LCHF pikelets

This is a recipe I developed yesterday, but didn't get around to cooking and eating until today.  The mixture thickened considerably overnight. I needed to use up some dodgy sour cream and I remembered seeing a recipe somewhere on the web that uses sour cream and eggs to make pancakes.  Of course when I wanted to find it I couldn't.  I did find a similar one using cream cheese.  This is what I did:

LCHF pikelets

300ml sour cream
6 eggs
4 tablespoons psyllium husk.

Beat all ingredients together and fry in butter.  Put small dollops in a frying pan, cook until golden on one side and then flip.  They will be a little delicate, so flip with care. Fry until golden on the other side and then serve.  The mixture will initially be quite runny.  The longer you leave it the more it will thicken up.

I had both a savoury and a dessert version.  For the savoury version I made some homemade pesto and spread it on top of the pikelet along with avocado slices and tomato slices.

Pesto

Handful or two of basil leaves
tablespoon of grated Peccorino cheese
2 -3 garlic cloves
squeeze of lemon juice
splash of olive oil
2 tablespoons of pine nuts.

Roughly chop with a knife or mortar and pestle til it is at the consistency you like.  I like it chunky.  Just adjust the flavours to suit your palate.  I like mine pretty garlicky.  Fresh basil pesto is sublime.

The dessert version I had later in the day, so the pikelets were cold from having been in the fridge.
I had some chia pudding in the fridge already.....

Chia Pudding

To two tablespoons of Chia seeds add coconut milk, vanilla and cinnamon.  Leave to thicken in the fridge overnight.  How much coconut milk/cream depends on what variety you use.  Chia significantly increase in size.  My kids call them fish eggs.  You will need to experiment, but about a cup should be enough for two tablespoons of seeds.

To the Chia pudding I added whipped cream that had been flavoured with decaf coffee and vanilla, and ever so slightly sweetened with stevia.  The decaf coffee was brewed and I had it waiting in ice trays in the freezer for just such occasion.  Coffee flavoured whipped cream is also divine.  A gentle grate of dark chocolate into the coffee cream can also be an amazing addition.  I didn't do that tonight as I thought teaming it with the chai pudding would be good enough.

Savoury or sweet the sour cream pikelets were delicious and definitely a great LCHF recipe.

New figures

Following on from yesterday's post I decided to take it a bit further and redo my figures from day 1.

There has been a bit of a change and a significant loss of fat.  It would be nice to record that, before I hit Easter and break the diet.

On day one I compared my waist and hip measurements.  They came in at a ratio of 0.9.  The ideal for women is less than 0.8.  With a waist measurement of 89 cm and a hip measurement of 105.5 cm my ratio is sitting at 0.84.  That is a big improvement.

I also redid my lean body weight calculations.
On day 1 I had a body fat percentage of 33.7% or 26.6 kg giving me a lean body mass of 52.4 kg.

The ideal body fat range for a woman of my age (41-50) is 22%-28%.

Today I worked out that my body fat is 28.19% so I am sitting just a smidge outside the ideal range. That equates to 20.72 kg fat.

I worked it our like this:
Waist = 89 cm = 35 inches = 40.46 (according to the chart in Protein Power)
Hip    = 105.5 cm = 41.5 inches = 29.33 (according to the chart in Protein Power)
height = 175 cm = 68.5 inches = 41.6 ( according to the chart in Protein Power)

(40.46+29.33)-41.60 =28.19%

73.5 kg x 28.19% = 20.72 kg

73.5 kg - 20.72 kg = 52.78 kg lean body mass.

52.78 kg = 116.36 pounds

116.36/78 = 1.49 = 149 = 67.6 kg
116.36/72 = 1.62 = 162 = 73.5 kg

So my healthy weight range is 67.6 kg - 73.5 kg.  This has me sitting right on top of my healthy weight range.

At 116.36 pounds of lean body mass I can eat 70 g of protein / day. (116.36 x 0.6 = 70)  Divided by three meals that is about 23 g / meal.  Not that I have been particularly tracking my protein intake.  At a guess I'd say I have been going over that.

Finally, I shall compare BMI, not that I placed much stock in that measurement.
Day 1 my BMI was 25.
Today it is 24.  The site suggests a healthy weight range of 57 - 76 kg.  That is quite a big range really.

Come back wagon!

Yep I was naughty again this week.  I was presented with a piece of chocolate, a slice of Toblerone to be exact and it was in my mouth and melting deliciously before I even knew what i was doing.  So I ran with it and decided to enjoy it.  I could easily have had more too, but no more was offered.....luckily.

My guess before I even weigh and measure is that I have put on weight this week.  I still crave sweet stuff, chocolate in particular and find I am probably eating more than I should in order to distract myself from the sweet desires.  Perhaps if I move towards some muscle building exercises I might have more control over my weight.  I am still being extremely good with avoiding starching carbohydrates but suspect I am eating too much protein, and maybe too much dairy.  I am in two minds about dairy and trying to decide where I will go with it after Easter.  Do I go more paleo based and less high fat based and see if it is the dairy that is making my body retain weight, or do I carefully map and measure my specific carbohydrate,protein and fat needs verses actual intakes?

For the next few weeks I'll ease up on myself while I ponder these things.  I feel that the diet is close to being right, I just haven't quite nailed it yet.  Maybe it's the appetite caused by breastfeeding and waking several times throughout the night, but at week eight,
still wanting to eat between meals and still craving sweet carbs is a bit of a worry.  I had hoped that I had put in the hard yards and should be benefiting from my abstinence by now. Maybe it's the small amounts of fruit or the small amount of sugar in the soy milk which are keeping the sweet meters active. At any rate I need to take stock and decide where to go from here. Perhaps I need to read a bit more.......

Weigh in for the end of week 8:
weight 73.5 kg
waist 89 cm
ribs 87 cm
hips 105 cm

This is the first time that I have created a chart in word. I could probably make the losses look more impressive if I changed the values on the vertical axis, but I am a bit technologically challenged.  I might have a play another day.

That's better... always nice to learn something new, especially when you can work it our for yourself.

Next week is week 9. The last week of school for term 1 and then we start the term break.  Easter falls right in the middle of the term break and I will be going away for a week when I will be at the mercy of whatever I get fed by the people I am staying with.  That gives me exactly two weeks left of me being in control and then I leave the diet to rest until I get back and we have celebrated Steve's birthday in early May.  It will be really interesting to see where I fall on the graph in one month's time.