Eat fat and get thin?? Are you kidding me!?!?!

No! Not at all!

I know this train of thought will bring incredulous looks of horror and disbelief, as well as comments about how stupid and what an idiot I am (yes, there are people who are this rude, and even nastier in the words they use), but it's true. It's not a big secret that fat makes you feel full and keeps you feeling that way for longer. This generally means you eat less. Coupled with how fat is metabolized by your body, these 2 things alone mean weight loss is almost inevitable. Notice I said almost?

If you're following LCHF for weight loss, you might think you're on to a real winner by being able to eat as much fat as you want and still lose weight. Well, I'm sorry, but this just isn't true. You can't expect to eat 3 or 4,000 calories from any source and still lose weight. The key to LCHF working for weightloss is to ONLY eat when you're hungry, and stop when you sated. 

Hungry means just that. Physical hunger where your body is asking for nourishment. Not hungry because the clock says its lunch time or hungry because you're bored or watching you fave movie and you need popcorn. Real, physical hunger.

Sated means that you are no longer hungry. Not stuffed to the rim about to burst sated. Not uncomfortably full because you squeezed in that last lamb chop or managed to finish off the last of the stir fry veg because there wasn't enough to pop in the fridge for another meal. Stop eating when you're no longer physically hungry.

Sometimes it can be hard to distinguish between real hunger and boredom hunger, or even routine hunger. Even now I still fall in to the trap of its dinner time so I need to eat. Let go of the clock and the misguided belief that you need to eat at certain times of the day. Listen to your body and feed it when it needs it. Any extra food above what your body needs will generally be stored as excess body fat. I don't know about you, but I've got enough body fat to keep me going for quite some time without adding any more!!

Shell ❤️

What exactly is LCHF?

I get really frustrated when people who have little idea of what a low carb high fat diet really is put it down and call it an unhealthy fad diet. A teeny bit hypocritical I must admit, seeing as I thought it was pats of butter with every meal, ladles of rich cream sauces, big fatty steaks swimming in garlic butter and lashing of lard and bacon fat spooned over everything.

In reality, most people will only need to add a teaspoon of butter to their veg,  keep the skin on their chicken, choose well marbled meat, have good oils found in avocado, olives and nuts and get rid of the diet products in the cupboards and fridge for their diet to be LCHF compliant. Of course it goes without saying carbs have to go! When I say carbs I generally mean processed carbs. Pretty much anything with added sugar and anything that contains a grain or grain based product. Bread, rice, pasta, ice cream, soft drinks, cakes, thickened sauces etc.

Once I got my head around this it all kinda fell into place. 

The biggest epiphany for me was that as long as I choose real, unprocessed food such as meat, veg, egg and nuts plus full fat dairy, I really couldn't go wrong.

Some people say that to be truly low carb you need to be consuming <20g of carbs a day from all sources, same say <50 can be called low carb. I think it's what ever works for you to keep you healthy and happy and losing weight (if that's your aim). If you are wanting to enter ketosis, then you do need to stay under 50g of carbs daily. Find what works for you. Like any lifestyle change its going to be a bit of trial and error to begin with.

So if you're just starting out on LCHF, try not to over complicate it. Keep it simple with good, unprocessed foods and stop fearing the fat :)

Shell x

My how times have changed!!

I've just logged into my blogger account with the intention of starting a new blog about my new way of eating, and this was the first thing to pop up!

Reading through this I just kept shaking my head. Sometimes in disbelief at what I was eating and the expectations I had about how my *diet* would result in permanent, long term weight loss, but mostly at how I was such an ill informed sheep.

Needless to say, since my last entry here on the 18th February, 2013, a lot has changed. A LOT, has changed.

My whole belief system has been called into question and in doing so I'm eating better than I ever have, with no feelings of deprivation at all, I'm healthier than I've ever been (off all heart and cholesterol meds, no migraines, no heart burn/indigestion and no symptoms of diverticulitis!), and, I'm nearly 40kg lighter than was just over 6 months ago, and 30kg lighter than when I first started this blog.

Gone are diet foods, weight loss shakes, pills and potions, and gone are carbohydrates. It's in with lots of fresh veg, fatty meats, including marbled steak, salmon, chicken with the skin on and pork crackle!! Not to mention full cream milk, pure cream, butter and heaps of avocado, olive oil and nuts.

I've found my holy grail of health and well being, and weight loss. It's called Intermittent Fasting & LCHF (low carb high fat). It's the exact opposite of what I've been taught all these years. It's taken a while to get my head around eating fat to get thin, but the proof is in the photo :)

I hope you'll follow my journey at least a little way. I'm by no means an expert and I'm not a doctor or dietician but do know what's worked for me. There is no one way of eating that suits everyone. What I'm doing may or may not work for you, so take what you need and leave the rest. 

Cheers,

Shell ❤️

OH MY FUCKING GAWD!!!!

Excuse my french, but that's exactly what I said when I stepped on the scales this morning.

113.4 kilos.

Holy Crap.

I've been in a really bad place emotionally for the past 6 or so weeks. I have no idea what's been going on. I've always been a glass half full kinda gal, so feeling like this way is doubly hard. I've lost all passion for my nail work and my paper crafting. I've had no desire to exercise or watch my diet. I could quite happily sit my ass on the couch for 12 hours of the day and then sleep for the other 12.

It's a scorcher here today, with a strong, hot wind blowing, so I'm ensconced under the air con and not doing much at all. I've decided I'm going to do some meditation and a bit of personal and internal work today. I'm not sure how successful I'll be as it's too hot to send my little man to school. He copes with the heat as well as his mum does!

I've started my food diary again this morning and forced myself to have a rapid loss shake as opposed to nothing for breakfast. I'm going to quick start my metabolism by having a VLCD for this week. So 2 shakes a day and a main meal at night. This will keep my calorie intake under 1000 calories a day. Hopefully seeing a decent loss by doing this will get my motivation going again.

Have a great day,

me xoxo

Feeling like shit!!

I haven't watched what I eat (apart from seeing it go from my plate to my mouth) or exercised in over 5 weeks. I feel like shit!!! My skin is breaking out, I've got a couple of cold sores, bags under my eyes, my back hurts and I've had indigestion every day for the past 3 weeks.

I'm over feeling this way.

Stay tuned.......

Me xoxo

Another Monday and another weigh in:)

Not a bad week this week. Not brilliant either. But considering it's been a week of food centered celebrations I'm pretty happy with another 1.3kg loss :) This takes my grand total to 11.7kg.

I must admit I've been really slack with exercise over the past week. There just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. I really need to get out of bed early to go for a walk. Morning is the best time of day for me as long as I get my lazy butt out of bed!

I'm in the middle of planning Christmas lunch with my MIL at the moment. Now I just have to mentally put some strategies in place to avoid my usual traps. Namely HAM!! LOL!! Oh....and our traditional pancakes, butter and maple syrup breakfast!! Stay tuned for that one!! *sighs*

OK...I need to get off my ass and go for a walk.

Catchya xoxo

Hump Day!

I love Wednedays. Mainly becasue I don't work Thursdays so it's my kinda mini weekend :)

I have a date with a personal trainer tomorrow. When I spoke to him yesterday he seemed to get where I was coming from and appeared to think we would work well together. I guess time will tell. I'm really looking forward to it actually. I'm ready for the next challenge in my journey!

I'm feeling really good at the moment. I have no cravings for 'bad' stuff. As much as I'd love to sit down with a plate full of cheeses, proscuitto and crackers, it's not a 'craving' and I know how awful I'd feel afterwards, no matter how much I might enjoy the actual eating I know it would be a huge step backwards for me. It's been just over 8 weeks since I've had anything processed pass my lips and I'm not about to stat now!!

I've started noticing some changes in myself. I'm sleeping better, the best I've ever slept, and I'm starting to become a morning person. Come 6-6:30 and I'm wide awake and ready to get out of bed. My skin is also clear and perfect! Apart from a few crows feet my skin looks awesome. It's not just me either. 5 people this week have said how good my skin looks. 2 even asked if I was pregnant becasue I had a glow!!!! LOL!!!

I'm off to cook ricotta basil chicken and veg for dinner. I'll try and remember to take a picture :)

Cheers,

shell xoxo