Low carb, high fat

[WiltshireWonder]

Does anyone have any experience or thoughts about the low-carb/high-fat diet put forward by Prof Tim Noakes, Grant Schofield etc? One of the presenters of Marathon Talk has been talking about it for ages and I've been intrigued and some of the online info looks interesting.

This year I'm determined to get a half-marathon PR despite my advancing years and I need to lose about half a stone. I'm more bothered about fuelling well to be honest, but weight-loss will be required for a while.

Any thoughts?

 

[amasidlover]

I've found that when aiming for 1.5g of protein per kg of body weight per day, including some healthy fats and aiming for a slight calorie deficit that my 'macronutrient balance' generally ends up at about 50% carbs, 30% fat and 20% protein (in terms of calories) - in terms of what I eat that usually means going fairly low carb. E.g. a typical day might be:

Breakfast: Fruity Muesli + low fat greek yoghurt + orange juice
Lunch: Soup / vegetables / salad + fish or meat
Dinner: meat / fish / pulses + vegetables / salad
Post workout snack: low fat cheese / nuts / houmous
Late night treat: cordial / wine / small chocolate bar

This is 6 days a week - I have one day where I have a treat breakfast and then have more bread / carby stuff (and cake, naturally).

It works for me; I've noticed I've definitely lowered by body fat% whilst keeping my weight within a couple of kg. Plus I've sustained it for a number of years now as it includes enough foods I (and my family) enjoy so it doesn't feel like a hardship.

 

[WiltshireWonder]

This is really useful, thank you so much. Real-life healthy diets always fascinate me. What kind of carbs do you eat here? Carbs from vegetables or is there bread/pasta/rice etc in there?

 

[amasidlover]

The vast majority is from fruit, veg, whole grains (muesli at breakfast) and then some from the 'late night treat' - I've ended up mostly cutting out bread, pasta, rice - but not as a conscious choice, but simply as a result of trying to hit the protein goal and calorie goal at the same time.

I could equally well have gone super low fat and retained bread, rice etc. but I just happened to prefer a wider choice of proteins to use (since nuts, oily fish etc. are high calorie/fat) rather than a super low fat protein + bread/rice etc. diet. Although some days I have more carbs and leaner meats... I'm not 'religious' about it as such.