The Harcombe diet.

[markcoznottz]

Defcon5 said:

So are brown bread and brown pasta better for you than their white counterparts?

A bit. But not by a lot, they are still carbs.

[LordGrover]

Are you saying carbohydrates are bad for you?

[Hoofy]

Depends on why you want to eat them. If you're underweight, eat as much white bread as you want. If you've got a marathon tomorrow, have a pasta party tonight. If you're 20 stones, go easy on carbs.

Petrol is bad for cars. Diesel cars. Etc.

Edit: The above reply was more generally to help others to understand as I know LG knows about carbs etc.

[Liquid Tuna]

LordGrover said:

Are you saying carbohydrates are bad for you?

Nothing is bad for you in the correct quantity. You can't say any particular food group is bad. Carbohydrates have their place, complex and refined, including sugar and glucose, but the problem is educating people as to what they need and when.

This, together with a diet industry that needs to make money, bad or conflicting advice from "professionals", including government advisory, supermarket offers that only ever seem to be for cheap carb meals and sweets, no real nutritional education at school, and a general apathy of the population who really just want a quick fix, means the West struggles on, getting bigger and bigger. And it won't be long before the rest of the world catches up. IMO.

[Manks]

T84 said:

I'm on Keto and it works well, I barely feel hungry enough to eat most of the time, and my energy levels are much more stable. If you like beer you're screwed though.

Me too. Though to be honest I drift in and out and often find that deliberately doing so occasionally is a positive thing.

The advantages:

Easy when you know how
Keeps weight off
Can still drink (wines and spirits anyway)
Energy levels are stable, especially when training
I don't get major hunger pangs - blood sugar not fluctuating so much.

The disadvantages:

I remain unconvinced regaring whether it is healthy long-term
It's expensive - eat steak every day for lunch plus other meat products.
I am not sure eating so much meat is necessarily good.
Eating out can be challenging. I cave in when the kids want to go for Pizza
Crave carbs sometimes.

But the most notable disadvantage: It's very difficult to remain sufficiently hydrated without needing to pee all the time. Even when drinking plenty there is a tendency to dehydrate which can lead to mild headaches and (oddly) a tendency to sweat.

[dave_s13]

Manks said:

...It's expensive.........

Not half.

Last 2 weekly shops have been absolutely no processed food, just fruit, veg, meat and fish (+Butter and natural yoghurt).

They were both about £30 more than usual.

It's making meal times a bit of a chore but I've gone from having rice/noodels/pasta/bread with everything and not realy missing it to be honest. Massive blow out at the weekends though - couldn't do it all the time.

[Manks]

dave_s13 said:

Manks said:

...It's expensive.........

Not half.

Last 2 weekly shops have been absolutely no processed food, just fruit, veg, meat and fish (+Butter and natural yoghurt).

They were both about £30 more than usual.

It's making meal times a bit of a chore but I've gone from having rice/noodels/pasta/bread with everything and not realy missing it to be honest. Massive blow out at the weekends though - couldn't do it all the time.

I find that it takes me 4 days to reach ketosis. Start Monday morning and by Thursday midday I'm there. Usually I stay off the carbs for about 3-4 weeks and then have a weekend on the carbs, before returning to low carb on the Monday.

Check out Dreamfields pasta. They do low-carb pasta that doesn't seem to taste any different from ordinary pasta.

[dave_s13]

Manks said:

I find that it takes me 4 days to reach ketosis. Start Monday morning and by Thursday midday I'm there. ....

How do you know?

I don't think I could go 4 weeks without a blow out, or an excess of beer on a friday/sat night. I need that to keep me sane. Kids do that to you.

I'm not that bothered/dedicated to be honest. I'm happy with the slow weigh loss I'm experiencing. Especially as it seems to be working whilst still able to have whatever I fancy at the weekends.

[LordGrover]

KetoStix.

[superkartracer]

http://www.freedieting.com/food_guide_carbs.htm

[Liquid Tuna]

Eating healthily is expensive. They rarely do 5kg of lean beef for £5 do they? It's always 7 ready meals for a fiver or something.

[Liquid Tuna]

Eating healthily is expensive. They rarely do 5kg of lean beef for £5 do they? It's always 7 ready meals for a fiver or something.

[Liquid Tuna]

DOH!!

[Manks]

dave_s13 said:

How do you know?

I don't think I could go 4 weeks without a blow out, or an excess of beer on a friday/sat night. I need that to keep me sane. Kids do that to you.

I'm not that bothered/dedicated to be honest. I'm happy with the slow weigh loss I'm experiencing. Especially as it seems to be working whilst still able to have whatever I fancy at the weekends.

I used to use Ketostix, which are like litmus paper that you pee on. But I know what ketosis feels like now.

Thing is with a keto regime, you can't just do it a bit. And cutting out carbs only on week days is unlikely to be particularly effective for you. Doesn't work for me anyway.

[T84]

I live in Canada and beef is quite cheap here, and bacon, and eggs...

Just make sure you get as much fibrous veg as possible, I usually have a spinach salad for lunch with an egg, bacon bits, broccoli, etc...

I'm not too sure on the long term healthiness of it either, but the way I see it it's got to be better than the st I ate that got me fat.

20lbs down so far, beer is my weakness.

[Lost_BMW]

Manks said:

Check out Dreamfields pasta. They do low-carb pasta that doesn't seem to taste any different from ordinary pasta.

That sounded interesting but then, oh dear, the 1st link on Google was to this.

http://www.dietdoctor.com/the-dreamfields-pasta-fr...

Interesting reading!

[Manks]

Lost_BMW said:

Manks said:

Check out Dreamfields pasta. They do low-carb pasta that doesn't seem to taste any different from ordinary pasta.

That sounded interesting but then, oh dear, the 1st link on Google was to this.

http://www.dietdoctor.com/the-dreamfields-pasta-fr...

Interesting reading!

Hmmmmm, a link to a blog that thinks Dreamfields is a fraud.

I must confess to not being an expert in nutrition, but all I will say is that I eat it once a week and it doesn't seem to disrupt my low-carb diet.

[Hoofy]

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/329161/Heart-a...

15 year research across 43k women. Thankfully, I am a bloke so pass the beef.

[Lost_BMW]

Manks said:

Hmmmmm, a link to a blog that thinks Dreamfields is a fraud.

I must confess to not being an expert in nutrition, but all I will say is that I eat it once a week and it doesn't seem to disrupt my low-carb diet.

I've got no agenda here - just this was the 1st link and he does seem to have done more than just look at the pack ingredients and surmise.

I doubt eating anything even carb rich once a week would disrupt your diet, I've done low carb and keto diets long enough to know a day off here or there hardly signals disaster.

[GBDG]

superkartracer said:

http://www.freedieting.com/food_guide_carbs.htm

Wtf, it says that porridge is good but instant oats are bad! It's the same bloody thing! The only difference is that instant oats are steamed. It shouldn't make any difference to nutrition.