Caloric torpedos
Today I came upon a couple of treats that could easily torpedo a low-carb diet. Many people following a low-carb diet would grab these and throw them down without even thinking about it. I know it’s true because I’ve done it myself.
The photo at the top of this post is of a small sack of dried fruit and mixed nuts sold at Starbucks stores everywhere. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve popped in to a Starbucks to grab an Americano and walked out with one of these. You can see from the size of the sack relative to my hand that these aren’t very big.
If you take a look at the Nutrition Facts on the back, however, you can see that this little sack holds 2.5 servings and that each serving provides 160 calories. Since no one eats a single serving as defined (everyone eats the entire sack), this little treat adds 400 calories to the day’s total. I know that each serving contains 17 g of carb as per the label, making the entire bag sport 42.5 g of carb. But I also know that most people (myself included) won’t look at that number and will simply throw one of these back thinking, hey, these are just nuts with a little dried fruit. How bad can it be? Then wonder why the weight isn’t coming off. I’m using this example to show just how easy it is to run afoul of the carbs and calories in seemingly ‘healthful’ little snacks like this one.
Above you see a photo of an actual small bag of mixed nuts I pulled from our own pantry. I love nuts, and I snack on them all the time. But they are full of calories and have to be treated with care if you’re trying to lose weight.
As you can see from the nutritional label to the left, each serving of these nuts provides 190 calories, which doesn’t sound all that bad. At least not until you look a little more closely and realize that there are seven servings in this little bag. It’s easy, easy, easy (and I speak from personal experience) to eat an entire bag – that’s seven servings – at a sitting. I can go through one of these puppies while watching a movie without thinking twice about it. And eating a bag of these nuts means that you’ve downed 1330 calories. If you’re on a low-carb diet and are creating a caloric deficit of a couple of hundred calories per day, eating even a serving of these nuts will do your weight loss in. But who can eat just one serving? Each serving contains 4 g of effective carbohydrate (6 total minus 2 of fiber), so the entire bag contains only about 28 g carb. I know purists who read every label and stick religiously to a low-carb diet would avoid eating this entire bag because it would provide too many carbs. But far too many of us simply figure that nuts are a low-carb snack food and go for it. And take in 1330 calories in the process.
The purpose of this post isn’t to hector everyone about noshing, but is to let you know how easy it is to succumb to the lure of these kinds of snacks without really giving it much thought. And then wonder why the weight isn’t coming off. Now you know.
It takes a fair amount of diligence and care to lose all the weight you want to lose on a low-carb diet, and it can seem like a real pain. But it’s a whole lot less of a pain than losing on any other kind of diet. When I hear people complain about the difficulty of following a low-carb diet, I think of Winston Churchill’s great quote about the democratic form of government:
Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
It’s the same with a low-carb diet: it’s the worst diet available except all those other diets that have been tried from time to time.
In the next post I will bring you some good news to offset the bad news of these last couple of posts. I’ll show you how you can reach the point in low-carb dieting that allows you to snack on cheese, nuts and other low-carb, high-caloric-density treats without paying the price. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, if any of you have your own favorite snacks that are caloric torpedoes you would like to share with the group, please post them as a comment.
Well, I’m not Karen, but I do have my own recipe for cheesecake. Here’s the link to “Bawdy’s Cheesecake.” I promise you won’t be disappointed!
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=224312
May I also add something about the bio-identical hormone creams. I used a progesterone cream for about a month, but hated it. I was told to rub it into my inner thigh. The dose was so large (came with a syringe) that it took forever to rub in. So there I sat, on the edge of the toilet (lid down), rubbing my inner thighs for like 15 minutes every morning. I’ll definitely read the info on the Signature Pharmacy web site.
I’m also seriously considering going back to the Women-to-Women Center here in Maine. I had a terrible experience there, but maybe it was just the person I saw. An acquaintance of mine also goes there, and her experience was night-and-day to mine. At least they test hormone levels with the saliva test, and they do compounding bio-identicals. I could always make an appointment with someone else, and see where that takes me.
Hey Kathy–
Thanks for the cheesecake recipe link (or at least thanks from the readers – I hate cheesecake).
You shouldn’t have to spend 15 minutes rubbing cream in – MD spends about 5 seconds. You need to get a different formulation if it’s taking you that long.
Good luck with the Women-to-Women Center. I had a long dinner with Dr. Northrup and her family in Maine several years ago, and she seemed to be on board with the whole low-carb concept. Or at least she was then. And she gave Dr. McCleary’s book (which is definitely low-carb) a good cover blurb. Let’s hope you have a better experience next time.
Best–
MRE
I just saw that comments were closed on this post yesterday. If you can’t make an exception, maybe I could post this as a comment in your next column.
GREAT idea, though, to close comments after a certain date.
I can’t figure out why the comments should be closed. I checked my preferences, and comments should be open for 60 days.
Here’s my cheesecake:
Grind 4oz pecan meat in a food processor, melt 2 T butter, stir in 1T equivalent AS (artificial sweetener, I use a blend of liquid sucralose and stevia) and ground pecans. Press into the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan. Set pan in refrigerator for 15 minutes. Refine a 15oz carton of whole milk ricotta in food processor with 1T equivalent AS and 1 teaspoon vanilla, cover with plastic wrap and set in refrigerator.
Preheat oven to 350° Beat 24 oz softened cream cheese together with 1 cup equivalent AS, beat in 4 eggs, one at a time, scraping bowl often, beat in 1 teaspoon vanilla. Pour into springform pan. Bake for 50-55 minutes. Remove from oven and spread top with ricotta mixture, bake another 5-10 minutes. Cool, run knife around the edge of the pan before removing ring. Makes 16 servings. 272 calories, 25.6g fat, 3g carb – 0.7g fiber = 2.3g 8.4g protein. If you use granular Splenda add 1.7g carb per slice.
This is my adaptation of “Myra’s New York-Style Cheesecake,” google if interested.
ps. I’ve never heard of Amadei chocolate but I can still get Lindt 85% at Wal-Mart (rural shopping mecca.) I also like Endangered Species 88%, I can only find that at the health food store 50 miles away.
pps. Refeed is a body builder term. Some of them do a cyclic ketogenic diet where they raise the carbs and lower the fat for a day or two to replenish glycogen stores before returning to lower carb. This usually does not include bakery goods, white flour, sugar, etc. It’s mostly from veggies, brown rice, sweet potatoes, etc. Among some low carb dieters it has been observed that after weeks of toeing the line carb wise with no movement on the scale and sometimes even more restriction of carbs, calories and/or fat, consoling oneself with a candy bar, donut, several cookies or bowl of ice cream, etc. is often followed within a day or two by a loss of a few pounds. (I think it’s probably water.)
I thank you on behalf of my readers for the cheesecake recipe. Sounds great. Now if only I liked cheesecake…
Hi, Dr. MIke!
I think that the poster who asked about “re-feeds” meant something similar to my today’s question in one of you recent posts. Since you (and the readers) may not be going back to that post (titled “Low Carb and Calories), I am repeating my question here:
Some people (including your friend Tim Ferris) claim to be able to lose terridic amount of weight by following LC during the week and then re-feeding the carbs during the weekend (i.e. eating enormously high amounts of carbs for two days). This is supposed to prevent weight loss stalls (?).
I don’t know how this is supposed to work scientifically so I hoped you could enlighten us. You can find more details on Tim’s web site.
Angelyne, good advice about getting unshelled nuts. Combine that with raw unsalted nuts and there will be less tendency to shovel them down by the handful. But I think we also need to be honest and admit that nuts aren’t as healthy as meat, eggs, butter, shellfish, etc. And nuts are fattening to many people, esp women. Men can usually eat lots of nuts on a low-carb diet and remain weight stable. I think many people would feel better and look better if they avoided all or most nuts. Occasionally I have some raw macadamias or dry roasted macadamias with the salt rinsed off of them. They are a bland nut, so the salted ones just taste like salt. Generally, I eat macadamia oil and coconut oil instead of the nuts. And I feel better than I ever did while i was eating lots of nuts. They aren’t a healthy food, IMO. They are a compromise food, a lesser evil than grains, refined sugars, and junk foods perhaps.
I agree that meat is a better choice, but not nearly so handy.
Cheers–
MRE
Dr Mike, this has been a great blog of yours and much needed clarification of some of my weight loss issues.
What I would like to know is: what is the mechanism behind weight gain (I assume that means fat storage) when carbs are severely limited? You have explained in PP and PPLP the mechanism behind the storage of fat by the production of insulin to counterbalance high blood sugar. When blood sugar is in the normal range and the pancreas does not have to produce insulin to control it and when we eat more fat than we use, what happens to the extra fat in our systems. You alluded to the fact that fat is absorbed through the large intestine. Then what happens?
Thanks
Pam
I’ll explain all this in the next post.
While reading this post, I was patting myself on the back because I pride myself on limiting nut and cheese intake. Then Chip Bennett’s comment made me chuckle and remember that snacking on thinly sliced salami was a favorite of mine and didn’t cause me problems until I started making peanut butter and salami sandwiches out of them!
Mistakes were made (but not be me!)
Thanks for sharing so much!
Thanks for reading.
Great blog posts lately – thank you! I’m an Atkins devotee, currently transitioning over to Protein Power Life Plan.
Anyway – were ‘most’ of my carbs coming from vegetables? Nope, they were not. A lot of my carbs and calories were coming from dairy – sloshing cream into my coffee without measuring, eating too much cheese, making recipes with all kinds of cheese, sour cream, cream etc. Plus, I was ‘gooping’ on way too much blue cheese and ranch dressing onto stuff.
Next up was realizing I was intolerant/sensitive to dairy – finally managed to ditch dairy altogether. Lost the bloat, cleared up digestive issues.
But then, what happened is that ‘most’ of my carbs were coming from macadamia nuts and salted almonds!
Made an interesting little discovery today – those sliced natural almonds with the skins on that you can get in the baking aisle of any grocery store – they’re only 6 carbs and 4 fiber per quarter cup serving. Not salty so that they’re not quite as addictive. In any case – these are *great* to sprinkle onto salads or vegetables – a generous two tablespoon serving of these sliced natural almonds works out to be only 0.9 total carbs. They’re great toasted in a dry frying pan for approximately 30-60 seconds and tossed onto a salad or tossed into some broccoli. Even without toasting them – a nice addition to salads and veggies. A real ‘carb-bargain’.
No more ‘snack nuts’ for me!
Thanks again for these great blog posts lately.
Sara
But how many calories are in those two generous tablespoons?
Cheers–
MRE
Thanks Dr M.,
The Jupiter was great, and we even got the exposition repeat for the first movement. It pisses me off when conductors don’t take this repeat: the whole thing then seems lopsided and you don’t get your money’s worth. Dutoit always seems to takes this repeat in his recordings and on the platform, even with long ones like Symphonie Fantasique. Also the tempos were stately without being in the least boring, not rushed as so many do it these days.
At which point, as we need another Aussie joke, let’s have two. Sir Thomas Beecham was conducting the Brisbane Symphony Orchestra and the lady principal cellist had a solo. Sir Thomas then remarked, “Madam, you have between your legs something that can give pleasure to millions, but all you seem to be able to do is scratch it!”
The following is a true story. Only the names have been suppressed to protect the conductor. A certain composer friend of mine asked a certain player in a certain orchestra (OK it was the SSO) how the rehearsals of Shoenberg’s Pelleas und Melisande went.
“It was a pub crawl, mate!” said the player.
“Uh?”
“Yeah, we had to go through it bar by bar.”
Michael
Thanks for the Aussie/music jokes. Glad you enjoyed the Jupiter. As always, I’m envious.
I did get to see MD’s group sing the Carmina Burana to two sold out performances last week. And the world premier of the accompanying ballet. It was excellent.
Cheers–
MRE
Geeze – wish I could edit the typo. Ah well.
Thought of something else – another of my ‘calorie torpedoes’ – that ‘gooping of creamy salad dressing thing’ – well, I’d plunk some salad greens onto a plate, throw in a few tomatoes, some cucumber. All good. Maybe some green onion ends too. Fine. But then, (back in my dairy-eating days), I’d also plunk down a big handful of grated cheese or cubed up cheddar pieces. Then, I’d do that ‘gooping’ thing with the dressing. Scoop out few generous tablespoonsful (the cutlery, and not the measuring spoon) of high calorie dressing. Then, even worse – I’d eat only the top layer of salad – all the dressing, the cheese, and maybe a few bites of vegetables that were underneath, but not much.
A new thing that working for me? With any overly caloric or potentially ‘carb-y’ dressing, I measure out the portion (usually two tablespoons), dump my salad into a giant mixing bowl, put the two tablespoon serving (measured in flat measuring spoons, leveled off)…then mix everything up well with a wooden spoon or a spatula of sorts. This makes the dressing coat the whole salad – and I’m not overdoing it on the carbs or the calories.
What typo? I didn’t see a typo.
Sounds like you’re being diligent with these high-calorie, low-carb foods. It will pay off.
Cheers–
MRE
Hi Dr. Eades
I am going to slip in a few questions after giving my calorie torpeodo. Cheese, cheese, cheese – specifically mixed into my raw tartare – I can easily go through half a tub of gorgonzola. So, I simply don’t use any.
For my questions (if you can please answer). I got a sudden high fever this week (103F, I am 34 year old male) and went to the doctor. As I am rarely ever sick, I was pretty bewildered because I knew I was hot but not that hot as I didn’t have a thermometer. Pretty scary because I went to the doctor on Wednesday after I cooled down, I don’t want to know what my temp was on Tuesday.
The doc (actually a young girl from college i knew) was concerned because I didn’t have a sore throat but had a high fever. So I took a urine test and blood test and was told to watch the fever to make sure it came down and that I probably had the early onset of some strange viral illness.
Well, I went home and sweated and popped extra strength Tylenol for the next 24 hours and my temp dropped. On Friday, I got a call from the doctor indicating that the tests didn’t show anything and that it was good my fever went away. However, they want a repeat (in case of lab error) because my platelets and hematocrit were a bit on the low side (touching on the anemic) and that there was a trace of protein in my urine. I being a worry wart, asked her, let’s assume it is not a lab mistake, is it the end of the world? She said no, but wanted a retest anyways.
My questions. I am puzzled because I just gave blood a month ago and they test for hematrocrit and platelets to make sure you are ok – my scores according to the Stanford Blook bank were fine. Could my anemic-like readings have possibly, possibly, anything to do with the iron storage mechanism during a viral infection as described in PPLP? (the story of your friend with the girlfriend with the peg pig). I find it hard to believe that after a year of eating a pound of beef a day that I am suddenly slightly anemic after one blood donation.
Also, I didn’t share with the doc that I am on an essentially zero carb diet. Do ketones or protein by products show up as ‘trace protein’ in urine? Of course, now my parents are freaking over the organic grassfed meat I eat and want me to ‘eat by my blood type’, which being A+ is an opposite diet of high carb, low fat, veggie stuff… (my concession to them for my next test is to eat a lot of chicken and more salads – this I can do, no way i am eating carbs for health)
Can I get your thoughts on these topics Dr. Eades? I know it is not medical advice, I just wanted your thoughts. If one is on a low carb diet, can one simply eat a bunch of carbs in the morning of a afternoon blood test to not have ketone state by the afternoon?
I can’t possibly diagnose what’s going on with you based on the information you’ve given me. But, fevers, such as the one you had, that come out of nowhere and have no other symptoms are almost always of viral origin. And these viruses can definitely cause some iron sequestering, but that’s an acute thing that would most likely show up as a low iron level and not anemia. Anemia takes longer than just a few days to become evident. But were you my patient, I would simply recheck your blood in a week or so after all symptoms have gone.
Trace protein can easily show up in urine specimens, so it’s really nothing to worry about. And shouldn’t have anything to do with diet.
I think the entire eat for your blood type idea is ludicrous, so I’m the wrong guy to ask for advice about that, unless you want the advice to be to ignore it.
Eating carbs in the morning will definitely get rid of ketones for several hours.
Best–
MRE
Two tablespoons natural sliced almonds:
0.9 total carb
2.8 protein
7.0 fat
0 fiber (less than one gram I guess)
79 calories.
So, about the same as any decently ‘low carb’ salad dressing – a bit of fat, few carbs. But, hey…it’s crunchy! Something that’s often missing in a lower-carb way of eating. Come to think of it, the two tablespoons sliced natural almonds is lower in carbs and calories than my Annie’s Naturals “Goddess” dressing. So yeah, it’s a bargain. Hopefully, I won’t have to keep them in my car or anything…
MRE: “I agree that meat is a better choice [than nuts], but not nearly so handy.”
If you make pemmican, it would be very handy. Raw meat is also a convenient choice. Or cold meat left-overs. Even summer sausage or something like that would probably be healthier than eating a lot of nuts or seeds. I think fiber is also a problem, not just the carbs. Nuts aren’t as satisfying as meat or eggs to me. When they are roasted and/or salted, they’re less satisfying. Most nuts aren’t raw, unless you get them unshelled. Even then, they are sometimes cooked. Plus, there are enyzme inhibitors and anti-nutrients in raw nuts and seeds. And many of them are rancid, but most people aren’t sensitive enough to detect this. So I think it’s best to stay away from roasted and/or salted nuts. They will make you eat more.
One more comment on subject of HRT you may be interested in:
My wife was prescribed a new product called Evamist (bio-identical estradiol), and reading the documentation, they actually “advertise” that it does not transfer to partner… (14.3)
http://www.evamist.com/pdf/Evamist_PI.pdf
Thanks for the heads up. MD’s no longer transfers to her partner now that we’ve taken precautions. I would probably have trouble getting her to switch, since she likes what she’s using so much.
Great reminder about the perils of nuts! I’ve stopped buying trail mix packets because I can’t eat half the stuff so it’s a waste of dried cranberries/cashews/etc. Walgreens is now selling almonds and mac nuts in perfectly portion controlled packets, so check ‘em out if you need your nut fix without the temptation.
My danger food is peanut butter. No portion control with that substance. I suspect it has some sort of secret addictive compound, like the opioid peptides in dairy products. My rule is that peanut butter always has to go on or in something–no snacking from the jar!
Food like snacks and such hasn’t been a big problem — so far. I do eat some cheese, but have stopped this now. My main snacks are green veg. I think – Higher Calorie = You’ll be a Higher Weight, Lower Calorie = You’ll be a Lower Weight.
I’m on a lc diet (lifestyle change) and feel great. Every week I’ve lost weight, some weeks a lot, some a little. And, yeah there have been times where I’ve cheated a little, but I realise now that it was only because I seriously craved fat.
The weeks that I DIDN’T go to the gym, I lost more. Strange that. I found aerobic session to be outstanding performance wise since the change in diet, but cycling (intense classes) fatigued me and the muscles in my thighs weren’t coping so well. Cycle classes only became harder. Some didn’t understand this when I explained, but those who exercise hard will know what I mean.
I figured that the weight loss in the weeks that I didn’t exercise 5x week for 1 hour very intensely, was due to the fact that the extra ketones weren’t needed by my body and tissues and I was able to pass them out with breath and urine. When I did exercise, the ketones were used to fuel my body.
The weight loss kept up however, and I found the diet more efficient with walking every day.
I’ve read a few of your other comments to posters on other parts of ketosis and wondered if after the three or so months when your body gets used to using ketones, you can switch in a few good carbs for a couple of weeks to keep your weightloss on the hop and break it out of the stable state. Then, switch to lc again…. Which would explain why on the weeks that I have slipped out of lc, I lost a lot of weight after rigid adherence.
Which is what has also happened to people I know on a lc diet. They stick to it rigidly for ages, then their weight loss slows, they eat things they probably shouldn’t for a couple of days or even a week or so, keep losing during that week, when the week before of sticking to the diet they lost nothing, but gained.
Anyway, it would help to understand why this happens consistently.
Regards,
Nat
These two posts prove what I’ve been saying all along to my husband. It’s really too bad, but basically, we’re going to be eating lean meat and stuff like green beans and berries for the long haul, by and large. Not cheese, not nuts, not low carb strawberry cheesecake, not “low carb” bread, etc, on anything like a semi-daily basis. That’s life, actually. It’s easier to accept that and get over the childish feelings of unfairness (!) than to keep trying to find ways to make your diet more like it was, pre-Protein Power. There’s no going back and no going half-way back. I compensate by going and getting into those favorite jeans from 1985.
I think you’re right on the money. I’ve looked at it like that for years, which doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes go off the reservation, but only for brief periods. Then I check back in and lose what little I’ve gained.
As I’ve always said, if you’ve got a metabolic problem that is solved by a low-carb diet, then you pretty much have to stay on a low-carb diet to keep it solved. People wouldn’t dream of taking medicine for dangerously high blood pressure, having their blood pressure get down to normal, then say, hey, my blood pressure is normal now, I don’t have to take the medicine any longer. Yet that’s what people do with diet all the time.
Cheers–
MRE
Dr. Eades, Just thought it was funny, wanted to comment on your comment below!
Good idea about consuming nuts only after having to shell them; bad idea about taking up online gaming. Good idea about limiting consumption of alcohol; bad idea about taking up online gaming. Why is it a bad idea to take up online gaming? I don’t know, and since I don’t understand it, it just sounds like a bad idea.
Cheers–
MRE
I know you meant it to be funny about not understanding it so it sounds like a bad idea, but that’s just the attitude with most people about low carb. Don’t understand how it works, so it MUST be bad!! Right??? If it’s not CALORIE IS A CALORIE it’s evil
Guess there is a good and bad to everything…
Well, I used to do silly games online in college for HOURS when I could waste time like that and I was a hottie size 6! It WAS a good thing instead of snacking! Except I would end up staying up half the night playing online pictionary with strangers around the world, drawing terribly with my mouse…wasn’t get that good growth hormone being up like that, though!
So true, so true.
One of my downfalls while doing the low carb diet in the past was Breyers Carb Smart icecream. The key is to buy the bars, instead. They’re good and portioned so I can’t eat half the container standing up reading by the refrigerator. (b/c I was only going to have a tablespoon, of course!)
With nuts I’ve gotten smart. I get out my handy 1/4th measuring cup and just eat the peanuts in the cup. Nuts and cheese I can get enough of easily, but back when I was doing WW or counting calories on my own I would physically have to throw away cakes in the trashcan outside to keep from eating them. I could probably eat a whole cake on any given day, even now, and THAT is one major reason I must do low carb, to keep that from happening. Cake cannot exist in my world, at least until I’m 2 sizes smaller, then maybe a little on my 1 cheat day a week.
(O/S) Does one cheat day a week really set us back much? I know Atkins said it does, but I don’t gain on those days, I just stay the same for a few more days after.
ALSO, I like low carb dips (I have a great 7 layer dip with s/c, guac, taco meat, refriend beans, mixed cheese, tomato soo good) but the tortilla chips add up. Any good low carb tortilla chips out there?
When I want something crunchy with my guacamole I cut a low carb tortilla into wedges, spray both sides with cooking spray, sprinkle a mixture of equal parts garlic powder, chili powder and salt on them and bake at 350° for 10 minutes. Don’t eat too many or you’ll get too much fiber.