Lisa, do you want to write up a blurb about "The Optimal Diet" and I can include it in the first post?

I believe that this is where the 'eureka!' occurred:


Another article abt fat/protien
General Low-Carb Forum
Active Low-Carber Forums

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=394155


Also, it the article was re-posted here:

Eating fat and protein "causes" diabetes ..... (in rats)
LC Research/Media Forum
Active Low-Carber Forums


http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=394196

Well! I have been reading through your posts & your dedication astounds me. It is only now I realize how slipshod I am.
So far today, I have had:
Protein. 65.7
Carbs. 39.0
Fat. 43.7
Later I mean to eat some Raspberries & Cream.
I have no idea if this is good, bad or indifferent.

I felt the same way. I started reading this thread and felt like I'd picked up a book to read that had the first chapter ripped out of it.

I was just reading about this plan the other day and found a couple of bloggers writing about it. One site said the Protein/Fat/Carb to desired weight should be 1kg/1.5-3.5/0.5-0.8kg per desired weight kg (2.2lbs = 1kg). I am a grazer even when I'm not starving so I'm learning to deal with that. I saw that sunflower seeds have 15g fat to 9g protein and net carb of 1g whereas the pork skins have more protein than fat posted on the label, I would not have guessed that to be true. Anyway, I think I am going to start leaning toward this way of eating, I live ten miles from a local dairy so I might have to start visiting their little store.

I think I will just start eating butter, egg yolk and whipped cream. Then add a little bit of protein and carbs every day. It will be easier this way.

Patrick

OK, I went and read this thread, and now I finally feel like I've gotten the first chapter of the book back!

Right now I'm thinking I want to be "in" on this too. I guess the one thing holding me back is that I *hate* to weigh, measure and track my food. I've done it, but it takes so much of the pleasure out of eating that it almost is enough to make me go off plan. Well not really, after reading GCBC I can't believe I'll *ever* go off plan again!

But I'm one of those who loses a bunch initially, and then hits a *brick wall* even though I still have tons more to lose (let alone merely the last 20 pounds). I first did LC in 1997-98 time frame and lost 80 pounds in 14 months and then STALLED - and sat there in my stall for 2 1/2 years, even though I still had at least another 80 to go. Finally gave it up and started eating anything and everything again, and of course gained it all back "and then some".

But I read GCBC, I'm back on the straight and narrow, I'm down 80 pounds again, though this time with another 130 more to go!

I can't say I'm in a true stall right now, but I have only lost one pound in the last month, which is damned slow for someone who is still almost 300 pounds, and is being strict about LC.

I had read about the Optimal Diet somewhere, was it over on Hyperlipid? I follow a bunch of incredible blogs, and I know it was on one of them. I looked at the website but it was just too confusingly Polish for me to try to pay much attention. I shrugged it off thinking, "Heck, who cares about all that Polish stuff? I already *know* low carb is the way to go for me."

Apart from the weighing and measuring I think, from what I've read here, that this might be a good fit for me. I like meat but I'm not crazy about it. I read about people talking about sitting down and eating 1-lb steaks, etc - and that is so not me. 4 oz of hamburger is more than enough meat for me. My typical lunch is a 3oz can of sardines packed in olive oil, and that's fine. And I love fats like butter, coconut oil, olive oil, etc. No problem at all for me to get in my fats! I'm one of those who is perfectly happy to eat plain coconut oil on a spoon. I love to make my own chocolate treats where I melt some 85% dark chocolate with a tbsp of coconut oil, a few tbsp of butter, a few tbsp of almond butter or sesame tahini. Pour into those paper cupcake liners and chill. A wonderful treat, and lots of fat there! I used to add a couple scoops of whey protein to these to make them "healthier" (e.g. more protein) but maybe I'll just have to stop that.

It does seem like guys are able to eat more protein than women and still lose, like Richard Nicoley of the "Free the Animal" blog, who seems to eat huge slabs of meat all the time and is doing great on it. I don't think *I* can do that.

But it also seems that details about the Optimal Diet are scarce. Lisa seems to have lots of great details. I want her for my Guru too! If the mods are willing to spin off an Optimal Diet thread she can be our guide.

So I'm still befuddled a bit. One poster (sorry, not sure who said what here) posted a ratio of protein/fats/carbs based on your goal weight in kg - ratios of 1kg/1.5-3.5kg/.5-.8kg

With my goal weight of 73 kg that would make my protein/fat/carb intake: 73g/109-255g/36.5-58.4 g

Hmm, seems like a *wide* swing there in the fats! Even on my fattiest days I'm not sure I've hit 255 g. Though I have certain had protein days as low or lower than 73g, and I worried I was not getting enough as I was well below the values recommended by Protein Power, and I do *love* the Eades. I like the carb range also. It gives you a little leeway without being overly high.

But Lisa seems to indicate that over time your protein requirement gets *lower*. Damn, guess I'm going to have to download this 'calculus victus' thingie. But I'm still not sure if there are restrictions at all on *types* of fats, the types of carbs you eat, etc. Hmmm, more research, but I am very interested in this thread.

OOOPS

Sorry Patrick... I had only seen ladies here so far...

Please accept my most humble and grovellingest apologies!!!

amanda

I don't know if I want to do this plan, but I am interested in reading along. Just for curiosity's sake I downloaded the 30-day free trial Calculus Victus program and got my numbers. I'm wondering where the 1 month and 3 month thing comes from though? I don't see that anywhere in the program.

Thanks for the info. I would love to try this also, if I can figure out what to eat.

Stalled for a year - stalled at 20-30 pounds above goal - describes me to a "T" too. Complicating things is I'm diabetic, so I worry about keeping the carbs down enough to keep my blood sugar down. There's never going to be a climb up the carb ladder for me. But I eat a LOT of protein (last night my entree was a huge steak and my side with that was some rotisserie chicken - LOL!) and if that's converting to glucose, then I'm not eating as LC as I think I am.

This is not my first not my first time hearing this, Dr. Bernstein talks about it in his book Diabetes Solution. In fact, he advises if you stop losing, you need to cut your protein back by half at one meal per day, until you start losing again.

Although both promote low carb eating, there tends to be a difference in opinion between Eades and Bernstein on how much protein can and should be eaten. (Eades much higher) I've tended to go with Eades, since his was the answer I liked better. Denial is more than just a river in Eygypt.

I fit the description awriter wrote about here http://forum.lowcarber.org/showpost...739&postcount=3 of someone stalled who has tried every tweak in the book, cutting nuts, cheese, cream, slashing calories (worrying because that's non-sustainable), turning to blood tests, hormones and supplements, grasping at any idea, none of it working.

Since Dr K's Optimal Diet book is in polish (foods), I think Dr Bernsteins book might be a good place for me to start in figuring out what to eat to try this. I think if one were to follow Bernstein's plan closely, one would be eating about 80% fat.

I'm going to need help figuring out what to eat. For the past few months, I've been trying to get the calories way down, and Fitday tells me I'm eating on average
Calories 1,387
Fat 92.9g 59 %
Carbohydrate 42.4g (net 29) 11 %
Protein 111.5g 30 %

Even with the calories this low, I haven't been losing.

Update, I've downloaded it but it seems I can't install it. I went to install and it wants to install to C:/Program Files/Calculus Invictus - which would be typical, but I have not seen any software lately that does not let you override this. A good thing since I *must* override it! My only PC is a laptop that has a very smallish hard drive, and it is almost full - that is my C-drive, so I had to buy a 320G external drive to connect to it, and any new software MUST go on this external drive. There just is plain no room to install any software on the C-drive wihout seriously compromising the system, and a new PC is nowhere in my future.

But I could not find any way at all to override the drive designation for the install of the product, so Calculus Victus install had to get canned. Good thing I didn't *pay* for this thing since I can't put in on my PC!

Hey, I figure it's worth at least a two week trial. How can I saw no to such an extraordinary debauchery of dairy products?

I just spent an obscene amount of money on cheese, cream, sour cream, macadamia nuts and so on. And I just finished processing about 2.5 pounds of dubliner cheese (damn, that stuff is good) into shreds. I have a pint of cream sitting on the counter turning into creme fraiche. I have 2 whole pints of amazing greek yogurt cheese (it's got like 5 grams of fat to 1 gram of protein). I bought peanut butter... hurt me! Do you know what peanut butter mixed with greek yogurt is like? Zomg!

I'm going to make a creamy cheese sauce for veggies with the Dubliner.

Oh, I forgot to mention I bought 4 pounds of bacon....

So... here we go! I decided to start with lunch today. Going to have my usual salad but use 2 Tbl of olive oil, some pecorino cheese, pine nuts, olives and skip the meat I usually toss on (I had meat at breakfast).

After lunch I'll make cheese sauce and some egg custard.

OMG. You said, " Egg Custard " !!!!

I'd like to bake some flan, but don't even know if one can use heavy whipping cream plus water, in place of the milk to mix together with egg yolks.

I posted the ratios merpig. I got that info from hyperlipid, I emailed him and and asked him about his plan. I don't think that you have to necessarily eat the max of any of the three but he did mention how too much protein will convert to glucose which makes sense of some other posts that I read where some diabetics were having trouble with insulin levels. I am by no means an expert, just learning as I go.

Ditto, though the carb level I same up with by plugging in numbers for the ratios someone posted for protein/fats/carbs as grams per kg of goal weight as 1/1.5-3.5/.5-.8 gives a carb range of 36.5-58.4 for me, which is still low enough indeed to keep my blood sugar down.



Yeah, it's not like I *adore* protein, but I did like knowing I was able to eat plenty, and that the Eades calculation is really just a minimum, so I could have more if I wanted!



Yeah, I am not really "stalled" yet, just discouraged with only a 1-pound loss for a month, even though still almost 300 pounds. But when I was in my 2 1/2 year stall back in the 1998-2001 timeframe, with still some 70-80 pounds to go, I sure tried all of the above - tweaked the world to absolutely no effect.



Of course I have Dr. Bernstein's book around here somewhere. Do I have a clue where? Of course not. I have not looked at it in years. I swear I have most of the LC books, but the Bernstein book is not in the shelf that contains, PP, Atkins, Montignac, South Beach, Schwarzbein, etc. Where the heck can it be? I only have several thousand books in the house, with book cases in every room of the house and all the hallways. I should be able to find it one of these days. I had forgotten the details of Bernstein's plan. For some reason I had this idea it was lower fat. But since I can't install Dr. K's Calculus Invictus program (because the install exe is stupid) maybe I should look for Dr. B. But if the programs are so similar maybe we should just post in the Bernstein subforum? Has anyone actually compared the plans?



Damn confusing isn't it? I had a friend who had a 10-month stall while sitting at 230 pounds, despite religiously eating no more than 1300-1400 calories daily. After 10 months she bumped her calories to 1800-1900/daily. After a little equilibrium adjustment she finally broke her stall and began losing again at a slowish but steady rate.

Me? I tried that too when I was in my 2 1/2 year stall. Instantly gained 10-15 pounds which I was then *never* able to shake off again. Months later someone suggested a "carb-up" week. So I tried that, gained another 10 pounds which I was then never able to shake off. At this point, nearly 2 years into my stall, I was actually up 25 pounds from starting the stall. Six months later I was the same, no loss at all. Gave up and went into the carbs face-down, and that was the end of me. Sure as heck don't want the same to happen this time around.