Tonight on British TV channel, ITV, at 9:00pm


http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ent...4b0961f09392af2





Hala El-Shafie's website:
http://halael-shafie.co.uk/#intro

If these people are getting "cold, tired and irritable" when cutting down on carbohydrate, what I wonder is are they compensating energy-wise by consuming more healthy fats or just moving toward a calorie-deficient semi-starvation diet? Those symptoms sound like what people doing low calorie low fat diets get, not what people consuming a healthy low-carb high-fat moderate protein diet get. I never feel cold, tired and irritable on a well-formulated ketogenic diet without some obvious non-dieting reason like I'm outside where it's freezing cold, didn't get enough hours of sleep, etc.

Also, TV show meant for entertainment aside, kicking the sugar habit for regular people doesn't have to such an abrupt miserable discouraging shock as going cold-turkey like these guys. Hopefully people wanting to give up sugar will realize there are less unpleasant ways of doing so and not be discouraged from even trying.

When I tried to cut calories I was miserable & cranky. When I finally cut carbs, I felt good. Physically, cutting out sugar & grains was easier than quitting smoking, but mentally just as hard.

I would be cold, tired and irritable if I had to do these chores, too. It has nothing to do with diet. Low carb generates energy.

"Over in the farmhouse kitchen, Alison prepares a sugar free farm dinner with a difference: spaghetti bolognese using that morning’s freshly picked courgettes."

Spaghetti == Sugar!

Maybe they put their courgettes (zucchini) through a vegetable spiralizer to make fauxgetti noodles; that's what I do with my zucchini!

Yes, the purpose of the zuchinnis would have been to replace the pasta.

But the first sentence in that paragraph sounds like they're still starting their day on carbs.

Sweet potato has this rep of being super healthy, and it does have a little more micro-nutrients than white potatoes, but raw by weight (or even baked by weight), there's more carbs in sweet potatoes than white potatoes.

Unless they've figured out some way to make carb-free granola, that's almost pure carbs, and I doubt they're making it from just nuts - which would still not be carb free, just a good bit lower in carbs than grain based granola. Considering that they're only calling it the Sugar free farm, not the Carb free farm, it's probably essentially baked rolled oats and other whole grains, with no sugar added to them, unless they're allowing natural sweeteners such as honey and fruit juice concentrates, along with some dried fruit in it too, and of course we know that dried fruit provides concentrated carbs. I suspect that's what they're doing, since it was called cinnamon granola - cinnamon combined with some kind of sweetener or fruit will enhance the sweetness of the food, but simply added to grains without any sweetener of any kind, cinnamon will just taste hot.

I have to wonder what was in the green smoothie too - just greens? Maybe some fruit juice or something else to sweeten it to make it a bit more palatable than simply liquified greens? Or did it have some kind of protein component?

And more than that, are these people being given any fat at all in their diet beyond what little naturally occurs in the mentioned foods?

No wonder they were cold, tired, and irritable - starting their day on carbs, expected to do dirty manual labor that they're clearly not used to doing, all while doing a 180 turn-around in their diet. Such is the way of reality TV, but clearly not a truly LC experience.