I have just got back to the LCHF lifestyle after putting on quite a bit of weight during the pandemic (comfort eating cakes and biscuits 🙄). I’m reading some posts for encouragement but find they are all from around 3 years ago and wonder if there are any more recent ones? Not that I suppose advice is different now but it would be nice to see some current posts on the subject.
Fingers crossed 🤞
This isn't a very active forum, but if you scroll through the posts on the main page, there are plenty that are less than 3 years old. There are also many low carbers on the Weight Loss Support forum, so you can get inspiration and support there 
Hi Freesia3 Yes, as moreless says this forum isn't very active anymore.
I don't think the advise is particularly different from 3 years ago so you could also look back at your original posts in this forum and not much would have changed in terms of the nuts and bolts of the way of eating.
I have eaten this way for most of my adult life and I'm always happy to chat and swap recipes etc.
Have a great day
🦆
Thank you, I will do that. There is one thing I don’t quite understand about ‘healthy’ fats and I’m hoping you can perhaps explain?
As well as olive oil I have been using organic rapeseed oil for frying for years because I thought it was the next best thing after olive oil and better with heat.
But now I read on here that it is actually an ‘unhealthy’ oil and I wonder why?
Hi Freesia
I usually cook with butter and occasionally coconut or olive oil.
I think rapeseed oil is a debatable subject in the low carb high fat world. Someone else may chip in with different views on rapeseed (canola) oil but I can tell you the reason I don't use it.
Rapeseed oil contains almost as much Omega 6 as sunflower oil or margarine (so a very very high level). It's marketed as a "healthy" oil because it also contains more Omega 3 than Sunflower oil. On paper the ratio of 3;1 omega 6 to Omega 3 looks OKish - but actually it still has a really vast amount of Omega 6. In that way it's similar to walnuts which many people eat, believing them to be a good source of Omega 3, but actually that doesn't matter if they have absolutely loads of Omega 6. Our bodies can't use omega 3 until we vastly cut down the amount of Omega 6 we are consuming. It's better to get our Omega 3 from food that contain lots of omega 3 (like oily fish) cooked in fats that have far far less Omega 6 (like butter).
Also Omega 3 fats in oils are degraded by high temperatures which means if you heat canola oil you are left with an Omega profile similar to Sunflower oil.
My understanding is that it partially depends on how the rapeseed oil has been pressed but for simplicity I just avoid it completely where I can.
The primary thing we need to do to readdress our Omega 3;6 balance is remove sources of very high levels of Omega 6 - rapeseed oil is one of those.
I will add a photo that explains this visually in a second....
From the book "Why we eat too much" by Dr Andrew Jenkinson. Great book for understanding dietary fats.
Thank you. I didn’t know that, I chose rapeseed over sunflower oil because of the omega 6, I thought rapeseed didn’t have much of it.
It's only my view - others will feel differently and have different priorities I guess. I do believe it's also affected by whether or not the rapeseed oil is cold pressed which gives it a better omega profile. But also makes it more pricey.
I like cooking with grass fed butter or coconut oil so I just do that. I make my mayo with a mixture of light and dark olive oil - which IMO is the naughtiest thing I do in terms of fats 😂
Hopefully some others will chip in as dietary fat is a really interesting topic.
Rapeseed oil is a tale of two oils, I think. The stuff you typically buy in the supermarket is the solvent extracted stuff, cheap and dubious health claims.
You can also get cold pressed rapeseed oil though, which is possibly the one they rank as the next best thing. I'm not clear on how good it is in reality this one is, as most advice seems to center around the canola/extracted oils.
It would be good to drum up some more activity in the LCHF forum...... I might post some food photos or go back to my reviews of 100% cocoa chocolate if I have some time next week.
I have looked at some of your and others’ posts from 6 months ago, very interesting. Also the book by Dr Andrew Jenkinson, I will read the free sample on my kindle app first and then probably buy it.
I've just come across this site you might like healthresults.com/blogs/art...
I think the book is great. He's not a hard core keto advocate but he certainly advocates a diet that's low in refined carbs and processed food. He also debunks a lot of myths about dietary fat, things that the NHS is really behind on. Interesting as his background is NHS bariatric surgery. I'd be interested to hear what you think. I'd also be interested to hear how you are getting along with the shift back to LCHF and the weightloss.
I'm trying really hard to lose some stubborn subcutaneous belly fat at the moment. I'm making some progress (with the addition of some fasting) but quite slow. Think it's just harder as I get older.
I'm still maintaining my goal weight (actually sometimes dipping too low) with a near keto diet/intermittent fasting and at this point it's been close to fifteen years. I recommend it so much I know I sometimes come off as crazy!
I stay away from all processed seed oils (yes rapeseed is one of them) and use butter, olive oil or avocado oil almost exclusively. (I rarely use coconut oil to cook with but I have a big scoop of coconut MCT's in my coffee every day--figure that's enough :o)
My advice is: don't be afraid of fat but do watch your protein because your body can convert it to glucose. Skip breakfast!!! Don't snack. Add some of that 100% cocoa to your coffee, along with some heavy cream and sugar substitute of your choice. It's really good!
'Add some of that 100% cocoa to your coffee, along with some heavy cream and sugar substitute of your choice." YUM!😍
Hello Freesia3,It was a pleasant surprise to see your post and lots of replies. My husband and I changed to low carb/keto over 3 years ago. Like Professor-Yaffle I still have some unwanted middle mass that I would like to lose. I wasn't overweight when I began, but carried excess flab that I didn't want and saw that my weight was creeping up which I was not happy about especially as I didn't think that I over ate. I posted on the weight loss site; I had spotted the site while using the various running forums. I very soon learnt that it can be not how much we eat, but what we eat. I read around the various links that folk suggested and had that mouth open wide aghast moment when looking at the BBC 2 (I think) documentary The Truth about Carbs and realised that, if I remember correctly, eating a jacket potato is just like eating 17 teaspoons of sugar. How could I reach over 60 years of age and not know this? We used the Dietdoctor website a lot to learn masses and also for recipes. I relatively quickly took my weight down to 8 st 3lbs (I had been towards 9 stone, I'm 5ft 4ins) and have stayed around there for ages. Interestingly I had a bad fall while gardening, so couldn't walk let alone run, so no exercising and my weight went down to 7st 12lbs. I have read that if one's body is trying to heal one needs more energy.I really have found that our low carb/keto way of eating just stopped my desire for the things you mentioned such as cakes and biscuits. Having said all that I haven't managed to shift the unwanted flab that I still carry.
Do you have much weight to lose? All the very best for your weight loss journey. The dietdoctor site always had lots of stories of people who had lost weight often reversing their type 2 diabetes
Just had a quick look and here is an example (I just read through and notice that there may be an error in the the weights mentioned at the beginning of Lori's story, but it is certainly an inspiring story)
dietdoctor.com/from-hungry-...
I have never been one of those people who chose two meals a day, three meals a day is our usual.
Do you have much weight to lose?
All the very best for your weight loss journey. 😊🌸
Hi, thanks for your nice long story.
You’re lucky you only have some flab to lose. I am 5’5 and used to weigh 8 1/2 stone, even after two children I always kept my weight steady and was never more than 9 stone. Until I had a hysterectomy in my fifties and it all went wrong with my weight and I put on two stone! I managed to lose quite a bit with the Atkins diet until I stopped because of the bad press and put it all back on. I yo-yo’d for a while while trying low carb until the pandemic happened and my only ‘hobby’ left was baking and eating. So now I weigh the most I have ever done, 12 stone (🥴 😢 🙁).
I was also told I was pre-diabetic so in desperation I have started LCHF again. Just hoping it will work as well as Atkins did before but being a lot older now I’m not so sure. Fortunately my sugar craving seems to already have diminished, I can actually look at chocolate/cakes/biscuits and not eat any 😉.
If you are in the UK too you will understand I won’t be going for my daily walk for the next two days! But I will start again when the temperature goes back to normal. I have never been a runner but I do like walking.
I hope you achieve your aim and also that I can get back into the low carb/keto habit.
Good luck 😊
When I look at cakes now , it actually make my teeth ache from the sweetness, all the things I used to eat, all that sugar! Mars bars and snickers bars I don’t think I could eat one if you paid me. My taste have changed that much over the last 5 years it just seems ridiculously over sweet. I recently bought some sugar to make jam for my grandchildren, ( I seem to have picked a lot of berries this year) it’s the first time I have bought sugar in 4 years 🤣
I’m not quite that good yet, only having re-started low carbs a few weeks ago after an absence of several years, but I’m definitely getting there. I could still eat sweet stuff and enjoy it but I’m not actually tempted any more. I assume you are at the right weight and just maintaining?
I’m not tempted by the old foods… but I am inherently greedy so have to be careful with Keto treats. I make a nice cake out of eggs almond flour and eyrithritol and vanilla essence, but then I eat too much of it. Hubby can have one small piece, I can eat half the cake!!! So mostly I avoid it and don’t bake anything. I can’t substitute Keto treats for normal treats as the greediness hasn’t gone.
I wish I had seen this before. I have just thrown out a large bag of almond flour because I made a cake and some cookies with it and hated the texture! The flavour wasn’t too bad. I also bought a keto loaf of bread from a bakery on Amazon and it was horrible. All those things went in the garden for the birds. But I would have asked for your cake recipe if I hadn’t thrown the flour out 😏 Although I just noticed I actually used the same ingredients you mention so maybe it is just a matter of personal taste.In a way I’m glad because I am like you, if I have something that tastes good I can’t leave it alone!
I went 3 ish years not having treats even Keto ones, so when you have been that long the texture is less important ….. my fave pud at the moment is sugar free jelly and coconut cream, make the jelly with 1/4 pint boiling water let it cool top up with coconut cream or double cream and mix with a stick blender pour into sundae glasses a pop in the fridge to set…… no idea what the macros are so best not to ask…..
That sounds nice, I’m definitely going to do that! 😋
Hello again Freesia3, I do hope that your return to low carb is going well and hopefully that you have already lost some weight. I am sorry to read of your hysterectomy.
Just to fill in another piece of my story I have been over 11st at my heaviest and don't really remember how I slowly reduced from that. I do so prefer being lighter.
Yes I'm in the UK in Derbyshire. I seem to like early mornings so my running is always before breakfast when mornings are light. Disappointingly, after 1½years of more or less pain free running after I recovered from my fall, I had a flare up of knee trouble, probably to do with my 2/3 torn through medial meniscus and overdoing things, although I really didn't realise it at the time. With my physios permission I have re-started the couch to 5k running plan. It is lovely outside at 6:30am! My husband is much more of a night owl, we are all different aren't we? I really find the hot temperatures zap my energy, so fully appreciate why you and I too are not venturing out in the heat of the day.
Even though I don't crave sweet things, I still feel that I eat more than I need, but I just don't enjoy feeling hungry. I still feel I'm on a learning journey. All the best with your low carb journey. Are you finding some foods/meals that you really enjoy?
Thanks “over 61”. Fortunately the full hysterectomy was not a medical necessity but a preventative measure because ovarian cancer runs in my family as far back as my great-grandmother. So that is one less thing to worry about 😉.
While browsing I happened to come across your post from 2 years ago about your knee injury, it sounds dreadful! I do hope even your relapse will come right in the end and that you will recover completely. I admire you for joining the Couch to 5k running plan!
I’m afraid I have no idea what the very early morning temperature is like because with us our roles are reversed: my husband is the morning person and I am the night owl.
I am not a three meal a day person because I have never liked eating breakfast. My first meal of the day is lunch, similar to your breakfast, and dinner next. I was always told that missing breakfast was detrimental to weight loss but now it seems intermittent fasting is a good thing so I will stick with that. I don’t get hungry because if I get peckish I will have a small healthy snack, mostly in the evening. Usually either a hardboiled egg or a slice of cheese or just a few nuts (not a handful!) or sometimes a few strawberries with or without a spoonful of double cream. I also always drink a lot of water, not just in this hot weather. It seems to be working because I have lost a few pounds since I started a few weeks ago and I haven’t been hungry.
You ask if there are some foods I really enjoy and the first one that comes to mind is steak with onions and mushrooms and a side salad. I indulge just once a week because the warning that ‘red meat is bad for you’ must still linger even though on LCHF it is supposed to be ok. Apart from that I love omelettes with different fillings, all low carb of course. My husband is not into the low carb thing although he has recently given up on sugar, so I still also cook ‘normal’ meals for him and leave out the potatoes, rice etc for myself.
About the BBC 2 documentary The Truth about Carbs, I never saw that, was it fairly recently? I might have a look if it is on YouTube.
I hope that your low carb journey is going well.
I have restarted Couch to 5km a number of times! My very first time was because I wanted to increase my aerobic activity. I wasn't a so called couch potato as I have always done some sort of exercise. Currently on week 5 out of the 9 week plan. I do have various aches and pains, but my knee seems to be coping well. The whole plan is meant to be taken at easy conversational pace, in other words you can easily hold a conversation. If you can't you need to slow down. Numerous folk have commented that their running is slower than their walking. That doesn't matter. I have so appreciated the increase in stamina that running gives.
Here's a link to a clip from The Truth about Carbsyoutube.com/watch?v=eKQWFJm...
The documentary has been on BBC i player, but not there currently. I first heard about it in 2019, I think. I never know which sites are safe to use, but the short clip was the one that gave me the mouth open moment, assuming the link works.
I just came across this link again that you sent me before and it really is amazing!
Shocked at weight gain
In support of HU and why it works. 
Meat : how to do it right