Monday, January 20, 2014

Now that we've started this LCHF diet, eating is getting so much more complicated, although with the ingredients becoming much more simple.  We started this a few months ago, around the August mark, feeling bloated and lacking energy, and wondering whether some sort of change would actually help.  At the end of August, during our week in Cairns, the guy running the B&B enthusiastically shared with us all of his LCHF ideas, which were actually pretty much what we had decided to do all off our own bat.

For those who don't know, LCHF is "low carb, high fat" basically a 180 degree turn from what the majority of the medical and health people recommend, which is high carb, low fat, because apparently fat is bad and will kill you, and carbs are amazing.  Except that carbs spike your blood sugar and give you insulin problems and make you fat and all sorts of other things that really I don't want to go in to because let's face it, they're really boring.

So.  We started doing low carb for six days a week and eating whatever we liked on the seventh day, because, it's the day of rest, isn't it?  And cooking is wrong when you can go to KFC, even when by the end of day seven you feel like you are completely going to die, and couldn't possibly feel more sicker and bloated and please, just take away the carbs, I hate them already.  Obviously, six days later, all that I want is a big bag of chips.  My mind is self-contradictory like that, it's very confusing.

December was a massive washout, because it was Christmas.  Yes, it was Christmas all month, and besides, we had visitors, and also, I really like pancakes, and roast potatoes, and desserts, and chips, and all the other things that make me feel so horrible - and worse, make me stack back on all the weight that I lost between the end of August and the beginning of December.  Very depressing.

January 1 it all started again, and almost the whole way through January, I am now fairly enjoying it.  I'm enjoying doing research online to see what healthy gourmet meal I could try to cook up next, or whether I can find some low carb substitute for a carbohydrate.  (This is where the cauliflower rice comes in)  Some things, work, and some things blatantly don't (the kale chips were horrible, why is everybody raving about them???)

My newest attempt I stole (and slightly adapted) from notquitenigella.com , which she adapted from The Healthy Chef.  It's a recipe for chocolate chip cookies, and it goes like this:

150g almond meal (luckily, almond meal comes in 150g packets)
3 tablespoons coconut oil (which I filched off N, and having asked in retrospect, she didn't mind)
2 tablespoons honey (also filched off N, but she stole mine first, so it's only fair)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla (I left this out, because I ran out, I do have a vanilla pod but I don't know how to use it)
50g 80% dark chocolate, chopped (I used 85% Green & Blacks, because it's awesome)
1-2 tablespoons water (2)
I also added 1 tablespoon of flaxseed meal.

Mix it all together and shove it in the oven in little pressed down balls (it's crumbly) for 20 - 25 minutes at 150C.

Hey presto, healthy chocolate chip cookies.  Although technicality the honey is a carb, so we're only using these as treats.

Meals, we have the inevitable meat & veg options, butter chicken, chicken curry, chicken in a red pepper sauce, mince, etc.  Still considering what to cook tonight - these blogs I'm reading are amazing, but do I really want to stick a bunch of pate on a portobello mushroom and cover it with cheese?  I didn't think so.  You'll thank me tonight, Kurt.  

And I just blogged about food.  Deal with it, because there is nothing else going on in my life except this annoying allergy which is still not going away, and I'm done blogging about that.

TTFN !!!

2 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. almond meal has about 22g carbohydrate per 100g, but 12g of this is dietary fibre, leaving it at 10%. Still relatively high as far as a low carb diet goes, but low enough for an occasional.

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