all be due to stress rather than poor diet but still these are irrirations that had been largely overcome.

Oh Anya. How awful for you, it's bad enough to have to be out of your house, but not to be able to control what you eat as well is miserable. I know because I am finding it so hard with DBH being off work for so long. He is going to stay in MiL's holiday cottage for a couple of weeks, and I am really looking forward to returning to my preferred quinoa and roasted mixed veg and salad meals, with the odd bit of fish and chicken thrown in. I was hoping to have lost far more weight by now, for a start I know I don't really want three meals a day, I really want a few snacks and one main meal.

The mention of quinoa prompts me to ask about couscous. Both ok for low-carb eating or not?
After 6/7 weeks of cutting carbs I've lost about 6" from the tummy/ waist area and yesterday discovered that a couple of last winter's dresses which were too clingy for comfort now look fine. A pair of tight jeans were removed without undoing zip or button!
I credit this gn thread for putting the idea into my head and my dipping into it has kept me going.
I am sorry to read of your problems anya . Isn't odd how the indirect results of your rotten fire experience can cause further stress?
My sister had a similar experience after a flood but, once settled into their smaller but cosier temporary accommodation, felt so much better and coped well for 5/6 months while her house dried, was re-plastered and decorated.

You shouldn't really have quinoa or couscous on a low-carb diet mcem. Cauliflower rice would be a common substitution. I tend to use aubergine a lot as a side dish with middle eastern food.

Anya poor you. Horrible to not be in your own home. I have found since eating paleo that my aches have gone too as have hot flushes and bad headaches. IBS much improved too. Wheat and dairy is inflammatory I believe so cutting them out has helped me.
Mamie your weight loss is so inspiring. I have lost a stone and 5lbs since end of June. Not quick but it is slowly coming off and staying off. I havnt eaten quinoa but there are some lovely bread recipes using it which I may try with seeds in. I am eating lowish carb and eating fruit and veg as to me the nutrients are very important and the sugar in fruit combined with the natural fibre means it reacts differently in the body than sugar on its own.

Blodyn we have eaten fruit all the way through too. We don't have floury potatoes but have pretty much all the other veg.
We really started the diet for my OH who despite eating very little sugar all his life, was in pre-diabetes. He has lost four stone, is now completely out of pre-diabetes and off statins after a huge drop in cholesterol (despite eating butter and cheese).
I think we both feel that we have a new lease of life, which is why I am a bit evangelical about low-carb.

I totally agree with you that eating lower carb is better for all of us really. I don't want to put you to too much trouble but how long did it take you to lose the 3 stone? Sorry if I have missed you saying it. Im glad you eat fruit though.

It took a year to lose most of it, then a little more over the next few months and no change now for about 6 months.
We grow a lot of fruit and most of our veg as we have a large garden deep in the French countryside. We both cook and we eat out very rarely so it isn't difficult for us to stick to the diet.
We have drunk wine all the way through too.