 Saying Goodbye to Answers.com At the end of this month, I'm leaving my position as Low Carb Category Expert Writer at Answers.com. While I've enjoyed writing for Answers very much, they are changing their format and prefer that most articles be recipes for their new Recipes website. While I had fun creating recipes, I'm not a professional chef nor much of a photographer (which will be patently obvious once you see these pictures), and I think my passion and skills for low carb lie elsewhere. But before I leave Answers, I wanted to share a few recent recipes I think you might like. The Coffee-and-Cream Parfait to the left is actually based on a recipe I found in a cookbook for people with diabetes published almost 100 years ago! I made a few changes and ended up with this fantastic dessert. It's extremely rich, delicious, and easy. Best of all, it contains only 2 grams of carbohydrate per serving!  Beef Stroganoff is one of my favorite cold-weather dishes, the ultimate in comfort food. You can certainly eat it alone or serve it over other vegetables, but I made a Low-Carb Beef Stroganoff using shirataki fettucini Miracle Noodles, and it turned out great! Very close to the real thing. Just be sure to soak the noodles well and cook them over high heat to remove most of the moisture so they take on the texture of actual noodles.  I love cheesecake, and I love quiche. The combination of eggs, cheese, and cream can't be beat -- unless you add bacon, of course! The recipe for this Savory Spinach and Bacon Cheesecake came from one of my readers. Thank you, Galina, for this delicious entree that tastes just as good served cold the next day.  My Fitness Pal Although I'd previously only tracked my food intake online a half dozen or so times in the past, I decided to start logging my food into My Fitness Pal regularly a couple of weeks ago. A few of my clients use it and share their food logs with me so I can make suggestions if stalls or other issues occur. I was so impressed with the program that I wanted to start tracking myself to share the experience with my clients. And I found that, even though I'm at my ideal weight and maintaining good blood sugar levels, I was definitely underestimating the calories by about 300-400 or so per day and carbs by about 10 grams per day. Not a huge deal, but this could definitely make a difference for someone having difficulty losing weight. Some people think calories don't count on a low-carb diet, but speaking as someone who was once heavy, I can tell you that eating an ad libitum very-low-carb diet wouldn't allow me to maintain my weight as I have for the past 30 or so years. It's true that I'm rarely hungry eating LCHF, but truly, who wouldn't want another slice of that spinach bacon cheesecake? Without knowing how many calories you're getting, it's easy to overdo it, particularly for middle-aged women like me. At any rate, My Fitness Pal is a fantastic program with the largest online food database I've come across, although occasionally I'll find items where the calorie and/or macronutrient information is wrong. For instance, last week while looking over one of my client's food diaries, I realized that she'd entered one cup of steamed broccoli and carrots into her log, and MFP added 100 calories for this item; however, it gave across-the-board zeros for carbs, protein, and fat. How can something have 100 calories but no macronutrients? The amount of carbs should actually be about 20 grams or so, which isn't a trivial amount. Fortunately, there are corrected versions of most foods, but it can take a little while to weed through it all. I know many dietitians in the Paleo/Primal community would disagree with me on this, but I think tracking carbs and calories can be very helpful for weight loss/maintenance and blood sugar control. And I'm honestly enjoying doing it myself.  Personalized License Plate
If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you've probably already seen this, but for my readers who don't, I wanted to share my first vanity license plate. I'm happy to show my support for low carb any way I can! However, someone pointed out that it could be read as "Low Carb Road" rather than "Low Carb RD," so I've ordered a frame that says "Proud to be a Dietitian." Hope that will help clarify who I am and what I do!
11 Comments
victoria
2/12/2014 04:23:07 am
Fran, 2/12/2014 05:34:36 am
Victoria, yes, a caloric deficit is necessary to lose weight, and many people need to watch and count calories as well as carbs. However, although this is still controversial, there is some evidence that you can eat more calories (300 or so) on a low-carb, high-fat diet than a high-carb, low-fat diet. Eating a low-carb diet makes it much easier to lose weight, especially for someone with metabolic syndrome. There is a lot of research and anecdotal evidence supporting this. You might be able to lose weight with a low-fat, low-calorie diet, but it generally doesn't work as well at suppressing insulin production, which facilitates weight loss. It will also be harder to stick to because you'll probably be hungry most of the time. I highly recommend a low-carb lifestyle for people with metabolic syndrome.
Victoria
2/12/2014 06:01:52 am
Thank you so much Franziska. I'll miss your articles on Answers.com.
Victoria
2/12/2014 06:26:06 am
Would a low glycemic index diet work as well for weight loss for people with Insulin Resistance as the low carb diet does? 2/12/2014 06:53:46 am
Victoria, I apologize for responding to your question further down about low-glycemic-index vs. low-carb diets here here, but my website doesn't allow responses to replies. A Low-carb diet is better for metabolic syndrome than a low-glycemic-index diet, and a very-low-carbohydrate diet (50 grams of carbohydrate or less per day) is often ideal. 2/12/2014 05:27:52 am
Thank you so much, Jan! You have some wonderful recipes on your website too. 2/12/2014 04:53:36 am
While people like you are around, the human race stands a chance of survival. Sugar and starch is not the way for a long and healthy and complication free life, especially for diabetics. 2/12/2014 05:38:42 am
Eddie, you're way too kind and generous with your praise. Thank you so much for your unwavering support. When I receive messages like this, it strengthens my resolve to keep speaking out and fighting for carb restriction to be universally accepted, and I won't stop until it is. You have my word on that. I'm finishing my masters in nutrition and it's so frustrating when other students think that calories in calories out is all that matters. I know they haven't worked with real clients yet, and I can only say (write) so much about how a calorie of carb is different from a calorie of fat. Yes, calories matter, but for many where those calories come from matters just as much. 3/5/2014 08:45:49 pm
Thanks so much for your comments, Brenna. I couldn't agree more! Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
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