Weight loss diet
(High protein, moderate fat, low carbohydrate)
Eat 3 meals per day, lose 1.5-2 kg per week even without exercise
Weight loss recipes – see below, you can also find ketogenic diet recipes, which work here.
This is a short term diet to reach your target weight or size – 2-6 months for most people – at which point you transition over to the more versatile and relaxed Anti Inflammatory diet.
Our bodies by default burn sugar as energy rather than fat. This diet cuts out carbohydrate intake as healthily as possible (carbohydrates are sugars) so that the body shifts to burning fat for fuel rather than sugar. If there is a lot of visceral (organ) and surface fat on your body, this will naturally get burned up as the body uses energy. You may have already heard of the Ketogenic diet – which is high in fat, moderate protein, low carbohydrate. It is a similar diet except that: firstly, it is a very scientific diet – you have to be measuring calories and macronutrients (fat, protein, carbs) for each meal and throughout the week; and secondly, you ought to be finger prick testing your blood daily to see if you are actually in ketosis (the fat burning state the keto diet puts you in), which is expensive and inconvenient. A keto diet that is not putting you into ketosis is not a healthy diet!
In fact a keto diet is not a healthy long term diet. Protein is restricted as it can impair the body’s ability to enter the ketogenic state. However, with the high protein diet, you need not worry about being in ketosis, you still burn fat for fuel.
With the high protein diet, all you need to do is ensure you have more meat, fish or eggs on your plate than green vegetables! Simple, quick, delicious and easy.
This means stir fried green veg with chicken, bacon or kippers and eggs for breakfast, steak and salad, duck with asparagus and cabbage, smoked mackerel and broccoli omelette, things like that.
The green vegetables bring a little fibre to regulate your bowels – about a third of participants suffer constipation on this diet due to the low fibre content – whilst also providing all the requirements for healthy, strong blood with a responsive immune function. Constipation can be alleviated with senna tea, slima tea or food grade castor oil (a tablespoon per day, sometimes up to 5 or 6 can be needed the first few days – if you don’t need the loo an hour after taking it, have another tablespoon).