 |
| Want to lose the weight faster? Dr. Phinney, author of Nutritional Ketosis recommends that you lower your fat intake during the weight-loss phase. Here's how it's done. |
Despite the popularity of low-carb high-fat diets (LCHF or Nutritional Ketosis), losing over 100 pounds required me to cut down on dietary fat.
I did not lose a significant amount of weight each week until I did so. This is because part of that 75% to 80% fat in calories that is so often quoted within the low-carb community as mandatory MUST come from your body fat!
There's no other way.
It cannot all come from your diet.
So, today, I'm going to share two low-fat chicken recipes -- to show you how its done. I'm also going to give you a great bonus recipe for sugar-free honey-mustard sauce. It's a perfect sauce for dipping your hard-boiled eggs.
Many people find high-fat diets to be problematic, even when they are very low in carbs. Dozens of people gain weight when trying to eat 80% of their calories in fats. And those who don't gain weight tend to stall or experience super slow weight losses.
That's the reason so many people are eating at ketone-starvation levels for protein. They're trying to reach optimal ketosis because they believe that's how keto is done.
Dr. Phinney has been trying to correct the misunderstandings about the keto diet he created a few years ago, but getting the word out among the fat-addicted masses has been slow going.
While high-fat diets are a thing, (I'm definitely not saying that they are not), they are designed for those on ketogenic maintenance or for those involved in endurance sports.
High-fat diets are not for low-carb dieters.
According to Dr. Phinney, you don't eat high-fat during the weight-loss phase of his diet.
In fact, even Dr. Atkins clearly stated that his nutritional approach was NOT a high-fat diet. It's just higher in fat than the current nutritional approaches of his day.
To lose weight on Keto, Dr. Phinney says you have to give your liver a reason to dip into your fat stores. Dr. Eades says exactly the same thing!
If you're supplying all of the fat your body needs to function throughout the day, by way of diet, the body will have no reason to use your body fat.
And using up your body fat is the whole point of going on a diet!
The following three low-fat low-carb (LFLC) recipes are designed to help you lose your body fat without forcing you to sacrifice flavor. They will help you get the pounds off quicker.
A low-fat low-carb diet is still much higher in fat than a traditional weight-loss diet. There's no need to give up taste. And there's no need to fear cutting down on fat. You just don't have to eat gobs of it to reach your weight-loss goal.
In fact, you'll get there faster if you don't.
How to Lower the Fat Without Sacrificing Flavor and Taste
If you like spicy food, you'll love our Chili-Garlic Stir Fry recipe. Simple and quick, it makes use of a sugar-free chili-garlic paste that you can find in the oriental section of your local supermarket.
This is a tasty lunch or easy dinner when you don't have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen. Chili-Garlic Chicken is one of my favorite recipes that I use all the time, even today.
If spicy food isn't your passion, our Easy Braised Chicken recipe uses cherry or vanilla-flavored diet coke and sugar-reduced catsup to make a tasty low-carb sauce. Today, I'd used cherry-flavored Dr. Pepper, instead of Coke, but when I created this recipe, Dr. Pepper didn't come in cherry.
Cooking low carb without all the fat isn't as easy as just doing Keto because the type of meat you choose, and how you cook it, is as important as the fat you add to the recipe. Go for lean protein choices, such as:
- chicken or turkey breast
- pork loin, roast or chops
- beef sirloin
- 90% lean ground beef
- ground turkey
As a bonus, I'm also including our tasty sugar-free sweet mustard sauce, a tasty blend of fat-reduced mayonnaise, mustard, and sugar substitute. It will breathe new life into those bland hard-boiled eggs that you've been eating for breakfast or snacks.
Yes, low-fat products are higher in carbs, usually due to adding a touch of sugar to make up for the missing flavor, but at less than 1 carb per tablespoon, I never had reduced-fat or light mayo affect my weight loss efforts.
Why Go Low Fat Low Carb (LFLC)?
Once I made it through my week on the K/E jump-start plan, I knew it was time to seek out low-carb recipes and ideas that would fit into my new lower-fat lifestyle.
Even before Dr. Phinney published his book on low-carbohydrate living, I had come to the understanding about myself that I needed to be eating less fat.
While you don't want to take the fat content of your diet down too low, or you'll stall as quickly as you will by eating too much fat, trimming back the fat will help to speed up weight loss.
And this is where a lot of people get confused.
Fat calories are used to dial in your calorie deficit. To lose weight faster, trim back on fat and leave your protein and carb consumption alone!
I love to cook, but wanted to keep the initial stages of breaking through my turtle-slow weight loss simple. I didn't want to be tempted by all the things I had learned to make low carb because let's face it: MOST low-carb recipes are super-high in fat!
Since hard-boiled eggs and chicken breast are easy and quick low-fat low-carb staples, I decided to tackle those protein sources first.
Even if we're not on the same page and you're not doing a low-fat Keto plan, you'll still find the following recipes useful because I also offer advice and alternatives for beefing up the fat.
The amount of fat you can eat and lose weight won't be the same amount of fat that I can eat. Plus, beefing up fat is what you'll want to do at maintenance anyway.
Sugar-Free Honey-Mustard Sauce for Hard Boiled Eggs
 |
| Hard-boiled eggs are full of natural fats, but they contain less fat than frying or scrambling them. |
Hard boiled eggs are a great way to start off the day on any type of low-carb plan. Not just a lower fat version.
At 65 percent fat, you don't really have to use added fat if you don't want to. This is why Dr. Atkins believed in eating most of your fat as found in nature. Nature has already provided an abundance of fatty acids.
You don't have to trim down the fat to enjoy a hearty hard-boiled egg for breakfast or snacks.
Easy to carry in a zip-lock bag to work, you can make them even easier to eat by peeling the eggs ahead of time. This is what my kids do. They boil up enough eggs for the week, peel them, divide out into meal-sized portions, and then carry them to the office in a baggie.
However, I have always found hard boiled eggs by themselves to be dry, especially if you just sprinkle them with a little salt and pepper. What I was used to was chopping them up for egg salad and mixing them with tons of mayo or turning them into deviled eggs.
I rarely ate them whole.
However, when trimming the fat, egg salad with lots of mayo can slow down weight loss, even when you go for the fat-reduced type.
I started looking at the diet menus of others who were eating boiled eggs on their low-fat Atkins plan, searching for some new ideas and I noticed that quite a few people like to smear them with a dab of mayo.
That dab contains fewer calories than egg salad would contain, obviously, so this new habit-discovery gave me a wonderful idea.
Why not use my sugar-free honey-mustard alternative instead of just mayonnaise?
 |
| Traditional Honey-Mustard Sauce is made with honey, mayonnaise, and mustard but you can use sugar substitute and no one will know the honey isn't in there! |
That would give you a spicy sauce that was sweet and packed with flavor. Much more flavor than just mayonnaise alone.
I had never used mustard on a hard-boiled egg before. I'd always eaten them plain or chopped up into an egg salad, so even though this mustard sauce was my own idea, I was a bit hesitant to try it out.
Eventually, I got brave enough to put it to the test.
And I'm happy to report that the hard boiled eggs smeared with a dab of sugar-free honey mustard were great!
Since the sauce is mostly reduced-fat mayonnaise, the mustard isn't overpowering at all. They made a quick-and-easy breakfast and would also make a nice treat to take to work or if you're running around doing errands.
However, for on-the-go, you'll want to pick up a set of those tiny 1/2-cup Rubbermaid storage containers that have a super-tight snap-on lid.
(Available at Amazon)
They are the perfect size for hauling low-carb salad dressings, cold sauces, and homemade dips for those days when you need to take your food with you.
Hubby uses them for all kinds of things: olives, pickle slices, a bit of sugar-free cranberry sauce, as well as salad dressing. They are also the perfect size to measure out nuts if you happen to be addicted to them, like I am.
Alternative Honey-Mustard Recipe
This sugar-free sauce is Induction-friendly, so don't limit yourself to just using it on hard-boiled eggs. It's also good for meats and vegetables. You can even use it as a salad dressing.Good enough to serve to company, no one will know the honey is missing if you don't tell them.
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup fat-reduced mayonnaise
- 1 tbsp dijon or spicy brown mustard
- 1 packet Splenda
The only significant carbs are in the fat-reduced mayonnaise (less than 1 carb per tablespoon) and sugar substitute, which you count as 1 carb on Atkins. If you're using a liquid sugar alternative, there won't be any carbs in the substitute at all.
However, the sauce contains mayonnaise, and therefore calories, so even lower fat mayonnaise is not a FREE food.
Use only as much as needed to make your food tasty and pleasant. If you're cutting down on frivolous fats, you'll want to use just enough to keep your eggs from being dry. Don't smother them in the sauce or you'll lose the calorie savings by switching to a lower fat brand.
At maintenance or if a high-fat diet is working for you, just use regular mayonnaise in the sauce.
Low-Fat Low-Carb Chicken Recipes
 |
| Chicken breast marinated in lemon juice and herbs, then sauteed in a non-stick skillet. |
Chicken, with or without the skin, is also a staple on any low-carb diet. I tend to eat it almost everyday.
When you want to keep the dietary fat down so your body will burn more body fat, the easiest way to do that is to eat chicken breast instead of legs and thighs.
As you browse the web, keep an eye out for chicken breast recipes that can easily be converted into a low-fat recipe without having to make too many tweaks.
The less you have to change a recipe, the more likely you'll have success, even if it's the first time you make it.
When I first created these chicken recipes, I rant into a couple of new recipes at Low Carb Friends. They sounded simple enough to make and fit into my low-fat plan without having to modify them at all.
This was a big plus for me, so I tried both of the recipes out, and they both were delicious.
Low-Carb Chicken Recipe #1: Chicken with Chili Garlic Sauce
 |
| This low-fat low-carb Chicken with Chili-Garlic Sauce is my favorite stir-fry dish. |
The first recipe I tried was an Induction-friendly, quick-and-easy, stir-fry that used chunks of chicken breast you saute in a skillet and then season with a hot-and-spicy garlic chili sauce. It quickly became my favorite low-carb meal.
I like my chicken breast meat to have that extra-soft Chinese restaurant texture, so it isn't dry. I worked that technique into the following recipe, but you can certainly make this without using the baking soda technique if you prefer.
The original recipe called for broccoli, but I didn't like it made that way.
The broccoli hides the flavor of the garlic chili sauce on the chicken. Garlic chili sauce is available online at Amazon, and sometimes you can find it in the oriental section of your local supermarket. An oriental market would also have it.
Make sure that you get the chili-garlic type without the sugar. Thai sauces are not low-carb friendly.
If you want to add broccoli to your chicken chunks, or any other veggie for that matter, go ahead. Feel free to experiment and share what you did in the comments below.
I think green beans might work better in this dish than the broccoli did, but I would steam the vegetables first, until they are crunchy-tender, and then spread them out on a platter to keep the broccoli or green beans from overcooking while you stir-fry the chicken.
You can fold the cooked vegetables in last, or just serve them on the side like I did.
Chili-Garlic Chicken
Ingredients:- 8 oz skinless, boneless chicken breast
- onion and garlic powders
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1-1/2 teaspoons of coconut oil, olive oil, or peanut oil
- 1-1/2 tsp chili-garlic sauce
If the chicken wasn't the frozen-type (frozen breasts usually have a salt-water solution injected into them), add a tbsp of water. If they were the frozen breasts, then don't add any extra water at all. Sprinkle with the baking soda and stir well.
Cover the bowl tightly and allow the chicken to marinate for at least 2 hours, preferably more. I usually do this first thing in the morning, so the chicken will be ready to stir-fry by lunch time.
When ready to eat, heat 1-1/2 teaspoons of coconut oil in a non-stick or well-seasoned skillet until very hot. Add the chicken chunks and stir-fry until cooked through and as browned as you want them to be.
Fold in the chili-garlic sauce and stir to coat. If you are adding vegetables, fold them in last.
For those on maintenance or a high-fat diet, you can double the amount of coconut oil used to stir-fry the chicken. You can also switch out the chicken breast for boneless chicken thighs to raise the fat content of the recipe even more.
Low-Carb Chicken Recipe #2: Braised Chicken Leg Quarters
 |
| To make your chicken legs and thighs lower in fat, you'll have to use cooking methods that allow you to remove the skin easily. |
When slicing the fat, you don't have to eat just chicken breast. Latest tests ran on chicken skin have shown it to be lower in fat than originally suspected.
We eat a lot of chicken leg quarters because they are so economical here, especially in 10-pound bags, but moving to a low fat diet means you have to temporarily give up eating the crispy skin or find a different place in your diet to shave those 50 to 100 calories from.
This was extremely difficult for me to do because I love crispy chicken and turkey skin.
To solve the problem, and ditch temptation, I started collecting recipes that results in soft chicken skin instead. It made it easier to peel off and throw the skin away since I'm not fond of blubbery skin.
Since this Atkins Induction recipe has you cook the chicken right in the sauce, the chicken meat comes out quite flavorful, so it wasn't as difficult to leave the skin behind.
You could use any low-carb ketchup available in your area, or you can also purchase it online at Amazon.
If you'd rather, you can also substitute a tablespoon or two of tomato paste, but you might need to add additional sweetener to make up for the sweetness you lose from not using ketchup.
As for the cherry-vanilla flavored coke product, that might be more difficult to find. It was easily available when I created this recipe. Here, in Texas, cherry-flavored diet Coke is still easy to find, but I personally use Cherry Dr. Pepper instead of Coke because that's what I almost always have in the house.
If it's not available, you can use any flavored diet soda you like.
Another nice alternative might be to add a tablespoon or two of sugar-free Cherry Davinci syrup along with a plain Diet Coke, Pepsi, or Dr. Pepper. You could also use a diet lemon-lime, as well.
I'm thinking that a bit of Crystal Light might also work in place of the Cherry syrup but I have never tried that.
Braised Chicken Quarters
Ingredients:1/4 cup diet black-cherry vanilla coke
2 tablespoons reduced-sugar ketchup
2 teaspoons Splenda, or other sweetener
4 chicken leg quarters, separated at the joint
If you are on Atkins, maintenance, or a high-fat plan, you can brown the chicken well in a bit of coconut oil first.
In a small bowl, combine diet soda, catsup, and sweetener. Mix well. Pour into a skillet large enough to hold the chicken pieces. Add chicken and coat well.
Cover and simmer for 30 to 45 minutes, spooning the pan sauce over the chicken from time to time, and turning the pieces over occasionally, so they cook evenly.
Trick to Going Low-Fat Low-Carb
The trick to going low-fat low-carb is to look for places where you can painlessly cut the fat. Start by trimming just a little bit and then evaluate what happens.
Even the weight-loss phase of keto needs to be enjoyable and become the solid foundation for your new low-carb lifestyle.
Don't give into the temptation to cut back too much or you might lose the benefit of mindfully creating a calorie deficit.
When I take my fat intake below 60 grams a day, my weight loss stops cold! Your body needs a certain amount of dietary fat per day to be healthy, and not panic, but it's far less dietary fat than what most keto dieters think.
Spend some time experimenting to find the best amount of fat for you.
Where can i find chili-garlic sauce? Is it hot? Thanks
ReplyDelete