Hi Siltz,

I switched to low carb during my time as a body builder and I actually found that after I've got into ketosis I actually had more energy and less fatigue such that I cut my session time down from just under an hour and a half to between 25 and 30 minutes doing the same number of reps with the same weight and in fact the gym instructor used to follow me around because he couldn't believe what I was doing in the time I was doing it in.  I think if he would've had his way, he would've had me dope tested.

The only thing I would say the quality of protein that you are taking if you're doing any form of serious exercise has to be high. I know a lot of people resort to whey protein shakes but I would tend to steer away from those because of the other ingredients they contain, things like soy and various artificial sweeteners.

Honestly the best protein you can take if you're exercising to that sort of degree is good old fashioned grass- reared beef. I also agree with Doug wholeheartedly, you should give your body time to rest and also make sure that you're not just drinking water but remember to make up the salts, literally with salt but don't forget to dose up with potassium as well.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Hi maidmarian,

Oh yes I'm a confirmed cheese lover as well and once upon a time I also had a problem with dairy but I found out the problem that I had with dairy was not so much the dairy itself but that it was pasteurized dairy products.

Since having switched entirely to raw dairy as in raw or untreated milk, home made yogurts made from the same milk and nonpasteurized cheeses, that problem was greatly reduced. In addition, I also sorted out my stomach bacteria by taking a good a quality probiotics and also topping out on stomach enzymes again by taking enzymes for the stomach. Neither of those are expensive and once you've repopulated your digestive system with those bacteria and enzymes that it needs, you shouldn't find you have anymore problems. In addition, eating natural live fresh yogurt amongst other healthy probiotic food will help increase the population of those beneficial bacteria and at the same time discourage unhealthy bacteria from living in your intestinal system.

As a footnote to that, raw milk does contain all the enzymes we need to digest it. It's really only the pasteurization and processing procedures that kill those off making it hard to digest for some people. One thing I have noticed from myself is that providing I continue to eat a reasonable proportion of raw dairy foods with all the enzymes in them, the occasional portion of tasty though pasteurized cheese doesn't affect me anymore simply because my digestive tract now contains adequate quantities of the enzymes needed to assimilate lactose, galactose and of course calcium which is one of the reasons why we drink milk in the first place.

So the bottom line is I would suggest you at least try firstly putting your stomach bacteria and enzyme population in order and then once that is done switch to  raw milk products for a while just to see how you get on.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Hi Angie and welcome!

The advice that the others have given on this page is something that you should be sure to follow. I would particularly take notice of TooSweet's advice to take a bit more salt and to make sure you drink a lot more than usual.

The salt would ensure that your electrolyte levels don't go too far out of whack and drinking water will help you to detox more quickly, as well getting a lot more exercise simply because the more exercise that you can get particularly if it makes you sweat a little will increase the rate that your body processes the sugar out of your system, so to speak.

But do know one thing, you're not alone; we've all been through it and the feeling that you get in your body when it comes to an end is absolutely marvelous.

Cheers,

Mark

Hi Mark, welcome to our family Great info...very informative. Here's a link with more info about your suggestion- http://www.culinate.com/articles/culinate8/cow_sharing

It's over sugar...your menu's look great!

Hi Doug,

Thanks for the link to culinate.com. It's very similar to what they do here in Europe. In fact the only place that you can’t do that very easily is in the UK but I understand people are now encouraging the practice or be it a smaller scale.

Thanks again for the link.

Mark

A lack of family support is probably one of the most common problems that people on any diet find. The reasons for that are many and complicated but one of the most common is: We as humans seem to have a natural resistance to change. Change makes us feel uncomfortable and when that change is going on in the lives of people closest to us, the level of discomfort is often even higher.

Rather than go into the whys and wherefores of this, I think it maybe more fruitful just to cover actions that we can take when we're faced with this type of situation. Without making a big song and dance about it , we need to assure those around us that we are doing what we're doing in order to have a better quality and longer life so that you can spend more quality time with them; whether that's your children, your other half or any other person who cares for you in any meaningful way. Offering that type of assurance will short-circuit many of the fears that those closest to us may have about the consequences of our changing.

I'll give you an extreme example; a story that was related to me from a source I know I can trust was concerning a middle aged couple. He has had a health scare and decided that the best thing he could do for himself and everybody he cared about was to put his health in order. So after getting some good advice, he started on a low carb diet and increased his amount of daily exercise. Ten weeks after starting his new healthy lifestyle, he was looking, one has to say, like a new man to the point that his wife's friends started to comment to her how good he was looking. Initially, she just accepted this with pride and was slightly flattered that they noticed but unfortunately an innocent comment from one of her friends, which I think honestly was misconstrued, as they said "Gosh! He looks like a new man! Perhaps he's looking for a new woman". While initially, this was received with a highly amused laugh started to prey on her mind to the point that she became concerned that her husband of twenty-something years was planning to leave her for somebody else. It took quite a bit of assurance from the husband for her to understand that the only new woman he would like in his life is the one he has always had but maybe just a bit fitter than she was now.

Fortunately the outcome from this little tale was a happy one. She couldn't deny how much better her husband was, how much more funny he had become  to be with, having more energy, more stamina and the greater inclination to do the same things that they used to do when they we're younger and fitter. She was as encouraged to follow something very similar and the last I heard, they were still together but living interesting and active lives.

As far as costs go, well, mdanziger has said , whilst the short term cost may seem a little bit higher than eating garbage, the long term gains of better health, fewer visits to the doctors seems a much more sound investment to me.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Hi everyone!

Thanks to Umpa, TooSweet and mouseissue for the nice welcome.

I'm now fortunate enough to spend a lot of my time in France so a lot of what we eat comes from the farms, literally, just next door all around us. Our chicken and pintade comes from Bernoir who is just across the lane. Our fresh eggs come from Petit Poulet who lived just down the end of the lane. In fact, virtually, everything we eat, vegetables, cheese, meat, you name it, is locally produced because we decided some time ago to make the effort to eat as cleanly as possible, by clean, I mean, free from preservatives and things like that, artificial flavors, colorings, and all those sort of things our body neither needs nor wants. There are two really good things about living in the country. One, you can see exactly where your food comes from and two, because your buying form the actual producers, you're getting more or less, market prices. This can be typically to a third, or four, even half the price to what you would see the same type or produce in the Bio section of your supermarket or delicatessen in many cases.

So in answer to Itsoversugar, it's been a while too since I actually ordered naturally raised products by mail order. Some months in fact, I’m now thinking about it, it's even longer than that. Many of my circles who continue to live the urban lifestyle and they keep me upraised about what's going on in various parts of the world. One supplier, I'd like to draw your attention to, and I have no connection to them, by the way, I just think they are a brilliant, brilliant operation, is Polyface Farms. They are based in Virginia, but I think they serve Virginia and Maryland but one of the great things about Polyface Farms and many others who follow a very similar pattern is that take on apprentices. Once the apprentice is qualified, they then go off and start farms of their own so you've got them in Ohio, Iowa, Oregon, Pasadena, quite a few places around that part of the States. The thing is they're not alone. It really is a simple matter of going onto Google and  putting in the search term, firstly, "farmer's market" and the  your local area or "grass fed beef" then your local area, county, state or whatever and you'll find a whole hosts of different producers producing exactly the type of food that we as low carbers want to eat. If you got the opportunity to go to one that is near to you, you'll often find that the price that you pay on the farm is a lot less than your paying mail order. The thing to do then is to get together with other people who would like to eat the way you do and buy, say, half a cow, or half a sheep, or that sort of quantity and divide it up. Another good thing about doing in that way is that, if you buy half an animal, you get virtually everything that comes with that half of the animal. They are also buying it a lot earlier in the food supply chain so you can guarantee its freshness.  And as just as mouseissue had said, you get the cuts that are often sold off to restaurants or specialist delicatessen. Where we are, they have a very, I'll say, a curious system, but it's not curious in many ways. It's quite sensible. Quite a number of these small farmers all over Europe, in fact, will at certain times of the year, allow you either on your own or as a group to buy,  say, a calf and you pay for it  there on and it becomes your calf. You are the registered owner of cow number, whatever its ear ticket says but you don't take it home with you. It stays on the farm and the farmer will continue to raise it for you. This is normally done through the grass feed season as well so you can be sure that most of its feed is on good, natural pasture. Once it has reached its table weight the farmer will also organize the preparation for table giving you excellent quality meat at a very reasonable price.

The main thing I'd like people to take away from this is that we don't have to accept just what the shops have to offer, that with a little bit of investigation,  a little bit of tenacity, and not being shy to ask around, we can find some of the best food for our table and our families that is possible to find.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Prepared freshly from ingredients that I know and naturally-sourced. Hey, but that's just me, I suspect. But anyway, I don't think anything can beat the quality and flavors that you can get by packing up your own snack-box meal to eat during the day or even preparing something like that for the one you love. While it may not be convenient, you'll certainly get a delicious meal for less than $3 or $4.

Just my 2 cent's worth.

Mark

Thanks everyone! 

Back from the grocery haul and my pockets are much, much lighter!  Food is so expensive nowadays!! I spent $140.  Aside from a pack of toilet paper, this is what I got:

1 bag frozen chicken breast
1 bag frozen chicken tenderloin
1 bag frozen chicken wings
1 family size pack of chicken thighs
6 lbs ground beef
2 rolls of breakfast sausage
2 pks bacon
summer sausage
4 cans green beans
3 limes
2 bunches green onion
celery
snow peas
bok choy
2 doz eggs
sea salt
heavy cream
2 English cucumbers
shredded cheeses (1 triple cheddar mix and 3 sharp cheddar)
block cheese (1 medium cheddar and 1 pepper jack)

And for the family:
sugar and kool aid

How ridiculous is that!?  Maybe it's time to start buying in bulk.  Gotta look around and see what I come up with.

Hi Itsoversugar!

That's a really great shopping list you got there, practically not a carbohydrate in sight, well, apart from the Kool Aid and the sugar for the family.

I used to have a problem getting good meat and so forth until I tried some of the mail-order meat producers especially the ones that produce the grass-fed beef and other naturally raised animals for the table. I found that their quality of meat is far superior to that I could find locally and because I could buy it in bulk, it turned out to be cheaper as well and oftentimes carriage was free or included in the price.

Hope that helps,

Mark