High Fat High Spirits + A Disclaimer

I must admit that before starting this blog, I cheated a little: I’d already tried some of the diets I was going to try. Therefore, I decided to arrange them in order from the hardest to the ones I felt more comfortable doing.  When doing this, I also grouped them by similarity—HCLF isn’t very different to being vegan, and HFLC isn’t very different to Paleo.

I felt the need to clarify this because my teacher approached me after last post, concerned about the ecological validity of my results: she was worried they weren’t an accurate portrayal of what was truly going on in my body, given that any metabolic change happens over a longer period of time than the one I was currently giving each diet.

I decided to take her words into consideration, and instead of changing diet every two weeks, I’ll change it every month instead. While I understand that this is still very little time to see great results, I think it’s enough time to see if a diet fits in with my lifestyle. Thus, please take all my “hard data” findings with a grain of salt, for they most likely don’t reflect a causation, but are merely signposts to help me gauge my body’s reception to the particular diet I’m following.

With that being said, I want to welcome you again for the second week of HFLC (high fat, low carb)! This is one of those diets I’d tried before, and I knew I was going to like it. I’ve never had much of a sweet tooth, to be honest, and I’d much rather have a slice of pizza than dessert. This is the main reason why I didn’t like HCLF: the lack of savory, greasy, cheesy options that fit it.

This was quickly solved in these couple of weeks I tried HFLC.

I found many more options in the dining commons for HFLC, given that virtually everything in the commons has a lot of fat. The only catch then was finding only those items that were low in carbohydrates. Thankfully, this was relatively easy with the online tool (that I’ve waxed poetic about in earlier posts, so I won’t do that. But seriously, go check it out).

I also went out to Target once, to go hunting for good products to complement my diet. I must add that this was completely unnecessary, because the dining commons were pretty well stocked for this diet, but I still wanted to see what interesting products the local stores had. I found this one product that completely surpassed my expectations, and I wanted to share with you:

FlatOut Bread

ProteinUP FlatOut bread 

These flats were delicious in their Original variety (not pictured, sadly), and pretty bad in the Red Pepper Hummus version (pictured above). While the original flats were only ever-so-slightly chalky, the Red Pepper Hummus flavor was too overpowering and didn’t pair well with cheese.

Rating:

Red Pepper Hummus: 5/10

Original: 9/10

In terms of convenience, these flats were excellent—it was exceedingly easy to pick one, put cheese in it, and microwave it for a nice on-the-go breakfast before class. And at only 17g of carbs (of which 8g were fiber), it neatly fits into the diet’s goals.

P3 Portable Protein Pack

Oscar Mayer's Portable Protein Pack, $2.59, Target

I found these both in Target and The Mix, at the Pollock Dining Commons. They're 190-calorie snack packets, and they've got almonds, cheese and ham. 

Overall, these have 14g of fat and only 3g of carbs (an excellent ratio for this diet) and were incredibly filling. One pack lasted me through an entire night of cramming for exams! They were a little pricey though, compared to other snack options I'd had before. 

Rating: 

Convenience: 10/10 

Price: 6/10 

Flavor: 10/10 

 Finally, for the “hard” data:

I’ve maintained my weight since last week, within a 0.5-pound margin, which is really good. I used to have huge discrepancies every time I weighed myself before, and it looks as if my weight’s finally started to level, meaning I’m eating approximately the same amount of calories a day.

Yay for self-regulation!

Next week I’ll be exploring this diet further, talking a little more about the science behind it, as well as some “soft” factors too—how it makes me feel, my tiredness levels, hours of sleep and satiety levels. Thank you for reading!

Grace