I have recently started back with Dr. Bernstein (due to terrible blood sugar and care factor over a long period)- I find this works for me so I would rather help from those who share the same experience rather than those who would deter me from doing a low carb/high fat diet - it is the only thing that has ever worked for my weight and blood sugars.
I was just wondering if anyone struggles with cutting out milk? Not even a glass of milk but more milk with coffee and tea? I am very much struggling with that aspect at the moment - for me there is nothing like a coffee or tea to start or end my day.
Does anyone have any milk-free sugar-free hot drink options that I might enjoy? Or even suggest a way to enjoy black coffee more? I have also done as Dr. B suggested and had a tbs of cream - but I find it makes me feel bloated and sick (unlike previous times for some reason).
Also - any suggestions for easy, cheap lunches? I have no appetite at lunch so I tend to eat a tin of tuna and 2 x crispbreads (9g CHO) and stop there. I know that eating this little can actually encourage weight gain, so I need to think of some extras or alternatives? Plus eating so little at lunch makes me over compensate for dinner.
I use heavy cream in my coffee and tea. It never made me feel sick. Most heavy cream is very low carb. I also make my own yogurt from 1/2 heavy cream and 1/2 milk and after more than 12 hours of fermentation it is very low carb.
My favorite hot drink is called "bulletproof coffee" and is made with grass-fed butter and coconut oil. I make mine with a stick blender with a touch of splenda. I know it sounds weird, but you have to try it.
Lately I just stopped eating lunch, but before I used to just bring in leftover low carb dinners or have a salad.
It's been a long time since I read Dr. B's book, but I use almond milk sometimes. Unsweetened almond milk is 2-4gr carbs per cup, depending on the brand. More expensive usually tastes better, and refrigerated tastes better than shelf.
Heavy cream is the best alternative, although you might try butter in coffee too. Lots of people find that gives them the "fatty" taste that cream provides, but for some reason doesn't both the stomach as much.
Also, there are some vegan soy "creamer" products my daughter's come across that are nearly 0 carb, and she likes that stuff in coffee.
However, I must agree with you and the struggle it is to give up milk. I used to drink copious amounts of the stuff -- I love it. A year ago when I went radical on tight control, I gave it up. Now I have 1-2 glasses a month. I'm planning to give the 30-day keto-adaptation a shot starting next weekend, so I've got to give up all carbs entirely.
I find beef sticks, jerky, pork jerky, smoked fish (especially albacore tuna) are among my favorite ways to snack @ zero carb. Beef sticks, especially, are a good mix of fat and protein, if you like that sort of food.
I'd recommend Trader Joe's "Joe" coffee. It is exceptionally smooth and about $4.99/ tub, really reasonable. We went through a phase of Intelligentsia which is also really good but quite a bit pricier, particularly if I (mentally) pay myself $10/ hour to shop and factor in an extra trip to Whole Foods. I've always been partial to black coffee but the Joe is smooth enough that MrsAcidRock, who'd always taken cream, Splenda, etc. drinks it black.
Re lunch, my go-to lunch is a can of tuna, avocado w/ black pepper, a whiff of granulated garlic, chia seeds and Sriracha sauce. It's really flavorful and not too many more carbs I feel pretty good eating it and am still working out pretty hard 5-6 days/ week.
Trader Joe's coffee... it has never been the same since they stopped selling "Heisenberg's Coffee of Uncertain Blend" ground from beans of random unknown origins :-). But none of us are ever going to be as young as we were 20+ years ago!
I eat low carb high fat too, but not 30g anymore. How about green tea with stevia? Or another herbal tea like chamomile? I usually have green tea in the morning and chamomile at night. I either have it plain or add heavy cream/stevia. I haven't tried butter, I'm going to try that too. If you eat eggs, hard boiled eggs and veggies are a good lunch.
Does Dr. Bernstein specifically ban all milk? One ounce of milk has about 1.5 grams of carbohydrate which should be manageable even if you're only eating 30 grams per day. The little treat might help more with motivation than it hurts.
I just took my A1C down from 5.6 to 5.1 with less than 20g carb per day for 45 days.I haven't had milk for 7 years, I get a quart of nonsweetened almond milk once in a while, it's only about 2g of carb per cup, so that isn't much if you're just putting it in your coffee. I try not to buy heavy cream because I love it and will find an excuse to use it in everything. The other aspect of my 45 day diet was very low calorie: <500 a day for two weeks, then <750 for the rest of the time. I discovered it's extremely difficult to do low calorie and high fat at the same time, unless you're content to have about 3 tblespoons of coconut oil for your day's fare. Anyway, I lost 19 pounds, my A1C went down my cholesterol (which wasn't a problem to start with) got even better. I haven't been hungry. The only problem is I don't know where to go from here, 750 calories a day is not sustainable. Breakfast is my biggest meal. I have most of my carbs for a late lunch, in the form of a big salad. I'm seldom hungry at dinner time. I have found I do much better avoiding crispbreads and/or fake sweet things that pretend to be something I'm not eating anymore. And if I feel deprived, I just fast for a day. The next day I'm really, really happy to be eating anything at all. I've never put anything in coffee, but you might like black coffee better if you make it a little weaker and use a flavored kind. Good luck with this, you can do it. The first few days are always the worst.
Tim, the problem is you're leaving the HCoUB in a superposition of states by not looking at it.
Be sure to scrutinize it carefully before buying and the java probability wave function will collapse to a single, definitive state. Which one in particular is a matter of performing the correct Feynman sum-of-paths calculations to yield an accurate description of the collapsed wave function.
I have been doing the LCHF diet for 4 months. My BG levels have been excellent. No more spikes. I just eat to my meter. I am pre and have not been diagnosed as either a T1 or T2. My doc and I will monitor. I have celiac disease, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and allergies, family has T2, so anything is possible.
I am allergic to milk, eggs, and tree nuts so I use soymilk and refined coconut oil (no coconut taste) in my coffee.
Lunch to go is pre-cooked meat or fish and veggies with fats. I snack on peanuts (legume) and olives. I eat very little fruit, but tons of veggies. I am maintaining my weight after a brief time of weight loss. I am very active and consume carbs on long ride days.
I use cream. I sometimes use milk to correct, but not often. You could try Bullet-Proof Coffee. Grass fed butter, coconut oil, and coffee (there are plenty of recipes online), whizz in the blender. People use this for intermittent fasting. I try to make my lunch the largest most meat centered meal, to allow for time to digest, and then eat lightly in the evening.
Other things you could add to your lunch, celery with full fat cream cheese, an ounce of almonds, but you may have to reduce your crispbreads to 1 if you added those. A tin of tuna is a lot of protein...do you use mayo with it? When I eat canned fish, I chop up crunchy vegetables such as radishes, fennel, and tokyo turnips, and mix it in with a home made aioli...I use lettuce as a bread substitute, as I don't eat grains. If you need a sandwich there is a keto bread recipe floating around using almond flour, eggs and baking soda/powder, if you add psyllium husk or flax meal, it's less crumbly, and holds up well. Add an avocado slice, some cucumbers or pickles, some cruchy peppers...or a hardboiled egg, some cheese, and some condiment like mustard or raw sauerkraut to contribute a little zing, not as boring then. Hope you like some of these ideas.
I too use heavy cream. I no longer drink milk except for an occasional butter milk which has less carbs than regular milk because of the fermentation.
I see the heavy cream as contributing to my fat allowance. I am targeting a 5% carbs, 20% protein and 75% fat diet. Most of the fat that I am consuming now is from animal sources. I try to avoid all vegetable oils.
I drink my cappuccinos with unsweetened almond milk. It took a bit to get used to, but now I prefer it. For lunch I have three meals that I rotate: A piece of fruit and cheese, salad, and fruit salad. The salad of course rotates ingredients but I find salads totally boring if they don't have tons of ingredients such as baby greens (I hate regular lettuce), mozzarella balls or feta, olives, cherry tomatoes, jicima, marinated artichokes, hot cherry peppers and seeds with walnut oil and balsamic vinegar. The fruit salad usually has one higher carb fruit like a banana (I prefer plaintains), then mostly berries, greek yogurt and nuts. That is the highest carb lunch with 30 something. The fruit and cheese is usually 20 and the salad the lowest at 11.
Can you have almond milk? I found a sugar free low carb variety in the grocery store and I really like it. I haven't put it in my tea, I use regular milk for that.
Do you like herbal tea or green tea? There's such a huge variety of those to choose from.
I just started this but with coconut oil! It’s so delicious esp when I add SF mocha syrup. I use whatever coffee I have at home instead of the bulletproof brand
I'm sure there are sources of grass fed butter in Canada. You can check out the bulletproof forums for suggestions. I like the grass fed butter, but a regular no salt butter should also work fine. And everybody is different with caffeine, I seem immune to it's effects and don't bolus for it, others get a real response and have to bolus. I think one just needs to experiment.
If you're only using a small amount of milk in your coffee it should have a negligible effect on your BG. If your coffee gives you such pleasure and satisfaction at the beginning and/or end of your day, don't give it up. I completely empathize - there is no way I could start my day without my morning coffee. You should be able to accommodate for it with a nominal dose of insulin or a substitute that still pleases your pallet.
I use half and half and it has no effect at all. Occasionally I will indulge in a cappuccino, which does have a substantial amount of milk. 1 unit of Humalog will usually cover it pretty well.
