Diet Diaries: test driving Tim Noakes’ low-carb diet

Abigail Donnelly — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 08:41:02 +0000

I have often referred to myself as the “butter and cream girl”. I find any excuse to add a knob of butter here and a splash of cream there when I’m cooking. Recently I was at the book launch of The Real Meal Revolution and I sat next to the authors, Professor Tim Noakes and nutritionist Sally-Ann Creed, and ate delicious food prepared by Jonno Proudfoot and David Grier – fatty roast lamb and veggies dripping in butter, with tzatziki made with full-cream yoghurt. The book is a cookbook and explains the concept of eating a high-fat, low-carb diet. It advocates using all the good stuff such as butter, duck fat (I’m so glad you can buy tubs of it in Woolies now), olive oil, coconut oil and ghee.
After meeting them I was really inspired to try it to help control my blood sugar and slim down a bit. Over the last 8 days I have been so inspired and cooked something from the book each day, and I’ve had eggs and bacon nearly every day for breakfast!
For the first five days I felt a bit lethargic and nauseous now and again, but now I really do feel like I have more energy and have been sleeping soundly every night. My family has been eating three meals a day and sometimes snacking on nuts and biltong but, to be honest, I haven’t felt hungry once, only just before we are about to eat again.
The book has a really simple bread recipe that contains no carbs or flour. It’s made with ground flax seeds mixed with eggs, salt, baking powder and either olive oil or coconut oil. It’s going to be my lifesaver when I start back-to-school lunchboxes again tomorrow. We’ve also been eating lots of seed cracker breads that also contain no carbs. I learnt about a fascinating husk called psyllium in the book, which is used in the pasta recipe in the book and for the cracker breads. It absorbs a lot of liquid and binds things together. If you’re like me and think you can’t live without bread and pasta, make the bread and crackers as they really fill that gap.
Last night I made the hot cakes using coconut flour and studded them with blueberries, and today I’ll whip up a batch of chicken liver pâté. I just need to stock up on a bit more butter and cream!

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Diet Diaries: Low-carb, high-fat biscuits for keeping sugar cravings at bay

Abigail Donnelly — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 11:32:48 +0000

Ever since starting my new eating plan inspired by Professor Tim Noakes’ book The Real Meal Revolution, my blood sugar has been more stable, I have more energy and I sleep much better. The food philosophy prescribed by Tim is by no means new, but what I love about the book is that the team has made this way of eating really accessible. That being said, I still sometimes have a craving for something sweet, especially when temptation is right in front of me.

I’ve tried using the natural sweetener stevia, but I find it too concentrated and sweet. I much prefer xylitol, which is available in granules and can be used in the same ratio as sugar. I’ve had a lot of fun experimenting with recipes that follow the guidelines of the eating plan and am quite chuffed with my recipe for these low-carb, high-fat biscuits.

Instead of using wheat flour, I use a combination of coconut and almond flour, which I combine with butter and xylitol. If you prefer, you could also replace the butter with coconut butter, which lends a lovely flavour. The result is a very crumbly but delicious cookie that’s ideal for snacking on. Also try embellishing on the basic recipe by adding either ground cardamom for a slightly spiced cookie, vanilla seeds or even cocoa.

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Diet Diaries: test driving Tim Noakes’ low-carb diet

Diet Diaries: Low-carb, high-fat biscuits for keeping sugar cravings at bay