Weight Loss

Mental Tricks for Intermittent Fasting and LCHF

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I am not big on motivational speeches aimed to encourage someone to undertake better WoE (Way of Eating) or Intermittent Fasting. The reason is simple: I believe folks have to decide that staying (or becoming) healthy, looking and feeling good, keeping their limbs and eyesight etc, is higher on their priority list than enjoying Coke for 15 seconds. If someone’s priorities are so screwed up that the (questionable) pleasure of drinking sugar is more important than long healthy life, nothing I can say will change that.

Having said that, I am all for helping those who have their priorities straight work out useful mental tricks to overcome the addiction and initial hurdles. Over a year of doing this and writing about it, I seemed to have collected an array of such tricks, enough for a small book on rewiring your brain to make the transition easier.

Among those hurdles, two are very common. Let me offer my approach for getting over them.

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Weight Loss and Blood Sugar Progress, Visualized

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This is an update to the older post with new blood sugar test information, showing the progress since publishing the book. As a threat of regaining the weight and holding the blood sugar in check remain a concern for many, I thought such an update would be helpful.

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Low Carb Wheat-Free Pancakes Two Ways

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There are countless recipes for the low carb/keto pancakes floating all over the Internet, some of them great, some not so much. Here are two that I like; one is on a softer side and another with a bit grittier texture. Both are very easy to make and lend themselves to any kind of topping, from sour cream to berries.

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Exercise for Weight Loss – Needed or Not?

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If you read my posts regularly (or any LCHF/keto/IF authors, advocates, and community boards for that matter), you know I don’t believe in CICO approach (CICO stands for Calories In Calories Out, as in “eat less and move more, and you will lose weight”). So intuitive, so common, so broadly believed – and dead wrong. If you still have doubts about that, raise your hand and I will gladly point out a few sources that help see why this approach doesn’t work. Or just look around – see many people who managed to implement that idea successfully despite many decades of it being promoted?

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Pork Smoked to Perfection

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Carnivores, of which I am one, tend to appreciate smoked goods. One of my favorites is what I call PSP – Pork Smoked to Perfection. In fact, I like it so much that I make it in two different forms; we will go over both in this post.

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Mindful Eating Introduction

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The concept of “listening to your body” is commonly mentioned and seems intuitive. In reality, though, it can introduce a lot of confusion if taken literally. Really, when our body says “Gimme more sugar!” – should we listen to it and obey? When we strive to eat till satiety, don’t we set ourselves up for a failure since we usually feel full noticeably later than we actually get out fill? Finally, when our body reaches for another handful of peanuts or pretzels in a bout of mindless munching in front of TV, should we listen to it?  

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Injera – Ethiopian Flat Bread from Fermented Teff Flour

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Let’s make Injera – Ethiopian flat bread from fermented teff flour. Why, you ask? Well, why not? It’s a unique kind of bread tasting unlike anything I’ve ever tried; it’s fermented (and my ears perk when I hear this word); it’s exotic, and it’s easy to make. It’s not a bread to spread your butter on (although have no doubt that I tried that, and it worked to a degree); it’s rather a wrap or a “utensil” with which you can scoop up a stir fry, a stew, or a salad. I would characterize its taste as a curious mix of bland and sour; thanks to blandness it soaks in the taste of the food you use it with, and sourness adds an intriguing twist. If you are not convinced still, a few words about its nutritional facts. Or, if it’s just the recipe you are interested in, scroll right through.

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Train Wreck of a “Healthy Diet”

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In my recent Internet browsing, I run into this NY Times article from 1985 and just couldn’t stop reading it with a sick fascination of watching a train wreck. The beginning looked vaguely familiar; then I realized it was the same article Nina Teicholz quoted in her excellent investigative work The Big Fat Surprise. The low-fat paradigm was surging high, changing the way we eat for decades and still dominating the nutritional world today. The title is “AMERICA LEANS TO A HEALTHIER DIET,” and the play of words with “leans” surely won’t get lost on anyone. Here is the beginning: 

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Cultured Whipping Cream for Keto Desserts

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Heavy whipping cream (HWC) is a long-standing favorite among low-carbers, and for a good reason. At 7g carbs per cup (when liquid), it’s ideally suited for use in low-carb desserts, adding to coffee etc. In this post, I want to show my favorite way to use it. We are going to ferment our HWC, turning it into a cultured cream – probiotic, slightly tangy, with a rich luscious mouthfeel, and with a different texture which I call naturally whipped. 

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How to Break Weight Loss Plateau – New Fasting Protocols

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In some situations, your tried and true weight loss methods seem to stop working. Sometimes you run into a plateau – a phenomenon well-known to most of us who embarked on a weight loss journey. Sometimes during maintenance mode, you notice that your weight starts creeping up and, despite your best efforts, you seem to be able to stop it from gaining but not to bring it back down. Often this is caused by our body adjusting to your routines and setting its thermostat to a new set point, as we discussed here. If you run into one of these situations, I suggest trying one of the fasting protocols shown below. They are intended to surprise your body, shake it out of complacency, break through the plateau and restart the weight loss process. 

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