Getting started with healthy fat low carbohydrate eating
Cutting out sugar and eating healthy fats and low carbohydrate foods is a great way to lose weight and improve your health.
When you first start out on this journey, it can be a little daunting. You may have been eating a lot of sugar and carbohydrates and now you are cutting them out. You may be feeling hungry or tired. This is normal. Your body is adjusting to the new way of eating and it will take time for your body to adjust.
I had been reducing my calorie intake by reducing portion sizes for 5 years or so and had already started to adopt a ‘low GI’ approach to food, which is to eat foods that have a low glycemic index. GI is a measure of how quickly a food is digested, typically raising glucose levels accordingly. So my experience of cutting all sugar and most carbohydrates out of my diet was not as difficult as it could have been.
I still had to adjust but this took only a week for me to see noticeable positive changes to glucose levels. At the same time I noticed a significant increase in concentration and cognitive function. I was able to focus on tasks for longer solve problems more quickly. As a systems programmer, this is a major benefit to me.
Simple foods such as fish, meat, cheese, eggs were the first thing I concentrated on eating.
Vegetables and greens I used an oft spoken rule of thumb by keto people - stick to things that mostly grow above ground and avoid things that don’t as for example, potatoes and the like tend to be starchy and high in carbohydrates.
The main thing is to keep going and let improvements happen. As this is a lifestyle change, it is important to keep going and not give up. You will see improvements in your health and your weight. You will feel better and have more energy.
Sometimes I get asked if I am still on the diet to which I say that I am but sometimes I explain that it isnt really a diet that I will change back from but you will likely need to be prepared for similar questioning as it is often thought of as a temporary thing, like a ‘fad diet’. But I can’t let that idea take root in my mind and you will need to decide for yourself if you are going to commit long term to this way of eating.