"Drink the Fat"

What is low carb, high fat (LCHF) or low carb, real food (LCRF)?  Whether you are talking LCHF or LCRF, the message is the same.  Don't eat processed food, especially carbohydrates, and natural fat is not the enemy.  I like to say Real Food because sometimes LCHFers use artificial sweeteners to get around the sugar issue and I despise all of that fake stuff.  If I ever need a slight sweet fix, I put a teaspoon (or 2...) of raw honey, which is Real, in whatever I'm baking as a treat every now and then.  It's a personal differentiation.  Now I am not a doctor or a nutritionist of any kind.  I'm just a rational woman who has lived in the world, a new mom to boot, who was introduced to this way of eating by chance right before I became pregnant and it has absolutely changed my life.  I have no motive other than to share my experience and talk about why this lifestyle works for me.  My favorite LCHF blog is written by a Swedish doctor, Andreas Eenfeldt.  He has an excellent page outlining the basic rules of thumb for LCHF beginners and I can't tell you how much it helped me understand the science behind eating fat and why it is not only healthy, but is actually the secret to staying lean.  It also keeps me on track when I feel the urge to jump off the high dive into a tub of pasta salad.  I highly suggest checking it out.  In the meantime, here is my LCHF/LCRF journey...

I was never an overweight person.  I never really indulged in processed food and I generally stuck to the perimeter of the supermarket.  I was also lucky enough to be blessed by the gene gods with an athletic frame so to speak.  However, my weight did fluctuate ten pounds from time to time and I noticed a year or so ago that I had been steadily gaining weight and was now 20 pounds heavier than I had ever been.  Well, so what? What's 20 extra pounds on a woman? Curves are nice right? More cushin'... etc, etc.  And that's completely true if that is your natural shape, but sadly most people nowadays don't know what their natural shape is.  Our bodies have become distorted by fat and we are unhealthy and we feel too tired, mentally as well as physically, to do much of anything about it.  Well, that was me in 2011.  It's 2013, those 20 pounds melted away effortlessly and I am now more energetic (aside from being a new mom-zombie or "mombie" as I like to call myself) than when I was a teenager and the (full-fat cream cheese) icing on the (almond flour) cake is that I'm more fit.  Oh and I had a baby in that same time.  I believe I owe it all to the fact that I stayed away from carbs and started eating my steak with the fat on it!

It all reminds me of an episode of FRIENDS where Rachel will only forgive Ross for yelling at her if he "drinks the fat" Joey found in the fridge.  The idea of it is not nearly as repulsive as it used to be, in fact I'd say "chugg, chugg, chugg"!  It all comes down to how our bodies evolved and what was available to us as it happened.  Think about it.  If you build a car that runs on fossil fuel and one day try and put potatoes in the gas tank and expect it to work properly, you'd be sorely disappointed.  Our bodies were designed to run on the diet of a hunter-gatherer and when you put potatoes in, it doesn't work properly!  We haven't evolved enough since hunting and gathering to eat sugar and starch and remain in peak physical condition. In fact, according to the experts like Dr. Eenfeldt and Mark Sisson, eating sugars and starches is what makes us fat and even kills us eventually!  It's all because our bodies need to release the hormone insulin in order to process them, which leads to excess fat, obesity, morbid obesity, diabetes, heart disease and maybe even cancer.  To avoid this, we should be eating as close to our original diet as possible and you can bet no one in the cave was cutting the fat off their meat and putting it to the side of their rock because of the cholesterol. I won't go as far as a paleo diet, because I love dairy plus butter and cream are really good (yummy) sources of fat.  It really is that simple, "drink the fat", Ross, "drink the fat".