Owl please help a carb-phobic to OWL!

[boggins]

Well, I think my body is rebelling, and it's time to OWL for me.

I'm scared rigid.

Those of you who have gone through this process, please advise how on earth I start! It doesn't help that I'm allergic to weighing and measuring. I did that when I calorie-counted, and just turned into a neurotic obsessed with grams. It seems much healthier to me to guesstimate. Is this going to work on OWL?

How important is it to be strict in following the "rungs", or did you jump about? How did you deal with any weight gain? By cutting out amount or type of carb? How do you know what's just water weight?! And if you found there were foods you just couldn't tolerate, what were they?

Many thanks!

 

[moonlights]

Perhaps buy mini bags of peanuts with 5g carbs jn each so you know how many you're adding? Or work out the carbs in a pack of strawberries say and add the right amount of those.

 

[boggins]

Berries are my next move, I'm going to get some today and have a berries and cream dessert tonight! Peanuts don't sit will for me, but other nuts are fine. I think I may get some almond butter and have it with yoghurt too. I know I can handle carrots, and potatoes seem OK to in small amounts, I guess I've just got to up the portions. Wheat is out full stop, so no pasta. How to incorporate rice?!

Do people have one carby meal a day, or include starches in small amounts in every meal?

It's all in my head. Got to remember even if I put on weight, I can get it off again. It's tough to come all this way and see the scale go the wrong way!

 

[Alpaca]

Hi Boggins ... You are so inspirational that I shall read your OWL journey with acute interest... I feel that I'm a long way from trying to move onto the next stage as most days I feel like I don't have any control other than just eating legal Atkins foods... So good luck with it! Xx

 

[boggins]

To be honest I would have been quite happy to stay very low carb for life, but the dark circles under my eyes and my freezing hands and feet suggest I've gone as far as I should with sub-20g carbs a day. Reading around it seems this is reasonably common with long term keto (it's been over 8 months!), and all I can do is applaud Dr Atkins. He seems to have got it bang on- start ketogenic and then slowly up your carbs to tolerance level.

If it keeps working, keep doing it! I wish I could!

 

[Scrumbles]

I found I couldn't stay at sub-20g carbs for more than a few weeks, so I moved to OWL back in January, however, I think my mistake was that I never progressed much beyond 25g per day and my body eventually adapted to that and stalled the weight loss.

My tactic, such as it was, was to add in one new food per week. I started with nuts and did fine on them, but I'm not really very fond of them so I dropped them fairly quickly. Then I tried blackberries and strawberries and still had no problem. Then I tried full-fat natural greek yoghurt, but kind of lost the plot a bit after that and started hopping around the rungs trying things out of sequence. I was still only adding one food a week though, and I think that's wise because if you add several at once and get an adverse reaction, you won't know which one to blame!

Good luck with it - you've eaten potato and survived, so I think you'll be fine!

 

[boggins]

I survived potato!

Your approach is very sensible and I'm going to try to implement it, thank you. I'm not quite as sensible myself. I had a small Maris Piper potato yesterday and was ravenous most of the day.
Then I had strawberries and blackberries for dessert in the evening and kind of went overboard on the cream (I've got to quit cream once and for all, it's my drug of choice). This morning I had flaxmeal cereal with strawberries. I'm kinda all over the place! But the scale says I'm a little down in weight, or at least certainly not up (it's hard to read) so ok, I just keep going. I'll stick to berries and flax as my "new carbs" this week I think, save the potatoes a while.

I have to say it is rather refreshing to have something that isn't bacon or egg for breakfast. I'm not one to complain, I'll eat the same thing forever if I have to, but boy the fresh zingy strawberry taste was lovely!

 

[Kat1e]

I think the key is to add new stuff slowly so you know what each thing does (hunger/weight/other). For example i tested a pizza express pizza and carefully ate c&g before and after. The good news it only made me quite hungry the next day not ravenous like some things. Bad news is that my skin broke and lots of spots - so now need to test the flour and yeast separately!

 

[boggins]

Lord, it's a difficult road, ain't it? Not sure how you can test the yeast separately- marmite?! That'll be something I'll be having again soon- with no toast I stopped eating it completely. Will try it on a MiM. I hope that goes well!

Can't imagine trying pizza, that was what I gorged on for far too long! You're braver than me!

Slowly and careful doesn't come naturally to me, I'm being as cautious as I can. Berries and flax cereal = hungry. Isn't it nice to know why you're hungry, though, be aware of it? Before I'd just eat more without thinking that it's what I've eaten that's made me hungry.

 

[boggins]

Here's today:

coffee with whole milk
flaxmeal with whole milk, blackberries and strawberries
bacon and boiled egg with salad of mixed leaves, tomato and red pepper, grated Cheddar cheese.

This evening will be roast lamb shoulder with roasted onion, garlic and carrots.

Looks OK to me. The only issue is the milk; I think that's what's making me so darn hungry. Will switch to goats' or lactose free soon.

Any comments, OWLs?

 

[Scrumbles]

Looks good to me!

Probably wise to ditch the milk if you think it's causing a problem. I find I can tolerate small amounts (I have 3 tbspns a day in tea) but I wouldn't risk much more than that - at least, not yet.

This is just personal preference but I leave my more carb-heavy foods until fairly late in the day in case I experience an adverse reaction to them, then at least I have fewer waking hours in which to suffer, lol. Also, I know that I can rely on my fat/protein breakfast and lunch to sustain me for a long time if need be, and I suppose I just feel safer with that.

But it's all about finding what works for you, so have at it

 

[boggins]

That's really helpful scrumbles, thank you. How long have you been OWLing, and how is it going? Have you had any bumps in the road- things you found you can't eat?

 

[Scrumbles]

I should actually have been talking in the past tense because I'm not OWLing at the moment - I'm not even Atkinsing again until the end of the week .

But when I was, I did it by the book for a few weeks, then got scared to add more carbs because I still had a lot of weight to lose and never properly moved on . I did try quite a few different foods without any of them noticeably messing me up, though. I'd say I experienced an overall increase in appetite (extra carbs will do that to you), but no particular cravings or major hunger pangs.

Just take it slow and I'm sure you'll be fine. You've done SO well on this programme already I don't think you've anything to fear

 

[Kat1e]

Hmm - interesting. Based on what i have read about insulin, i always avoid having my carbs later in the day - that way any excess sugar is used first and doesnt mess up my system while i sleep! Must do more research.....

 

[boggins]

I've heard that too Kat1e, but then I've also heard that it's all nonsense and it doesn't matter what you eat when. *shrug* I can see the logic behind both approaches, I don't know if there's any science to be found on this?

I've definitely noticed increased hunger, and flaxseed meal seems to...well...not sure my insides are very keen on it, shall we say. I'm finishing the packet, it cost me enough!

This morning my (unofficial) weigh-in on my crappy home scale registered a loss, so I'm happy to continue, but I imagine long-term I'll not be eating a high amount of carbs as I don't think I could deal with feeling hungry most of the time. It's a shame, but I think dairy may be a problem. Yoghurt and milk make me ravenous, and I'm just out of control around cream and butter, I could eat it all day. I think maybe a dairy-free week is in order. No butter for a week...