[Samurai]

Originally Posted by Navneet

In the past, I made two attempts at losing weight - 5 and 3 years back. Both the times, I regulated my calories & walked 4-5 km everyday (input - output method) and lost 7 - 8 kg each time by creating calorie deficit.

Turns out the input - output method is the most misleading and useless method. You should eat food that doesn't raise your insulin levels. And you don't need to exercise at all to reduce weight. Just eat the right kind of food. Just dump wheat/rice/sugar in all forms from your diet.

Now we have to figure out what to replace it with... even I am looking for alternate food. Fish/chicken/mutton/egg/vegetables/butter works, but what else?

Many fruits have high sugar content. Which are best for weight loss?

[Navneet]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Many fruits have high sugar content. Which are best for weight loss?

From what I have read up, berries (black, straw and rasp) are good. Can have cantaloupe (melon), coconut and plums as well.

[bblost]

Originally Posted by Navneet

@bblost - loved the pics of your recipes. As you are currently following LCHF diet, please continue to post pics of your recipes to generate ideas for recipes.

Can we have handfuls of almonds and peanuts (salted and fried in butter) as regular snacks?

As liberal quantities of meat are allowed, will it be alright to have chicken curry and mutton curry? Asking because these dishes are made daily in the lunch served at office.

Planning to substitute tea with Mother's Dairy Tadka Chhach, whenever energy levels dip.

Based on your weight, age and fitness level, I actually recommend a dietitian and nutrition specialist.

Glad you liked the pictures. I will keep adding pictures of some of my meals.

You can eat boiled peanuts and soaked almonds. Avoid them in fried and salted preparations.

While meat and chicken get a green signal, remember that its cooked without the curry stuff.

So it will be a steam, boiled or grilled preparation.
Making it a curry will defeat your diet plan.

Drink green tea and butter milk.
Avoid sugar. In fact give it up completely in tea and coffee.
The first few days may be a little difficult. But the calorie savings are too big.

[Navneet]

My remarks / queries in bold please.

Originally Posted by bblost

Based on your weight, age and fitness level, I actually recommend a dietitian and nutrition specialist.

Traditionally, dieticians recommend limiting calories / creating calorie deficit. Very antithesis of LCHF Plan. Will need to locate one practicing LCHF diet. Any recommendations?

You can eat boiled peanuts and soaked almonds. Avoid them in fried and salted preparations.

Why avoid frying, especially the peanuts, as fat is not a taboo? Can you please elaborate? I am talking about sauteing raw peanuts at home in butter / ghee / oil and salt.

While meat and chicken get a green signal, remember that its cooked without the curry stuff.

So it will be a steam, boiled or grilled preparation.
Making it a curry will defeat your diet plan.

Reason? As long as the ingredients are low carbs (Tomato and onion in limited quantities), why not in curry form? And why not shallow fry in butter/ghee?

Drink green tea and butter milk.
Avoid sugar. In fact give it up completely in tea and coffee.

That is the key, I think. Will take up drinking green tea. And no sugar while on this plan.

The first few days may be a little difficult. But the calorie savings are too big.

Absolutely.

And can we take curd? Any thoughts?

Mod Note : Please do NOT reply to posts using bold text within a quoted post, as it leads to visual discomfort for readers. Additionally, it's inconvenient to quote & reply to such a post.
For the correct way to quote, please see this thread.

[bblost]

This diet is NOT a free entry into an all you can eat club.

You will still need to follow some very important rules. Frying is the worst way to prepare food. Should be used at the very last resort.

If you must insist on frying something then get an air fryer.

Whats the point of making a curry with tomatoes and onions when you cannot eat it with rice or roti.
Instead you will need to prepare the protein as a stand alone meal in its own right.

Something like:

Grilled pumpkin and chicken breast on a bed of blanched spinach:


Lotus stem with carrots:


Mushrooms and spinach with shallow fried fish.

[Navneet]

Originally Posted by bblost

This diet is NOT a free entry into an all you can eat club.

Of course not. No carbs at all. No wheat, rice, bread, pasta, sugar, fruits.

You will still need to follow some very important rules. Frying is the worst way to prepare food. Should be used at the very last resort.If you must insist on frying something then get an air fryer.

One can avoid frying and grill/boil/bake instead. But how else do you use 2 kg of butter that dietdoctor.com has included in the shopping list for first 2 week of low carb diet? If everything is to be air fried/baked/boiled, will it remain high fat diet? Don't know, so asking.

Whats the point of making a curry with tomatoes and onions when you cannot eat it with rice or roti.

I intended to ask if chicken curry / mutton curry can be taken, if available. Or will it violate the underlying principle of LCHF diet.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by bblost

Making it a curry will defeat your diet plan.

Can you please explain why curry will defeat the diet plan.

[bblost]

Originally Posted by Navneet

I intended to ask if chicken curry / mutton curry can be taken, if available. Or will it violate the underlying principle of LCHF diet.

Actually I am a newbie to this and would wait for the experts to answer.

Originally Posted by Samurai

Can you please explain why curry will defeat the diet plan.

I answered it here:

Originally Posted by bblost

Whats the point of making a curry with tomatoes and onions when you cannot eat it with rice or roti.
Instead you will need to prepare the protein as a stand alone meal in its own right.

I am neither following the Atkins nor the LCHF diet.
I have simply removed Wheat from my diet.
So I eat everything except Wheat.

In the next few days I will try and reduce rice as well.


This Diet seems to be working for me.

[Samurai]

I eat mutton pepper fry directly without mixing it with rice or roti. So that is not a concern at all.

[vibbs]

I have been into this (LCHF) for a month now. I do prepare curry and eat it as is. Just don't eat rice or chapathi with it. Also go easy on tomato and onions as they can take up the carb count in the gravy. But a couple of tomatoes and three-four onions for a kg of chicken wont do too much damage I suppose. Sometimes I make cauliflower rice to fool myself into thinking I am eating rice.

That said, one month into the diet I don't miss not eating rice or roti. I never thought I would be able to get myself off rice. But a couple of weeks into it, i was ok on my cravings for rice. However, I do have a cheat day once a week though. At times for lunch I eat a chapathi at office. That's all.

Breakfast is almost always eggs and cheese with bacon thrown in sometimes. Sugar is completely off so are other sources of Carbs. Has worked pretty well till now except that I believe I have now hit a plateau at 83 Kgs for the past four-five days.

[graaja]

Originally Posted by Navneet

I intended to ask if chicken curry / mutton curry can be taken, if available. Or will it violate the underlying principle of LCHF diet.

Making a curry does not essentially violate the LCHF principle. In a FB group that I follow, they ask us to avoid refined oils, sunflower oil etc for making curries. Instead, they recommend coconut oil as the best followed by ghee, butter and sesame oil. I haven't analyzed this reason yet.

Originally Posted by Samurai

I do have a problem. If I do away with anything based on rice, wheat and sugar, what is left?

Indian diet uses carbs (rice and rotis) as base and adds protein and fat as additions (curries, side dishes etc). So, when we take rice and rotis out of the equation, it becomes very difficult to create a meal. It was tough in the beginning to adapt. But now I have got used to it. Here is how some of my meals look like (I have not completely cut carbs):

Breakfast - 3 or 4 eggs with cheese and with one slice of brown bread. I vary the egg preparation - boiled, omelet, scrambled and also add veggies like spinach and capsicum to make it taste better.

Lunch - Chicken, mutton or fish or prawns, mostly prepared as a semi dry curry taken with one slice of brown bread or one chapathi. Most of the time, I replace the bread or chapathi with boiled and sauted cauliflower, greens or coleslaw. Twice a week I am not allowed to take meat. On these days, I substitute meat with Paneer (just saute with onions, palak paneer, or grilled)

Dinner - Mostly paneer, eggs or grilled chicken etc.

Originally Posted by Samurai

This is definitely useful, but can we expand this list?

I will try to prepare a more detailed list in the next couple of days and share.

Originally Posted by Samurai

Nutrition info on almonds says it has 49% fat and 22% carbs or Cashew nut has 44% fat and 30% carbs. How can this be good? Am I reading it wrong?

Per 100 gm serving of almonds which is 576 calories, it has 49g (not %) fat, 21g protein and 22g carbs. Out of the 22g carbs, 12g is dietary fiber. Only the rest (10g) is actual carbs. Each gram of carb is 4 calories. So, out of the 576 calories, only 40 calories come from carbs. This is actually a very low carb food.

Note: People have different opinion about role of dietary fiber in carbs. Some do not consider them to contribute calories, but some say it has to be counted as carbs. Even if we consider the 22g carbs, it is still only 80 caloreis out of 576 calories in almond, which is only 14%.

Another important thing. In the FB group on Paleo diet that I follow they recommend people to do a full blood test to understand any special cases like high uric acid in blood etc which may require cutting down the intake of red meat. For people with these conditions, they recommend more vegetarian options. I have not yet done this. Planning to get it done shortly.

[Samurai]

Thanks, that's really helpful. I need to design a simple daily menu based on this.

[sourav.info111]

I am also worried about my increasing weight. I being a strict non vegetarian, and my primary diet consists of rice, hence it is getting difficult to control weight with each passing day, month and year. Workout has till not been my priority list neither dieting. But after going through this thread, I feel motivated to start workout. At least I feel I should give it a try, for my own benefit.

[bblost]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I eat mutton pepper fry directly without mixing it with rice or roti. So that is not a concern at all.

I think the reason I got confused and ended up confusing others is the way these dishes look.

Generic google results for

Mutton pepper fry


Mutton Curry



The former is a lovely meal by itself. The latter will be weird if it had no accompaniment like rice or roti.

[bblost]

Originally Posted by bblost

In ten days I am down 1.3 kilos.

I am down another 1.5 kilos in 7 days.

Things I did different:
1. Ate well but started avoiding rice. So my dinner for instance would be meat soup with grilled cabbages or sauteed brinjals.
2. No sweets at all.
3. Had fever for one night. Actually my full family went down with fever and I had to catch the infection as well. But luckily the temperature went only upto 100.4 and that too for only one night.

What went a little bad:
Since everyone was down with fever, wanted to eat something spicy. My wife requested mutton biryani and butter chicken. She did not eat it and I ended up finishing it over 3 different meals. The butter chicken was not in the best interests for the diet.


What I miss:
Bread.

A simple healthy breakfast recipe:


Recipe:

I use the thick Red poha because they have a great taste.
Put them in a colander and pour some over them. Lightly squeeze them and let them sit damp.
Wash and finely dice spinach.
Heat a little oil and fry some peanuts. Add the spinach when the peanuts start cracking up. Saute for 2-3 mins. Because its finely diced the spinach will cook really fast.
Add the Poha and switch off the stove. Mix it to evenly warm the Poha. It does not need any cooking.
There is no need of salt in this dish. You may want to add but its not really needed.
Garnish with fine sev and optionally chopped coriander.