Some ideas for switching to a lower carb/higher fat diet (for Justin)
First, fats are not evil, they are essential. Saturated fat is not evil either! You’ve probably grown up with the high carb/low fat message so it takes time to overcome that mindset. Your body is likely used to a high level of blood glucose and it takes a while for many people to adjust (carb-flu). If reducing carbs, increase fats, protein will probably remain relatively constant. Change a couple of things, get used to it, change something else, and so on.
I won’t go into a lot of the health stuff, but there is mounting evidence that the diseases of western civilization are largely the result of inflammation. A leading cause of inflammation is high blood glucose. Whether a body responds to that inflammation with heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, or type II diabetes is largely the result of genetic propensities. Much of what we think of as aging is our body responding to inflammatory processes. Rather than just reducing carbs across the board, focus on reducing highly processed foods (sorry, your whole wheat pasta is highly processed and needs to be reduced).
Before the dreaded USDA food pyramid was tweaked to represent agricultural interests, there was actually a serious effort to produce recommendations for a “healthy” diet for Americans based on research and medical findings: 5-9 servings of veggies and fruit, 5-7 ounces of protein foods such as meat, fish, eggs, nuts and beans, 2-3 servings of dairy, 4 tablespoons of cold-pressed fats like olive or flax seed oil in addition to the naturally occurring fats in foods. Sugar less than 10% of calories per day and this category included refined carbs like crackers, bread, bagels, pasta. Grains were to be in whole form and limited to 2-3 servings per day.
Is this a “perfect” diet? Hard to say. For many the dairy would be iffy, although many who are lactose intolerant do well with fermented products such as cheese or yogurt, and surprisingly, many who have problems with lactose intolerance, have far fewer problems with full-fat dairy (the fat blunts the effect of the milk sugar). As with the kinds of diseases one develops when eating the Standard American Diet (SAD), the diet that works well for your body may have a genetic component based on your family background. As a simple example, I tolerate all dairy without problems, my grandparents were Danish immigrants. My husband does OK with cheese, but most dairy causes him problems, his heritage is southern European.
The point is, there is a lot of whole food in the list above. The more processed a food is, the likelihood is that most of the nutrients and fiber have been removed and the general effect in the body will be to raise blood glucose. Personally, I focused on reducing, and then eliminating, as much processed food as I could and replaced it with whole foods.
I’ve seen an interesting diagram (will have to see if I can find a link) that compared paleo/primal, whole foods plant-based, and the Mediterranean diets. Excluded from all 3 were: industrially processed vegetable oils, refined grains, refined sugars, chemical preservatives and lab-produced anything, stuff that comes in a tinfoil package, microwave tray, or fast food drive-through. Common to all 3 were: tubers, low-glycemic fruit, all non-starchy vegetables.
Both my husband and I do a lot of strength training and endurance/cardio. I have a desk job, his day is physically active. I’m 5’7” and about 136 lbs (I’m a classic mesomorph), he is 6’5” and about 184 lbs (he is slimly built and doesn’t add muscle easily but keeps working on it!). What we eat:
- Any and all vegetables – we buy them fresh and frozen. We eat them raw, steamed, chopped and cooked with anything – in our eggs, with meat, in soup/stew, salads, over wild rice, etc. We both eat potatoes, they were actually a major substitution when we eliminated bread (wheat intolerance).
- Fresh fruit and berries
- Meat, fish, eggs – lots of eggs!
- Full fat cheese & yogurt, we use pastured butter, and I drink some full-fat milk, half&half in coffee
- Olive oil (I don't like coconut or I might consider coconut oils)
- Beans, seeds, raw nuts, hummus, nut butters
- Wild rice, long cooking oatmeal or grouts
- Dark chocolate (Tom has 2-3 squares a day)
- Salsa – have to add this as we go through a LOT of it – must be living in AZ!
Yes, we eat other stuff – it’s not about being perfect or strictly following a regime, but if in general one eats well, it seems to make up for those bad days. We are pretty strict about not buying sugary drinks (soda, juice) and we try to limit treats to once a week. A favorite indulgence is to make refried beans (beans, veggies, olive oil) and buy some tortilla chips. We often have a box of cereal in the cupboard – if we get up in the morning and are going to run 6 miles (common in the summer for us), we want something quick and easily digested – hard to beat Puffins for that!
