My parents have been doing a lowish carb diet for the last 1.5 years, after my dad had a heart attack. He is a former T2 TOFI who is now well controlled by diet and no T2 meds although he is still on heart meds, not sure which ones. They are late 70s retired and eat almost every meal out or have a snack of cheese or yogurt or tuna at home. Up until about 6 months ago my dad would eat one slice of bread a day, usually rye or ezekial with breakfast, with maybe a second slice some time during the day. He would usually eat egg white omletes rather than regular every morning for breakfast. He finally gave up the bread and switched to whole eggs and his BG is now close to prefect. 95 in the morning, always under 130 even after a meal.
They went on vacation in a Mediterranean country for a month visiting friends and family. They had access to a kitchen at the houses they stayed but ate out a lot. Breakfast was usually two eggs, various local cheeses, avocado, sour cream and a small salad with olive oil eaten out but later in the morning. They may have a high fat cream yogurt during the day and then dinner varied from fish, chicken or meat in a shish kebab style. They like eggplant dishes and if it was on the menu would eat it. When we visited people who knew about the diet they would be careful to feed us keto. Yet some people did not know and one house we went to there was nothing for me to eat because everything was breaded other than the salad which only had salad in it. My parents still ate some of the food. So they did cheat a bit but it was maybe the equivalent of one slice of bread a day (they called me the food police when I was there!)
They drank two cappuccinos a day MADE WITH MILK (I was there for the first week and this was killing me, there was no place to get cream at any coffee shops, I tried and would buy it at the grocery and make coffee at home). They got home and are complaining that they each gained 10 lbs from the fat they ate! Personally I think it was the milk and the nighttime restaurant food that was not pure meat and salad but was sauces and eggplant. They claimed they did not eat very much because it was hot and all the food they ate was so filling! Classic eh?! Neither one eats pork so bacon is not an option.
In my father’s case he is a TOFI so this may be his weight regulating and he is at the weight he should be. His BG was good throughout the trip. With my mother she can get heavy and has been heavy and lost quite a bit of weight when my father had his heard attack, I would guess about 30 lbs. She still wants to lose more but has been stalled and I would guess her BMI is about 27 but she is an athlete and more muscular than average. She already does something (tennis or swimming) almost every day. I would imagine she exercised less than usual on her trip but they did a lot of walking.
Before they started eating more fat, they were miserable and complaining and saying they had nothing to eat on low carb. Now they were saying they were so full they barely ate but they blame the fat for their weight gain. I think it was probably the milk. A cappuccino is half milk, two a day is probably at least 16 grams of carbs plus they had tomatoes, beets and whatever was in the sauces. They also eat almonds, which are not the lowest carb nuts
I just do not want them giving up and going back to low fat