Food and Life Experiment - Carbs and Ketosis

I'm intrigued by the results of the dieting I've been doing for the last few weeks. Eating nearly just fat and proteins made me feel much better, less tired and more energetic, but I couldn't keep up with it. After 2 and a half week hit headache, bad mood, severe fatigue, I basically just felt really lousy. I have no idea why that happened, there could have been several reasons, some suspects are:

• Iron deficiency (lots of meat but no vitamin C to facilitate iron uptake). Unlikely when I ate so much meat, but I've had it before and it felt very much like it.
• PMS, for some reason getting worse than normal
• Being in ketosis for too long my brain suddenly needed some carbs to work properly. This makes sense because as soon as I had a big plate of pasta with lamb meatballs and an orange afterwards the headache went away.

So what I'm aiming for now is to stick to fats and proteins for breakfast and lunch to get that extra energy during day and then have some carbs with my dinner. I tend to get much more tired eating carbs so why not use them as a little something to help me fall asleep easier at night. Safest sleeping aid I've heard of!

Tim Ferriss Diet - Pointers for Success

• Always keep a pot of lentil soup/stew in the fridge. In that way you always have something on hand when you get suddenly hungry.
• Plan ahead when to start the diet. If you have lots of sugary food cravings around pms time, maybe it's not a good idea to start then. Or maybe it is, if you tend to be the most motivated in the beginning of a diet, better kill the demons right away. Anyway, it's worth taking into consideration.
• Think ahead what to eat during the week. You can't rely on making a sandwich whenever you feel like it. It's a good thing to have a plan what to do when your blood sugar levels are zero and you're desperate for chocolate ice cream.

Diet thoughts, pros and cons so far

A little summary of my dieting experiences so far:


Pros:
I feel a lot better, no lunch comas, more energy (as long as I don't forget to eat...) and a general lighter stomach feel. This is only true though when I eat a lot of veggies and beans and not just proteins. With only proteins there is a weird "thick" kind of bodyfeel. It's survivable but not that nice.

I do loose weight and muscle percent (vs. fat) is going up without much suffering.

Cons:
Unsocial. It might work to order a meal in a restaurant (i.e. meat/fish with a greenish salad) but the great Swedish tradition of fika is downright impossible. Ok, I can sit there with a cup of black coffee or plain tea, and ok, mabye stretch it to having a dark bitter little chocolate truffle, but that's just no fun.

Not PMS compatible. I never have had an issue with cravings, it doesn't happen a lot and when it does I normally just eat whatever I want thinking I must be needing this or that - no problem. But now, things are getting nasty. I'm not sure I'm above doing lots of bad things in order to get my hands on some dark chocolate cake with whipped cream. Or chocolate ice cream. Or just lots of oranges (I have given in to that one).

Iron levels seems to go down if I don't get meat every day, preferable with citrus fruits on the side. I've been very tired the last few days and I think it's iron deficiency (I had it while I was pregnant and it's just the same symptoms). I've upped my meat intake though and given in to my citrus fruit craving to facilitate the iron uptake. We'll see if it does any good.

Acetone breath. Shows up when there are no carbs to burn, but still not very pleasant.

Cooking takes more time and planning ahead than usual. You can't rely on sandwiches and pasta with parmesan whenever you feel hungry.

Friday is Judgement Day (no 2)

I hadn't expected to lose any weight this week as I've hardly moved out of my house, but I had lost about a pound.

Weight
Start: 54.4 kg
Week 1: 53.3 kg
Week 2: 52.9 kg

The numbers for body fat should not be taken seriously but more as an indicator. Today I measured both 33.0% and 33.7% within seconds of each others, so they are obviously not very accurate (I picked the number in between to put in the table). Also, these numbers say that I'm verging on overweight, and I really don't think anyone would say so seeing me live, so again, don't read to much into them.

Body fat
Start: 35.4%
Week 1: 33.7%
Week 2: 33.35%

My plan is to stick to the diet for 2 more weeks. If I continue to loose weight at this pace I should be able to get into my pre-pregnancy clothes by then. Yay.

Tjälknöl and me bitching about my week

This week I've managed to stick to my diet, but it has really been more about just surviving rather than enjoying myself eating exotic food. My husband has been sick so I've been taking care of stuff at home, not managing to get to the gym. On top of that the washing machine has broken down, leaving us in a sea of dirty laundry and, worst of all, my youngest is having some kind of phase, sleeping no more than an hour in one go. So this week, every few spare minutes that I've had for myself, I've just dived for my bed, hoping for a few minutes of blissful sleep.

Foodwise, we made this Swedish type of roast, named Tjälknöl, at the beginning of the week. It was huge, so we've been eating of the same piece of meat, just varying the veggie preparations to go with it. Good if you've other things to see too than cooking.

Tjälknöl

1 frozen roast, I've tried this on beef and elk.
lots of salt
a little sugar

The night before eating, remove the roast from the freezer. Put into a 75 degrees C warm oven and let it roast in there over night (12 hours). No need to bother yourself with doneness, pink meat or any of that stuff. The meat will have shrunk to 2/3 of its original size and be very dry and sad looking in the morning. That's ok.

Fill a pot, big enough to the roast to fit into 1/2 way up with water. Make it boil. Solve as much salt as possible in there. It should be saturated saltwise. Add a few tablespoons of sugar as well. Chill.

Dump the meat into the saline solution, let soak for 6 hours.

The meat will be tender and have a nice salty tang to it. Cut it in thin slices and serve it as you would serve any type of cold cut roast.

I didn't manage to get a photo of the Tjälknöl, but here are some veggie preparations that went with it:

Easy bean salad with celery, tomatoes and white beans.

Asparagus with egg, butter and lemon sauce.

Armenian chickpea and spinach stew. Same as last week.

Georgian and Armenian Goodness Galore

The food we had during last week tasted SO GOOD. Maybe it was because of the state of ketosis that comes with a strict GI diet ("Hunger is the best spice", the Swedish proverb explains it all), mabye the sense of taste get heightened when sugar is cut out or mabye the food just was just really really good.
I managed to stick to Georgian/Armenian food for most of the week. This is what we tried:

Tuesday: Vospapur - Armenian Spinach and Lentil Soup.
A hearty stew of red lentils, spinach and tomatoes gently flavoured by garlic lemon and cumin. Filling and warming - yes. Photogenic - no, so no photo of this one.

Wednesday: Chakhokbili - Georgian Chicken Fricasse with Herbs and Tomatoes. This was a good one. Real chicken (real meaning the type with skin and fat still intact) first fast fried for a good crisp, then stewed with onions, white wine and lemon juice until onions disintegrate. Lots of fresh mint, basil, parsley, cilantro and tarragon added at the end along with fresh tomatoes. I served it with baked zucchini rounds.

Thursday: Lulya Kebab - Herby Lamb Meatballs with Niveg - Armenian Spinach and Chickpea Stew. Another hit. The meatball paste was really meant to be barbecued on a spit but that seemed a bit unpractical. Ground lamb with generous additions of cumin, dried mint, fresh parsley and cilantro. Might have been the best meatballs I've ever had. The chickpea stew was maybe not that special, but great as a supportive side dish.

Friday is Judgement Day

I've decided I'll weight myself on Fridays. As Saturday is the cheat day, I figured it would be best to do the weight check the day before, so I won't be disappointed. We have this scale that also tells you how the percentage of body fat you're carrying around. I've no idea if it's correct, but, well, for me to have any kind of indication of my fat/muscle ratio is a lot more interesting than knowing your exact weight in kilos.

Ok, here goes:

Monday:
Weight: 54.4 kg
Body fat: 35.4%

Friday:
Weight: 53.3 kg
Body fat: 33.7%

That means (if I've calculated correctly):
Fat mass DOWN 1,3 kg
Muscle mass UP 0,2 kg

I'm considering that to be good for 5 days of easy diet and exercise.

More diet thoughts

This is the first time I do the GI dieting thing (with the exception of a few days of forced co-dieting while staying at my parents house) and it's proving itself to be great. I had expected it would be harder to get started, people have been telling me how they felt all strange in the beginning, fighting sugar addiction and all sorts of cravings, but I haven't had any of that. I just feel much better, more energetic, no mood swings and a generally lighter stomach feel all over. When I've felt hungry I haven't felt those ravenous cramps that I'm used to, instead there has been a very polite feeling telling me it's time to get some nutrition. And at the gym, I normally last around 5 minutes on the treadmill (I know, that's bad, but I just get so bored), yesterday ran for 16 minutes and the only reason for getting off was that my core class was starting. I could easily have stayed on the mill a lot longer. I suppose I'm one of those people that's genetically predisposed to stick to a GI type of diet, so I'm very glad I tried it, otherwise I just wouldn't have found it out. The only drawback this far is that it's impossible to get a dietwise correct meal at restaurants, not good for my social life. And I can't say I've gotten any thinner, but I suppose that's a lot to ask for in just 3 days...

Georgian Food with a GI Twist

In the Timothy Ferriss GI diet there are 3 groups of foods you're allowed to eat. They are:

• Protein (meat, fish, eggs and nuts)
• Legumes (beans and lentils)
• Vegetables (all non root vegetables, but no fruit)

As I've said before I figured out that Georgian or Armenian food should be the best match to GI-adapt since it contains lots of beans, veggies and nuts in itself.

Now, I haven't ever been to Georgia or Armenia but my source of Georgian/Armenian food is the book "Please to the Table - The Russian Cookbook" by Anya Bremzen. It has recipes for food from all over the former Soviet Union Territory and it's a must if you're into home based culinary travel. At least I haven't come across i.e. Uzbek and Thadjik recipes anywhere else.

The first recipes I tried out were Beef Shishkebabs, Green Bean and Walnut Salad and Garlicky Cheese Spread.

The shishkebabs were marinated in red wine with grated onion and garlic.
A close up:

The green beans were bathing in a dressing made with ground walnuts, lemon juice, olive oil, vinegar, chopped onions and cilantro.

And, finally, the cheese spread. This one was really good. It's supposed to be based on a mix of farmers cheese (whatever that is) and yoghurt, but since cottage cheese is the only dairy product allowed in my diet, cottage cheese it what I used. I'm including my recipe of this one.

Garlicy Cheese Spread

1 cup cottage cheese
3 tablespoons walnuts
1 tablespoon parsley
1 clove of garlic
Salt and pepper to taste.

Run everything in a blender until smooth.

Thoughts on my upcoming Tim Ferriss diet

This diet that I'm about to embark on is the one Tim Ferriss describes in his book "The 4 Hour Body" (meaning that he claims that you could have the perfect body by only 4 hours of maintanence work per week). I think 4 hours of workout per week is a lot, but maybe that's just me.

There are 5 "rules" in this diet.

• No "white" carbs. Actually, he says that all foods that could be white should be avoided. So no rice, bread and pasta of ANY kind. This will be hard...
• Same foods over and over again. This will be hard since I hate repetition. I want a new world every day.
• No calories from beverages. Easy since I mostly drink only water and coffee. But curiously enough, you're allowed to have 2 glasses of red wine per day.
• No fruit.
• One cheat day per week where anything is allowed.

 So, what will I be allowed to eat. Meat and eggs are ok. Beans and lentils also. And vegetables and nuts. I've been browsing my cookbooks trying to find one that matches the criteria and I think that Armenian and Georgian food seem to work the best. Lots of stews with meat and beans thrown in together. Not cuisines that are widely known. This will be interesting.

New year - back to reality

In my opinion, the single most boring topic of conversation are peoples diets. The only thing I think is even worse is reading about them in blogs. So, I'm really sorry to say, but I have those post pregnancy kilos that really have to go now. And I'm afraid that I'll be blogging about it here...

But, if anyone is still reading, I think it will be fun. I've picked the GI-inspired diet from Timothy Ferriss book, "The 4-hour Body". It doesn't feel like the most sensible or in the long run health promoting one, but it promises great result and I really admire that guys way of using himself as a lab rat. So I'm giving it a try.

Since I'm on antibiotics now I won't be starting until next week, but stay tuned and I'll let you know all about it.