White list of foods for LCHF

Because they are healthy but high in calories, and are eaten without counting.

A handful of nuts in the evening means both extra calories and breaking the “no snacking” rule at once. A spoonful of oil in a salad and a second one “for flavor” create a difference that is impossible to notice on the plate but easy to notice on the scales a month later.

The cap is an upper limit, not a mandatory target: no one needs these foods every day.

Hard cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, and unsweetened cream — according to tolerance.

Milk on its own is excluded: it contains noticeably more carbohydrates than it seems. Sweet and fruit yogurts are excluded even more so: they are closer to dessert than to a dairy product.

One separate note: dairy products can contribute to water retention and cravings in some people. If weight has stalled despite following the plan, dairy is the first thing worth removing for a couple of weeks to see what happens.

The list is not universal. With chronic kidney disease, the doctor determines the proportion of protein and potassium: “unlimited meat and avocado” does not work here.

After gallbladder removal, fatty foods should be introduced gradually, according to tolerance. During pregnancy and breastfeeding, do not change the diet as a whole on your own. With diabetes treated with insulin or medications carrying a risk of hypoglycemia, changing the diet requires dose adjustment by a doctor.

Not as a table on your phone, but as a shopping principle.

First week: check the list in the store and read the ingredients of everything packaged. Second week: check only new products. Third week: the list is already in your head.

The point is to stop making decisions at the shelf. When the only food at home is what appears in the first table, the question “what should I eat?” solves itself.

Look at the ingredients and carbohydrates per 100 g, rather than looking for permission.

The list cannot be complete: there are more foods than rows in the table. The principle matters more than the list — if there is no sugar or starch in the ingredients and carbohydrates are low, the product is suitable.

It is easier to handle questionable cases by this rule: take whole foods; read processed foods with long ingredient lists carefully.

No. None of them appears on the list, and that is not accidental.

Industrial substitutes for bread, pasta, and sweets are processed foods with starches, maltitol, and additives. The point of the diet is to move away from processed food, not replace one product with another at three times the price.

Ordinary meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, and oils fully meet the need and cost less.

Water, unsweetened tea and coffee, mineral water, and broth. None of these count toward the daily carbohydrate allowance, and they do count toward your total fluid intake.

What isn't on the list: juices, including freshly squeezed juice, soda, sweetened tea, coffee drinks with syrup, milk on its own, and sweetened plant milk. A glass of juice can use up half the daily carbohydrate allowance without providing any satiety at all.

A borderline case is coffee with cream or a small amount of milk. It contains few carbohydrates, but it's better to drink it with a meal rather than between meals: milky coffee during a break works like a snack and breaks the fasting interval.

Frozen vegetables are a full replacement for fresh ones, not a compromise. Broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, and spinach keep for months and in winter beat limp salad on both price and taste.

Canned oily fish in its own juice is a practical option for days when you don't cook. Fish in oil works too, as long as the oil is olive oil rather than some anonymous refined oil.

What not to choose from the canned section: anything in tomato sauce or marinade—they almost always contain sugar; corn and peas; fish in batter. The check is the same as everywhere else: turn the can over and read the ingredients.

The list itself doesn't, but the products you buy from it do change, and that's normal.

During the first month, people usually shop by the rows of the table. Later, the selection narrows to around fifteen items they like and can prepare quickly, and shopping takes less time than before.

What really changes is manufacturers' recipes. Sauces, sausages, and dairy products are reformulated without warning, and an ingredient list checked six months ago may already be different. Regular purchases should be rechecked every few months, and new packaging of a familiar product should be checked immediately.

A separate note about dairy: if your weight has stalled despite following the plan, it may be worth removing dairy for two weeks and observing the result. For some people it contributes to water retention and cravings; for others it has no effect at all.