When is a Protein a Carb?

That is the question.

I know, I thought that was strange myself. (Unless I’m the only person who doesn’t know this. Apparently my mom knew) There is a reason for this query of mine, since learning about low-carb diets and how they’ve changed in the past few years.

First I realized that with my body, I just don’t deal well with carbs. Like potatoes and bread, heavy duty ones. So, I’m going over to fruits and vegetables that are low carb. No more sugar, bread, potatoes, etc, etc. You pretty much know that carbs turn into glucose and if you aren’t ready to use them, they go to fat; at least for me.

However, I have now learned that if you eat too much protein that the excess your body turns into glucose which in turn stores in the fat cells! I was totally surprised at this as well! Apparently everyone’s agreeing on this! And can I remember where I read this? No…

So I figure, ‘hey, I guess I need to see how much protein I need to eat.’ First I learned that how you get this total goes off of your ‘lean body mass’. In other words, everything that isn’t fat. For me, mine is 83 pounds.

But here’s the weirder part. No one really knows how much is good for me. Some were saying you multiply your weight by .6 and you get how much you need. That’s 201. (this is grams of protein a day). Then there’s another where you multiply by .36 which is 120.6. And lastly there’s one where you take the lean body mass and times it by something and convert it into something else and it comes out to 48 or 52, depends on the lean mass calculators.

On the forums I read they seem to follow the consensus that in the 40’s or 50’s is the best. Which doesn’t make sense if you’re doing a 15% carbs to 20% protein, the protein is now lower (60 grams carbs/40-50 grams protein). There are others who say you need so much protein a day to keep your lean muscle, (I think they calculated 122 grams for me) but do they know this new thingy where all these extra carbs are mysteriously transformed by the liver into glucose?

And on Barry Groves website http://www.diabetes-diet.org.uk/ratios.html they say that you should have 1 to 1.5 grams of protein for every kilo (this is pounds divided by 2.2) of lean body mass – so that means 37.7 grams. That’s more of a 10% protein/15% carbs/75% fat…

Now, let’s figure that out into 3 daily meals for 37.7 grams a day. That’s 12.5 grams a meal. For breakfast that would be one egg and two strips of bacon. While not bad, it’s not very filling. You can add all the fat you want to it, and I usually cook my eggs in some of the bacon grease. You can add cream and even cheese, but cheese has protein too. I know, for myself I would be hungry not much later along the way. And honestly, you can only eat so much fat.

Now, I realize that my body is healing from my blood sugar woes so my need for more food will probably decrease. Especially if I lose weight while doing this, but it almost seems like its more trouble than it’s worth to sit down and calculate everything I stick in my mouth. I like one man who I chatted with on a forum, he’s been losing weight and he said he counts nothing; he eats only low-carb fruits and vegetables and then eats until he’s satisfied. You just have to remember to make fat the majority of your meal. This I can do. He also told me that if the scales aren’t going down, you need to make some changes. So if it doesn’t move after a couple of weeks now then I seriously may have to look at the protein I’m eating – I hope not.

So! I take my health into my hands once again, (I feel like I’m talking with a French accent here) deciding to eat this last way. Low-carb fruit and veg, make sure I get a lot of fat into every meal and cut out sugar… We’ll see how it goes.

Low-carb fruits 10 grams of carbs for 5 ½ oz – raspberries, melons – any kind, grapefruit and then there are two that need sugar to be edible so I don’t think they should count unless you love sour. Gooseberries, which I have eaten whole and plain, they aren’t bad, but try finding them. And… rhubarb, (10 grams of carbs for 7 oz). I grew up with rhubarb and would eat it straight out of the garden because I was crazy. This stuff, while edible like that is super sour and is usually cooked with a lot of sugar. And I don’t do artificial sweeteners, but it’s up to you.

Low-carb vegetables to me, these I’ll eat freely. One- no one can eat THAT much that you won’t burn it off. Two – if you cover them in tons of oily dressing or butter, you’re going to get full. Asparagus, Avocado, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Celery, Cucumber, Green beans, Kale, Kohlrabi, Lettuce, Mushrooms, Olives, Onions, Pepper (bell), Pickles (not sweet), Radishes, Spinach, Tomatoes, Turnips, Yellow squash, Zucchini.

Does High Fat have to be a versus to Nutrition?

I Am Not a Morning Person

So many people talk about how breakfast is the most important meal of the day. My stomach can handle water, well liquids in the morning. So I start out with water and what I call creamed milk. Basically it’s cream and milk in a glass, a 4 to 1 ratio cream to milk.

I do admit, I feel so much better with a high-fat diet. No longer 24/7 hungry is a nice feeling. Which brings me to…

A Conundrum About a Regular High-Fat Diet and Nutrition

So, did you do your homework? If I had to pick two books out of the list to start it would be ‘Eat Fat Get Thin’ and ‘Deep Nutrition’.

Why?

They taught me the most about fats. Mind you, ‘Eat Fat Lose Fat’ is good, it’s about coconut oil. When you read about it you’ll be surprised at what it can do for you. But they talk about counting calories and having so much coconut oil a day and that’s it.

That didn’t work for me, I was still hungry.

This is why I think ‘Eat Fat Get Thin’ is better in this area.

And yes, I know that no book is totally perfect so I have to say just what I didn’t agree with.

The disagreement I had with this book is that there are good fats and then there are great fats. Coconut oil being one, but then there are organic and pasture/grass-fed meats, and eggs, raw milk, etc, which have not only more live minerals and vitamins in them, but the animals are treated humanely. A happy animal, I believe, is happy food for you.

Reading it you get the sense that any fats and fatty foods are okay. And while if you look at the picture of the author, he looks slim and healthy, he looks his age, (around 70).

Not that this is a bad thing, but I think this if we take the basis of total health rather than just weight loss (and weight loss is his point in this book) we can be 70 and look 40 or 50, maybe even younger. And this is where happy animals and the book Deep Nutrition start to come into play, (along with the book Nourishing Traditions), but Deep Nutrition starts it off better.

Deep Nutrition talks about four key elements to eating that a lot of low-carb, or any diet or way of eating forget. The way our ancestors ate, and in this book the author talks about the four ‘pillars’ as she calls it and I think are necessary to be overall healthy while still eating the best you can. Hopefully she doesn’t mind a quick rundown here.

The First Pillar

Eat all of the animal, from happy animals that are well cared for and fed correctly, on a pasture. But this includes bone, skin, everything. And before you go all ‘ew’, you know what I mean; you wouldn’t eat the skin of a cow. But I’ve been in heaven with perfect crispy, golden chicken skin and I’ve seen pork rinds in the store. But outside of that the fat and bone on the meat is important as well as…

Second Pillar

The innards or ‘offal’ as it’s called. This doesn’t mean it awful, but that it all fell from the insides when well… gutted (yeah, that sounds awful). This is the heart, kidney, liver, brains, etc. All the things we don’t touch anymore.

I remember having liver and onions as a kid (I put a lot of ketchup on it), until my mom found out that my dad didn’t like it, so we never had it again. Nowadays, after changing my diet but trying to put these things in, where I live, no store offers up liver or anything like that. Then again, it’s better to get a liver from a happy animal, which is harder to find.

I do note, it’s also very hard (see impossible) where I live to get pastured meat, pastured anything from a local store. So do the best you can, buy it where you can, but don’t go broke.

Third Pillar

Eat fresh. Eat vegetables over fruit.

While fruit is lovely, it’s all sugar. And for watching your carbs, fruit needs to be minimal. But I eat and array of colors in vegetables. Salad is one of the best ways and freshest to get these.

Fourth Pillar

Eat fermented.

Not just any old fermented stuff, but live bacteria fermented. Whole, plain, organic yogurt is a good start.

This is where the book ‘Nourishing Traditions’ comes in. They take up the banner in live fermented foods.

What do I mean by ‘live’?

It means that the cultures (usually like a lactobacilli) in it are still living. That canned or bottle sauerkraut (gack) that you may put on your hot dog is dead. Once cooked and/or canned, the bacteria isn’t beneficial anymore.

It doesn’t mean you have to eat sauerkraut.

Even writing that makes me cringe.

There are other options, like yogurt or an easy fermented ginger ale, which is a little punchy when it’s young, but not bad. (I will get to recipes; I need to get pictures ready though).

P.S.

I noted in my first post that the percentages for this diet are 65% fat, 20% protein, 15% carbs. But honestly, you’re looking to make sure you don’t go over 60 grams of carbs a day. And salad vegetables are free. This changes the ratios I’ve noticed as I figure out my recipes to more like 70% fat, 20% protein, 10% carbs to keep my carbs that low.

Where to start… hmmm – how about with Fat Books!

When I walk into my kitchen today, I am not alone. Whether we know it or not, none of us is. We bring fathers and mothers and kitchen tables, and every meal we have ever eaten. Food is never just food. It's also a way of getting at something else: who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be. - Molly Wizenberg

I like this quote because it’s so real. Oddly most of my memories of my mother’s cooking has to do with the things I couldn’t stand to eat. Oyster stew, canned sauerkraut… gack. There were good things, she made a killer potato salad and all of my siblings and I would fight over the dumplings in the chicken soup.

Yes, I am smiling. They are good memories, hence my point for the quote.

So why this blog? I’m not really a blogger, I leave that to my younger sibling. But I’ve spent the better part of my life being overweight and it’s not fun. I’ve tried just about every diet there is and most of that was being hungry and miserable. Some would say, why not surgery? I say, if I can’t fix it naturally then I was meant to be fat. That and my Aunt almost died twice with that kind of surgery. So no…

The interesting thing in retrospect is that for all of my failures, I’ve learned. What I would dismiss a few years ago I’ve turned back to look at again. Younger and wiser.

You know, you’re only as old as you think you are. I’m an immortal 25.

Ah, I’m smiling again.

So, with all the knowledge I’ve obtained over the years I decided to write about it so I can see where I go. But you know, I hunt all over the ‘net for things like high-fat recipes and ways of eating and they’re slim pickins. I write for a hobby, and I love to cook, so here I am to blog about it. Where do I start on this journey?

Well, I’ve about me, so you know where I stand at the moment. I’ve been eating high-fat for about two weeks, but I was also eating high-carb and high-protein. I still felt crappy, no energy and my weight wasn’t budging. Tonight, for the first time a long time, I’ve had a bit of energy. Hoorah!

Then I read a few more books about high-fat and low-carbing it. So I made a few changes. One came from a book by Barry Groves called ‘Eat Fat Get Thin’.

I was very inspired and I think it gave me the last key I needed to get myself on the right track. And while I agree with him on the high-fat low-carb moderate-low protein, I think there are a few things that people need and need to take into account. (I’ll get into those in a different post).

However… you knew there was a ‘however’ right? While I could blog and blog until the raw milk comes to my hometown… (just a minute, too funny)… it’s best if you want to see where I’m coming from to give you some primer books.

Well, with this being a high-fat diet then we should start with why I decided to do a high-fat diet.

This diet is 65% fat, 20% protein and 15% carbs. 60 grams a day for carbs. Watch my protein, but let me tell you, you can’t eat too much fat. Especially went you start out. And I get really full. It’s nice to not be hungry all the time.

Does that much fat shock you? Most people would think, ‘how do you do that?’ Eat out of a bucket of lard? Hehehehe.

No.

You need to learn what foods have the high fats in them. Use fats wisely and get the nutrition you need. I’m not saying that fruit, veg, and grains are bad. But if you’re ill or overweight you may have a problem with what I call the thrifty gene or your body just can process them. With that being said there are going to be people that will absolutely protest that this is the evilest of evil diets. That fat is of Satan and it will kill you. (I’m shaking my finger at you like you know those people would).

I’m not a doctor, I’m not boring enough to get that kind of vocabulary. But I am a person and I’m smart enough to connect the dots and think for myself and I will read up on stuff. The things touted to me by credited and certified doctors have not worked for me. So, I take my health into my own hands!

Vive la my hands!

So let’s get into the basis of my primer books on fats and why they are the thing you should be eating. These authors have done all the work with all the wibbly-wobbly sciency-whiency information to it (which honestly, bores me) so I don’t have to! Yay!

Exhibit A) Deep Nutrition by Dr. Catherine Shanahan

This is the book that has all the science behind why she believes in the 4 pillars of nutrition and that fat, saturated fat is a keystone. Especially that vegetable oils are really Satan.

Though technically I don’t believe in Satan. But it’s what people say.

Exhibit B) Food Rules by Dr. Catherine Shanahan

An easier read of Exhibit A.

No, I’m not a lawyer.

Exhibit C) Eat Fat Get Thin by Barry Groves, PhD

Where Deep Nutrition got me started, this one got me believing just how important a high fat, low-carb diet is.

Exhibit D) Eat Fat Lose Fat by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, PhD

All about coconut oil and what it and other fats do for us. Believe me when I say, coconut oil is amazing and the best oil you can use for this way of eating. Not the only way, but a share of my daily fat intake is coconut oil.

So, what’s the diff between Dr. and PhD? I always wondered about that. I’ll have to check that out.

Exhibit E) Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, PhD

This is a more in depth read of not just fats but other things which I will write about later. Sally Fallon is the President of the Weston A. Price Foundation. Price’s book called Nutrition and Physical Degeneration might interest you to read. (a little boring but he gets the point across)

And lastly but not least…

Exhibit F) Why We Get Fat and What to do about it by Gary Taubes

You know, I think this is the very first one I read about the pros of fat, and I need to go back and read it again. I got a little put out when my sister (low-fat believer) talked about how he was on the Dr. Oz show and how he refused a cholesterol test. So I had to go find out why, if you talk the talk you gotta walk the walk. Turns out the Dr. Oz show wanted Taubes to look bad so they cut out anything irrelevant that he told them. Figures…

Alright, off you go, you have homework to do.