Right, that’s it, I’m going carb free

Carb reduction works well for me. In both pregnancies I have had GD and had to drastically reduce my carb intake. In this pregnancy I'm not gaining much weight at all - just a little bit which is healthy.

After the baby I think I will try and stick to low carb as it clearly suits my body much better.

Personally though I think if I went zero carb I wouldn't stick at it for long

My Advice would be:

1. Try to eat as few ultra processed foods and ingredients as possible. That means, ideally making the vast majority of your meals from scratch and not using ready-made convenience foods.
2. Eat mostly plant-based meals. Base your meals on pulses, beans, lentils, tofu, tempeh etc.
3. Eat loads of different vegetables.
4. Eat fruit in moderation.
5. If you eat bread, go for the wholemeal seeded sourdough type and check the ingredients to make sure it's not UPF. Eat it in moderation.
6. Avoid white rice, white flour and "white" pasta if you can.
7. For snacks, try a handful of nuts, an apple etc.

Not really, if the OP wants to go low carb. The carbs in brown/wholewheat aren't really that much less, e.g. a medium slice of Hovis wholemeal is 15.1g carbs whereas a medium slice of Hovis soft white is 17.9g carbs.

(And if you bear in mind that strict keto should be less than 20g carbs per day, you can see just how many carbs there are in bread)

Sainsbury's brown basmati - 30.7g carbs per 100g
Sainsbury's white rice - 30.7g carbs

Sainsbury's white spaghetti - 33.2g carbs per 100g
Sainsbury's wholewheat spaghetti - 29.5g carbs

Why were you eating so little on WW? Im doing SW ( kind off ) and I never eat so little. I do measure my oats ( well I use oatbran ) but I pile the HM fat free greek style yoghurt on and then a selection of chopped fruits and maybe a handful of seeds

Then Lunch will be a huge salad usually with wholewheat pasta as the carb, loads of salad veggies, pickles, then tinned fish and hard boiled egg

And dinner the same as everyone else, last night it was chicken Saag ( hm from scratch ) and brown rice , bag of spinach in the sauce, punnet of mushrooms, scoop of peas to get the veg in, was lush

Tonight we have easy tea of egg chips and beans - poached eggs, air fryer handcut chips and reduced salt and sugar beans

I eat like that all the time and lose a pound a week on average

Theres plenty of foods available to eat on SW and WW - no food is off limits and both places encourage you to ditch the UPF and cook from scratch , increase the veggies and swap unsatisfying white carbs like bread to wholemeal and to make more use of grains - same as the NHS advise

Depends how low carb you want to go - guava is actually pretty high in carbs though, with 14g carbs per 100g

Start eating normally, proper food, drink in moderation, no sugar, full fat food, but check your portion size. And walk, a lot.

That's sustainable.

I think you'd be better off switching to whole grains rather than trying to ditch carbs altogether. So whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, grains like bulgur, farro, millet, etc.

OP come join us here - really supportive group with lots of advice, I've lost over a stone since last summer and your timing is perfect as a new BC is starting today!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/low_carb_bootcamp/5073782-week-1-may-24-low-carb-bootcamp-and-off-we-go

@drusth I actually don't know, good idea though. I love almond flour. I guess you wouldn't need much, but it is just ground nuts so the thickness would be more gritty maybe? I've found just the juices of the meat and cream, sometimes lemon etc works well enough.
I love making almond flour cookies. They've got honey though so not really low carb, just gf.

Op
Are you me?

I find that cutting out refined carbs and highly processed foods as much as possible makes me feel a million times better and also helps keep the excess weight off. I do eat plenty of green leafy veg and salad though, and I love cheese and yoghurt, which do have some carbs in them.

Another thing to add is it's very expensive. Compared to more varied diet with beans, pulses and carbs. I guess that in itself might make you eat less, lol.
No wonder people lose weight quickly.
No processed carbs
No natural carbs
No sugar
No fruit
No juices
No jarred sauces, ready meals
No tinned and packed soups
No deep fried food in batter
No McDonald's, pizza or KFC

But yeah, you have to be so regimented to maintain it that strictly. I'd say as a kind of boost for a few months maybe.
It's probably better cutting down on processed foods and unhealthy carbs (in my case wheat makes me feel a bit grim), but not eliminating anything, especially not fruit and veg.

I do low carb sometimes. There's no denying it works. Many years ago I did the vegetarian low carb diet. A book by Rose Elliot.
It was basically eggs for breakfast, cheese salad for lunch and veggie sausages with cauliflower rice for tea. I lost half a stone in 2 weeks but was miserable. There's no way I can sustain eating like that.
If you eat a lot of carbs, say over 300g which is a normal diet, you'll notice a difference if you half that or go under 100g carbs per day. But it's tough. Eating out is not really an option. You have to plan ahead too.

I'd rather up the exercise and cut out sweets and most alcohol. It's a lot easier.

Does a low carb flour like almond work as a thickener?

My best friend did or is doing keto and lost over a stone and a half recently. However, as lots of people on keto do when they start they go hard on it which of course isn’t great for them long term. I did ask her what she’d do to maintain.

She’s now back on keto but not as strict as before.

Also, if you do a roast chicken, do two. Then portion out the second one for snacks and lunches. One thing I hated was the lack of fruit. Mangos, pineapples etc are off limits as too high in sugar. I think I had a few blueberries a few times a week. But yeah, I'm a sugar addict. This diet makes you have basically no sugar.
Another lush dish is steak in cream and mushroom sauce, or you can slow cook beef and add cream and mushrooms for a stroganoff type thing. Just don't use any thickener, like flour, cornflour or even bisto.
Lots of protein and a fair amount of fat does make it seem more indulgent and satisfying than some other regimes. Problem is as soon as you add the carbs in the weight will escalate. As the diet itself is high in fat and energy with often no real calorie counting.

Interesting what your DH was told recently about slimming groups. I was with WW for a year last year and apart from a stone lost around Easter time and the odd few or couple of pounds here and there I actually found it worse for healthy eating. At one point I was eating porridge oats (20g or less) with water plus blueberries for breakfast. I came on here to a weightloss thread and now I have skimmed milk with them.

I agree with you re white carbs cutting out or reducing them. I think for me personally I need a small amount of carbs when losing weight but equally I could cut them out.

I did Keto for a while and felt like absolute shit. I had no energy at all. Our body needs some carbs.... Maybe ease into it, Op. Giving up sugar would be a really positive start.

Yup, it's the best way.

Yes, people describe low carbing as a way of eating, not a diet.

When I have gone back to eating carbs, my body feels different, bloated and heavy.

I'd love to get to a stage when I can reintroduce wholemeal bread/brown rice/beans etc but currently when I do that I start eating lots of carbs again.

It only doesnt work when you stop doing it. This is true of any diet, WW, SW, Fast 800, low carb, keto, whatever. So you need to find the one that works for you. For some people, this will be cutting back on carbs. It doesn't make it wrong just because it wasn't the best way for you.

Only thing it works for me too. Lost 25kg in a year and a half (I know it doesn't go as fast for me than other people) of that year and a half , the first year I did very low carb- around 50gr a day (not quite keto as I wasn't eating a lot of fat but more protein, veg and around 20-25% calories from fat) then after I started doing just low carb , so no more than 100gr a day, now I just limit: tortillas, bread, potatoes, cereals,rice and pasta so I would only have that once a day, for example if I am planning to have a wrap for my dinner or anything with pasta or rice, I will try and have soup or salad, eggs or tuna or just something very light with hardly any complex carbs. Limit process foods a lot.

Would a guava a day be allowed? I'm just having some strawberries or raspberries, but would love a guava! Not bothered by bananas, apples etc.

Don't go carb free! You need to include veg, salad and (some) fruit to ensure that you are eating nutritiously.

After trying most things I started 16.8 intermittent fasting and have been amazed at the results. No food groups cut out, very easy to sustain and days off plan have barely any impact on losses. Its slow and steady which puts people off I guess as the quick fix is more popular.