Stuarts update 29 March 2009

First the good news that we are still down 10lbs since the start of the diet and too be honest after the last two days I'm not sure how!!

On Saturday we ended up at our local pub for lunch and I had a pint of Tribute bitter with gammon,egg, vegetables and some new potatoes. (I would have preferred chips with gammon and egg but needs must!)

Sunday was always going to be a dangerous day as we were due to go for a trip to London to see the Model Train Show there. The change of the clocks caught us out a bit so we had to rush to get the train so there was no breakfast and we didn't have time to prepare anything either. I had to make do with picking up a protein bar on the way out of the door. Of course we are then at the mercy of the food that they served up at Alexandra Palace and with different food bars scattered around the hall it is possible to get a low carb salad BUT we only realised that each eating area was different after we had had Pizza. I must say that this was probably the most amount of carbs I had had in one go for a month and whilst the Pizza was OK I was not clamouring for more and turned down the chance to finish off my sons pizza.

For the evening meal we picked up some bits from the train station - chicken breast, cheese etc and had those on the way home so that wasn't too bad. I confess that I did have a couple of beers when I got home and so I was a bit nervous about the results this morning but it was the same as a couple of days ago! I guess all the walking around yesterday must have offset the carbs consumed so overall there was a nil effect.

Stuarts Low Carb Diet - Day 15

Its day 15 of the diet and whilst not being overly bad yesterday it wasn't quite a tip top day.

For starters I have a meal replacement shake for breakfast instead of the usual whey protein shake. The problem with this is that the meal replacement shake is 15g carbs more than the protein shake.

Again I had a salad around 11.00am and this time it was beef and corned beef. I then went out for a walk at lunchtime and ended up in Boots where I bought some Atkins bars and I had one of these around 2.00pm. These bars claim to be 2.9g of carbs because they have altered the net carb formula to include taking off Sugar Alcohols (Polyols). Apparently there is some debate about whether to do this for net carbs as Polyols affect people in different ways and for some there will be a net carb of 2.9g and for others it will be net carb of nearly 18g. I think I'll put the remaining bars in the cupboard for now and maybe bet them back out in a week or two.

Then at around 3.30pm I had a cheese and ham salad which kept me going until the evening meal which was a roast chicken dinner with 3 roast potatoes (eek). I then got watching some TV until late and had a packet of peanuts whilst watching which probably had about 9 net carbs more than if I had had Brazils or Walnuts.

I had a delivery yesterday of Healthy Carb Cookbook for Dummies which is a very easy read and has loads of great tips and recipes in it. We'll be trying some of them out in the coming weeks.

Day 14 of Stuarts diet and its a weigh in day!!!

OK the weigh in on the diet actually happens on the morning of day 15 so I'll give you the results at the end of the day 14 resume.

First thing in the morning I was to have my chocolate whey protein shake but I didn't have enough to make a whole one so ended up with one scoop chocolate,one scoop banana, two ice cubes, half a pint of water and 1 teaspoon of fibresure all in the processor which was blended on smoothie mode to make 1 pint of shake.

During the morning I picked up a tuna mayonnaise and cheese salad off the trolley at 11.00am and then I had my turkey salad with leaves,peppers and caesar dressing at about 3.15pm.

For my evening meal I had a bacon and leek quiche which was made without using a pastry so was a bit like having a deep omellete.

I do also confess that I did have a few glasses of wine whilst watching the football and playing poker online.

Anyway back to the weigh in - drumroll - after 14 days on the diet I am now down 8 pounds which considering a major disaster for carbs last Thursday is amazing.

Day 13 of Stuarts Low Carb Diet

Monday morning started with a couple of poached eggs, and grilled bacon and sausages. I had my usual supplements with 2 Hot Rox Extreme tablets (prior to having my breakfast).

Mid morning I managed to pick up a ham & chicken salad (see picture)from the trolley that comes around the office and then mid afternoon I had a pork salad with caesar dressing that I had taken in. I took the dressing in the bottle and added it when required because salad does goes a bit funny in plastic containers with some dressing on it. lol - you end up with a nice watery mess in the bottom of the tray.

Evening meal was a couple of chicken pieces with some fried up broccoli,leek and cauliflower in a bubble & squeak type fashion but without the potatoes.

I have my 2 week weigh in tomorrow so that's and incentive to be extra good today!

Day 12 of Stuarts Low Carb Diet

Sunday started off with a fry up for the family with 'The Black Farmer' sausages, bacon and eggs. These sausages are about the lowest carb sausages that I've seen as they come in at just 1 carb per sausage. When you consider that pork and apple or pork and leek sausages are 5 to 6g per sausage (or more) then that is a pretty big deal.

I had the usual supplements of a multivitamin,acai juice, flaxseed oil and some fibresure in my coffee.

We took a delivery of some groceries from Tesco with some low carb items in there including some low carb Cobra beer which is 4 carbs per bottle. Funny thing was though I just didn't fancy any at all! - mmmm best just stay on the wine!

I was having problems with my camera so I thought I'd pop up to Spalding to get some new batteries and film and so ended up in Sainsbury's. There were some great meat offers in there so I ended up gettings some pork slices and 2 more packets of Black Farmer sausages. (Sainsbury is the only place I've seen them sold). I also had a look at other items and I bought some organic brown rice which is 23g per 100g rather than 44g for white rice, some anchovy paste, lumpfish caviar and a couple of John West prepared Tuna Light Lunches with peppers,rice,sweetcorn,kideny beans and a mild tomato salsa dressing. This is the lightest of the John West range and comes in at 18.7 carbs and 2.8g fibre. I just think that this is a decent alternative to a LOW LOW carb meal and won't bust the diet. I also bought some more tins of the soup that I used on Saturday as the basis of a curry sauce.

Evening meal was roast lamb with cauliflower, cabbage (red and green) and 3 small roast potatoes and gravy and 2 glasses or red wine. Getting into the evening I had some baked sweet thai chilli nuts that I could nibble on. Bizarre how the carbs in these are lower than in plain roasted nuts but they may be in the baking rather than roasting.

I forgot to mention that I had a weigh in yesterday and I'm currently down 5 pounds. I know its only moved 1 since last time but considering the indiscretion on Thursday I'll take that!

Just one more thing I found a video on About.com yesterday which was making a rice substitute from cauliflower. Basically you just take the raw florets (washed) and put them through the shredder in your food processer so you could lots of little rice like bits of raw cauliflower. Just take these pieces and microwave for 4 mins and voila you have a low carb rice substitute. According to the video you just microwave the raw pieces and do not add anything to it. I've not tried this yet but I'll see if I can give this a whirl later in the week.

Day 10 and 11 of Stuarts Low Carb Diet

It was important to get back on track on Friday after a lapse on Thursday so I started off with the protein shake with a spoonful of FibreSure for an extra 5g of fibre in the shake.

Mid morning we got a visit from a new service bringing sandwiches and the like to the office. This could be dangerous but I went to see if there was anything suitable on the trolley and there was a ham salad with a bit of coleslaw for £1.50 which I thought would be low carb and good value.

I then had the sausage salad that I had brought for lunch in the afternoon with a couple of chicken thighs and for the evening meal I had a roast chicken breast with a cheese and onion topping with broccoli and cauliflower.

Moving on to today it was back to a cooked breakfast of sausages, bacon and egg. This time though instead of the chilli sausages which come in at nearly 4g of carb per sausage we had the Sainsbury Ultimate Outdoor Reared Sausage which has a net carb of just over 1g per sausage so that it ideal for a low carb or atkins diet. I got a case of the nibbles during the morning so I had a small selection of unsalted nuts.

I got home from the office at around 2.30pm so I thought about what I could have for lunch. I found a chicken breast that I could use and a tin of the high fibre / low carb parsnip, butternutsquash and ginger soup that I had bought from Sainsbury's earlier in the week.I cut the chicken into pieces and fried them with some Indian Curry powder with some extra garlic, cumin and fennel seeds. Once the chicken was cooked I added nearly half a tin of the soup. The soup is fairly thick to start off with and then breaks down into a nice sauce which with the spices used gives a nice low carb / high fibre chicken curry.


Finally this evening we're back on the salad. This time it is some slices of roast pork and egg to go with the peppers, celery and leaves etc. This time I also ditched the slightly high carb sweet chilli sauce and went for the much lower carb light mayonaise.

I'll have a mid week weigh in tomorrow so hopefully Thursday's mega carb muffin won't have hurt me too much!

Day 9 of Stuart's Low Carb Diet

hmmm - I think the title of this entry should say high carb diet!

The morning was OK with a high protein/low carb chocoloate shake and then we had a lunch at the office. I knew this was going to be bad and it was! The delivery was sandwiches, potato wedges, small sausage rolls, small samosa, small duck rolls and some very tasty looking muffins.

So I had a small portion of each and a muffin (alarms went off here as it's is possibly 30g carbs!! (if not 50g carbs)). In the evening I had a tin of Sainsburys Parsnip,Butternut Squash and Ginger soup which had 14g carbs and 20g fiber so by reckoning thats a net off of the carbs. The funny thing is Sainsburys' don't have the main ingredient of lentils in the title of the soup but I have to say that I really enjoyed the soup and the ginger really added a nice layer of warmth to it. Looks like we'll be getting some more of that over the weekend.

I will be back on track with a low carb lunch today and so hopefully when I get to Saturday morning for a weigh in there won't be any increase in the weight due to the damage done. I will be happy with the same result as mid week,under the circumstances, but can I dare hope for even a slight fall?

Day 8 of Stuart's Low Carb Diet

I started yesterday morning with the large protein drink and then snacked on a packet of Macadamia nuts during the day (more fibre than carbs !). For lunch I had a sausage salad which was on the plate long enough for me to take a photo! The salad was just some lettuce & watercress leaves that you can get in packets from the supermarket with some red and yellow peppers thrown in. (I call them peppers but in the new world you probably know them as capsicums). These sausages were higher in carbs than I would normally have like (4.8g each) but they do have chilli in so that may help to increase the metabolic rate anyway. I do have some seriously lower carb sausages to have once we've finished these so I'll put up with the chilli sausages for now.

The evening meal was roast pork with cabbage,cauliflower,broccoli and a big sin - 2 medium potatoes. That last bit probably blew the low carb for the day but we'll see if we can shift it for the next weigh in at the weekend.

We took delivery of our organic vegetable delivery order today along with a salad bag from River Nene Farms. I'm not sure what was in there but at least we're stocked up for the next few days.

Day 7 of Stuart's Low Carb Diet

Day 7 of Stuart's Low Carb Diet

Day 7 started without the cooked breakfast this time as I had a large protein shake. Again the powder is mixed with water rather than milk. A pint of this shake is 2.8g of net carbs and does make you feel full. These protein shakes are typically used by weight lifters but can be inserted into a low carb regime. You can pick these whey protein shakes up from Holland and Barrett at the moment for £14.99 each rather than the usual £24.99.

I then had at Atkins bar during the morning (2.9g) and a beef salad for lunch with just a small amount of chilli sauce this time compared to Monday. I also had 2 chicken legs at lunchtime and a small pot of nuts and raisins so carbs would be in the nuts so lets say 3g.

I was in London during the afternoon and I ended up at a pub in the Minories but I was good and had 2 glasses of red wine rather than go for the fantastic range of beers that were on offer. (maybe on another day I will give one or two of these a go)

Then for an evening meal I had 2 poached eggs and 2 grilled sausages so about 7g of net carbs here as well.

One thing I have mentioned to date is supplements. I have just taken delivery of an order from Holland and Barrett so yesterday I also had 1 capful of Acai Superfruit Juice, 1 Flaxseed Oil capsule, 1 Centrum Multivitamin and 1 Hot-Rox Extreme which is a pill which increases your metabolism. Hot Rox is made from a raspberry derivative and if you are shopping at Holland And Barrett you could but the Fat Metaboliser which is made from capsicums which may yield similar results.

Ok - the all important part then. I have been on the Lower Carb diet for 7 days and I have gradually reduced the carbs during the week and then introduced some supplements on the last day and my result so far is a loss of 4 pounds. My thoughts at the start were that I will be happy with 2 to 3 pounds a week so that is not a bad start.

Day 6 of Stuart's Low Carb Diet

Well I had my usual cooked breakfast washed down with a small protein shake (used water not milk) and then for lunch I had a beef salad with a sweet chilli sauce (hi carb! - eek) and a few peanuts.

Evening meal was a ham & cheese omellette and a glass or two of red.

I'm gonna drop the wine for a day or two and see if that has any appreciable difference on results.

Day 5 of Stuart's Low Carb Diet

Ok we started Sunday with the cooked breakfast (pictured and posted yesterday) and then it was Sunday roast for lunch. No yorkshire pud here but roast beef, swiss chard, 3 small roast potatoes (you just got to have them on a roast!) and some small pieces of parsnip. - say around 40g net carb altogether for the whole meal.

In the evening I had the same ham and cheese type sandwich that I pictured a couple of days ago so that was a zero net carb evening meal with a few nuts snacked on during the day.

I did a shop yesterday so I bought some fish (pollack fillets), a pork joint, some bacon, cheddar cheese and 3 packs of sausages with low carbohydrate contents which I hope to start on when I've finished my current pack.

I also bought a packet of Miso Soup with Sea Vegetables which has 2.6g of carbs per serving and 1.1g of fibre so a net carb position of 1.5g per serving and I also bought a couple of cans of Sainsbury's Parsnip,Butternut Squash & Ginger soup from their 'be good to yourself range'. A whole tin of this is 14.4g of carbohydrate yet there are 20g of fibre in each tin!!

I shall probably have the first tin on its own to see what it is like and then if it is suitable then I may use the other tin as a sauce for a fish and vegetable stir fry (maybe add a chilli or two!).

And one final thing it was Sunday so I'd best declare the 3 or 4 glasses of red wine that I had during the day.

Andrea's day - Sunday 1st March

Sunday Food consumed

Breakfast: Special K with berries (small). Tea
Mid morning snack: bite of cheese, a few olives
Dinner: Roast Sirloin with gravy (!) and roasted veggies - courgette, butternut squash, red onion, red and green pepper, cherry tomatoes, aubergine. **No roast potatoes or yorkie pud!** Followed by half an Atkins Sunshine bar (a breakfast bar really) and a cup of tea.
Evening: I plan to have a light supper of cheese, radishes, olives, salami, celery followed by a low carb chocolate pudding.

Unlike my bro Stuart, i'm not yet working out my actual daily carb count ...but know I am consuming far less than before and feeling fine. Actually feeling loads better than last weekend after two days on Atkins Induction. Will monitor & report weight loss midweek .

Sunday Low Carb Breakfast

Two slices of bacon (0g), 2 eggs (1.2g) and 3 sausages (say 6g). Bit of brown sauce say 1g.

Day 4 of Stuart's Low Carb Diet

Well Saturday was another OK day and it has to be said any snacking (even low carb snacking on bits of carrot) was reduced to just a small portion of a nut mix in the morning and the evening.

At breakfast time it was back on the sausage,bacon and eggs. The problem with saying for certain how many net carbs there are here lies in the fact that the sausages that I bought from the co op in the week didn't state the carbohydrate or fibre content and therefore I am estimating the net carbs. Depending on the meat content to filler content of the sausage will give rise to variations in the carbohydrate content and ultimately the net carbs which may run from 0.5g to 5g per sausage. I suspect that as these sausages taste so good that it may be nearer the top end of the range so I'm going to go to the supermarket today and make sure that I get some sausages which are higher in meat content and have a label with carbohydrates and fibre content on.

For my mid day meal I had a tin of Chunky Chilli Beef soup from Aldi. Now a whole tin of this soup is 14.4g of carbohydrate of which just 8.4g come froms sugars and the fibre content is 12g. I also added two teaspoons of Benefiber to the mix so that the fiber content was pushed up to 15g. So on a pure carb - fiber calculation Iwould have a negative net carb of 0.6 but as 8.4g still comes from sugars then I will take that as the net carb position. (right/wrong any views?)

In the evening I had the ham and cheese sandwich as per the picture posted earlier so that was just one thick slice of ham with two slices of cheddar laid on top. This was then cut in half and folded over to make the sandwich. You need some good thick ham from your butcher for this as the bought prepacked stuff just won't hold the cheese in. Tastes good too!

Atkins style ham and cheese sandwich

Now this is what a low carb sandwich looks like! Yum

Stuarts Day 3 of Our Low Carb Diet

Unfortunately I didn't have any eggs left so yesterday's breakfast was just bacon and sausages.

I dropped in at Sainsbury's on the way to work and bought some small cheese pieces, 2 small packs of chicken breast and a bag of carrots and these kept me going almost all day with the exception of an Atkins bar that I had mid morning and a piece of 85% cocoa chocolate that I had in the evening.

I went to an event at the local school in the evening and whilst others were tucking into hot dogs and hog roasts I waited to get home and have the rest of my chicken and carrots. All in all this was my lowest net carb day to date which was OK but I think I got a bit bored of raw carrot by the end of it. More variety is required!

I found this article on 3 Ways Carbohydrates Can Make You Fat which is quite interesting and worth a read.

Day 2 of Our Low Carb Diet

Well I was a bit better prepared today so it was 2 rashers of bacon, 3 lincolnshire sausages and an egg for breakfast with a cup of coffee for around 2 net carbs.

During the day I had 4 small chicken legs that I cooked up yesterday, a small pot of nuts, some cheese and 20g of 85% Cocoa Fairtrade Chocolate (just 3.8 net carbs in 100 gram bar!). For drinks I had some caffeine free teas. So thats about another 9 net carbs.

I also had a packet of pork scratchings which turned out to be a bit of a disaster as I managed to crack a tooth whilst eating them and the NHS Dental Surgery near us was closed for lunch when I went up there!

For the evening meal I had a fish pie which comes in at around 20 net carbs.

So with a glass of wine and a few more nuts today will come in at around the 35 net carb mark.

I must admit that I have had a headache this evening and I had one yesterday afternoon too. I know this is because of the lack of caffeine so I'm going to have to have another coffee this evening. It has been a big jump going from 6 or 7 cups a day to 1 so I think if I have two a day then I have a better chance of weaning myself off the caffeine.

Getting going on the low carbs

Well things didn't quite go so well this morning as I didn't get breakfast and so I ended up in Sainsbury's to stock up for the day. It was therefore mainly meat and cheese today with 2 small packets of chicken slices (1 with a sweet chilli flavour on it.) 2g of carbs for both packs though. 120g of cheddar which was almost another 2g and some pepperami x 2 for another 1.2g.

Normally I would like a packet of crisps in the morning but today we went for the 'heart attack in a bag' option of a largish packet of pork scratchings which came in at around 0 carbs.

So thats about 5.5g of cards consumed during the day except for my sin!! A pear which comes in at a whopping 16g on its own.

The evening meal with some sausages, veg and a small amount of potatoes and gravy which I would estimate is about 40g for the meal.

Ok it's hardly the Atkins induction coming in at around 61g so far and with a couple of glasses of wine this could be 65-67g but I had been having a McDonalds Sausage & Egg McMuffin Meal with a Large latte for breakfast and that comes in at the same number of carbs just for the breakfast so all in all that is a big change to what I have been used to.

I bought some sausages and chicken legs on the way home so I'm gonna cook them up for tomorrow and make sure that I get my egg, sausage and bacon breakfast first thing.

Ok, here goes - The diet!

After seeing a friend lose 23lbs on the Atkins diet , thought i'd give it a go. I only want to lose about 10lbs and it sounded like a piece of cake (eh-hum!) but after a weekend of Atkins INDUCTION I felt doomed for failure and pretty miserable. Decided not to throw in the towel though but to do a low-carb version of my own and record the results, warts 'n' all, in this blog. Not sure if i'm gonna declare my weight on here yet but will certainly note my losses (and mood swings) as the diet progresses. Motivation comes from my game brother who has decided to join in! Here's what i've consumed today:

Breakfast: 2 egg omlette, decaf tea (not that bad actually).
Mid morning snack: banana (ouch!)
Lunch: Large chicken & beansprout salad
Dinner: Mixed antipasti veggies, salami & cheese. One glass of red. Low carb chocolate dessert

I feel full but not bloated. Hope i don't need to raid the fridge later.

Getting Ready For The Diet!

Before I get cracking on our low carb diet I have had to go and buy a set of bathroom scales so that I can monitor my progress. Prior to this my last few years have been a living in ignorance bliss but now I will monitor what is going on. My plan is to show my current score on the site since the day I start so look out for those updates.

Anyway the scales I got are the Salter 9021 Eclipse Electronic Scale with Ultra Slim Technology. From John Lewis in Peterborough they are £34 but you can get them from Amazon.co.uk for about 2/3rds of that price. (see picture).

I have also found a couple of carb counter websites and I will be pop some links on the right hand side of the page to their sites.

Welcome To Our Low Carb Diet

This blog is about the experience that we are having by engaging in a low carb diet. We are inspired by Atkins but we will each be going our own way with regards to how closely it is followed and we will record total weight loss on this blog.

Keep coming by for regular updates from myself Stuart and my sister Andrea.