My crazy acknowledges the crazy in you, you, you, and you...

People always say, I've been so busy I just did not get around to doing... I bow to my recent craziness and just have to go "hmmmmmm" whilst rocking gently in the fetal position. It's been beyond crazy busy. Work, life, winter, Comrades training all "crazied" up into the perfect storm. I remember feeling tired and grumpy last year this time, but with the extra training, we've really increased our training load significantly and life, somehow sees your busier than usual and likes to add to the load. I have had very little time to process anything. I hardly have time to think about what I eat. I am not cheating with carbs or sugar, but I am definitely nervously snacking whilst stressing. I've caught myself eating a piece of cheese just because I need to chew to stop my jaw from being clenched. I have and probably always will be a stress eater. I don't have time though to stress about it.
My emotional state is somewhat up and down on top of all this. I don't want to exaggerate but it really  feels like there is a hive of bees in my head, an endless buzzing that just don't stop.
I am an introvert in my zero state, but like many people have to excite myself up to varying degrees of extrovert-ness at work to earn my puny salary. It means that less time to recharge turns mamma-bear into a bit of a time bomb. My detonation trigger is a bit sensitive so I have to tread carefully or I blow myself up. The training definitely took a toll over the past month and I feel mildly guilty for feeling so ungrateful at times. Dammit! On top of all my stress I still have guilt to deal with as well.

So Comrades 2015 is merely 9 days away. My heart skips a beat every time I think about it. My chest is tight and I feel totally unprepared for the whole thing, but it's too late now to really verbalize what we've been through over the past 6 months. If you want to know what it feels like, get of the couch and start training for the next one. Down the rabbit hole we go...

So whilst I am happily biting off heads, making enemies of my friends. family and colleagues I decided to share my "cupcake recipe". My newest low-carb friend is definitely "Coconut Flour". In general, coconut products (flour, oil, flesh) features a lot in my pantry. I love the stuff. Coconut flour however, is a miracle in my opinion.

Toe-to-toe comparison with almond flour at first may seem a bit iffy, but in general (as a rule of thumb baking with almond flour requires a more or less 1:1 replacement of the conventional flour requirement, whilst coconut flour absorbs a lot more fluid and the replacement factor is only 1/3 of the volume). This is how I convert my old recipes. A mix of the two flours gives a very nice texture for cakes, same rule applies.

	1 Cup	1 Cup	0.33 Cup
(grams)	Coconut Flour	Almond Flour	Coconut Flour
Fat	16	56	5
Protein	16	6	5
Carbs	64	24	21
Fiber	40	12	13

Thus if you compare the second and third column, you get a better picture of the carbs your are going to have in your cupcake relative to using almond flour. Basically, don't fool yourself into thinking these flours are "free to use", they come with a carb-price tag, but you can make clever choices. To get back to my original intent, namely to share my cupcake success story, here goes:

Makes 6 cupcakes (who bakes 6 cupcakes??) I double up on the recipe and my favourite is the chocolate version, with chips of 90% Lindt mixed in with the batter. Best right from the oven or let it stand overnight. It just ages so well!

Berry cupcake-like muffins

1/3 cup coconut flour
1 tsp baking powder (I use Sally Creed's)
1 cup of frozen berries
(raspberries or.blueberries work well)
1/3 cup erythritol
(I find 1/3 cup is slightly too sweet for me so fill the measuring cup only about 85-90%, but this is totally up to you)
3 eggs
1/4 high fat cream (heavy cream or whipping cream works; if you are out of those you can use buttermilk plus a bit butter or even cottage cheese very flexible, but the cream is tops)

Instructions:
Mix everything together in a deep bowl until well mixed.
TaDa!

I use Woolies' foil cupcake casings - nice and strong and releases easily. You can fill the casing to almost the top.

Bake for about 15-20 minutes at 180 degrees C (test after 15 minutes if set, do not over bake it dries out)

Options:

The Chocolate Cupcake Version

Instead of berries add 3 heaped tbsp of cocoa (don't be shy), and mix away. Easiest recipe ever.
And I make it double.

I also added a few chips of 90% Lindt to each cupcake after I let it stand a while to let the batter thicken, but this is totally optional. Just fun to discover a tiny bit of "crunch" whist eating. The chocolate version is texture wise fantastic. I love it!

If you want to make a child friendly chocolate cupcakes version (not a muffin) - for decoration use the cream cheese icing from the carrot cake (add cocoa if you want chocolate flavour).

Ah Carrot Cake....

Do not judge me please, but despite my total commitment to low-carbing and my conviction to never go back to wheat, I do miss some favourite treats. Cake is one thing I miss - not pasta or bread, just cake. Ever since we discovered "Crave Cakes" via Jackson's Food Market in Bryanston, I've realized that life as a low-carber is not necessarily the same thing as life without cake! But I know one has to be careful of the slipper slope of eating sweet stuff. The sweet addiction can easily creep back into one's life. 

We are precariously close to Comrades 2015, and running mileage every week that can however justify a bit of high calories. So, I've poke around in my favourite recipes and reverse engineered a carrot cake recipe and I am sharing my success! It was divine.

Banting (LC) Carrot Cake

Reverse engineered by Isabel 

Ingredients:

200ml Macadamia oil

200-300ml Erythritol[1]

Flour requirement (total volume 375ml)[2]:

250 ml almond flour

75 ml coconut flour

50 ml flaxseed flour

500 ml grated carrots (about 4-5 medium carrots)

200 ml finely chopped pecan nuts

15 ml baking powder

6 ml bicarbonate of soda

15 ml ground cinnamon

7.5 ml ginger

2 ml salt

3 large eggs, beaten

Cream cheese icing:

1 ½ packs of full fat cream cheese, room temperature

60 ml Erythritol

Few drops of vanilla

10-12 whole pecans for decoration

Method

Pre-heat oven to 170-180°C

Beat together the oil and sweetener. Mix dry ingredients and add half to the sugar-oil mixture and mix well. Add the remaining dry ingredients, alternately with the beaten eggs.

Add grated carrots and chopped nuts and mix well.

Spoon the mixture into a loose-bottomed tin (20-23cm). With this recipe I recommend using baking paper to line the tin bottom and sides. It works like a charm. Bake for about 50 minutes, I check from 35 minutes as baking time varies depending on oven type. Allow to cool and whip the cream cheese until fluffy, adding in the sweetener and vanilla. Pipe or spread to decorate. Enjoy!

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[1] Erythritol or Xylitol – I prefer erythritol; quantity is to taste (test the batter) I used 200 ml

[2] I replaced the flour based on volume; experiment with different ratios of e.g. coconut, hazelnut, almond flour

Where we at...

Qualification for the big day came early this year. We decided to run the Ottosdal night race as our first marathon for this year. Partly because the pressure is on to tick the box and the timing was right for us in terms of our planning for the next 3 months. Nervous and and all, we packed our car and headed to Ottosdal. The strange thing about the race being so late in the day, was the constant weirdness about what to eat and what not to eat. I stayed away from heavy protein and had eggs for lunch. My current go-to meal for pre-race eating is scrambled eggs, fattened up with cream and some bacon and mushrooms. But basically eggs. This seems to be the most compatible food before running long races - for me anyway. We then proceeded to run a full marathon without carrying anything to eat. No sugary, starchy foods. Not even nuts or biltong or Lindt 90% dark chocolate. As one can see from my photo, I still have adequate fat stores to maintain me for the nearly four and three quarters hours of race time, but jokes aside, I still find this the most amazing thing. Not having to carry 1k of GUs with you when you run a marathon! Even when I did get hungry, it was not intense and it also goes away again shortly. Hunger is fleeting and then your body just switches to find the fat stores and start chugging away at it.

We finished the race significantly faster than our previous qualifier (last year March) and I believe the hard work at the track is starting to show. Night races are an adventure though and I am not sure I'd run this particular marathon again. The organisation and atmosphere is fantastic and I'd gladly do the half marathon to see if I can do a PB, but the marathon, not easily. It is just too long. It is draining running in the dark for starters. It could also just be that heck, running a marathon is tough. Not counting the Ultra's, I've now run 6 marathons in my running career. One of which was the Great Wall Marathon (adventure marathon), 2 Wally's, Jackie Gibson, Deloitte and now Ottosdal, but I was quite surprised about how nervous I was pre-race. Maybe a bit of humility is a good thing. Running a marathon (or longer) remains a big deal. I read that only 0.5% of all Americans will ever run a marathon in their life. That is quite a bit lower than I expected. I am sure it's a bit higher in SA but probably 1% of South Africans fall in this category. So even when I feel, somewhat defeated by the race, I remind myself regularly that what we are doing is special. Most people don't complete a marathon - ever and here I am, non-athletic type, running marathons for training runs for the Comrades! I sometimes have to pinch myself to remind me that I actually am in the club. So even if I am still a slow-poke, I am out there on the road, plodding along to the finish line. Always happy to finish.

While the running is a work in progress, which includes a lot of suffering, I am also still discovering how amazing the LCHF lifestyle is for running . I truly believe it's made all the difference for me. I wish some days though it was not so controversial. I thank Prof Noakes for highlighting this option to me. I've never had stable a blood sugar before and for nearly a year now I've not had a single blood sugar incident. Not one! I've never been this satisfied with my eating either. If a craving hits, there is always an option to deal with it. Nearly a year later, we are still Banting strongly and I have not eaten any wheat, corn, rice, pasta, potatoes or bread in all this time. Nor have I ever been "tested" or tempted. It's just been so easy. I've embraced this lifestyle and live it to the full. New recipes and discoveries await you if you are interested in changing. New products are coming on the market as the popularity grows. Soon we will be like Sweden I hope, where this diet is accepted and not regarded as weirdos.

My latest accomplishment was the amazing lemon meringue pie - recipe in the latest Lose It magazine. Truly, truly amazing. No kidding, this was the best desert I've eaten pre- and post-Banting. I still allow myself a treat - but it always is sugar free and low-carb. There are so many good alternatives and very creative people out there that even if you miss something a lot, there are really good alternatives to consider. So my sugar-free, low carb lifestyle is here to stay and I am lovin' it.

Banting friendly baked rainbow cheesecake recipe

Our training group, the Running Junkies, had our year end braai last night. We have quite a few runners in the group that either lives low carb or flirted with the concept. Usually, I am very quiet about my life choice of living low carb, but I am often surprised about how many people are living this way and also hearing about peoples experiences. We had "Banting Friendly" broccoli salad ("faux" potato salad) and I baked my own version of low carb cheesecake for dessert. For the fun of it I made it in rainbow colours - vanilla flavoured.

A photograph of the only slice left after last night's outing to show off the colours.

The recipe has developed from my own test kitchen and so far none of my variations have flopped. The only difference is the density and the fluffiness. This particular version is very light and baked cheesecake remains one of my favourite things. Like whiskers on kittens and rainbows :-)

So by popular demand - maybe that's a bit over the top, but by special request from one or two people in the running group, herewith my version of a low carb, most heavenly dessert, because it is holiday and I love cheesecake.

Ingredients

For the crust:

• 100 ml of almond flour
• 50 ml of desiccated coconut (a little extra for sprinkling on the wet crust is nice)
• 2-3 tbsp of chopped almonds or pecans (finely chopped - optional)
• Melted butter (about 1/3 cup or enough to make a "wet" paste)
• Optional: cinnamon and a little bit of sweetener

For the filling:

• 2 pkg cream cheese, room temperature (Philadelphia is my choice)
• 1/3 cup sweetener of choice - I use Suki or pure Xylitol NOTE: I also start with very little and then add the sweet stuff to taste. My taste buds are very sensitive to sweetness so I tend to be light on the "sugary" taste. My advice is that you taste it and add more or less as required.
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 tub sour cream
• 1 tub heavy cream
• 1 tub full cream cottage cheese (smooth)
• 4 Large eggs
• 1 each of liquid food colors (blue, yellow, green, red)

Directions

1. Preheat oven 180°C. Before you get started with the crust, make sure your springform pan is water tight. Do this by carefully wrapping a few layers of foil on the outside of the pan, so water cannot get into the pan. Be careful not to rip the foil or water will get into your cake and ruin it!
2. Mix the dry ingredients for the  crust together (teaspoons of sweetener and cinnamon optional) together in a bowl. Then mix in butter with a soft spatula or your fingers. It is supposed to be very wet don't panic. 
3. Press the wet mixture into the prepared springform pan. It needs to be very thin and requires a bit of patience to get the entire surface covered in the soft stuff.  You can add the extra coconut to the surface to help you with the process, but in the end you should have an even, flat crust.
4. Bake the crust for 10 minutes on a low oven rack - it burns quickly keep and eye on it, it should start to brown. Remove from the oven, and allow to cool while you are preparing the filling mixture. Turn oven temperature down to 150°F.
5. To make filling, cut cream cheese into pieces and add to a mixing bowl - it is easier if the cream cheese is at room temperature - I sometimes spin it in the microwave a few seconds to soften. Whip until smooth, maybe 4 minutes. Then add sweetener, and continue to beat until smooth again, another 4-5 minutes. Next, add vanilla, salt, sour cream, cottage cheese and heavy cream; beat until smooth. Add in 1 egg at a time, beating briefly between each egg.
6. Once the mixture is well combined and very smooth, divide evenly into 6 dishes. Add food color to each dish to get the desired colors. (Red = drops of red, Orange = drops yellow + drops red, Yellow = drops yellow, Green = drops green, Blue = drops blue, Violet = drops red + drops blue). If you feel like a normal cheese cake skip this part and just go straight to pouring the entire batch of the tasty mixture into your pan. 
7. Pour colored mixtures into cooled crust. Start with red filling, and slowly pour it right in the center of the crust. Continue to build the rainbow by pouring the fillings directly in the center. This will create layers so that each slice has some of each color.
8. Place cheesecake into a baking dish on oven rack, and fill baking dish with boiling water about 2-2.5cm up the side of the springform pan.
9. Bake at 150°C in the water bath for 1 hour and 40 minutes to 1 hour 50 minutes or until set but still jiggles slightly in the middle. If cheesecake begins to brown on top, cover loosely with foil during last 5 minutes of baking.
10. Turn off the oven, open the oven door a crack, and let the cake cool in the oven for 1 hour. The slow cooling will help it not crack. If you are in a hurry or it cracked already, just put it in the fridge directly from the oven. This usually helps it to set quickly.
11. You can loosely wrap the dish in foil so the foil isn't touching the top of the cake and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving. 
12. When ready to remove cake, run a clean narrow knife around the edge of the dish, remove the foil, unlock the spring, and carefully lift off the outer ring.

A cutting tip: use dental floss to pre-cut the cake before serving - you get a clean cut. That is if you don't have one of those fancy cake cutter wire thingy's. Note to self, buy one for myself ;-)

Enjoy!

Keep calm and eat low carb.

Keep Calm and Eat LCHF Chocolate Cheesecake

Many people who start on the journey of removing sugar, and carbohydrates from their diet initially lose a lot of weight and then stall. At this point, most people start researching or questioning their options and we lose our calm. Confusion reigns, because there is absolutely no clear answer, you have to make up your own mind and take a leap of faith to some degree.
I know it feels overwhelming. But KEEP CALM is the best advice I have. The information overload is huge. Doubts and fears are what our media-based society thrives on. It is more newsworthy to state in bold letters: Prof X says Tim Noakes is wrong again. The journalists report on sensation. Just as much as people use media to get their message out, it is very seldom balanced and fair. The balance and fairness factor is up to YOU. So Bant away and keep calm. If you made the choice to change your lifestyle based on health reasons like me, remember that those reasons are still valid and true. Try to avoid the sensation media, don't debate your choice with acquaintances, and even family. People will not change their mind unless they are ready and your debating skills will not make a difference to their state of mind.

So for those tough days, when life gets you down, bake Banting friendly cheesecake and enjoy it smugly while people criticize and argue about our lifestyle :-)

Here's my Choc Cheesecake Keep Calm Recipe

For the base:
125g butter, melted
3 tbls of almonds, chopped
about 1/2 cup of coconut flour (I add to the melted butter until it has the right consistency to press into the base)

For the filling:
2 packets of full fat cream cheese (room temperature)
200 ml cream
1 tub of sour cream (creme fresh)
1 tub of full fat cottage cheese
4 eggs
2 slabs of 90% Lindt dark chocolate, melted
75 ml of xylitol
2 packets of stevia powder (optional)

Prepare a container big enough to fit your pan into. You will bake the cake in a water bath. I double up on a foil cover for my pan, two layers of foil on the outside of the pan to prevent water from spoiling your cake.

For the base I melt the butter and add the flour and mix in the nut bits. I use a round spring form pan and line the bottom and sides with baking paper. Press the buttered flour into a nice uniform base and blind bake at 160degC. The base should just start browning. Remove and let it cool.

For the filling, mix the cream cheese until smooth and creamy, add cream slowly followed by the sour cream and cottage cheese.  Once all is nicely creamy start adding the eggs one by one. Mix the stevia and xylitol in and then slowly pour in the chocolate whilst mixing. It should stiffen slightly.

Pour into your your pan on top of your crust. Then put the pan into the water bath (protected by foil) and then bake for 90 to 100 minutes at 160C.

Take out the cake and put it in the fridge overnight for the best chocolate (mouse) cheesecake EVER.

Enjoy!

   

No diary for me; a thought-penny in the Banting pool

Recently, on the Real Meal Revolution website, there was quite an uproar about diary products being moved to the "Orange" list (although it was moved back after the uproar).  People on Banting sites were panicking and fretting. It made me realize, that many people are still looking for a formula that they can blindly follow. It was one of the first things I learnt when reading RMR and then the Stephen Phinney books. No one person's diet will be the same. Our bodies are so different. That is why we do have some healthy people able to eat a lot of carbs without the same challenges as the rest of us. There are genetic variations and we just have to accept that not everybody is the same. And as such, we all have to deal with our own quirks. For me, eating Banting or LCHF is not a recipe. It's something that you should feel comfortable with and understand the basics. Some lucky ones, usually men, find Banting easy and they lose weight and feel great overnight, with minimal effort.

However, many people "struggle" with the "how to", the "appetite control", the "no snacking principle" and the weight loss remains slow or elusive. Banting as a lifestyle does not fix our "bad" eating habits or our stress disorders. It may help us re-learn to listen to our bodies better, but as a rule, this still requires you as an individual to apply your mind. I am a stress eater for example, sometimes, I just feel like eating, especially when I am stressed at work. I have improved dramatically on Banting. I can generally say that I am much more in control of my cravings than I used to be. Before I switched to I couldn't eat a meal without CRAVING sugar afterwards. When I had to deal on top of that, with my sugar addiction, it became a spiral of hypoglycemic events.

Today, I have no issues with not eating sugar, or potatoes, or rice, or pasta or bread. I find eating this way easy, but I have mentally struggled with the slower than expected weight loss. I have researched this of course and found several good reasons that would make me a "slow" loser.

a) My stress levels are very high, I work in a very high stress environment (11 hours a day)
b) I have no thyroid, thus is medically dependent on my Eltroxin dose to be correct
c) We easily eat too much protein
d) Nuts are dense in calories and should be used sparingly rather than a snack when you are peckish
e) I have tested my ketones on and off dairy: I have a severe response to dairy. When using cheese and milk products, my blood ketones are significantly lower than without these products. So, although I don't pick up weight when using dairy, it hampers my weight loss significantly.

We are also consciously trying to not eat too much protein. If I am hungry, I consciously try to fill up with more fat (butter) rather than more protein. And cutting out cheese for the moment, makes my options a bit more bland, although veggies are still

This is not a diet, this is a lifestyle.

I don't want to lose a lot of weight, but while I am still not quite at my goal, I am removing dairy from my daily intake, and using it as a treat; as with nuts and fruit. So technically it's moved to my personal orange list - occasional treat. My thought-penny is thus that if you don't lose weight as you expected, look at what you are eating and why you are eating. These questions are important and may highlight where the blockage in you weight loss is.

Also, don't let your weight loss expectation overshadow how good it is to eat like this. Real FOOD, no gimmicks from people who like to get in on the money. Buy the basics and let your mind fly. Be creative - it is fun and keeps you from snacking.

PS: I've even converted my bread recipe to a non-diary version. Recipe to follow.

Worth a good listen - Prof Ken Sikaris on cholesterol et al

In my ongoing quest to learn more and better understand the science of LCHF dieting, I have become quite the YouTube fan as well. So many conferences are being held that we are not able to attend and now we don't have an excuse anymore. I am fine with not always understanding the technicalities of all the medical stuff, but some things I am trying to internalize quite well in order to be sure I can discuss these things logically when challenged by my GP. The information is out there.

Although I got the basic understanding re the cholesterol issue, mostly from my readings thus far, I still felt a bit "iffy" on the how to discuss this with my GPs. I am still being told by my GPnthat my total cholesterol is dangerous and too high. What I have learnt, and please listen to this video, is that the tests and interpretation thereof is out of date. I now know what to test for, and what it means! I have always had "high" total cholesterol, but have never taken drugs, my gut has always been that there are too many conflicting discussions without conclusion. I have learnt, that doctors are just humans and few of them question what they were taught. I have no qualms about my beliefs. LCHF is the right way to go for me - apart from my medical history, I also think it is glaringly the better way to live. No sugar for me thanks. Bring on the eggs and butter.