Kick off your day in low-carb fashion
March 30, 2004
Dana Carpender / The Dallas Morning News
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...b.d915ea07.html
If you haven't heard about low-carb, you probably haven't been eating lately. Recent estimates for the number of Americans who have switched to low-carb diets range between 30 million and 40 million. Although many of you have enjoyed success on your diet, others have grown weary and dropped out.
Either way, I'm here to help.
For a long time, I, like everyone, thought plain baked potatoes and pasta salad with fat-free mayonnaise were the path to dietary salvation. A low-fat, high-carb diet plus tons of exercise got me up to 190 pounds at 5 feet 2 inches – not a pretty sight. Add to that crashing energy levels, and borderline-high blood pressure, and it was clear that the U.S. Department of Agriculture and American Heart Association recommendations were not working for me.
Then one day, almost nine years ago, I picked up an old nutrition book, Gayelord Hauser's New Treasury of Secrets: Your Passport to a Better Way of Living (Fawcett, 1963) and one sentence jumped out at me: "Obesity has nothing to do with how much you eat; it is, instead, a carbohydrate intolerance disease."
When I was a child, everybody knew that if you wanted to lose weight you gave up potatoes, spaghetti and sweets. I figured, "What the heck do I have to lose?"
I've kept 40 pounds off for eight years, and my health and energy levels are superb.
My best piece of wisdom about living low-carb is this: There is no finish line. People complain that they gain the weight back after quitting the diet. Of course! This is because people "go on a diet" with the assumption that they'll lose their weight and then "go off the diet." This is a sure path to failure.
You simply can't go back to eating the "Standard American Diet," loaded with junk carbs, and somehow keep your weight off and stay healthy. If carbs are your problem today, they will be your problem next week and next month and next year.
Instead, focus not on how quickly you can lose your weight, but on how enjoyable you can make your low-carbohydrate lifestyle. Since you're stuck with doing this forever, it doesn't much matter if it takes you an extra month or two to reach your goal.
However, please don't assume that if low-carb is good, no-carb is better. You can do anything for a few weeks, but no one can face a lifetime of fried eggs for breakfast, a bunless burger for lunch and plain steak for dinner – and a lifetime is what we're talking about.
If you don't already have a carbohydrate food-count book, get one and explore the huge variety of low-carb vegetables, nuts and seeds, low-sugar fruits and other splendid foods that can fit into your diet. Learn just how interesting you can make your meals while staying within your own critical carbohydrate level.
Buy a few good low-carb cookbooks, and start finding new favorite dishes. If all you've read is Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution (Avon, 2001) or The South Beach Diet (Rodale, 2003) take a look at some other low-carb diet books, to see if there's an approach to carb restriction that may suit your body and your life a bit better.
In short, have fun. Stop thinking of this as a temporary thing, and embrace going low-carb for what it is: a hugely positive life change with innumerable facets you can customize for a comfortable fit.
You're not in this alone. I'll be here every week, teaching you the ropes, helping you to find the low-carb lifestyle that's right for you – and even sharing recipes along the way.
Dana Carpender is the author of 500 Low-Carb Recipes and the editor of the biweekly online newsletter Lowcarbezine! Contact her online at www.holdthetoast.com. Copyright 2004, United Feature Syndicate Inc.
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Low-Carb Gingerbread Waffles
Ingredients:
¾ cup almonds
1 cup vanilla whey protein powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 ½ cups carbohydrate-reduced milk (or 3/4 cup heavy cream and 3/4 cup water)
2 eggs
4 tablespoons melted butter
2 teaspoons ground ginger
Whipped cream
Directions:
Preheat waffle iron.
Put the almonds in a food processor with the S-blade in place, and grind them until they're the texture of cornmeal.
Combine dry ingredients, including the almond meal. Mix together the low-carb milk or cream/water combination and the eggs, then stir the melted butter into them. Pour this into the dry ingredients, and mix with a few quick strokes.
Ladle the batter into the waffle iron (about 1/2 cup at a time is right in my waffle iron). Bake according to the directions for your waffle iron.
Serve with whipped cream. Makes 6 servings.
PER SERVING (made with carb-reduced milk): Cal 345 Protein 34 g Fiber 3 gCarb 8 g Usable carb 5 mg
Breakfast has a profound impact on hunger all day. The right breakfast can improve your energy, mood and mental clarity. Eggs are great for people following a low-carb meal plan, but my mail tells me that many of you are heartily sick of them.Here are some ideas to vary your breakfasts:
While bacon is too low in protein to serve by itself, both sausage and ham make fine, high-protein breakfasts. Throw sausage patties on your electric tabletop grill, and they'll cook quickly, with little tending.
Burgers, chops and small steaks make great breakfasts and can also be cooked quickly and easily on that electric tabletop grill.
Leftovers make a good breakfast (such as warmed-up meatloaf or stir-fry).
Cottage cheese is cheap, high-protein, low-carb and loaded with calcium, too. If you like, you can add berries and a little sweetener. A cup of cottage cheese plus 1/2 cup sliced strawberries has 27 grams of protein, 11 grams of carbohydrate with 2 grams of fiber, for a usable carb count of 9 grams ("usable carb" being the number of carbohydrates minus the fiber).
In The GO-Diet (GO Corp., 1999), Jack Goldberg and Karen O'Mara explain that the 12 grams of carbohydrates per cup figure listed on a container of plain yogurt is high. Yes, the milk the yogurt is made from has 12 grams of lactose, but the yogurt bacteria convert it to lactic acid, giving yogurt its characteristic tangy taste, and leaving the yogurt with just 4 grams of usable carb per cup (and 9 grams of protein). Add your favorite flavoring extract, such as lemon or vanilla, and artificial sweetener.
To increase the protein content of that yogurt, add a little low-carb "granola." One-third cup of Gram's Gourmet Flax 'n Nut Crunchies (you can buy it at
www.carbsmart.com) adds another 7 grams of protein, 6.7 grams of carbohydrate with 4 grams of fiber, for a usable carb count of 2.7 grams – and plenty of minerals and healthy fats. Plus, of course, crunch and flavor.
There are a number of low-carb "cereals" on the market, both cold and hot. Many are soy-heavy, however, and I try to limit my soy intake because I worry about effects on thyroid, mineral absorption and cognitive function. My favorite low-carb hot "cereal," Cream of Flax (
www.gramsgourmet.com), has no soy. It is as quick and easy as instant oatmeal, with 18 grams of protein per serving, and 11 grams of carbohydrate, 8 grams of which are fiber, for a usable carb count of just 3 grams.
Protein bars and shakes make quick grab-and-go breakfasts. Of the two, I prefer shakes, because they usually don't contain polyol sweeteners. With the new carb-reduced milk on the market, you can easily make your own, if you like. Just put 1 cup of carb-reduced milk through the blender with a scoop (about 1/4 cup) of whey protein powder, a few ice cubes and the extract and sweetener of your choice.
Other breakfasts-to-go include individually wrapped string cheese or cheese chunks, hard-cooked eggs, cold cuts and cottage cheese in individual containers with peel-off lids.
Low-carb baked goods are flooding the market, but again, most contain a lot of soy. I prefer to make my own. If you'd like to try adapting a muffin or quick bread recipe, try using a 50-50 combination of vanilla whey protein powder and finely ground almonds or pumpkin seeds in place of the flour. (For example, replace 1 cup flour with 1/2 cup ground almonds and 1/2 cup vanilla whey protein powder. This combination, without additional gluten, won't work in yeast breads.)
Dana Carpender
Dana Carpender: "Kick off your day in low-carb fashion"
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