High Fat? I'm thinking so!

I am completely exhausted, and only moderately interested in writing this blog post. The sinus infection wiped me out and I'm still attempting to recover from it. My husband's schedule has been chaotic and I've been trying to keep up with helping him out (and attending a performance he played piano for, which made me a little sick because I was surrounded by perfume and hairspray in the audience.) The weather has been jumping up and down too, and the barometric pressure is really messing with me today. I just can't win. I'm toast.

...Except for the energy I gained from what I just ate. It's not much, but I'm choosing to dedicate it to this post.

As many of you already know, I've been eating a high protein diet with very low carbs and no sugar. It's been working very well for me. I wasn't paying attention to one important thing, though: fat. All along I've been using whole fat coconut milk, coconut oil, avocados, walnuts, fatty steaks, and so on. I have not been avoiding fat by any means, but I have not been focusing on it. Since reading all the success stories that other people have had by being on a high fat diet (mainly based on Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis,) I decided to experiment.

Last night I mixed whole fat organic coconut milk fat in with organic unsweetened sunflower seed butter (I cannot tolerate almonds or peanuts, so sunbutter is my preference.) I did this because the cans of coconut milk I ordered came with the fat separated, and no amount of shaking or stirring would fix it, so I wanted a way to use the fat. This is the result:



Coconut milk fat whips the same way that heavy cream does: it turns into "whipped cream." I didn't blend the two ingredients quite long enough for it to become a thick whipped cream, I just blended until the ingredients were not separate. The result was a super rich, creamy, desert-like texture and taste. Yum! Next time I want to try adding raw organic coco powder in as well.

I ate a little bit before I went to bed last night. I normally eat a little protein before sleeping to keep my blood sugar level stable throughout the night (hypoglycemic issue.) This did not work as well as pure protein before bed. I struggled to fall asleep because I actually gained some energy, and woke up much hungrier than normal. (My blood sugar felt okay, thankfully, because hunger usually means I'm totally zoned out, and I had the ability to focus - my stomach was actually growling, which is a sound I haven't heard in over a year.)

I ate the rest of this as my afternoon snack. Within 20 minutes of eating it, I went from dragging so hard that I could barely focus on my computer screen to feeling a current of energy beneath my tired eyes and head. I have felt very satisfied for the last hour. I didn't feel like I ate much food (so I didn't feel "full" when I was done,) but I've had no desire to eat more and I'm still feeling satisfied.

This was not my first experiment with focusing on high fat foods in my diet. Over the past 2 weeks I've stopped cutting the fat off my meat. I hate the texture of animal fat, but I've been eating it anyway. I've had whole avocados as snacks (I can't have them too often because they're starchy, so I limit to 3 a week.) I've been adding coconut oil into my tea and I've been choosing to cook with it instead of olive oil. I've felt less hungry than normal these past two weeks, and the bloating in my gut went away. I haven't lost more weight yet, but my inflammation is down, so I look slimmer.

In other words, eating high fat is complimenting my high protein diet very well. Food is more filling, satisfies for longer, gives me more energy, and has been very gentle on my delicate gut. It sure beats eating extra vegetables to feel more satisfied, which in turn bloat me and give me a bit of a sugar high because vegetables are so high in carbs! I don't know why I keep eating so many vegetables. They don't do me any favors. I just like the taste of them. Sigh.

There's a lot to know about what fat does for the body. Rather than explaining it myself, since I'm a little too tired to care to get into the details, watch this testimony. She has done some serious research (and is a nutrition major in college,) and explains why our bodies need fat in an easy-to-understand way: