Apologies in advance for the essay.
Well done, Queen. Rave all you like about it.
I'm here for the same exact reason, Durham.
I've only just learnt that to prevent flu-like symptoms some of us need to be careful with protein intake as gluconeogenesis is going to be rampant whilst our body gets keto-adapted. I've limited my protein intake to roughly 60g/per day (about 200g of meat/fish a day) and for the first time ever, I've been able to go into ketosis with no headaches, no muscle aches, no letargy and no brain fog. I'm hoping to increase the protein in a couple of weeks when I should be fully keto-adapted.
Fit, you are most definitely gaining muscle and losing fat, even if the scales are not budging. Listen to your clothes and not your scales!
Gluten is responsible for so many ailments.
Removing gluten cured my asthma, ulcer, eczema, hayfever and migraines, saving me the cost of 6 prescriptions! Low carb'ing rids me of painful, sometimes swollen, joints and frequent headaches which is why is so silly of me to over indulge in carbs, safe or otherwise. Since removing gluten, my ds no longer suffers from migraines and super painful tummy (he compared the pain to that of appendicitis!), although he still puts up with some IBS symptoms because he refuses to give up GF pasta and bread -at almost 15 I'm not going to argue with him!
Food thoughts, as promised. Apologies to shark for so much meat involved.
We all eat liver and heart fairly regularly as they are the best and most easily absord source of vitamin A (why waste £'s on expensive retinoic acid creams
) and we are lucky that our farmer gives us extras as other people leave their share behind.
I regularly cook a stock until the bone marrow has melted. Oxtail, ham shanks, turkey legs, fish bones, shellfish shells -crab and langoustine are particularly tasty- etc. are readily available. We either drink the stock or I use it in cooking.
Despite our love of the fattiest parts (bone marrow, beef tongue, oxtail, pork belly, lamb breast, poultry skin, fish skin...), animals come with a limited supply of these, so we are forced to eat leaner parts too! :) When eating leaner cuts, I readdress the balance by adding extra fats, generally in the form of a sauce either with the meat or vegetables.
Meal ideas
Salmon (wild salmon is very lean) in mushroom and cream sauce.
Cook the salmon on its skin in olive oil and a herb of choice, I used tarragon last night. Rubbing oil and salt on the skin before cooking will prevent the skin sticking to the pan and will crisp up beautifully.
Saute' mushrooms in butter with garlic, chilli or pepper to taste and a herb of choice (I stuck to tarragon); when the mushrooms are cooked, but still not releasing water, stir in some cream and a pinch of salt . I chose to cook the mushrooms in coconut oil and stirred in coconut milk, that I had reduced to avoid becoming to liquid. We also had spinach wilted in the salmon pan.
We had spinach and mushrooms because are super low in carbs, meaning I didn't have to worry about the carbs in the orange used for the liver in the morning or the few carbs in the coconut milk. The entire meal was roughly 70% fat, 25% protein.
Salmon is also delicious with pesto, hot or cold so ideal for packed lunches.
Pesto
-Almost a bag of pine nuts (a few get accidently ingested or squirreled away!),
-a bunch of basil,
-1/2 lemon (juiced),
-1 tbs (or to taste) Parmesan (Grana Padano for a milder taste, or Pecorino for stronger taste),
-a slug of olive oil (maybe 1 tbs?)
-salt to taste
Blend/blitz all ingredients together, it makes ~6 serving and it will easily keep for a week.
Today I had a fried egg (duck), sauted avocado and tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and basil.