Eat Low Carb High Fat

in Healthy Lifestyle

"The abbreviation stands for Low Carb High Fat and the very simple basics are to minimize the carbs in your food and try to exchange the energy to fat instead. The protein should (or could) stay roughly the same."

"Eat Low Carb High Fat" source

"As in all Low Carb diets the key is to eat low carbs to try to get the blood sugar levels on a stable and low level. With low blood sugar less insulin is “produced” and less fat is stored in your body. The body uses the fat as fule instead of carbs and if you are overweight you starts loosing body fat.

I will not go deeper into the scientific parts of this diet. I am a practical guy and I will focus on what to eat and how to prepare it. Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt (the Diet Doctor) has a blog with a lot of detailed information about the theories behind the low carb diets and especially LCHF. Please visit his site for more information. You can find the link to the right side amongst the other good links to pages in English I try to visit as often as I can.

Benefits from Low Carb diets

If you are starting on a heavy overweight you will most probably loose a lot of weight if you follow a “strict” LCHF diet. Aside from weight loss a lot of people experience several other health benefits. Diabetes (some ends up with no medication at all!), allergies gets better, a lot of digestive problems gets better, mood swings gets better (no blood sugar issues) etc. I have not really experienced any other health benefits than weight loss and one reason is that I actually had no health issues before I started with LCHF…

Low or no carbs?

So how few carbs should you eat? Well it is really individual what level you need to go to to get the weight loss and other health benefits. I would say that the goal should be below 20g per day with an energy balance at 70% fat, 25% protein and less than 5% from carbs. This is for weight loss. For the health benefits you can probably be a little more “liberal” with the carbs but I would not recommend anyone to go above 50g a day.

My LCHF

When I am coaching people I always want them to start as low as possible. If you have the level set at 5g you can “afford” to get a little higher sometimes. Up to 10g or 15g. If you set your level at 20g a day it is a little to easy to get too high and even go above 50g a day. I also thinks that it is easier to control your shopping and eating when aiming really low. There are never any discussion on what to eat or if this and that are allowed. It’s kind of “cleaner” to go really low.

What to eat and what not to eat

I will try to make a really short list of “do eats” and “don’t eats”. The best way to get the idea is to follow my blog and see what I eat and not focus so much on what I do not eat…

Do eat

  • Butter
  • Cream
  • Fat Cheese
  • Bacon
  • Egg
  • Meat
  • Chicken
  • Fish
  • Shellfish
  • Avocado
  • Broccoli
  • Asparagus
  • Spinach
  • Salads
  • Tomatoes (not to much)
  • Cucumber
  • Mushrooms

Don’t eat

  • Pasta
  • Bread
  • Potatoes
  • Rice
  • Corn
  • Fries
  • Sugar
  • Sweets
  • Grains (any kind really)
  • Low fat products in general
  • Cookies
  • Beer…"

"Eat Low Carb High Fat" source