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I am planning to add a lot of low fat cheese to my diet for several reasons. Calcium, Protein, Fat and convenience. I need to shoot for around 180 grams of protein every day and i am on a muscle building diet. How much cheese can i afford to eat per day. Any downsides on this?

MeltThatFat wrote:I am planning to add a lot of low fat cheese to my diet for several reasons. Calcium, Protein, Fat

low fat cheese for a source of fat?

MeltThatFat wrote:I am planning to add a lot of low fat cheese to my diet for several reasons. Calcium, Protein, Fat and convenience.

Why do you think you need more calcium? Are you on GLAD, MANS, or TSPA? A low-carb diet is very calcium and Vitamin C-preserving (source: Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes). I could see supplementing calcium on your carb-up day, but otherwise your normal diet of meat, fish, and poultry should more than meet your body's calcium needs.

As far as wanting more protein and fat, there are a lot of much more digestible -- and tasty! -- sources than cheese. Including pretty much any flesh from any animal.

Principal concerns about eating more than a serving or two of cheese per day are:
1. Increased candida growth. Most of us have some candida albicans in our guts. Cheese, nuts, and other aged foods contribute strongly to candida growth, which causes problems with absorbing nutrition from foods, reduces metabolism, and slows fat loss.
2. Intestinal blockage. Many people have difficulty digesting large quantities of cheese. Over-eating cheese is the #1 reason people get constipated on low-carb.
3. Lactose and/or casein intolerance. A bit more than half the world's population is at least partially lactose or casein intolerant. Typical symptom is diarrhea, but it can be so bad in some cases that you kill off intestinal villi.
4. Milk is an inflammatory food. Most foods that are not meat or viscera are at least somewhat inflammatory. Part of the goal of a diet which reduces insulin is to reduce inflammation in the body, providing a host of benefits far too lengthy to list here.

I consume plenty of hard cheeses -- up to a few servings per day, unless I'm on a fat fast when it may be more -- but why set out to over-consume one type of food when there are abundant protein and fat choices available on a calcium-sparing low-carb regimen?

Regards,
--Matt B.

thanks. I guess i am not going to go overboard with Cheese. But will surely add a bit to my diet. Thanks for the incisive answers!

MeltThatFat wrote:Thanks for the incisive answers!

If you look at my Livestrong diary lately you'll see I've slipped into crap-food-land So I feel like a bit of a hypocrite knowing EXACTLY the right thing to do, and not doing it!

Just keep improving, right? My goal is to be better, not to be perfect.

--Matt B.

redgiki wrote:If you look at my Livestrong diary lately you'll see I've slipped into crap-food-land So I feel like a bit of a hypocrite knowing EXACTLY the right thing to do, and not doing it!

Just keep improving, right? My goal is to be better, not to be perfect.

<applause icon> We're all works in progress, and I think our good habits sort of wax and wane. The important thing is to keep trying to lengthen the "wax on" portion. That's my goal, anyway. I was driving myself nuts trying to be perfect all the time.