What I ‘should’ eat Wednesday

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“We’ve got work to do,” said the doctor, peering at me from behind her spectacles.

I’d only gone to the clinic to renew a prescription. But having been ‘invited’ back for a double-appointment visit, the doctor – who previously seemed quite chummy, especially when we discovered we’d frequented the same sweaty, student-filled nightclubs at Southampton Uni – suddenly turned all serious.

“Your risk of having a heart attack in the next decade is three times that of the average person,” she told me, after tapping my blood test results into the morbidity analysis app on her computer. “Three times!” I replied. ‘Wow, that’s S.O.O.N,” I thought to myself – images of the boys making their own packed lunches and reading their own bedtime stories flashing through my mind.

I was quite distressed to find out how much 40-60g of carbs really is! I've had to rethink every single meal.

Needless to say, her words scared me enough to seek help with my blood-sugar levels from a Scottish dietitian, whose boyish charm and looks were a motivating enough reason to follow his where-the-hell-are-the-carbs diet plan.

All this transpired because I had diabetes in pregnancy twice, bad enough to warrant spending months injecting insulin into my pregnant tummy. They tell you afterwards you’re at risk of developing diabetes in later life and should have a blood test every year, which I hadn’t done since LB was born.

It was on my mind, however, as my sugar levels have always behaved strangely – leading to a habit I can only describe as ‘prophylactic eating’, in an attempt to stop them crashing. Weight-wise, I’ve put on the ‘Dubai stone’ (expat weight gain is so common in Dubai it’s even got a name) and would, of course, love to shed the extra pounds – which can stop ‘pre-diabetes’, the label I now possess, from turning into full-blown diabetes.

The dietitian looked at my diet. ‘Carb-icide’ he pronounced. Then recommended I eat like a cavewoman. Berries, nuts, seeds, avocados, salmon, green veg and salad are in. Processed foods, bread, pasta, rice, even bananas are out. For added motivation, he showed me a photo of a bikini model and then emailed me a meal plan, practically devoid of carbs.

Pasta, I miss you!

Aside from spending every waking moment either shopping for food, preparing food or thinking about it, the diet is actually great – and working well (having someone tell me what to eat and when is quite handy really – plus I’m less hungry!).

But, oh, how I miss carbs. The limit at the moment is 40-60g a day – practically nothing, as I discovered when eating a supermarket wrap. I looked at the ingredients and was dismayed to see it contained 68g of carbs. A WRAP! It rapidly became an ‘unwrap’ as I ate just the filling.

So, here it is – the meal plan for Wednesday – what I ‘should’ be eating today, in all its cavewoman glory:

Breakfast, 7am
25g oats made with water, add 100ml semi-skimmed milk and 50g strawberries

Lunch, 1pm
Turkey breasts with green salad (50g cucumber, 100g lettuce, 50g green peppers, two celery sticks, 100g radishes, 2-3 whole spring onions and a half avocado)

Dinner, 7pm
A very small lean steak (optional- substitute with white fish or white meat), and 100g green beans

Snacks (Thank goodness, but don’t get too excited)
100g strawberries (10am)
50g walnuts (4pm)

Drinks, 9pm
Wine (subsitute with gin). Ok, I added this myself. It should say 6-8 glasses of water a day (boo!)

12 thoughts on “What I ‘should’ eat Wednesday”

  2. I don’t know if there’s a ‘Seoul Stone’ or not – I do much more walking here – but there should be a ‘Seoul Winter Stone’ – too cold to do anything but stay inside and cook. I actually lost quite a bit of weight initially and then gained it back – and then some- starting in January!
    The no/low carb diet looks very grim – although my mother has followed the South Beach (also very low carbs) diet and loved it. Hope you’ll be able to add more carbs in as you go along and your risk will be much lower.

    • I wondered if I should’ve explained to American readers what a ‘stone’ is, as whenever I say it to DH, he hasn’t got a clue what I’m talking about and starts joking about pebbles, etc….I think even the ‘Dubai stone’ has put on weight recently and gone up. That’s great that you get to do lots of walking in Seoul, from Spring onwards! Certainly miss walking here!

  4. Good luck! We’ve been on a low cholesterol diet here ever since January, when The Doctor found out his cholesterol was way too high and I decided I wanted to fit into my pre-kids jeans. It’s not so much cutting out carbs as eating more veg, fruit and yes – salmon and avocadoes. So, we have more fish meals and less pasta. We also gave up drinking wine during the week, which hasn’t been as bad as it sounds, and both did more exercise. I realise running isn’t really possible in the desert (!) but I do think the exercise is what nails it for me – it gives you an excuse to eat what you want occasionally as well. x

    • You’ve done really well with your running A! That’s my next step! It can be hard in the desert – ie, soon it will be too hot to run outdoors. But I’ve got no excuse as we have a gym in our compound! I’ve loaded some songs onto the Ishuffle – just need to actually make it to the gym now…

  6. Hello,
    I was wondering if you would be kind enough to share the name of your doctor please? I have been low-carving for a while and going to main-stream doctors is plain agony. I really need to find someone whom I can go to when I need one.
    Thanks

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