This is too funny Elle.

I think we're ALL like that - with our own little 'rules' for these types of things. Here I am trying to determine what 'processed food' is...so somehow certain things are processed (like a frozen meat product), whereas this really handy dandy La Victora Salsa Suprema in Medium (lowest carb bottled salsa I've found, and quite tasty) is somehow NOT processed. Over time, my little rules/ideas change, depending on the goings on.

That's pretty much my plan in a nutshell.

I add fat to some veggies, but not all. I do use dressing liberally, but that's usually a tablespoon. I mainly use coconut oil for cooking...and a little goes a long way.

Are you confused about his statement that fats need to be eaten with veggies, in order to absorb the nutrients and that he doesn't "add" fats to his veggies?

My take on that is this - he isn't eating those veggies in isolation, he is eating them "with" meats that have fats in them, so the fats to absorb the nutrients from the veggies are still there, just elsewhere in his meal.

I thought I would add that I tried some roasted green beans tonight. They are good, a kind of sweet taste with a slightly bitter undertone--and I used 1 tsp of olive oil per serving--that is less than I would dress them with if they were steamed.

Problem is, I don't see the rest of my family eating them this way...they just don't "look" very good and that slightly bitter undertone will not go over well with the kids. They are used to my steamed green beans (which taste pretty sweet) with butter.

That's a really good take on that concept. You know I think I was obsessing too much about getting fats directly ON my veggies...but of course if you're having them with a meat/fat source, you'd be good to go I guess? It's all about the SOLUBLE aspects of the nutrients and that would work as long as you're consuming it at the same time then, right?

Really good point...made me think. Thanks!

When I roast with olive oil or butter I add pretty liberal amounts to the food. It crisps it up nicely and most of the fat ends up on the bottom of the baking dish anyway, kind of like when you fry most of the oil is still left in the pan but it still tastes good.

This is a very interesting thread, so I'll put in my .03 cents.

--I think you make perfect sense, Elle. Some foods have fat in them and don't need more.

--My take on the Dr. Mike thing is that he's not in weight-loss mode. Isn't it when our carbs are really low that we can use more fat for satiety and revving the metabolism? But he practices a more "hedonistic" lifestyle which includes the occasional cheat, so while he's not afraid of fat, he doesn't go around adding tons because it would cause problems with the extra carbs.

CitrusKiss---I know dairy is a huge hurdle for me. If I can give it up, I can lose weight much better, but I miss that creaminess. What do you do for a "substitute"? (If there is such a thing!)

Well, it wasn't as though I wanted to give up the dairy - but it turns out that I'm intolerant to some form of dairy. I'm not clear yet (because I don't feel like 'testing' myself right now) whether it's the lactose or casein that's a problem for me.

In any case - I had a lot of bloating and difficulty losing weight. I remembered a book I'd picked up last summer, called "The False Fat Diet" - something I'd only skimmed through. Although it's not 'low-carb' at all, it was an extremely valuable read (when I did finally read the thing) in that it taught me that most of my 'stall' issues and bloating were likely related to a food intolerance. I spent a couple of weeks doing sort of an elimination diet - eliminated the 'sensitive seven' foods Dr. Elson M. Haas suggested were the most common culprits in a food intolerance/allergy. So no eggs, no dairy, no wheat, no sugar, no soy etc. Of course, I was already 'wheat and sugar free' - it was the dairy that I had to ditch for awhile to see if it was causing a problem.

And it was. When I finally found the courage to drop all forms of dairy, including butter - weight loss started happening again. And I realized that I had been ignoring the fact that dairy was interfering with my digestion. But, it wasn't until I'd had a good 2 weeks or so free of all dairy, and then tried a tiny bit of cheese on a salad and some homemade ranch dressing that I realized just how much it was messing me up.

Sometimes you need a couple of weeks free of symptoms to notice the symptoms you might have been experiencing all along. Frustration with weight loss - sticking to the low-carb diet, but bloated. Something was up.

After three weeks of no dairy - I did try a tiny bit of grated cheese that was on a salad I'd made for a big BBQ we were having - along with a nice big dollop of homemade ranch dressing. I bloated up something fierce - gained about four pounds (we're talking like 1 or 2 ounces of cheese and maybe 2 tablespoons ranch dressing), and spent the next 4-5 days dealing with GI issues.

After that episode, I didn't miss dairy quite so much.

In terms of 'creaminess' - I've found that coconut milk makes a reasonable substitute for cream in my morning coffee, and I'm learning to love black teas black, rather than putting cream in it. There's one brand in particular that blends into hot coffee better (other brands seem to clump up at the top of the mug..) - it's called "A Taste of Thai Lite Coconut Milk" and it's 2 carbs per 1/3 cup and much lower in calories than full-fat coconut milk. That said, one thing to pay attention to - usually the 'light' coconut milk is higher in carbs. That said, the full-fat ones don't blend as well into a mug of coffee, although they're great for making sauces and curries.

I missed my blue cheese salad dressing something fierce. I did get tired of the vinaigrette dressings all the time.

A friend of mine who posts in my journal (Santabarb) mentioned something called "Annie's Naturals Goddess dressing" - completely dairy free. It is fantastic!! It tastes like a cross between Alfredo sauce and creamy caesar salad dressing. No, it's not particularly low-cal, but it IS low-carb and intensely flavourful. It makes a great 'topping' for grilled meats, salads and just about anything that needs a bit of flavour. There are two kinds of this type of dressing, one's called "Annies Naturals Organic Green Goddess" dressing, and this one does have dairy, so I haven't tried it. The really good one is the ordinary "Annie's Naturals Goddess" dressing. It's made with tahini and sesame seeds. Delish!

I came across another nice 'substitute' - reading through Amory's journal. The idea of mixing up a bit of mayonnaise with French's Spicy Brown mustard and sweetening it with a tiny bit of Splenda or Sweetzfree if you have it. Wow - was that ever good. Just put a bit of mayo into a bowl, add in a whole bunch of the spicy mustard (use more mustard than mayo) and sweeten to your taste...and voila - instant 'honey mustard' dip/sauce/marinade...

Boy....this is getting really long...

I'll make a list of my favourite substitutes:
----------------------------------------
Coconut milk - "A Tase of Thai Lite Coconut Milk" for coffee and superior blendability, and regular full-fat coconut milk for sauces and curries

WestSoy Organic Unsweetened Soymilk - I don't use this often, since I hear bad things about too much soy - but the WestSoy Unsweetened Vanilla soymilk is just 1 net carb per CUP, and a couple of tablespoons of this tastes great in a mug of Stash Double Spice Chai tea.

Blue Diamond Natural Almond Breeze Unsweetened Almond Milk - 1 carb per CUP and 40 cals. Comes in chocolate flavour too.

Amory's / Shopgirl's "Honey Mustard Dip" - mix up some mayo, some French's Spicy Brown mustard and a wee bit of your favourite sweetener. Truly excellent.

Annie's Naturals Goddess Dressing - this is to DIE for - blue cheese and ranch dressing pale in comparison to this dressing, which can be used for dip, dressing, sauce...you name it.

Olive Oil - replaces butter for cooking, sometimes coconut oil if I'm making a curry dish.

Incidentally - my calories and carbs dropped significantly went I 'quit' dairy. Even with the coconut milk in my coffee. Even with the Goddess dressing. The light coconut milk is very, very low carb for the amount you'd put into a mug of coffee, and with no butter, no cheese, no blue cheese, no cream....I actually struggle to get even close to 20 carbs per day. What this means is that I'm finally adhering to one of the rules of induction (Atkins) - that most of my carbs are supposed to be in the form of vegetables. This is a lot more do-able when I'm not using up my carb allowance for heavy cream and hunks of cheese.

Sara

Wow! Thanks for all the great information. I'll try some of your suggestions. Alas, not the coconut milk because I've developed an allergy to coconut. That's very sad for me. I will look for the almond milk and dressing. Those sound great.

What do you do with the mayo/mustard dressing? I'm sure it's great too. In Williamsburg, VA there is a deli called the Cheese Shop that makes awesome sandwiches and I think that's basically what their "house" dressing is made of. W&M students will order a pint of dressing and a bag of bread "ends" to take back to the dorm and get fat on! Yum!

Lisa,

You make an excellent point re:getting away with more protein and fat while weight training.

As someone who considers himself a bodybuilder/strength training enthusiast, you are absolutely correct. Overeating in of itself is anabolic in nature, and particularly for a man with his testosterone levels, protein and fat combined lead to quick increases in lean bodyweight. In the past I have eaten LOTS of everything and now realize that all the carbs is what led to my body turning roughly 30% of my BW increase into fat. I am talking going from 160 to nearly 230 pounds over a long period of time and a good 20 pounds of it being adipose tissue. One of the authors of "Life Without Bread" states, that "even in the absence of exercise", high protein/high fat/low carb leads to increases in muscle. Imagine what happens when you do train hard!!

Your intuition is dead on IMHO now that you are pregnant. Growth support is what you need for a healthy baby.

Elle,
I dont add fat to my veggies. I sautee in garlic/olive oil/pat of butter while cooking it. I'm not sure if that counts as added fat or fat "in" the food or not. But I dont add anything to it once it is plated.

I absolutely agree with what you say about the fat "in" the food. I dont worry about that. I dont worry TOO much about added fat, although I do monitor it. Anything that you "add" is going to add more carbs or cals or fat or whatever...and thats how creeping, happens. So one should always be aware I think.

Elle...I'm just catching up here after a long spell of being *really* overwhelmed with work and found this thread.

I think I agree with the person who posted about the little internal 'rules' we make for ourselves about what does and doesn't fit into our meal plans...sometimes, we're all a little hard pressed to find the logic in our decisions. At the end of the day, if you get 5 grams of fat from your whipped cream dessert or 5 grams of fat from the butter you use to make yourself like the taste of steamed veggies, it's *still* 5 grams of fat. And maybe the issue of too much consumption is the whipped cream for dessert along with the butter on the veggies so that you're getting 10 grams of fat when you eat both...so do you need to eat both to feel satisfied?

I think I'd stick with the fat-dressed veggies and ditch the whipped cream dessert if I was looking to eliminate 'added' or unneeded fat consumption, but YMMV.

No, I'll do dry veggies before I'll ditch my whipped cream dessert. It's the discovery of eating whipped cream as a dessert that has kept me on track this past year where I have fallen pitifully off the plan in desperation and hunger in a month or two from my days as a PPer...but thanks anyway!

I still love the Eades and still use a lot of what they say as gospel--read his blog faithfully, but I'm an Atkins girl now, through and through, bought and paid for! Gotta have my fat to stay on plan! And am willing to "trade up" my goal weight in order to have it.

Good to see you again, Gaelen!

Well, for the mayo/mustard/sweetener dressing, I've used it for a variety of things:

1. - I have leftover cold cooked chicken breasts in the fridge - so I'll cut some up into 'strips' and dip into the 'honey mustard' dip.

2. - Make pork chops in the oven - buy the center cut boneless ones - get the thick ones. Rinse and pat dry. Lightly coat with olive oil, bake in the oven at 375F for about 40 minutes (for thick chops) on a rack placed on a cookie sheet lined with foil (makes cleanup easier). At the end, using a pastry or BBQ brush - brush mayo/mustard/sweetener sauce on the chops and turn oven up to broil for about 10 minutes - keep an eye on them to make sure they don't get too browned on top - quite good. Honey mustard broiled chops?

3. - I've discovered that just the French's Spicy Brown mustard mixed with the merest hint of SF sweetener of your choice is just as good on it's own - no mayo required - which is helpful when you consider that mayo (at least the store bought kind) has some carbs, and is fairly caloric. Not so with the plain spicy mustard jazzed up with a bit of sweetener - I've used this on bunless turkey burgers, smeared onto slices of cold turkey breast or leftover roast beef (afternoon snack or a lunch meal), on regular hamburgers (bunless of course), etc. etc.

Basically it's a nice 'dip' / marinade to replace all the ranch and blue cheese dressing I used to eat.

When I figure out how to make my own homemade vinaigrette dressings, I may try a 'honey mustard' version - by throwing in some of that spicy brown mustard that has been mixed with a tiny bit of sweetener into the dressing to see if I can't create a more interesting salad dressing.

By the way - I first tried this with granular Splenda - it was pretty good. But then I discovered something called "Sweetzfree" and this works even better. No, it wasn't easy to acquire, but well worth the hassle and expense - I really like this product because it doesn't have *any* of the aftertaste that you can sometimes get with powdered Splenda.

Check your local health food/grocery store for things like Almond Breeze Unsweetened Almond Milk and the WestSoy Unsweetened Soy Milk. No, they aren't as creamy as half n half or heavy cream...but they'll do in a pinch - especially if you're talking hot tea. Not so fantastic with coffee.

There's one other alternative, but I'm hesitant to recommend it - liquid "Low Fat" Coffee Mate - it's 1 carb and 10 calories per serving - BUT...it contains trans fats so I decided not to buy more after trying a bottle. Worked very well for coffee, but I'm really picky about not wanting trans fats in my diet.You'll find it in the dairy case next to the half and half, the heavy cream and so on. The 'No Fat' one is awful and believe it or not, the regular original kind is actually higher in carbs than the 'low fat' version. Again - I'm not recommending this in particular - because of the trans fats....but it does work in coffee.

Hope you manage to get the Goddess dressing, the French's Spicy Brown mustard and some interesting alternatives for hot coffee and tea (almond milk maybe).

I love all your suggestions, except for this one. Yuck. My sister uses that stuff and it makes me sick to think about it. I'm trying hard to get the trans fats out of our diet, too, and coffee creamers in any form just seem gross to me! I don't mind drinking my coffee black---that's something I started in trying to cut down the cream. So now I just use it on days, like today, when I want a little pick-me-up.

Thanks again for all your ideas! You're a great resource!