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What is LCHF anyway
In the next few posts I’m going to spend time on the basics of LCHF, not the hardcore science of nutrition. There’s plenty more of that to come again soon. I’m starting with our view of what the Low Carb Healthy Fat lifestyle is all about (and why you’d do it).
Here’s our “Skinny version” by me, Prof Grant Schofield – aka The Fat Professor, Dr Caryn Zinn – the Whole Food Dietitian, and Craig Rodger – the LCHF Chef). Together we are the authors of the (coming soon) complete how to guide and cookbook on LCHF living “What the Fat? Why Sugar’s OUT and Fat’s IN.”
Here’s the questions we answer in this post:
What is LCHF?
Why might you think about LCHF?
Why LCHF works
What will I eat?
What shouldn’t I eat?
What is LCHF?
LCHF actually stands for Low Carb High Fat, but we have renamed it: Low Carb Healthy Fat. We feel this better reflects what it’s all about. While we do want you to eat more fat than you are probably used to, the emphasis is on healthy sources of fat. LCHF is not a “diet”, it is a way of life.
LCHF encompasses a way of eating that embraces whole foods; that is, foods that are minimally processed and generally don’t come in packages. If you truly embrace this way of eating, it will naturally end up being lower in carbohydrate and higher in fat than the current, mainstream way of eating. LCHF is a fulfilling and satisfying way of eating that is full of benefits for health. While there is an element of restriction (as there is with whatever you do in life), it is not about deprivation.
Why might you think about LCHF?
LCHF has many advantages, both for yourself and for your family. Here are the top five you might identify with. Do you want to:
Lose weight and have the best chance to keep it off for good? Have you tried to lose weight before and for a moment believed you were successful, but then put the weight back on again (along with some more)?
Have a healthy relationship with food? Do you constantly feel hungry and beat yourself up when you eat foods you “shouldn’t”?
Improve inflammatory health conditions? Do you suffer from aches and pains and inflammation for which you have to rely on medications for improvements?
Break free of that “tired and run down” feeling? Do you have a busy lifestyle, feel permanently exhausted and regularly end up reaching for quick, unhealthy food?
Live better for longer? Do you simply want to “be the best you can be” in health and in life? Do you want to be able to provide food for yourself and your family that is tasty, nourishing and easy?
Why LCHF works
If you gain weight easily, feel lethargic, stressed and are out of shape, chances are you are insulin resistant and intolerant to carbs (more details about this later). LCHF is the best lifestyle approach for managing insulin resistance.
When you can control your blood sugars and the hormones that control your energy levels and weight (especially insulin), your body will respond by working as it was designed to – as a fat-burning machine!
Weight control will become effortless, your energy levels will be better, and you will feel great free at last from the low-fat calorie counting way of living that left you hungry, sick and tired.
What raises glucose and insulin levels? Carbohydrate, of course. We all vary in how we respond to and tolerate carbs. Finding your particular carb-tolerance level means your blood sugar and insulin will be well controlled.
Break free of that “tired and run down” feeling? Do you have a busy lifestyle, feel permanently exhausted and regularly end up reaching for quick, unhealthy food?
Live better for longer? Do you simply want to “be the best you can be” in health and in life? Do you want to be able to provide food for yourself and your family that is tasty, nourishing and easy?
If you find yourself nodding your head when you read this list, then LCHF is definitely for you.
What will I eat?
Good-quality carbs from whole foods that are minimally processed, such as vegetables (lots of non-starchy ones), fruit, dairy products and the occasional legume (beans and pulses).
Protein from minimally processed meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, nuts, seeds and legumes (beans and pulses).
Fat from whole, minimally processed plant and animal sources, including avocado, olive oil, nuts, fatty fish, dairy products and coconut products.
What shouldn’t I eat?
Refined and processed junk foods containing sugar.
Refined, nutrient-poor, packaged carbohydrate-based foods, including most grains such as breads, cereals, pasta, rice, muesli bars and crackers.
Please share this with those who are curious about the LCHF way, but want more information. That’s why we wrote it!
March 11, 20153 Replies
The 10 rules of Low Carb Healthy Fat (LCHF) eating
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In anticipation of the release of “What the Fat? Fat’s IN, Sugar’s OUT” – due in May, we are releasing our 10 rules. Below is the “skinny” (quick read) version. Enjoy.
Rule 1: Go low “HI”
Replace processed foods with stuff that was recently alive – foods low in the Human Interference (HI) factor. Real, actual food is the foundation of the LCHF lifestyle.
Rule 2: Cut the carbs (down…not out)
Sugar and grains are not good for you (yes, that means bread, even if it is wholegrain). Just how low you go depends on your personal tolerance to carbs, or degree of insulin resistance.
Rule 3: Virtuous vegetables
Vegetables are good for you. Eat lots of them, at each meal if possible. The good news is you can add fats such as olive oil or butter to make them taste even better.
Rule 4: Make fat your friend
Sugar is out, total carbs are low, protein is moderate, and, because you have to get your energy from somewhere, fat is in. We will show you how to overcome “fat phobia”.
Rule 5: Put protein in its place
You need protein for life, but once you have more than your body needs, it gets converted into sugars by the liver. LCHF is not a high-protein diet. Many people stall in their progress because they are overdoing the protein.
Rule 6: Eat on cue
The whole point of LCHF is that your body will now be able to send and receive the messages it needs to stay in shape, to tell you when you are full, and to energise you. So listen to your body!
Rule 7: Sort your support
Other people matter. Surround yourself with helpers, ask for support, and don’t be afraid to request exactly what you want when you are out and about. Yes, it feels odd to order a burger without the bun the first time, but you will be amazed at how much people will help someone on a life mission.
Rule 8: Diligence, not effort
Relying on your “won’t power” (effort) – like avoiding the chocolate cookies in your pantry – is futile. Instead, rely on being organised and having a ready supply of the right foods around you (diligence) in the first place.
Rule 9: Adopt the “3-meal” rule
You, like us, are human. Humans make mistakes. We do, and we expect you will fall off the wagon. That’s OK as long as we can help you jump back on again. We run the 3-meal rule: there are 3 meals a day, 21 meals in a week. Let’s get most of them right, knowing that three meals off the wagon a week is OK.
Rule 10: It’s not JUST about the food
News flash from Dr Obvious: other things also affect your health – exercise, booze and cigarettes, drugs, stress, sleep, and much more. We will help you understand how these fit (or don’t fit) into the LCHF lifestyle.
March 5, 20157 Replies
7 things I learnt about LCHF over the last six months
This is a beauty of a summary of what Malcolm McKinlay learned during his (first) 6 months on LCHF. Malcolm is super interesting because he lives inDunedin New Zealand and spent lots of time talking to me about LCHF, and took extra time to seek the alternative point of view from Prof Jim Mann in person (long time nutrition expert, who is at Otago University in Dunedin). I think you’ll find his account refreshing and interesting. It’s good to remember what we all have in common sometimes. Thanks Malcolm.
I’ve learnt 7 things….
By Malcolm McKinlay
“So after all your research in nutrition and your interviews and your experimenting, what have you concluded?”My friend had read all my nutrition blog posts (which you can read here, here, here and here). And it is true that I’d gone to great lengths to capture the key thinking and arguments of Professor Grant Schofield (NZ’s most prominent Low Carb/High Fat advocate) and Professor Jim Mann (NZ’s most eminent nutrition scholar often cited as an opponent of LCHF diets). But I hadn’t yet expressed my own conclusions.
So in this short blog post, I hope to capture the advice that both these academics would agree with; and what I think I’ve learned.
1. Reduce the amount of sugar in your diet.
You will not find anyone who advocates eating more sugar. Reducing sugar is probably one of the most beneficial things you can do for your health.
I used to think that sugar was bad for your teeth. But it is much worse than that. It is a key driver of the obesity and diabetes epidemic across the wealthier countries of the world.
2. Reduce your intake of fast burning carbohydrates
Both Jim and Grant agree that reducing your intake of carbohydrate rich foods like potatoes, most bread, pasta and white rice would be beneficial for most people. These foods get converted into sugar in your body very quickly. So in a way, this is simply an extension of the ‘reduce sugar’ advice.
Grant goes further and argues for eliminating these foods (and other carbohydrate rich foods) from your diet, replacing them healthy fats. Jim agrees that you’d do well to reduce them but proposes replacing them with slower burning carbohydrates and healthy fats. But Grant’s set of ‘healthy fats’ is bigger (including a lot of saturated fat) than Jim’s……….and you can see how complex this all gets.
3. Avoid processed food
Processed food is almost always full of sugar and other chemicals. So once again, in part, this is simply restating the ‘reduce sugar’ message. Instead, you should try to eat real food. Whole food. Food that will go off in a few days. Food that your grandmother would recognise.
Michael Pollen advises people to stick to the periphery of the supermarket where food is more easily replaced when it begins to go bad. The processed food (which he describes as ‘food-like products’ rather than ‘food’) can normally be found in the centre aisles and won’t go bad for years.
You might like to try reading the food labels and seeing what the percentage of food you eat is sugar. You might be shocked as I was. High sugar levels in coca cola won’t be a shock to anyone. But check out the baked beans, tomato sauce, milk chocolate, breakfast cereals, fruit juice. And remember that 4g of sugar equals one teaspoon.
It is shocking to think that so many products- many I used to think of as healthy- are clearly not. In fact, I consider this a scandal. And many of these products seem to proudly wear the heart foundation tick. Neither Grant nor Jim agree that this is appropriate. (Which really begs the question of where the NZ Heart Foundation is getting its advice from).
Sadly, both Grant and Jim advised me to go easy on the bacon as well (I was eating it every morning for several months), due to the processed nature of it and the nitrate content.
4. Eat lots of vegetables
Yes your mother was right. You will not find anyone advising you to eat less vegetables. Vegetables are nutrient rich. And make sure you include leafy greens- the darker green the better- in abundance.
The message over fruit is not quite so clear. Some fruit has a lot of sugar. I’ve moderated my consumption of fruit and don’t eat more than a couple of apples a day, for example.
5. Eat plenty of these
As well as vegetables, everybody advocates including the following in your diet: berries (low sugar fruit) especially blueberries and raspberries, nuts, fatty fish (like salmon), olive oil and eggs.
6. Other things to bear in mind
In a broader sense, the human body is able to adapt to different diets. Just look around the world. There is a population somewhere thriving on a diet that contradicts anyone’s particular brand of dietary wisdom. Also, every individual is different. Some advice may be important for populations as a whole. But you need to understand your own body. Your story (your genetics, your health history, your risk factors, your resiliences) might be different.
And you cannot trust the world of industrial food to care about your health. Whenever western diets take root somewhere in the world, they stimulate obesity and diabetes
Michael Pollen used to advise people to avoid food with more than 5 ingredients. The industry then set about creating and marketing food (that Pollen didn’t consider healthy) with just 5 ingredients. So now he says, “don’t buy any food that is advertised- especially if the advertisements include special health claims”- which I think is clever.
7. My individual experience of LCHF eating
While I’ve been investigating and researching nutrition, I’ve been following a LCHF diet. That has meant cutting out all those foods that we normally consider staples. Rice. Bread. Pasta. Potatoes. Oats. And I’ve been eating a lot of vegetables, eggs, nuts (especially almonds), olive oil, cheese, salmon, meats (with fat), butter, and berries with cream. That kind of thing. It was a weird experience trawling through a supermarket choosing food with the highest possible fat content (including saturated fat)- definitely avoiding anything with a ‘low fat’ label (remembering that much ‘low fat’ food will be high in sugar).
And my body has done really well with it. I’m fitter and healthier than I’ve ever been in my adult life. Before I began the diet, I was already running a lot, and completed my first marathon. After I started the diet, I noticed a big improvement in the functioning of my digestive system and my belly fat began to disappear and there is a good argument that I’ve experienced less inflammation in my body generally (although ‘inflammation’ can be a pretty vague concept). Despite the fact I was already very fit, I lost a couple of kgs to take me to the lightest weight I’ve ever been.
And my cholesterol profile improved- although that could have been because of my active lifestyle. In the world of nutrition, it is hard to know anything for sure.
The point is, I’ve done well with this diet.
However, socially, it has been difficult. Some friends were reluctant to have me over for dinner. I caused some stress within the family who were unsure what to serve me. It wasn’t a good feeling to think I’d introduced social awkwardness into my life. (In contrast, the friends who were trying a paleo diet were a godsend).
And soon, I will be spending six months in Myanmar where rice dominates all meals. I’m not sure how I will handle that. I certainly won’t be wanting to socially isolate myself.
Fortunately, my health wasn’t a disaster before I began my LCHF experiment. I’m not at risk of diabetes. I’m not obese. My body can function reasonably on other diets. Although I am reluctant to give up the gains I’ve experienced. Certainly, I will be sticking to the first 5 points above as much as I can.
Which brings me to possibly the greatest gain from my experiment. And that is my increased sense of awareness about food and my body. Previously, I was simply unaware. It is nice to no longer be a mindless, uneducated eater- believing pretty much anything anyone told me. And I’ve never cooked as much as I have in the last six months. That has felt great.
And I’m very thankful to Grant and Jim for giving me their time and helping me negotiate this complex area. There can’t be many countries in the world where it is possible for the interested public to receive the quality of engagement from academia in the way I have. I suppose my response has been to publish my journey here so others can also benefit.
I’m grateful for what feels like a new sense of maturity in this part of my life. And my advice to anyone who is curious about this kind of thing is to carry out your own experiment. After two months, you will probably know whether you are onto a good thing or not.
February 23, 20154 Replies
What the Fat book
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Today’s the day we have something to show for months and months of hard work
Over the past several months myself, Whole food dietician Dr Caryn Zinn and Michelin-trained chef Craig Rodger have been putting together a complete “how to” guide for Low Carb Healthy Fat Eating.
The book is called “What The Fat: Fat’s IN Sugar’s OUT“.
It’s a beautiful full colour coffee table book, with the complete how to, recipes, and the science translated into easy to understand form.
We’ve completed the full version, and its now off to be printed – due for a May release.
A e-version without all the recipes, but still a full how to guide will also be available soon. We will take pre-orders for the first print run in the next week or two.
In the meantime we have a free 5 page guide “The Skinny on LCHF”. Its a great “getting started” guide for those new to LCHF, or wanting to share the LCHF way with friends and family. As well, it outlines our “10 rules” for LCHF living”.
The Skinny guide is available on the book site: Invalid Link Removed
Thanks to everyone who has supported us in this exciting project. Effectively communicating what LCHF is and how to do it well for the long term is something we are very committed to. Please share our “skinny” guide and this post and help spread the good word!
