That's so terrific that Yvonne no longer has AFib. I'm going to look into the Paleo and keto diets for my Mom who has AFib and is so tired all the time. She has a pacemaker already and 90. I hope it works for her too. I hope things keep going great for all. Me too I got to loose weight.
My wife claims to now be urinating ketones as a result of her very low carb diet, and that that is good! I am not so sure of the good in this, if it's so. The simplest ketone is Dimethyl Ketone, also called Acetone, and also known as "Finger Nail Polish Remover". Acetone is pretty nasty stuff in a lot of ways. It thins lacquer paint real well, removes some other kinds of paint, and is ion general, a pretty good solvent. But peeing ketones?? I dunno.
This is a totally different thing, @Frank Sanoica , and it is not such a bad thing as you are imagining. We have two fuels that our body can use, sugar is one, and fat ketones is the other. When we burn sugar, only a small amount can be stored in the blood and be usable for energy. So, if we eat more than we can burn off, we trigger insulin which is our body's fat-storing hormone, and the extra sugar is stored as fat. However, when we burn fat ketones, we have a constant source of fuel that the body can use. You do have to limit the carbs to about 20 grams per day to reach the state of ketosis, which is when we start burning ketones as fuel. Once you burn fat, then insulin is not triggered, and no fat is stored. Of course, if you are trying to lose weight, you still have to limit the amount of calories you eat, because otherwise you will just be burning off the fat from the food you eat, and not the fat from on your body. But once you are burning fat, and not eating a lot of it, then your body starts burning your own fat. Athletes can eat huge amounts because they will burn off all of it exercising. Many athletes are turning to a ketogenic diet because the can do a whole marathon and not need fuel like they would if they were burning sugar. This is also used by cancer patients. Cancer cells exclusively live on sugar in the blood. When there is no sugar being taken in, they literally starve to death. It is also being used to treat seizures; because it seems to help stop the brain from going into seizures. Doctors have known for a long time that eating sweets can trigger seizures, but now they are starting to actually treat it with the ketogenic diet. This is all pretty fascinating information if you do some research into it, Frank ! !
I started out with just the Atkins type of low-carb information and that is what I have been doing for the last several months, actually for most of this year. It was working, albeit slowly, but I was also exercising and putting on muscle, which weighs four times as much as fat weighs. Lat month, I got an invitation to what was called an "online Ketogenic summit", which was about a week's worth of speakers explaining about how the ketogenic diet works, and what all conditions it can help. Now that I have more information, I have a much better understanding of how my body processes food, and I intend to expand my food horizons with more recipes that can be made in a healthy, low-carb way , for food that I enjoy eating ; but that is too high-carb, or just plain unhealthy. Since most of the recipes in the regular recipe section are for non-dieters to make and eat, and only a few of us here (at this moment in time) are interested in low-carb; I am starting a thread here that will be a combination of information and also low-carb recipes, and then all of the interested people can read and also add recipes for low-carb food here. Alerting people who might be interested, @Steve North , @Chrissy Page , @Ina I. Wonder , @Lara Moss , @Denise Happyfeet , @Kate Ellery , @Krissttina Isobe , and anyone else I might have missed .
One of my favorite goes-with-everything foods is ketchup. However, it is made with lots of sugar and corn syrup, and one tablespoon is 5 grams of carbs. Since I can easily eat 1/4 cup of ketchup with a hamburger, it is plain to see that I would be over my 20 grams of carbs in no time if I indulge in ketchup. We went to the farmer's market on Saturday, and the lady had a whole basket of tomatoes that were not perfect any more, and she sold the whole basket to me for $3. So, today, I looked up a recipe too low-carb ketchup and made my first experimental batch. It is not the deep red color of bottled ketchup, but that is because there is no added food coloring in it, and it is more the color of a thick tomato sauce; but the taste is definitely like ketchup ! It was easy to make. I followed the basic recipe, but dumped everything into the food processor and let it churn up and then cooked it until it thickened. The recipe called for canned tomato purée, which would have been thicker, but since I had the fresh tomatoes, I used those instead. I ended up with a little over a pint of ketchup, and that is a good size for me, since I can use that up fairly fast, and then make fresh. This recipe has just one carb per spoonful, so as long as I don't get carried away, I can have a reasonable amount of ketchup on my meat now. http://ketodietapp.com/Blog/post/2014/08/23/Healthy-Home-made-Ketchup
My daughter buys no sugar added ketchup but I've never tried it, I always but the no salt added one. Wish they had a no salt or sugar added one.
Actually, if you make your own, like I just did, then you can put in whatever you want in it. I used the pink himalayan sea salt in mine; but you could easily do this same recipe and not add any salt at all. Since it is a small batch, it is easy to experiment a little bit until you get the taste that you want. Bobby mentioned to me that Heinz ketchup also adds a little bit of liquid smoke to their ketchup, and that sounded good to me, so I stirred a little bit of that in, too. My next project is a low-carb dessert. I got some sugar-free jello, and I am going to dissolve that and process it with some cottage cheese and cream cheese in the food processor, and then chill it. It should turn out like a whipped dessert, but almost carb-free. And I can add a bit of whipping cream on top to make it look special. Now that I have decided that this is going to be my eating style, I intend to develop more foods that I can eat and still stay on the program and keep on losing weight. Winter is always harder, because our body wants to store up fat, but I am going to start making low-carb soups before long. It is already getting chilly here.
My favorite low carb dessert was with Ricotta cheese and Splenda and almond flavor...something like that...it's been awhile but this was South Beach low carb not Atkins. I just buy the sugar free pudding then mix in some SF cool whip so its more in volume. I'm not eating as low carb as you, @Yvonne Smith and if I have to make it, forget it. It was nice when my ex lived here because he loved to cook.
I hear you loud and clear on that cooking part, Chrissy ! I cook because I want to eat, not because I like cooking. However..... since I am committed to this eating plan, and I have mostly been eating things like salads, and stir-fry, or simple foods like celery sticks with cream cheese on them; I just decided that I would do better if I have a greater variety of foods. So, I am delving into the world of low-carb recipes. You can depend on the fact that anything I post on here will be very EASY and fast to make (unless if is a crockpot thing and has to cook longer). There are a gazillion low-carb recipe books online; but most of those are designed for that (strange) breed of people who actually LIKE cooking, and not for people like you and me, who just want to have healthy food to eat that doesn't require much work. In order to produce fat ketones, you have to stay under 30 grams of carbs, and since I am losing weight, I stay under 20 grams and not over 1,000 calories. After all, I am trying to burn my fat, not just the fat I am eating. People like @Ina I. Wonder , who don't need to lose weight, but need the ketones to stop seizures, still eat the same 30 grams of carbs, or less; but they can have virtually unlimited calories. Here is my jello snack. It serves 6 servings. (You can see how well my carb manager app shows all of the nutrients in everything) ----------------------- Low-carb Jello ----------------------- Serves 6 Prep Time: 30 minutes Cook Time: 3 minutes Total Time: 33 minutes Ingredients - 1 cups Cheese, cottage, creamed, large or small curd, regular (4% fat) cottage cheese - 1/2 cups Cheese, cream - 4 x 0.25 package Gelatin Dessert, Sugar Free Lime.(This is one whole packet.) - 1/4 cups Coconut milk (can be omitted or use almond milk. Both are low-carb.) Instructions 1. Blend everything except jello in blender/processor, heat one cup water and add jello packet. Add jello to contents of blender. Chill in shallow container until set. Serve with s/f whip cream. -------------------------- Nutrition Info (1 serving) -------------------------- Calories.........................126.8 Net Carbs.........................2.3g Total Carbs.......................2.5g Fiber.............................0.2g Sugar.............................1.9g Protein...........................5.9g Total Fat........................10.5g Saturated.........................6.4g Monounsaturated...................2.0g Polyunsaturated...................0.3g Cholesterol.....................27.2mg Calcium.........................49.6mg Iron.............................0.3mg Magnesium........................8.2mg Phosphorus......................86.1mg Potassium.......................89.4mg Sodium.........................231.0mg Zinc.............................0.3mg Copper..........................0.0mcg Selenium........................4.5mcg Vitamin A......................83.7mcg Vit B1 (Thiamin).................0.0mg Vit B2 (Riboflavin)..............0.1mg Vit B3 (Niacin)..................0.1mg Vitamin B6.......................0.0mg Vitamin B12......................0.2mg Vitamin C........................0.3mg Vitamin D.......................0.2mcg Vitamin E........................0.1mg Vitamin K.......................0.6mcg Folate..........................7.9mcg Choline.........................12.5mg
I went on google and looked for low carb, no sugar recipes, and there are tuns of them. Now if I had someone to cook for that would be great. Bobert likes TV diners and sandwiches. When his father comes to visit him every 2 or 3 weeks, I will do up a big pot roast with fixings. As long as there is nothing green in it they will devour everything.. He does like soups and stews, but I miss the green stuff. I've noticed a few new restaurants around here are going in the direction of low carb, no/low sugar menus. I guess it's a new angle to draw customers. We have a new Kroger's that I drug Bobert to last week. It is bigger than our largerest Walmart. They even have a real alcohol bar with stools for the customers just as you would find at your local pub. They serve glasses of wine and beer right there. Plus I notice they have six different deli's, one of which serves low carb no sugar fair. I bought two of their soups, and I was surprised at how good they were. So tomorrow I'm going to go and get myself 3 or 4 meals. I just haven't learned how to cook for one person as of yet. Not having someone else to cook for, I seem to have lost my desire to cook.
I finally can get on, was unable for a couple hours. Yes, there are lots of low or no carb recipes...I've probably made a lot of them in the past. Ive watched carbs ever since I did Atkins many years ago but not to the point of 20 or 30 a day since I'm not dieting now either. Really don't have to lose weight but I like eating low carb. What is a serving size on that @Yvonne Smith? Also what do you say about cruciferous veggies and thyroid? I ate a lot of those and at one point I cut back.
When cooking only for yourself, it seems natural not to cook as much or as often. Even though there are two of us, both Bobby and I eat different foods often times, and so we make one-person snacks and meals. One really easy thing that I use is the low-carb protein drinks. The one I like best we get at Sam's Club, but it can probably be found at Costco, or maybe other large supermarkets. It is called EAS Advantage shake, and comes in chocolate and vanilla. I looked online, and it says that Walmart also carries this brand. However, any low-carb protein drink will work. It is important to get in enough protein, and these shakes will help a lot with that, and they taste good. I take one to the gym with me and drink part before I swim and the rest afterwards. Another easy thing is celery sticks stuffed with cream cheese, and you can have all you want of these, they are so low-carb. Avocados are low-carb, and nothing could be easier than eating an avocado. I also make tuna fish mix and then put it in a salad, or lettuce with a cup of cottage cheese and tomato slices. All of these are quick and easy, and your Bobert can eat whatever he wants. Since you are not trying to lose weight, you can have all the calories you want, providing they are low-carb. Maybe once he sees you looking and feeling better, he will want to try eating healthier foods, too; but if not, then go ahead and make them for yourself anyway. I am going to be looking for more easy foods to make, and will post recipes. Once you get used to using the Carb Manager app, @Ina I. Wonder , I will show you how to add your own recipes so they will come out like the jello recipe looks, and it also is easy to add to favorites for when you have some of it. I have added several of my own recipes so far, and it really helps a lot.
I do eat a lot of cottage cheese and cream cheese but just like that...not in a dessert. Safeway has no salt added cootage cheese and also a Greek yogurt cream cheese that I buy. Lucerne makes it.
Can't insert quotes right now, for whatever reason, @Chrissy Page ; but to answer your question, the jello recipe would be 6 servings at the amounts I posted. However, you could make it 3 servings instead, and it would then be about 5 grams of carbs per serving, so still low-carb. Once you make it, then you can decide what size servings you want. I eat lots of broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and any other cruciferous veggies. I looked it up, and it appeared that a person would have to be eating huge quantities before it affects the thyroid. So far, it hasn't bothered mine, and these veggies are anti-cancer and have so many nutrients that I intend to keep adding them in my diet. I supplement with Lugol's Iodine drops, and also take a thyroid supplement that helps keep the thyroid healthy, and the nutrients from that should balance out for anything I lose from eating broccoli or cabbage.