What I eat 2017

Another in the ever-popular genre of blog posts about what people eat.

No photos though.

I wake up and have an instant coffee with cream and 1/4 spoonful of dark brown sugar.

Maybe I'll have another before breakfast. If I'm out I'll have a long black with cream without sugar, followed by a glass of cold water.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, because it decides if and what you'll be eating before dinner. Usually after 10 AM.

My favourite breakfast is 4-5 eggs (depending on size) cooked in a mix of ghee and bacon fat. So I'm eating all the eggs whole, no yolk-only meals, and using less added fat than I did a few years ago.

The virtue of eating more eggs is that I can run further without my joints hurting. I could always run a mile, but the impact on my legs, feet, and ankles meant I couldn't do it the next day. Since increasing my egg intake, I find I can do it day after day (if I want to, sometimes I prefer to relax outside and take things in differently).

I might have leftovers of stir fry with a couple of added eggs, if it's there and I don't want to waste it, or frozen broad beans fried in bacon fat and ghee with a tin of sardine and a couple of eggs, if it's time for some omega 3s.

I'll usually add dried chilli flakes and some curry powder, and always salt.

I don't usually need to eat on days when I'm out of the house, in the city, but if I do it's usually some high-fat deli meat, maybe a piece of fruit.

In the afternoon at home, if I'm not too busy and feel the need, I'll have a small piece of tasty cheddar cheese, or a spoonful of pure peanut butter. If there's any fruit I'll have a couple of pieces. I prefer pears and plums, kiwis and feijoas. Apart from this and the trace element of sugar in coffee, no carbs (and almost always no starch) before dinner.

An hour before dinner on most afternoons I'll have a glass or two (standard serving) of red wine. I like chianti at the moment but whatever's both good and cheap. I started drinking regularly a year or so after I cleared Hep C with the Epclusa trial, and I like the effect, which is interesting because I used to be an alcoholic in the early 90's, but I'm quite sure I'm not anymore.

Dinner could be anything. These days either roast lamb or pork with roast veges, including some starchy carbs cooked in the fat or in beef and lamb dripping, or very spicy stir fry with mince or chicken and lots of veges, eaten with yoghurt and maybe some rice, maybe not. There might be a little sugar in curry pastes or pasta sauces, to be honest this concerns me a lot less than some other common additives like soy or cornstarch. So some days are less than 50g carbohydrate and some are less than 100g, rarely more. I no longer feel any different in my energy levels if I'm in or out of ketosis, expect that higher carbs make me feel overdone after a few days if I'm not exercising much, not that my weight changes, and I adjust back down. My favourite starchy dish is a bean salad, black beans with feta, tomato, vinegar and olive oil.

After dinner I'll have a cup of tea with some dark chocolate. If we don't have any, I'll eat sweet chocolate, but that is the sort of thing that can get away on me. If I need dessert I'll have berries and cream, or a roast apple with cream.

I'll also eat a little bit of cheese close to bedtime. Paradoxically, because I'm a little allergic to dairy and can't drink milk, this seems to stop me from getting hay fever when I'm trying to sleep. And it's good for my teeth - I lost most of these eating carbs, I realise now I could have stopped this at any time just by eating the way I do now. I have some surviving teeth with massive caries where mercury amalgam fillings inserted during childhood fell out due to further decay - these teeth are now hard again, have stayed the same for 6 or more years since going low carb, are still useful, and never hurt. This arrest of dental caries was first noted by Boyd in the teeth of children with diabetes maintained on very low carb diets in the 1920's. I have lived in an area without water fluoridation for the past 11 years.

Exercise is that of someone who has literally never been to a gym in his 59 years. And never been in team sports. In summer I swim in the sea and rivers - my stroke is lousy and slow but I'm finally confident to travel out of my depth for long periods. I climb hills, I run and sprint along the roads and paths, and test myself occasionally with runs up hill or for longer distances, but not every day. I can do 10 pull-ups from a dead hang at the local playground some days - I could never do that before, couldn't even do one a year or so ago. I can do all things I might need to do in my life without exhausting or injuring myself, which is my definition of fitness.

I use some supplements; vitamin D in winter (I average 5,000 IU/day from midwinter; sunlight withdrawal symptoms like psoriasis and optic twitch remind me when it's time to start), magnesium from time to time, grape seed extract at the moment, boron (as borax) which I've trialled for a couple of weeks and I quite like. Vitamin C occasionally.

In spring and summer I try to get enough sunlight exposure to tan early and often, this then allows me to go swimming etc ad lib with minimal use of sunscreen or risk of sunburn.