Fat - fat: How to lose weight on a carbohydrate-free diet
Once again it turned out that everything what we knew about nutrition is not quite true. Today's TIME issue comes with a slice of butter on the cover and the slogan "Eat it, it's good," scientists rehabilitate fats, nutritionists no longer advise buying low-fat foods; new enemy - carbohydrates. Daniyar Shekebaev already told us about his successful experience of refusing carbohydrates, and last week scientists officially pardoned fats. Now about the practice: point by point explain how this new knowledge can help lose a few aggravating kilograms.
Low carbohydrate diets have existed before, and the idea of eating less sugar and flour is not only not new, but already undeniably sound, only fats have been added to such diets not so long ago, as well as moderate protein intake (that is, "Kremlin" and "protein" diet - not at all). The idea of the LCHF-diet (that is, low carb high fat) is that the amount of carbohydrates consumed is limited to 10-50 grams per day, proteins - not more than 100 grams, and the body receives all the other calories from fats. In short, as a result, the body begins to work on fats instead of carbohydrates, and instead of insulin it produces ketone bodies, splitting fat - yes, including accumulated over the years, the excess weight leaves at an incredible speed. Is it safe? It is impossible to say with absolute certainty, as, indeed, about any other diet. If ketogonna works for you - fine, but if you start to feel bad, immediately eat a donut.
Where to start, if you do decide? The first thing to add to the bookmarks Reddit-section about keto, and even if there is no desire to participate in the discussion, you should at least study the FAQ. Then it makes sense to turn to the keto-calculator - so you can roughly estimate the amount of fat, carbohydrates and proteins you need to consume daily, and how quickly progress will go weight loss. You can still find information in Russian on Sam Klebanov's website LCHF.ru - and more we recommend not looking for it anywhere, since at the moment, when real research is practically absent, the Internet is full of insane obscurantism on all keto-issues. But before you close on the Internet forever, having delighted the State Duma with this act, listen to these 10 tips.
1
Not all fats are equally beneficial.
Like carbohydrates, they are different (say, sugar and dietary fiber), and fats also did not become useful all at once. When sticking to the LCHF diet, try to consume as much mono- and polysaturated fats as possible, especially those that are rich in omega-acids (like coconut oil, which you can read about below). That is, refined oil, which is pure fat and nothing but fat, devoid of any other properties, as it was not the most useful food in the world, so it remained. This also applies to mayonnaise, which consists of 90% of this oil (however, from all sauces mayonnaise will now become the most important for you ironically). Also, you need to be careful with cheeses - even if they are fat and contain a negligible amount of carbohydrates (sometimes equal and completely zero), but they are incredibly high in calories, so the process of losing weight can be very slow. Eat fatty beef (steaks and burgers without rolls), pork, chicken with skin, generously fill the salad leaves (the main source of carbohydrates in the keto diet) unrefined olive oil, fry on the melted. If ghee, it is the same (or almost the same) ghee, you can not buy - do it yourself. To do this, take a large package of butter (fat content of 80% or more), cut into cubes, put them in a saucepan, bring to a boil, and on the smallest heat heat a couple of hours until the mixture becomes uniformly golden. And, of course, bacon. Nearly 100 percent animal fat is the best breakfast companion.
2
Drink lots of water
2 liters per day is the minimum for a person, as most people forget. With a ketogenic diet, one should not forget about it - it is literally dangerous to health, and this, in fact, is a big part of the secret of the success of this diet. There is even an opinion that control over water is a big part of the diet, and even if you do not follow the other rules, but to monitor the balance of water, good results can be achieved this way. Specifically, with keto, most of the waste is excreted in the urine, and water helps speed up this process and better manage digestion.
3
Drink 2 cups broth daily
With a ketogenic diet, it often turns out that the body lacks salts and minerals, and the consequences can be noticeable - cramps and muscle pain and the monstrous strength of headaches. Particularly bad headache during adaptation - that is, during the first week from the moment when the body enters ketosis. You can avoid this with the help of salty broth - it contains all the necessary minerals. You can cook it from a fat chicken, drink a glass in the morning and in the evening - and never get sick. But if after a couple of months, the muscles still begin to behave strangely - drink vitamins with magnesium and potassium.
4
Buy coconut oil
As mentioned above, with a keto diet you need to consume as much saturated fat and fatty acids as possible - all this in incredible amounts is contained in coconut oil. Moreover, coconut oil also has a very high burning temperature, that is, it can also be used for frying, if it does not bother the taste. And you can just have spoons. Sold both in stores like "Indian spices" and in the "ABC of Taste."
5
Start the day with armored coffee
If, of course, you drink coffee, now you should drink it this way: on a glass of American - a spoon of butter and a spoon of coconut oil. It sounds disgusting, but in fact not at all - in the end, butter is made from cream that no one seems to be embarrassed to put in coffee, and coconut gives a very pleasant aftertaste. This mixture is called "armored" (bulletproof) coffee, and besides the charge of vigor and a whole heap of benefits described, for example, here, it will also save you from all the problems with the stool that can arise during the keto-diet (and even like, but these problems occur in most people).
6
Snack nuts
Keto-diet deprives you of chips, any - even muesli, even chocolate - bars, and in general, almost everything you can quickly eat on the go and at your workplace. There is a way - nuts. Not all - in the first place, almonds, forest and cedar. If you are already happy about cashews, you have to upset - this, unfortunately, is not a nut at all. These nuts contain a large amount of fatty acids and moderate - dietary fiber (that is, those carbohydrates that should not be completely excluded from the diet). 50 g of almonds contain almost 20 g of saturated fat and 10 g of carbohydrates - and this is quite enough for a snack.
7
Be careful with sugar substitutes.
Of course, the sweet will not want to stop, and sweeteners seem to be a way out, but they can be dangerous. First, always check the nutritional value: for example, the most common sweetener, fructose, is 100 percent carbohydrate. Secondly, you will never find the perfect sweetener and various aftertastes cannot be avoided. And, thirdly, carefully follow the reaction of your body: sometimes, even just feeling sweet, the body automatically takes it for sugar and produces insulin, that is, a body of dietary cola instantly kicks the organism out of ketosis. By the way, you can check whether your body is in ketosis using test strips for glucose and ketones (for example, "Biosensor") - if the strip is purple, then most likely everything is in order. The test is inaccurate and not perfect, but it is good for control in general.
8
Chocolate is not to blame
Another good news is that chocolate contains incredibly healthy cocoa butter. The bad side of this news is that milk chocolate besides this still has an atrocious amount of sugar, but you can buy bitter, 72% cocoa and more, and there are a couple of slices instead of sweet (they still hide 4-8 grams of sugar, but this you can survive it). An even safer option is to buy chocolate with 99% cocoa and make truffles out of it: melt, knead with butter or coconut oil, add rich cream, sweetener to taste, cool and roll into balls, which can be decorated with crushed almonds or coconut flakes . One such ball will contain no more than 2 g of carbohydrates from cocoa beans and cream.
9
Look for keto food in the city - it's easy
Diet - does not mean that you will now have only what you yourself cook. You can go to any burger and eat a patty, after getting rid of the loaf. In fastfoods, you can order a vegetable salad with a meatball, and in diners, you can ask for a double portion of lettuce and use the salad instead of bread. By the way, in the "Starlaite" such a burger is even on the menu and it’s called, I'm sorry, hipster. Remember that in "Subway" there is always the opportunity to order any of their sandwich in a salad instead of a roll. In places where you can safely eat shawarma, you can order it on a plate. There are more and more fast food chains offering budget steaks and a large selection of green salads — the Yummy Mix and Belaya Dacha chains in Gorky Park. In general, it is quite possible to live a full life and not tolerate it until the house where the cutlet, wrapped in bacon, is waiting.
10
Use the Internet
Sounds like the most idiotic advice in the world, but nonetheless. First, did you know that if you enter the name of any product in Google, then on the results page you can see the nutritional value of this product? This is extremely useful, for example, in the queues in the cafeteria - in minutes you can understand that this broccoli you can eat and eat. Secondly, look for recipes. There are eggs, bacon, steaks and cutlets every day, only at first it seems like a good idea, then you still want a variety. Do you know, for example, that you can buy zucchini, cut off long, thin strips from it with a special peeler, fry them - and use them as a paste, flavoring them with your favorite pasta sauce (cheers, carbonara and bolognese return). You can search for all these life hacks and recipes on the corresponding keto reddite, as well as on sites with other low-carb diets (for example, paleo or Atkins diets).
Photo: coverimage, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 via Shutterstock