My LCHF lifestyle - week 10

This Monday marks the 10th week of my LCHF lifestyle. Reflecting back on the past 70 days, I can not express my gratitude to the promoters, doctors and bloggers which are doing an incredible job of clarifying LCHF diet in nutritional, biochemical and other scientific ways. Particularly: dr. Peter Attia MD, Andreas Eenfeldt MD, Sam Feltham, Robert Lustig MD, Garry Taubes and Anita Šupe - many thanks! If you haven't yet checked their websites, I suggest that you do. There ate literally loads of interesting and motivational data.

In order to celebrate and honor my 10th week, I decided to replace my weekly brag of loosing weight and getting in shape while eating delicious food, not being hungry and exercising sporadically with even more important things, which all happened in the past 10 weeks.

The good stuff:

In Sweden, LCHF is very popular! They are even
publishing a magazine dedicated solely to LCHF!
Of course, it's called "LCHF".

• In September, Swedish Expert Committee of doctors officially agreed that low carb diet is most effective for weight loss (see full article here). They also said that "such diets have greater increase of HDL cholesterol without having any adverse affects on LDL cholesterol" and that "the stricter low-carbohydrate diet will lead to improved glucose levels for individuals with obesity and diabetes, and to marginally decreased levels of triglycerides".
• Nutritional expert, personal trainer and self-experimenter Sam Feltham completed three experiments in which he has shown that at least on his body, a calorie is not just a calorie. He did two 21-day diets, where he kept his caloric intake constant and very high. One was LCHF diet and the other was junk food diet. Despite high caloric intake, he barely gained any weight on LCHF diet, while equally caloric and equally long junk food diet, he gained over 7 kilograms. On the third experiment, he returned to LCHF and reduced caloric intake to his calculated daily metabolism. He should have maintained his weight, but in fact he lost about 5 kilograms.
• American medical doctor and bestselling author Robert H. Lustig held a second lecture about sugar, more specifically, the devastating effects of fructose on public health. His first lecture has over 4 million views on Youtube. You can see the first lecture here and his second one here, I warmly suggest you to watch both of them.

The bad stuff:

If you happen to have diagnosed diabetes, your doctor
will most likely to instruct you to follow this food pyramid.
Do you see the problem? The bottom part are all insulin
raising starchy foods, while meats and fats which do not
raise insulin are on the top. No wonder we are loosing war
against diabetes.

• In United Kingdom, leading supermarkets and major food manufacturers have pledged to cut down saturated fat in their products. They didn't say what they will replace saturated fats with in order to retain flavor and texture, but the most usual scenario is to increase salt and sugar or high fructose corn syrup. I am only suspecting this, but it will lead to more cravings for food (the so called empty calories), more fructose addiction and more metabolic syndrome. If you are interested in the source of the news, here it is.
• 14.11. is annual world diabetes day. I saw plenty of talks and interviews in our local media and I was appalled to hear that our doctors are still giving the same old fashioned advice to eat low fat, low salt and low carb boring tasteless food in order to avoid the risks of diabetes. Since this advice is not only difficult to follow, but is also completely not based on recent findings of human metabolism. No wonder that the number of diabetics and overweight people is rising :(.

All in all, I think the world has done a bigger step forward than backward and that fills me with joy.

Now, my weekly progress.

My weight and waistline progress in the past 10 weeks.
Weight and waistline are keeping to go down nice and easy.

Weight

Today (Nov 25th 2013):	104,7kg
7 days ago (Nov 18th 2013):	104,9kg
LCHF Day 1 (Sep 20th 2013):	112,0kg
Weekly progress:	-0,2kg
Absolute progress:	-7,3kg

My weight is going down nice and easy. I compared the notes on my nutrition from when I started LCHF and the last couple of weeks. The difference is that in the past few weeks, I am increased consumption of dairy products, particularly creme fraiche, double cream and cheese. At the same time, I eat a bit less vegatables and oils. It just happens that I really like creme fraiche and double cream at the moment. A few LCHF experts are stating that dairy products should be consumed moderately, because they contain lactose and a protein which stimulates pancreas to release insulin. As a consequence, our bodies capabilities to burn fat are reduced and we are knocked out of optimal ketosis. I would just like to point out that I did this decision consciously, because I just happen to really like loads of creme fraiche added to my meals :).

Waistline

Today (Nov 25th 2013):	115,5cm
7 days ago (Nov 18th 2013):	115,5cm
LCHF Day 1 (Sep 20th 2013):	126,0cm
Weekly progress:	-0,0cm
Absolute progress:	-10,5cm

My waistline was pretty constant this week, but I don't mind. I am starting to notice further changes all over my body, but mostly on the face and around the neck. Bones are coming out :).

Further plans

As I expected, my progress is not as fast as it was in the very beginning of my LCHF lifestyle, when I was going down 1 kilo or even more every week. For this reason, I decided to post updates every second week. I believe it will be more interesting. This way, I will also gain some extra time to write useful articles about LCHF lifestyle, as my main intention in this blog is not bragging how easily am I loosing weight, but to provide useful information to others who want to follow the same path.
I have no special plans for week 10, other than staying low carb high fat and being careful about eating no less than 3 meals per day. I am also working on a new scientific post which will be about white sugar. I've found some very interesting facts about it and would love to share them with you!

I wish you a nice, successful and healthy week!