My health improvements with LCHF

Yesterday my mum told me about something that she read about people on LCHF and their relationship with their doctors. One guy said that his doctor didn’t want to see him anymore if he started with LCHF. Another one insisted to give blood pressure lowering medicin to a guy with high blood pressure. It wasn’t abnormally high, it was just .. high. When he started with LCHF his blood pressure went down and he never took the medicine.

Besides an obvious weight loss (-13kg) my cholesterol has gone down from 5mmol/L to 3mmol/L. 5mmol/L is normal! My blood pressure has always been low and I’m still dizzy, which I’ve always been now and then so nothing abnormal there.

My belly is not bloated anymore. I look and feel “slim”.
I don’t have a bad stomach. I’m not “hard” like I used to be when I ate too much fiber and carbs.
I’m healthier. I dont get sick as often as I used to
I have more energy. I can, without problem, work out twice a day, which I could never ever do when I ate carbs.
I’m never hungry. I don’t have to starv myself in order to lose weight, I can eat 3000 kcal and still lose weight.
Most importantly maybe.. I don’t have any moodswings anymore!! When I was hungry I could get really grumpy and in such a mood, but now I can stay happy all day! Amazing.

Intermittent fasting day 4

As long as I can remember I’ve been told that I need to eat right after I’ve been working out, and I have, mostly protein but also carbs, because that’s what everyone told you, right? People say that if you work out and don’t eat afterwards, your body will “eat up” (someone help me with a more appropriate word?) your muscles instead. Well, I think that this is something that we’ve been told based on a high carb diet (the one diet that most people eat). If you are on a carb diet, you will fill and empty your glycogen storage all the time, and if there are no glycogen the body will not have enough energy (and it takes days for the body to switch to burning fat) so your muscles can’t grow. I’m probably way out of this…  However, if you are on a low carb diet (and high fat) your body will already be in ketosis, which means it is already burning fat. So my theory is that, if you work out and you are in ketosis, you wouldn’t have to eat straight after because the body will use your fat energy storage to keep providing the muscles with energy for their “rehab”. And seeing as I have a 153 000 kcal storage, I shouldn’t worry.. haha. So I’m going to try this theory!

Today’s workout:

• 7km powerwalk with my mum

Brunch 12.30pm:

• 2 boiled eggs
• Salmon
• LCHF bread (homemade) with butter and cheese
• Lactofree greek yoghurt with sunflower seeds

Dinner 7.30pm:

• Stew with sausage, zucchini, onions and cream
• Cabbage salad.

Intermittent fasting day 3

After 14h of fasting i went to a Mayhem session for about 1h.. crazy people! I could barely walk home afterwards, so it was awesome of course. When I got home I was done with the fasting period so I had a massive brunch.

Brunch 12.30pm
– Omelett
– Lactofree yoghurt with strawberries and sunflowerseeds
– salmon slices

Snack 4pm
– strawberries with cream

Dinner 8.30pm
– grilled meat with halloumi, asparragus and béarnaise sauce.

Intermittent fasting, day 2

I woke up quite early and decided to go running today. It wasn’t meant to be. I ran 2km and then I was knackered so I walked the rest, 5km in total. At least the weather was nice, but too warm for a jog, so maybe that’s why. I had a banging headache the rest of the day so I clearly didn’t drink enough.

Lunch noon (after 16,5h fasting)

• Tenderloin with béarnaise sauce and sallad at a restaurant.

Dinner 5.30pm – 8.30pm

• 7 oysters with champagne
• briecheese, salami and tapenade (unfortunately some crisps and popcorn as well, VERY LITTLE though)
• Pork with béarnaise sauce and asparragus

Intermittent fasting, day 1

Today I’ve started my intermittent fasting. I’m trying to go against this “I will start on monday” pattern. Everything seems to be easier on a monday, right? I’ve always done that before, in everything. I must admit it feels strange, like I have no control..

A quick recap: Intermittent fasting is when you eat for 8 hours and fast for 16 hours. Preferably during the night. If I start eat breakfast/lunch at noon, I stop eat at 8pm. This to increase the fatburning process and maximize my performance.

Breakfast 10am

• Scramble eggs, 1 tablespoon of cream
• Two slices of bacon

Lunch 3pm

• Unknown number of cheeserolls with butter 🙂

Dinner 7pm

• Grilled meat with spring onions, mushrooms and garlic sauce

Plus I drink an awful lot of water.

Crossfit!

There are so many blogs and so much inspiration that penetrates my brain and makes me all confused and dizzy. What to do? When to do it? How does it work? As I’ve said like 100 times before here I’m in the process of losing those 5kg. My weight goes up and down all the time, between 68 and 70, which is really annoying and frustrating. I haven’t been to the gym either because of my student budget, which makes me feel like a blob. I need to sort out my eating habits. I eat too much. Intermittent fasting was really good actually, maybe I should start that again..

In order to procrastinate my revision I went online and searched for “Crossfit Helsingborg” and found an organisation actually. So I booked myself onto a beginners try out session in June. EXCITED. Always wanted to try it, but it’s quite expensive so I think it will be the normal gym and the forest for me.

Bad week!!

Very bad week. Awful actually. I’ve been eating sweets for 100 SEK, I had 1,5 waffle, rice with curry, dorito crisps and bread this week. Results: VERY bad skin, bloated, hungryyyy all the time, GAINED 1 KG IN A BLOODY WEEK. So it has to end now.

Unfortunately my student budget doesn’t allow much change in my diet, and I have already bought the next week’s food, so no major changes. I have decided that I am going to eat like I always do of course with no alternations and go on the big guns once I am home in Sweden and don’t have to pay for the food. (Greatest thing about still living with my parents)

Once I am home I have about a month to get that body I want, which means I am doing something called “fakir” which is basically NO carbs what so ever. I will probably do Intermittent fasting as well and, since I don’t have a job, I can easily work out multiple times a day. I will also cut down on the milkproducts except for butter. I have big plans for my butter!!

I will OBVIOUSLY blog about this experiment! 🙂 1,5 week and I am BUZZING.

Fakir is nothing you should do if you don’t have 100% control over your diet. As in, as a beginner you should not try this. I’d say that Intermittent fasting could be your next step, but since I’ve got 3ish kg that just wont let go of me I need to do something radical. I’m expecting big things over the summer!

Intermittent fasting

To lose the last 4 kg I’ve undertaken some drastic changes. I have cut down on dairy because it contains milk sugar. I don’t eat any berries and I try to avoid the peanuts. I stopped with dark chocolate and peanutbutter long time ago. (Peanutbutter is amazing if you feel a need for sugar, one spoon and I’m satisfied for the rest of the day).

To push myself harder I’ve started doing something called Intermittent fasting (Periodisk Fasta). For some of you this might seem a bit extreme and some of you might think “Oh God but she is starving herself!?”. No. You starv yourself when you don’t eat at all, or if you cut out both fat AND carbs.

So, Intermittent Fastin is when you fast for some hours and eat for some hours. I my case I don’t eat for 16 hours. What happens when you’ve been on a low carb diet for a while is that your energy is taken from the fat. After you’ve eaten your body is on saving mode. In this mode your body doesn’t want to exercise, it wants to digest, rest and rebuild. A few hours after it’s ready to exercise again – active mode. The point with Intermittent Fasting is to expand this window when your body is in the active mode and that’s why I’m doing the 16/8 fasting, which also is the easiest form. (Source: http://www.jonasbergqvist.se/sidor/periodisk-fasta/)

It means that I stop eating aroung 6 o’clock in the evening, and eat my next meal 16 hours later, so 10 o’clock in the morning. Intermittent Fasting is prefect in combination with training. And there we killed another myth! (Training on an empty stomach is bad). WRONG. Its the best you could ever do. Definitely doesn’t work if you are on a carb diet of course. If you are on a carb diet your body only have as much energy as you consumed. Your body will not go over to burn fat once that energy is gone. For that it takes days. For a person on a fat diet however, there will always be a huge energy storage for the body to take from, and that’s why training on an empty stomach is good. Side track.

So when I wake up after 14 hours of fasting I go straight to the gym, and eat my first meal of the day afterwards. Breakfast is therefore not the most important meal of the day, shock! Many skip breakfast, depending on when they eat in the evening, and go straight to lunch. I eat Brunch. 🙂