Back onto my keto series – #6 – reducing carbs

Time to carry on with the posts about keto. But first we need to recap.

The posts so far:

• Post 1 was about how we were made to fear dietary fat, why we don’t need to, and why that was disastrous.
• Post 2 was about metabolic flexibility and how that ties in with ancestral eating (whatever that means to you).
• Post 3 was about the importance of not eating continually, and how we can benefit from even a short break in eating.
• Post 4 included some tips on how to switch from being a carb burner to a fat burner more easily
• Post 5 was a digression from the summit to some of my hints - the first part of a step by step “How To” of actually changing the food. If you’re on a high carb, standard Western diet, this is probably more useful to start with than post 4.

The first two steps of the "How To" were:

• Cut out processed foods & added sugars
• Make sure the fats you’re eating are good quality, and start eating more of them

In the last few days, I've been reporting on my meals, so you can see what a keto diet might look like. Now we’re all back up to speed, let’s carry on with the next steps:

• Reducing carbs & protein, while increasing fat

We'll start with how to reduce carbs.

What are the problem foods?

• Breads, muffins, bagels, pancakes, biscuits/scones
• Breakfast cereals, oats
• Rice, Grains of any kind
• Pasta, pizza base
• High starch veges like potato, yam, sweet potato, corn
• High sugar fruits including bananas and tropical fruits – some would say ALL fruits
• Whole food sweeteners such as honey, maple syrup, dehydrated cane juice, coconut sugar (we’ve already taken out the processed sugars, haven’t we?)

The first thing to realise is that we don't actually need to replace these foods with anything resembling them. You can just cut them out (and eat more fat and low carb plant foods). You've seen my meals for a few days now. Each meal consists of:

• A chunk of animal protein (though some vegetable proteins are also fine). Mostly meat, chicken or salmon, but sometimes eggs, cheese, or an animal based protein powder
• A small amount of either berries or certain vegetables. Most keto eaters eat more low carb veges than I do, but I don't go well on many veges, so am leaning towards a small serve of berries twice a day and 1 serve of veges (though today it's round the other way)
• Loads of good fats - such as butter, cold pressed avocado, olive or hemp oil, coconut oil, mayo, fermented cream, other coconut products, macadamias, as well as the fat that comes with the protein
• Maybe a "treat" like berries mixed with cream, or a keto muffin, but they still are high fat, low sugar

(Plus I'm aiming for 1.5 to 2 litres of water a day, at least half of it with electrolytes.)

See, mostly they're not full of carb substitutes, though there is nothing wrong with having those sometimes. But you don't need them.

That is, physically you don't need them long term. But it can help to use some transitional foods to gradually reduce your carbs (to reduce keto flu). And they can be helpful emotionally. Just don't get stuck on them being important.

Tomorrow, I'll start with some examples of transitional foods. If there is anything you're hanging out to find a replacement for, let me know in the comments, and I can start with that.

Food diary for Mon 7th Jan

Breakfast:

• Strawberry smoothie

Lunch:

• 2 x chicken drumsticks = 125gm meat
• 25 grams mayo
• 30 grams fermented beetroot
• 1 x keto muffin
• 10 grams ginger flavoured coconut chips

Dinner

• 125gm premium mince (ground beef)
• Sautéed in 20 grams butter
• with 40 grams green peas
• A little pudding made from 2 Tbs fermented cream, 2 Tbs coconut milk and a tsp cocoa (and surprisingly, not even a no calorie sweetener, but I really enjoyed it)

Totals

• Calories = 1680
• Protein = 105 grams = 25%
• Carbs = 24 grams = 6%
• Fat = 128 grams = 69%

Thanks for reading.

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