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.

Summary Of The First 24 Days Of My Low Carb Diet

Its been about 3 and a half weeks since we started the low carb diet so I thought it worthwhile just having an overview of what that has really entailed.

Well for a start the following which were staples of my diet have been virtually wiped out - potatoes, crisps, beer, rice, sweets, chocolate and bread. I have put potatoes here but generally any vegetable that is grown under the ground has been limited. That doesn't mean that parsnips and carrots are on a banned list but just that they are limited. Likewise potatoes probably only make an appearance once a week for the Sunday roast but generally are not used at any other time.

Some of the foods above have low carb alternatives so instead of having a beer then I can have some wine, potato crisps are replaced by peanuts and in some instances potatoes can be replaced by cauliflower, broccoli and even some mashed turnip (which is OK). I always thought getting a rice substitute was difficult but using shredded caulflower means that curry is on the menu in a low carb diet.

Of course one of the main components of a low carb diet is in fact that you are on a high protein diet. I have bought some high protein chocolate bars which do have around 18g carbs in them but 13g or so is in polyols which can be deducted to find the net carb and around 8g is fibre so basically they are a net -3g carbs per bar and surprisingly they taste great! Another great way of getting the protein is to have a chocolate whey protein drink which has around 3g per pint. Be careful when buying these as some have 20g or more as they are usually designed for body builders and whilst coming in tins that look the same some are for bulking up and some are for the high protein to turn to muscle. The bulk up formula generally has a much higher carb content. The great thing about having one of these shakes for breakfast is that the protein does take away that hungry feeling and generally you do not feel like eating as much as before.

There is not a lot of substitutes for bread but to be honest I have been having a salad from the trolley each day rather than bread rolls and I haven't really missed it. I will, however, probably reintroduce a bread into my diet over the next week which will be home made using an organic wholemeal flour from one of the local mills in the area. The flour is untreated and unbleached as it comes straight off the stones so I can be sure that I will not be using and processed ingredients in the bread. I just intend to use this in some small slices to create a bit of variety in the meals and with the high fibre content and lower carb content than normal bread this is a good bread option.

The scales were wavering this morning between a loss of 9lb and 10lb so we'll call it 9lb and then hopefully by the time we get to the end of 4 weeks on Wednesday morning we will have got that to 10 or 11lb.

Update on Stuarts' low carb diet

Just a quick update on the last few days.

I have been keeping to the same regime but on Sunday I had a few potatoes with my Sunday lunch and a low carb Cobra light beer. I had actually put on a couple of pounds at this stage but we're back to half a stone loss now.

I have ordered from Nature's best some whey protein shake and also some protein meal replacement bars. I was pondering the protein bars for a while as on the face of it they do have quite a high carbohydrate content but a large proportion of this relates to sugar alcohols and they have a decent amount of fibre in them as well which pretty much makes them a net carb neutral bar. Hopefully we will get them later in the week so we can see what their like.

I think that today I will be on a Banana protein shake to start off with and then I will take some ham and cheese with me to work to snack on and then I will pick up a salad for lunch. I have an Atkins bar and a pepperami also in reserve for this afternoon if I get hungry but to be honest whilst I have been on a low carb high protein diet I have not really got the hunger pangs like I used to so I probably won't have them.