- Drum stick
- Cucumber- remove the centre so that it does not get soggy
- Cheese
- Cherry tomatoes
- Frozen peach slices
- Yoghurt with muesli and frozen berries
Water is key!
Day 1 of 5 lunch ideas
- Cheese and baby marrow egg muffins
- Yoghurt with muesli and frozen berries for snack time
- Grapes
- Cucumbers
- Cherry tomatoes
Water is key!
Spicy Pilchards
The one thing I have come to appreciate about Banting is that you must keep your meals simple. Keep to greens then pull your hair over the protein and fat choices. You are likely to stay with the program and you will condition your mind to follow your action.
I have always been a simple cook who enjoys flavours. In the spirit of affordable Banting options I present to you my pilchards recipe, which I hope you will enjoy as I do.
You will require:
- 1 can of pilchards in sauce
- Butter
- 1/2 onion thinly sliced
- 1 tsp fresh garlic or use 1-2 garlic cloves
- Crushed chillies to season
- Himalayan salt to season
Simply,
- Open the can and rinse out all that sauce.
- On medium heat, fry the onion and garlic in butter. You can be generous with that butter, it makes a great sauce. We are banting after all.
- Add chillies to your liking
- When the onion is soft, add pilchards and season with salt.
- For those who use dairy, you may add a splash of cream and simmer for at least 2min for a nice gravy.
Plate your pilchards, serving them with veggies of choice.
Happy Banting!
Spinach and Mushroom Omelette
You will need:
- 1/4 cup Minced Meat
- 1 cup Spinach
- 1/4 Onion finely chopped
- 1/2 tsp garlic
- 3 Mushrooms- sliced
- Salt and pepper. You may use herbal salt
- 1 1/2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese
- 2-3 eggs
- 2 Tbsp butter
- Slice red, yellow and green peppers (optional)
Prepare
- Wash and dry the spinach removing excess water.
- Slice the mushrooms and chop the onion
- In a bowl, beat the eggs, and season with salt, and pepper.
Method
- Melt a spoon of butter in a small pan over medium heat.
- Add onion, garlic and mined meat, frying for 10-15 mins
- Season with salt and pepper.
- Add spinach, mushrooms and peppers (optional) and cook for further 3mins.
- Remove from heat
- Add butter over medium heat, cook the egg mixture about 3 minutes, until partially set.
- Sprinkle parmesan over egg
- Add minced meat mixture reducing heat to low, and continue cooking 2 to 3 minutes, or to desired doneness.
Happy Banting!
Butternut salad with apple cider dressing
I love salad simply because it makes for easy meals and affords you an opportunity to mix and match variations of the same meal.
I use leftovers and all kinds of things to prepare my salads and keep myself sustained during my meat free bant. Good fats are proving very reliable and keeping me satiated all day that dinner is usually small meals. I also add a lot of nuts and seeds to my diet and always have eggs for protein.
Tonight I had steamed butternut and butter fried mushroom salad.
You will need:
- Rocket leaves and watercress
- Yellow peppers
- Cherry tomatoes
- Green beans
- Butter fried mushrooms
- Feta cheese
- Pumpkin seeds
- 1/4 cup cubed butternut
For the vinaigrette you will need:
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 1/4 cup raw apple cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1-2 tablespoons raw honey, as needed for sweetness
- 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- salt and pepper, to taste
Method
For the vinaigrette, simply combine all of the ingredients and blend for 3-5 min.
Adjust flavor to taste, if necessary. For best flavor, allow the dressing to marinate for at least 30 minutes before serving over your favorite greens.
Store leftovers in the fridge for up to a week, and shake well before serving each time.
Meanwhile layer the salad ingredients on a plate and sprinkle seeds then drizzle the vinaigrette over your salad and enjoy!
Happy Banting!
Pizza Friday
It’s Day 1 of 40 Meat Free Banting and we kick off with a cauliflower pizza.
You will need:
- 1 head cauliflower-grated
- 1 egg
- Mushrooms- sliced
- Baby marrows-sliced
- Peppers-sliced
- Cherry tomatoes- sliced, and
- 3 cups mozzarella cheese grated
- Salt & pepper
- Parsley (optional)
- 1 cup sundried tomatoes
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1 cup fresh basil
- 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- Baking sheet
Method
For Base
- Pre-heat your oven on 180 degrees
- Grate the cauliflower and place it in microwave for 10min.
- Drain the cauliflower using a clean dish kitchen towel.
- Place the drained cauliflower in a bowl adding egg, 1-1/2cup of cheese and season with a bit of salt.
- Knead until doughy and flatten on a baking sheet layered on tray.
- Bake until golden or for 10 min on 180 degrees setting.
For tomato pesto and toppings
- Blend sundries tomatoes, garlic, basil and season
- Add parmesan cheese to mixture.
- Cover base with sauce layering your pizza with mushrooms, baby marrow slices, yellow peppers and cherry tomatoes
- Season with salt and pepper
- Add mozzarella cheese and parsley
- Bake for 15-20 min until golden melted cheese.
Happy Banting!
Avo and vanilla smoothie
I sometimes have to start my day at 3am, and on those days it becomes difficult to plan in the evening because I arrive too tired to even think.
By the time I’m hungry, I’m in a meeting so long or onsite where magwinya are served with all kinds of bad foods.
This has proven itself as a great option not only for endurance athletes, but also for anyone who is struggling to control their appetite or weight.
I last up to between 8 hours without wanting food when I drink this. The fat is an appetite suppressant and keeps me feeling full for longer whilst providing me with the right fuel, keeping me energized.
You will need:
- 2-3 raw eggs
- 50g butter
- 50ml cream
- 50g coconut oil
- optional – add avocado, fresh or frozen berries, almond nut butter, 1 tsp moringa powder, cinnamon
- Vanilla extract
- for extra sweetness you can also add xylitol or stevia or coconut sugar
Directions
Simply add all ingredients to blender and drink up!
Happy Banting!
Too much fat while Banting?
Lauren Aaliyah Kolia, like many, was under the impression that when banting the Tim Noakes way, there was no upper limit on fat.
Armed with her 70:20:10 ratio for fat:protein:carbs (FPC), eating off the green list and keeping carbs under 25g per day, her Banting journey was going well.
Recently she repeatedly experienced advice that;
“If weightloss stalls we should consider that we may be eating too much fat.”
Today, we seek to clarify this question of too much fat. Can we really be eating too much fat?
Ingrid Coetzee whom we fondly know as Ingz, or Ingrid Berry, is voice behind Carb-killer-fat-killer where she engages us on the world of LCHF. I encourage you to check out her Facebook page, she offers a much needed and simplified science to LCHF while supporting people on their journeys offering tips and insights.
She has agreed to help address Lauren’s fat question.
Ingrid explains that the LCHF follows the “insulin model of obesity theory”. This theory says that:
- insulin is the fat storage hormone,
- insulin is excreted in response to ingestion of carbohydrate,
- excessive ingestion of carbohydrate leads to excessive production of insulin,
- over production of insulin leads to diminished capacity of the body to process the carbs, which in turn leads to higher amounts of insulin … This is the vicious cycle of insulin resistant people.
Must know facts about LCHF: 1. CARBS make you fat. Dietary fat does not.
2. The cycle of carb and insulin is one which results in exaggerated rising and falling of blood sugars. The dramatic drop in blood sugars makes us very hungry and this is why we need to eat the right foods.
Ingrid explains that the excessive hunger is further exacerbated by the fact that the carbs play havoc with our appestat (the part of the brain which controls appetite).
Most of us will know the amazement we have felt at others “controlling the amount they eat” because we’ve been caught for many years in the crazy insatiable binge cycle.
The key to LCHF is the high fat intake. And the reason it’s key is because its the component that switches the appestat mechanism back into gear.
It’s the thing that in MOST people causes a self regulation of dietary intake. If you’re having enough fat, and you’re learning to listen to your body it is almost impossible to overdo the fat. It takes some getting used to and everyone is terrified of the process to begin with. We’ve been brainwashed overtime into believing that fat is bad and carbs are good.
This doesn’t mean drink fat or add it at every change you get, it means cook with it and eat foods high in the right fats to remain satiated.
In Banting, we talk about listening to your body, for most of us with dysfunctional apstats, we don’t even know when we had had enough portions. It becomes difficult to listen to your body. With a healthy apstat, we are able to truly understand our bodies.
However, there is a small number of the population who’s appestat doesn’t heal. For those people it’s more tricky. And yes they can overdo the fat. But, they are in the minority.
Dr Stephen Phinney speaks of the four phases of a well formulated ketogenic diet. … so in the “adaptation phase” for instance he suggests that 50% of your energy is going to be derived from your BODY fat, and 25% from dietary fat. By the time you get to maintenance, it’s 70% from dietary fat and none from body fat.
Phinney suggests that in the weight loss phase some dietary fat restriction is necessary. The caveat Ingrid puts on that is that (as she said above) for most people taking plenty dietary fat, it is in fact self-regulating. So unless you’re one of the minority whose body doesn’t re-engage the appestat, then relax. Eat your fat and enjoy!
The only remaining question then (which she gets asked often) … what happens if you overdo the fat?
We know excess carb gets stored as fat and circulates in the blood stream in the form of triglycerides. But where does the excess fat go? It’s not stored as fat (of that we are fairly confident). Well, my understanding is two-fold. It either gets stored as KETONE energy (mega super tanker storage system in the body) or it gets excreted. That’s pretty much it.
Take home message: if you’re stalled at losing, maybe you’ve moved into maintenance mode. You might need to temporarily pare it back so that the ketone energy is derived from your own fat cells, rather than the lard.
The studies to date about the saturated fats being harmless (in most cases) are referring to the amounts that people NORMALLY eat. The BPC and Fat Bomb eaters are usually exceeding this ‘normal amount’ substantially by thinking that they need to eat abnormal amounts of fat. For most Banters, they are still trying to repair their appestats, so they do need to control the input of fat for that reason. They shouldn’t restrict good nutrition by eating too much fat, and skipping meals. Nutrient density is highly important in the longer run.
On a recent Brad Brown podcast with Prof Noakes he talks about people on restricted carbs who are not losing weight, and he says “it is then because you are overeating fat and then you also have to count the fat calories or fat grams”.
I have met so many new banters who think we drink fat at every chance we get. Many will use BPC (bulletproof coffee) to try and manipulate the bant. Let’s make this clear friends
- Banting is CLEAN EATING, this means we eat clean, low carb, high fat(good fats) food.
- It’s a science that when done correctly, heals your body from your poor choices.
- Plan for at least 6months of good choices and body healing before you expect weight loss. Just tell yourself, “I’m healing my body not dieting”
- Eat only from Green list without over compensating fat! And only add orange list items once after every six days (once per week). This way you plan for your weekends and not get thrown off course.
- Trust your body to heal itself.
- Don’t skip meals, eat a good breakfast until you are satiated. A typical breakfast of 2 eggs, 1/2 avo, protein of choice cooked in butter or coconut oil should keep you satiated for 6-8hrs.
- For breakfast, eat foods that don’t give you a false sense of fullness first. Foods like, avo, coconut oil, butter, animal fat satisfy you longer.
- Don’t under eat, many people over consume fat, others drinking BPC and losing essential nutrients from vegetables.
- Just cook with the right fats and eat balanced meals. Your dinner should be 2 cups of green list greens and palm size protein. Don’t overlook the veggies.
- Never snack. You may not be needing lunch, for most of us this requires a mental adjustment. You may think it’s hunger when in fact it’s ghost hunger. Drink some water
- Drink water only when thirsty and pink salt water when feeling dizzy or with joint discomfort.
- Once per week, eat from the orange list and never do red. This helps you plan those difficult weekends. You could plan one replica meal per week (on weekends), but try and keep clean until you reach goal weight.
- Cut out the dairy from your menu. Focusing all your energy on vegetables and cooking with good fats.
Lastly, try and remain on the green list without interruption so that your body can heal itself. This is not a diet, it’s a lifestyle of good nutritional choices.
A big thanks to Ingrid Coetzee…
Happy Banting!
Cheese egg muffins
Next to bacon, cheese egg muffins are a banters best friend. They are functional and make great lunch ideas for those who do lunch.
These cheese egg muffins are a solution to hectic weekdays, when you don’t have time (or any desire) to stand at the stove and make scrambled eggs for breakfast. Bake a batch, put them in a Ziploc bag in the freezer, and just microwave one at a time when you need them. No defrosting necessary!
Serve with some avocado, mushrooms and bacon. Whatever your preference, give them a try.
You will need
- 10 large eggs
- 1/4 teaspoon salt (NOTE: some folks have commented that the addition of the salt makes these too salty, so feel free to omit it or decrease the amount!)
- pepper
- 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
Method
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Thoroughly spray miniature muffin pan with cooking spray.
- In a large measuring cup or bowl, whisk together eggs, salt, and pepper.
- Pour egg mixture into prepared pan, filling cups about ⅔ full.
- Optional: You can fry diced bacon or mince, parsley, onion and garlic. You add a spoon full of this mixture into the egg
- Sprinkle cheese evenly among the cups. Bake for approximately 8-10 minutes, or until eggs set.
Allow to cool in pan for a few minutes before removing to a wire rack. When completely cooled, muffins can be wrapped in plastic and frozen.
When ready to eat, simply microwave each mini muffin for 15-30 seconds, or until heated through.
Happy Banting!
Banting bites 