Here are my top 10 tips for low carb, high fat (LCHF) eating based upon expert research and my personal experience over many months.
Low carb high fat (LCHF) has just started making headlines in the media and I am pleased to be able to call upon my first hand experience and extensive reading to help you avoid the pit falls and confusion that inevitably follow the half baked and often inaccurate articles circulating the interwebs.
I’ve been following a low carbohydrate high fat approach to eating since 2016 and have found it to be not only achievable and healthy for a physically active person like myself, but enjoyable, and very, very tasty. I have employed LCHF eating in my work with weight loss clients, athletes and both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetic clients with considerable success.
I have happily maintained a high level of physical activity and although I am not on a fat loss mission, I have seen a slight reduction in my body fat % and a slight increase in lean muscle mass. I no longer feel unbearably hungry between breakfast and lunch and my overall food consumption has come down a little due to the high quality and calorie dense food I eat.
A number of clients have experienced significant (and healthy) weight loss in 10-14 days by simply reducing the carbohydrates they have at breakfast time. Two female clients each lost 5lbs in two weeks and one male client dropped 9lb in 10 days. Follow these tips and give it a go.
Here are my top 10 tips to healthy and effective LCHF eating
1. Remember, it’s low carb not no carb.
2. Go for 50-60g of “obvious carbs” a day. This will be a lot less than you’re used to so get in the habit of weighing your pasta and potatoes*
3. You’ll get plenty of carbohydrates from vegetables etc, trust me. Go mad on these and vary the colours.
4. Reduce the carbohydrates in your diet and replace them with fat. It really is that simple. Don’t hold back on the fat. Drizzle the olive oil generously, serve up the fat from the frying pan and add healthy fats to your dishes.
5. Have a selection of good fats to choose from in your cupboards.
6. Avoid transfats, hydrogenated fats, vegetable oils and seed oils.
7. Don’t over do the protein. Most people require not more than 60-90g per day. You can only absorb so much and more than 30g in a sitting is just going to end up down the toilet, literally. A medium chicken breast or a can of tuna both provide 30g of protein.
8. Beware of over consuming the dairy. Have cream and cheeses and full fat milks, but mix it up with other good fat sources to avoid gut and mucus membrane symptoms from too much lactose.
9. When you do have a more carbohydrate dense meal, reduce the fats you have with it.
10. Switch your traditional white carbs like pasta, rice, flour and potatoes for good carbs like sweet potatoes and squashes.
*I refer to all household sugars (inc. Stevia & sweeteners), pasta, bread, rice, potatoes, cakes & flour as Obvious Carbs.
The best place to start on your way to LCHF is to ditch your traditional cereal or toast based breakfast and instead start the day with some combination of eggs, bacon, sausages veggie or meaty, avocado slices, drizzled with oil, and maybe some spinach or rocket on the side. It may seem a little strange, but you’ll soon get used to it and feel the benefits.
Click on my instagram pictures along the bottom of this page or click on the little blue camera icon at the very top right to scroll through many of my own delicious LCHF dishes.
Happy eating and let me know how you get on.
:))) thankyou xx
Thank you Teresa, give it a go and let me know how you get on.
I’ve always had a big bowl of low/non fat healthy complex carb cereal with a Vanilla protein shake poured over it in the morning for breakfast. Generally lowering carbs during the rest of the day is relatively easy but completely changing breakfast is time consuming and tricky. Is breakfast the key meal to knock the carbs out of ??
Hi Carl,
for fat burning, yes, breakfast is the key meal to minimise carbs.
When you wake you are in a relatively fasted state which has you in fat burning mode. You want to keep this going so that you are burning fat for a number of hours. Eat a fat based breakfast to keep this going.
If you were to have a carb based breakfast, you would trigger insulin release which turns off fat burning.
Time your more carb based meal for after your weight training sessions when you are insulin sensitive and your muscles will benefit from the carbs and insulin (their anabolic effect).
I hope that helps.
Liam
Hi Liam
Am looking into this even more as I understand that yet another benefit of this could be an anti inflammatory effect on injured tissue etc.
Ideally what % of calories should come from protein/fat/carbs in a day?
Jo
Hi Jo, thanks for your feedback. You are correct re inflammation. A high carb diet is pro inflammatory and can exacerbate existing inflammation and contribute to other inflammatory disorders. Therefore a low carb high fat diet helps to minimise this problem. In addition, when you add plentiful fresh fruit and veg you do indeed gain an active anti inflammatory effect.
In terms of calorie distribution I recommend something close to 60% good fats, 25% carbs and 15% protein.
I understand wheat also exacerbates inflammatory disorders.
Hi Teresa,
that’s right. The main allergen in wheat appears to be the protein Gluten. Inflammatory conditions such as arthritis in it’s many forms, asthma and particularly disorders of the mucus membranes, even respiratory related allergies like hay fever can be affected by wheat and over consumption of carbohydrates in general.
If we can reduce these kinds of things in our diet we can all enjoy the benefits.
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