Low Carb Eating – Time to ditch the sugar!

I’m finally over my boredom cooking, and we are actively working off the long winter 15. In reality, I haven’t gained 15 from just winter. I gained it over the past few years with the move, and then topped off about 5 from boredom cooking. It’s time to get all of these LB.s off. Our go-to quick solution is to start back with low carb eating.

What is low carb eating? There are several variations. Adkins, Sugar Busters, South Beach, Lindora, Code Red, Keto, are all lower carb diets. I’m sure there are more, but these will give you an idea. If you’re interested, you can check them all out. I personally follow a basic “eat what God made” nutrician plan. It’s easy to follow and doesn’t really eliminate anything but sugar, flour, and processed foods. It’s designed to be a lifestyle, not a temporary thing. I struggle with avoiding entire food groups, such as healthy legumes and grains forever, so I’ll limit the amount I eat while actively losing weight, but if I want a potato, I’m eating a potato! I’m still working on perfecting my maintenance mode. If I ever figure it out, I’ll make a mint on my new diet plan!

Cooking from Scratch

Since we’re scratch cooks, it’s easy for us to sustain this type of eating long-term by simply adding in a few more good stuffs (such as yams, and whole grains) once we’ve lost the weight we want to lose. We don’t have to worry about the junk in packaged foods. The problem is we haven’t figured out how to maintain our weight consistently over the years. I know you can relate.

We stop eating all sugar…and I mean all of it. No added sugar of any kind. We don’t use any artificial sweeteners either. No diet sodas of any kind. We get natural sugars from vegetables and limited fruit. Even at that, I only eat blueberries and blackberries on my plain whole milk yogurt for breakfast, and an occasional apple with peanut butter as a snack. For the most part, we eat veggies and meats, eggs, nuts, seeds, and healthy fats, with very occasional grains and legumes.

It’s a high protein, low carb diet. I typically have very high triglycerides, and eating this way dropped them into the normal range. But hey, I’m not an expert. You should always talk with your doctor before you start any restrictive diet. A great book to explain the physiology of this way of eating is Why We Get Sick by Benjamin Bikman, PhD. I’ve given this book to so many people! I highly recommend it.

Not Even Wine?

The part that makes this no fun is that we avoid alcohol. This is probably a good thing because we were getting into the habit of drinking wine or beer on most nights, instead of just on weekends like usual. Is it a problem that I like to have a glass of wine with dinner, and sometimes a second afterwards? I rarely drink more than that, but even at only 120 calories per serving, the Sauvignon Blanc I love has about 4.5 grams of carbs for a 6 oz pour. Since we’re not doing any entertaining, and we’re not going anywhere, this is the perfect time to diet.

As far as dairy goes, we are both allergic to milk, so we don’t drink it. We also limit cheese while losing weight, which is a sacrifice for us. We usually eat a lot of cheese! But honestly, I don’t miss it much. I’m using it very sparingly for flavor on things like taco boats (on romaine leaves) or a sprinkle of Parmesan on spaghetti squash bolognaise. The recipe for the spaghetti squash is in my Easy Menu for Weekend Guests, which you can find HERE.

Cooking Schedule

To help with deciding what’s for dinner, we keep a meal schedule, kind of like the cafeteria menu when we were kids. Meatless Monday, Taco Tuesday, Whatever Wednesday, Salad Thursday, and Pizza Friday, then the weekends are flexible. Eating low carb doesn’t wreck too much havoc on our cooking schedule. We’re not eating “meatless Monday” right now because we’re not eating grains, legumes, or pasta and we need the calories and protein that meat provides. I suppose we could make omelettes that night. Maybe I’ll do that next week. But the rest of the week seems to work out.

On taco night, we’re eating ours on romaine leaves. It’s still very satisfying, and I look forward to them. Pizza night is more of a diversion. I make the spaghetti squash bolognaise. Maybe I’ll try making a veggie rich primavera to make it super hearty without the meat. I do miss pizza night, that’s for sure! I haven’t found a suitable substitute. I find the cauliflower crusts to be too sweet and I’m not crazy about the texture, and I’m not eating cheese. So, with pizza, I’d rather just eat the real thing, or nothing at all.

Stir Fry and Grilling

On “whatever night”, I might cook stir-fry over cauliflower rice, a new marinade for grilling, or various vegetable preparations. We also eat a lot of eggs for breakfast, and when we’re tired of breakfast eggs, we’ll eat yogurt, berries, and a sprinkle of roasted almonds for crunch. Then we’ll have egg salad for lunch stuffed into a romaine shell, or into those cute little sweet pepper halves. I also make chicken and tuna salads at lunchtime, and mix up stuffing it into peppers or lettuce leaves. To up our potassium, I try to sauté or steam spinach a couple of times a week.

We drink a LOT of water, about a gallon a day so we supplement our electrolytes to avoid feeling woozy when we exercise. We used to not actively exercise because we were really busy, and fit a lot of walking into our days. But now we have to, both because we’re stuck at home all day, and because we need to keep our metabolism humming as we get older if we want to have any chance of staying fit and healthy into the next several decades we hope to live.

Balance Exercise

I find it hard to exercise and eat low carb. Because I don’t eat a large volume of food, and we’re not snacking between meals, it’s hard for me to consume enough calories. We log all of our food, to keep ourselves on track, and according to the app I was 2000 calories under budget last week, and I lost 5 pounds. So exercise draws on that already limited store of nutrients. I went to my work-out on Monday and nearly fainted. My ears started ringing and I started to see black spots. I’m pretty hearty, so this was surprising. My daughter is helping to coach us through adding more calories and nutrients so that we can exercise. She’s a fitness trainer and has extensive experience with nutrition and exercise. Maybe this time I’ll actually get it off and keep it off!

I thought I’d share with you my favorite, super easy, crock-pot chicken taco recipe. You can make tacos, burritos, nachos, quesadillas, salads, all kinds of yummy foods. But sadly, anything with tortillas are not low carb.

Patience isn’t my virtue when it comes to losing weight. I’m guessing I’m not alone on this one. Once I make the decision, I want to do it now! In fact, I’ve been on this plan for 10 days, and I’m wondering why I haven’t lost 10 pounds already. So, a 6 month diet just won’t work for me. What do you do when you need to get the pounds off fast? Let us know in the comments.