Lo-carbing in the land of bread and cake

Never one to shy away from a faddy diet in the attempt to get rid of some of the excess poundage gained over the last xx years of indulgence, I have recently taken to the lo-carb way of eating - with something of a light bulb moment - this actually seems to work for me.  OK so the weight loss hasn't been as striking as it has for some of the others in my online support group - but for me the idea that I've pretty much stuck to something for four weeks, lost some weight, and some inches and haven't had to give up my beloved vino means it's got to be pretty good going.

However, much as I love meat, cheese, butter, cream and nuts - I'm finding two things a little bit tricky.  In my previous post I was extolling the virtues of the German Kaffee und Kuchen culture - now these fruit and sugar laden creations don't really fit when lo-carbing (although I have to admit to some cheating with birthday celebrations over the past couple of weeks) we're just coming into the summer and there are lots of rhubarb, strawberry and cherry creations around and I'm salivating at the thought of cake - when I know I should be abstaining.

The second area of difficulty is that of bread.  Now German bread is something marvellous - so many different types of grain to choose from, rolls with all manner of seeds on and in ranging from the dark and dense rye breads through multi-grain to light and fluffy rosinenbrot (raisin bread).  So over the past four weeks, not one ounce of bread has crossed my lips - I have stayed away from the Bäckerei as much as possible (not that easy when there are several on every high street, and always one at the entrance to every supermarket) but I'm now noticing as I pass that there is a 'new loaf in town' - the OK Brot.

OK Brot (we'll use this as a generic term as it's called different things in different places) is a bread which is very low in carbohydrate - typically less than 10g/100g (regular bread is generally over 50g/100g).  The emergence of these breads has come about as more people here are following the 'Schlank im Schlaf' principle which aims to regulate insulin production and aid weight loss.  The idea is that you have a very carb heavy breakfast a mixed lunch then a lo-carb supper - hence these new breads.  The German diet is based around a main meal at lunchtime then the so-called 'Abendbrot' evening meal - which is essentially a lighter meal, usually bread (!), meats, cheese - perhaps some soup.  So the lo-carb bread is needed to replace the normal bread for the evening meal.

What makes the OK Brot lo-carb?  It's basically made up of a large amount of seeds with a minimal amount of 'bread' holding it all together - some seed such as Flax have no carbs so are used to boost the protein count of such bread.  I love seeded bread.  However, I'm not sure that going down an 'OK Brot' route is actually the best thing for a lo-carber to do.  I've not had any bread for a month and actually feel a lot better for it - less bloated, no mid afternoon crash, and generally less sluggish and more with it.  So I will be holding out for now as I feel that once on the slippery slope back to bread I'll not be able to resist the calling of the Bäckerei......