2 eggs scrambled
4 bacon strips or 2 sausage patties
JK's 'crumbly bread' biscuit (10-12g carb)

like a sausage egg biscuit only way thinner biscuit.

"awriter" began this thread with a long and thoughtful critical review of Jan Kwasniewski's "Optimal Diet". Has anyone produced a similarly thorough review of Barry Groves' analysis and recommendations?

Okay, I'm back to a stint of weighing and measuring my food after I gained 5 pounds last week, and decided I was probably just plain eating too much. I was trying to give up nuts, and as a result was eating too much of everything else to compensate!

But I seem to be falling back into a more JK style of eating. daily protein seems to be coming in at about the 60-65g level, which is right about what JK seems to feel is Optimal for me. And my daily ratios seem to be coming in at about the OD levels as well.

Last night's dinner for example?
6 oz. duck breast with the skin, roasted
small vegetable stir-fry consisting of onions, beets, parsnips, and salad turnips.

I did lose weight on the OD last time, and had better blood sugar control. I'll see how things go over the next week or two, though so far, so good. Though I'm noticing the same issue I had which caused me to go off the OD plan last time - with the smaller protein amount I don't ever seem to be able to fully satisfy my hunger. I just finished a fairly substantial dinner of 5 strips of bacon, a cheese omelet, and green tea with heavy cream - yet I'm still hungry now, 30 minutes after eating.

I suppose I could go eat more of something, but think I will just wait it out as no clue what I would go eat!

If so I haven't seen it! But isn't Groves's plan very similar to the OD? But perhaps more accessible to folks around here as it's written in English and available from places like amazon.

Groves is 15C, 20P, 65F...in percentages of course.

he doesn't give rules about where carbs come from but he and monica are pretty much purists, avoiding sugar/starches.

it has worked well for them. he must be in his late 70's. been at it for almost 50 years......a shining lc example.

I've had that sensation also when transitioning from a period of eating more than JK amounts of protein. I wonder what that's about. Is it a stomach size thing, or just used to having more protein and used to getting energy from it as well as repair, or, I just need more protein at my size? It goes away if I have 70 g instead of 65g. And then I feel silly even trying to overanalyze 5 g of protein, sheesh.

Similar to Kwasniewski's 11%C, 22%P, 66%F.

I have a higher proportion of protein than Kwasniewski recommends and have been 5% - 10% carbs for most of the past decade and have no intention of increasing the proportion to meet the Groves/OD recommendations. I exercise intensely, but with heavy weights, nothing like the light aerobic exercise criticized by Groves, and I deliberately consume more than average protein to repair the muscle breakdown that is the result of weight training.

I'm seeing my blood sugars actually dropping since I've been back more on an OD eating plan this last week. Yay. When I was on the OD previously I was getting BG numbers down in the 80s. But I guess I refused to totally put two and two together. I was hungry a lot on the OD and started eating more and more protein, as that was what satiated me.

But when I did my BG numbers began to rise again. I kept trying other things to bring it under control, short of cutting down on the protein. But this week I've been doing it - protein not always as low as my ideal amount per JK ratios (which would be about 66g a day), but still pretty low. Today I hit 81g for example. But that's WAY lower than I have been eating in the last year. And in the last year I have been unable to my BG under 100 no matter what I did, and usually not under 110.

But today, after a week on the OD ratios, I had a reading of 84 this afternoon, just like I saw last year on the OD. Even just a little over an hour after eating dinner my BG reading was only 99.

So I'm sure there are bumps in the road still ahead, but one more incentive to stick with the OD. Even though I'm still hungry. But not the sort of "hunger" I used to get when I was eating the SAD - where I would almost get violently ill from hunger, and would go crazy stuffing my face at times. This is more just a fairly constant awareness that my tummy is sitting up and begging - but I still feel alert and healthy, and can ignore it.

There are two distinct types of hunger: they feel different, they have different causes and they are satiated by different behaviours. The first type of hunger is one that leads people to "go crazy" - it's hormonally-driven hunger (women over my way call it "the munchies") which afflicts people who eat a diet high in refined, processed carbohydrates and who have accustomed their body to treating their hunger with snacks containing plenty of carbohydrates every 3 or 4 hours.
The second type of hunger is the obvious one - when the body tells you it needs more food for basic nutritional reasons. I switched to a low-carbohydrate diet a decade ago and since then I have not experienced a craving for food - ever. I have a Kwasniewski-type breakfast and then nothing till tea at 7 or 8 pm. Over that 12-hour period, not only am I not hungry, but the thought of food or eating simply does not enter my thoughts. On days when I'm at work, I feel a new lease of energy, physical speed and alertness from about 3 pm. If I were not so much a creature of habit, it's likely I would forget to have an evening meal 2-3 times a week.
We conflate the two types of hunger by labelling them both as "hunger" but there is a distinction between them which is valuable and losing this distinction leads us to invalid and ill-founded explanations of our appetite drivers.
For more information on hormonal hunger and how to deal with it, I recommend Rob Faigin's book Natural Hormonal Enhancement.

What is in your breakfast, Myrmecia? I get hungry around 3 after mine. I would like it to last until 5. (the second kind of hunger - I don't get the hormonal kind on OD)

I think there's a 3rd type, at least for me. I got it on the OD a lot. I get it on very high fat diets in general. I will physically feel full, or feel like my stomach really doesn't want more food, but I'll be really hungry too, at the same time.

I always called it hungry/full.

My breakfast is last night's leftover meat, reheated with more fat (diced pig, sheep or beef suet) and as many eggs as needed to make the meal substantial - generally 3 to 7. I might also have 5 - 10 cocoa beans, with or without 55% cream.

Okay that's a bigger breakfast than mine. I think I will just have more of my day's food at breakfast and see how it goes.

debbie, cutting back on protein is what made the difference in my BG.
also eating more frequently rather than big meals.
probably the same; since i'm eating more frequently, smaller amts protein at each meal.

*Very* interesting read. I've always done well on Atkins...until recently. I went on it again a month ago and am just not losing. Well, ok, I'm losing and gaining the same 10 lbs. I thought perhaps it was just my age (turned 54 this year), but noticed that my blood sugar is reacting differently as well. In the past, my blood sugars would drop into normal range without meds within 2-3 weeks. This time, I'm surprised that even with meds, my blood sugars are rising after a meal despite the fact that I'm eating less than 25gm of carbs per day, split up between my meals.

I'm just trying to figure out how to get all the fats in while keeping the protein down. I had 2 eggs and 2 slices of bacon in 2 tsp of butter for breakfast. 3 oz ground beef, 2.5 cups green beans with 1 Tbs of butter and 2 Tbs sour cream for lunch and I'm already at 41gm of protein (max is 54) and only 56gm of fat (daily total should be 135).

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