Unlimited Nuts => Weight Gain for Me

Regular readers may know that I have dessert for breakfast (and sometimes dip for dinner). But the past few weeks saw me working long hours at ramming speed. Something had to give: it was my almond meal chocolate cookies and Dr. William Davis's low-carb brownies, both made with nut flour.

This had a happy result (besides the good paychecks): the five pounds I put on a few months ago when I discovered these is leaving my midriff. It isn't the lack of sweetness at breakfast, since I've been having low carb, dairy-free chocolate custard for breakfast instead--two big pieces of it, along with coffee with coconut oil. I haven't completely given up nuts, I just don't have them every day, and when I do, I eat a handful of pistachios.

With all due respect to Dr. Davis, I can't eat unlimited nuts and keep a flat belly. Dr. Richard Bernstein is on to nuts raising blood sugar,(1) and therefore, for some of us, causing weight gain:

Nuts

Although all nuts contain carbohydrate (as well as protein and fat), they usually raise blood sugar slowly and can in small amounts be worked into meal plans. As with most other foods, you will want to look up your favorite nuts in one of the books listed in Chapter 3 in order to obtain their carbohydrate content. By way of example, 10 pistachio nuts (small, not jumbo) contain only 1 gram carbohydrate, while 10 cashew nuts contain 5 grams of carbohydrate. Although a few nuts may contain little carbohydrate, the catch is in the word “few.” Very few of us can eat only a few nuts. In fact, I don’t have a single patient who can count out a preplanned number of nuts, eat them, and then stop. So unless you have unusual will power, beware. Just avoid them altogether. Also beware of peanut butter, another deceptive addiction. One tablespoon of natural, unsweetened peanut butter contains 3 grams of carbohydrate, and will raise my blood sugar 15 mg/dl. Imagine, however, the effect on blood sugar of downing 10 tablespoons.

I don't think I have a big appetite, but it's too easy for me to eat half a can of cashews at one sitting. Or a few celery stalks with almond butter. (And yes, I realize I'm very fortunate that this is my most pressing health issue.)

With dairy gone, wheat gone, and excessive nuts gone, my hunt for interesting low-carb food continues.

1. Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution by Dr. Richard Bernstein, Chapter 10: Diet Guidelines Essential to the Treatment of All Diabetics. Accessed June 3, 2012.

Comments

Lori Miller said…

I can take some pistachios in my lunch and enjoy them. Once they're gone, I can't keep eating them.

June 05, 2012

Blog Lineup Change

Bye-bye, Fathead. I've enjoyed the blog, but can't endorse the high-fat, high-carb Perfect Health Diet that somehow makes so much sense to some otherwise bright people. An astrophysicist makes some rookie mistakes on a LC diet, misdiagnoses them, makes up "glucose deficiency," and creates a diet that's been shown in intervention studies to increase small LDL, which can lead to heart disease. A computer programmer believes in the diet and doesn't seem eager to refute it because, perhaps, scientists are freakin' liars and while he's good at spotting logical inconsistencies, lacks some intermediate knowledge of human biology. To Tom's credit, he says it's not the right diet for everyone, but given the truckload of food that has to be prepared and eaten, impracticality of following it while traveling (or even not traveling), and unsuitability for FODMAPs sufferers, diabetics and anyone prone to heart disease (i.e., much of the population), I'm...

Collagen-filled Low Carb Burritos

Low-carb, grain-free Mexican food is hard to find, but it's easy to make your own at home. This recipe has an authentic ingredient: carne de lengua, or beef tongue. Don't be put off: beef tongue is tender, delicious, and full of collagen. Look for it directly from farmers in your area. To cook it, cut it in 1" to 1-1/2" slices and pressure cook for one hour. Enjoy the delicious broth as a bonus. Ingredients 1 slice cooked beef tongue, peeled and cut into small cubes 1 egg wrap (I use these from Egglife) 1/4 cup cooked black or pinto beans Chili pepper Oregano Garlic (powdered or minced) Cumin Guacamole (with no emulsifiers) Salsa Shredded cheddar cheese Sour cream or homemade cream cheese with no emulsifiers Put the egg wrap on a plate and put the beef and beans down the middle of it. Sprinkle with the herbs and spices. Wrap, turn over and microwave for 1-2 minutes. Spoon salsa over the burrito and sprinkle with cheese. Add guacamole and sour cream or homemade crea...

Not Only Cheaper, But Easier

A while back, I wrote about saving money on break time coffee and snacks. I haven't done very well putting it into practice. But a post by James Clear today got me thinking about it again: Warren Buffett uses a two-list system to prioritize things. Check it out --and follow the instructions. Using Buffett's two-list system, two of the goals I ended up with were taking care of myself and saving $400 more per month than I already am. As I said, I've been wanting to save money, and the system made me really focus on this. I came up with 11 money-saving ideas, six of which had to do with food. Buying hamburger in bulk. Ranch Foods Direct sells one-pound packages of 80% lean pastured ground beef in bundles of 20 for a lot less than Whole Foods. Sprouts only carries super-lean beef that's grass-fed, and it's more expensive, too. Not driving to Whole Foods. Whole Foods is out of my way, and saving a weekly trip saves gas. Coffee at home, tea at work. Tea is fr...

Palpitations Gone with Iron

Thanks to my internet friend Larcana, who alerted me to the connection between iron deficiency and palpitations, I doubled down on my iron supplements and, for good measure, washed them down with Emergen-C. It's a cold medicine with a mega-dose of vitamin C, plus B vitamins and minerals. I don't think vitamin C does anything for a cold (a friend bought the stuff and left it at my house the last time she visited), but vitamin C does help iron absorption. After doubling up on iron in the last three days, I feel back to normal. (I'd already been taking quite a bit of magnesium and potassium, so I probably had sufficient levels of those.) How did I get so low on iron? Maybe it was too many Quest bars instead of red meat when I had odd cravings during my dental infection recently. Maybe because it's too hard to find liver at the grocery store and I haven't eaten much of it lately. Maybe the antibiotics damaged my intestines . And apparently, I'm a heavy bleeder . ...

In Defense of Fast Food

Another modern trend - healthy food should be expensive, not nutrients-dense and preferably exotic, or you would be eating like plebs who live on a dollar McD menu. --Galina L. I don't try to jump over seven-foot hurdles, I look for one-foot hurdles I can step over. --Warren Buffett, pleb who eats at McDonald's Despite all the talk about wild-caught v. farmed, grass-fed v. CAFO and the vilification of fast food, a lot of us plebs benefit simply from carbohydrate restriction. But even though diabetes and obesity are rampant, and carb restriction alone would help millions of people, the impression is out there that you need to eat in a very specific way, far beyond just watching the carbs. Following a low-carb diet is already a high hurdle for many people. If some people want or need to raise the bar for themselves, that's fine with me, but there's no need to turn low-carb into a hurdle that a lot of people can't jump over. Organic produce and grass-fed or p...

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Search This Blog