Has anyone managed to sustain eating low-carb in the long term?

[Breakfastatlarrys]

I feel really good eating low carb and lose weight, but always end up eating carbs again (a lot!) and put the weight back on, feel sluggish and ill. Has anyone managed to eat low carb in the long term (and in winter) - and do you have any tips?
I’m willing to be pretty moderate about it ie still eat pulses etc just cut out rice, potatoes, bread, chips etc… I even allow myself treats in restaurants but still always seem to end up sliding back, and it’s not just a weight thing. My skin, sleep and so many things are better when I eat low carb.

I keep falling off the low carb wagon too but have read loads about it and did the low carb program. I think the fruit is part of the problem. You should only eat berries really on low carb as most other fruit is too sugary, so it's keeping your blood sugar spiky. Having said that, I don't really like fruit apart from berries, and can't stick to it either but thats maybe because I like milk chocolate and cake too much🤷

Right, I’ll just list what I eat in a normal day now, not when I was being super strict. (I do intermittent fasting as well though, so no real brekkie.)

I don’t eat many veggies for lunch during the week, but make it up with dinner.

Weekdays:
Morning: Coffee with a little bit of oat milk or almond milk. (Almond milk is lower carb. I like the Califa vanilla flavoured one, all the others are gross. All oat milk seems to be nice.)

11am: Boiled egg that has been flavoured overnight with soy sauce, miso, ginger and garlic. A square of Red Leicester.

1pm: 2 breakfast pork patties with cheese and a couple of slices of egg and low sugar ketchup between them. A bit like a McMuffin with no bread. I often have a couple of squares of dark chocolate or a Krunchy Keto bar (I like the white choc and strawberry one.)

Dinners:
Big Mac salad (lettuce, mince, red onion, grated cheese, gherkins, mayo, Frenches’ mustard, low sugar ketchup.)

Mexican salad (lettuce, mashed avocado, onion, mince flavoured with Mexican spices and some salsa, salsa, sour cream and grated cheese.)

Caesar salad with croutons made out of Liv Life bread.

A pie I make with chicken or sausages. Apart from the meat it consists of obscene amounts of broccoli and/or brussel sprouts onion, whole large garlic, held together with melted stilton and baked until it is brown and crusty at the sides in the oven.

Fry up with Liv Life bread from Waitrose.

Various combos of meat with dark green veg. We eat so much broccoli and sprouts! Sometimes we make “chips” in the air fryer out of celeriac too. I have also made stuffing out of LivLife bread and sausage meat before, for a roast.

Fathead dough pizza on occasion.

Crackers made out of almond flour and egg (with onion and garlic powder.) We have this or toasted Liv Life bread with deli meats, olives, pate, the little pots of mozzarella and sundried tomatoes you get etc.

Snacks and/or dessert options: Peanuts, LivLife toast with butter or pate, whipped cream with dark chocolate and a few berries, Krunchy Keto bars, fulfil bars, grenade bars (prob only if on a long walk), Nick’s bars, dark choc with no sugar, Oppo icecream, used to have Halo Top icecream but it’s low cal now rather than low carb apparently. Sometimes I make cake from sour cream, almond flour etc with fake sugar (ethirytol sp?)

Seriously though, if you don’t like broccoli or sprouts you’d struggle with my diet; we eat ungodly amounts in my house. I would also struggle without the LivLife bread. (I didn’t eat that when I was doing strict keto though.)

I don't understand the anger either.

When I eat carbs I'm bloated, I get migraines, IBS and overeat. I eat much more shit because it's compulsive. I crave them and willpower isn;t enough to stop me eating sugar and shit.

When I only eat carbs from vegetables/berries etc. and most of my food is fat and protein I eat more fresh food, I eat more mindfully, I don't binge. Migraines and IBS disappears completely. I don;t mean it's once in a while, I mean IBS that has plagued me since my teens is gone. My skin is great, I'm not bloated and I feel good.

Why are people so eager to have me eat carbs and feel like shit? If a typical way of eating works for them, marvellous. I'm not slapping a roll out of their hand. But it doesn't work for me and I wish I'd known 30 years ago.

I did low carb but fell off the wagon at Christmas. Currently back on and low carb since August and determined to stick at it. I was on the way to developing diabetes otherwise. I don't miss pasta or rice at all. Occasionally miss potatoes and bread. But more importantly I'm not obsessed with what I eat. I'm not binging at all. I don't feel tired all the time. I have so much more energy. I'm not anxious and consequently sleep better. As a plus I've lost nearly 2 stone but the other benefits make me want to stick at it. I too don't understand the anger against it.

Breakfast: two poached eggs with spinach, fried with a spray of olive oil and grated nutmeg. - 0 carbs

Lunch: Polish Sopocka with salad and salad dressing - 11g carbs

Brisk walk for 30 mins before supper - helps improve carb balance

Supper: 4 sausages, low sugar beans - 27g carbs
strawberries with clotted cream - 15g carbs

I've been low carb for 14 years, I get terribly bloated and bingey if I reintroduce carbs so I tend not too even at Xmas and on holidays. I just loosen up a little, so I'd no stress about calamari in a light batter and have the odd macaron. I have milk in coffee too and dry wines

Average day-

No breakfast or Greek yoghurt with berries and nuts.

Lunch- homemade soup (cauliflower with grated cheese, leek and celeriac for eg)
Omelette
Sometimes I'll make a flaxseed roll and have a sandwich.

Supper
Roasted Meat/ fish and salad or veg
Chilli in a lettuce wrap
Cauliflower couscous with chicken and chorizo
Cheese soufflé and salad
Crustless quiche

Snacks- if I'm very active I may have nuts or a grenade bar

To not too

Can you just remove the starchy carbs which our body doesn't need? All vegetables are carbs so I wouldn't reduce those but I agree I feel sluggish when I eat bread and pasta. I do like potatoes but again I don't eat them a lot as they make me feel bloated. I wouldn't limit pulses though. So I guess my answer is low carb isn't great but cutting wheat products is fine.

*Hate all the low carb nonsense and diets that don’t work that are pushed on here. Carbs are not the enemy. Especially whole grains.

Just eat a healthy balanced diet without restricting any food groups unless you are allergic. Then you can eat this way forever and fuel your body properly. Without restriction or faddy diets that don’t work.*

The problem is that a modern diet tends towards high (processed) carbs, which is not balanced nor healthy!

In years gone by when refined carbs were not readily available our diets were more weighted more towards fats and protein, now it's the opposite. Just because it's "the norm" doesn't mean it's balanced and healthy.

A balanced healthy diet is actually around 20-25% carbs, 25-30% protein and the remainder as fat.

This isn't a fad diet, it's literally what our body is designed to deal with.

I stuck to Keto for a couple of years & lost a lot of weight, but it became unsustainable for me. I grew so bored of the limitations - it was mainly fruit that I missed most.

I transitioned to a lower-carb style diet which works long-term. I still avoid bread, pasta, etc but will have them on occasion (for example I ate pizza and pasta in Italy in the summer, cake on birthdays etc).

I'm also convinced that a strict keto/ Atkins style diet is not at all healthy long term - I know there are conflicting findings on this.

As a runner, my fitness levels and performance shot up when I reintroduced more carbs into my diet.

I had been reducing carbs for a couple of years when a friend recommended The Sugar Solution by Dr Mark Hyman. It's quite a long read but very interesting explains why we overeat sugar and UPF and what happens to our body as a result. I found it life-changing as it keeps on motivating me to eat healthily. There's a follow on book with lots of practical advice and recipes - though personally I never cut out complex carbs completely.

https://drhyman.com/short-guide-10-day-detox-diet/

These days I eat 2 proper meals a day, plus some fruit, nuts or yoghurt for snacks. I eat LOTS of vegetables, a fair amount of lean protein (chicken, fish, tofu, eggs), small amounts of complex carbs (quinoa, lentils, chickpeas etc), healthy fats (EVOO, avocados, nuts), and dairy (mostly full fat Greek yoghurt).

I do have the odd carb treats: icecream with my granddaughter, Chinese take-away when my son visits, a couple of glasses of wine with friends... I don't feel I am depriving myself of anything: I genuinely no longer crave carbs in the way I used to.

NB: I also exercise quite intensely, weights and all, which I find VERY satisfying and motivating.

Very few people do.

It’s like any restrictive diet.

At no point did I say it’s healthy to eat lots of processed carbs as the main part of your diet! I said a healthy BALANCED diet that doesn’t cut out food groups literally like you have just described. I‘m not talking about mainlining pizza all day and claiming that’s healthy.

There’s just a lot of demonising of carbs these days. All carbs. Even healthy carbs. If you do lots of exercise or lead an active life then you need fuel for that exercise. I make sure I get a lot of protein but wouldn’t cut out healthy carbs as it wouldn’t work for my lifestyle.

People on here are talking about not eating potatoes or pasta. Even whole grain pasta. There’s nothing wrong with these food items as part of a balanced diet.

My weight never fluctuates. I don’t eat ultra processed food. I eat whole grain foods and bread and pasta and potatoes and grains. I eat to hunger.
I don’t worry about ‘falling off the wagon’ and then eating loads of pizza and bad carbs because I’ve been denying myself. That’s where diets fail.

There’s a lot of nonsense around disordered eating on Mumsnet. If you are struggling to stick to a ‘diet’ long term and yo yoing with your weight it’s clearly not a long term solution. That’s my issue. If you’ve found something you can stick to long term and it’s healthy and balanced then great.

Yes as a runner you need carbs to fuel that exercise. Performance will suffer otherwise

Can’t you eat fruit on keto? How restrictive.

Our bodies are quite capable of dealing with all kinds of diets, which you can easily see if you look at long-lived communities around the world.

The idea that our diet in the West was weighted towards protein and fat before we adopted the modern processed Western diet is not true - the majority of people have lived on a carbohydrate based diet since humans turned to farming millennia ago - protein was simply too scarce /expensive for all but the rich.

When it comes to diet the only things that are accepted as proven are that fruit and vegetables are good for us, and a diet heavy in highly processed food and sugar (ie the modern Western diet) is bad for us. The rest is up for grabs.

You might like a high protein diet but there is no evidence it’s superior to many others. Stats you read in a diet book are not scientific facts.

Thing is.. if it's not working for you then it's not working for you.

Low carb works because you take in less fuel than you need - and I'm not talking calories here am talking fuel.. your body uses calories in different ways.

Any diet works as long as you stick to it, why not try something that allows you to eat carbs but fewer of them? Maybe no UPF? You can eat cake as long as you make it for example.

@Delatron I ran while doing keto. You do have to work at what works. But 'performance' is interesting. I ran for fitness and to clear my head. Even when I ate carbs I ran better on an empty stomach, no matter how many people told me to have a banana or porridge however many hours/minutes before. Even longer distances. Keto made me feel better so I was less likely to miss runs, and more likely to do well. I felt zippier and my mood is half of what makes the run go well.

I'm glad you found a way of eating that works for you. Maybe trust others to have done the same.

Can’t you eat fruit on keto? How restrictive

It's also funny you are so dismissive and know so little about it. You can eat anything as long as you stay under the carbs that work. Many people eat berries or similar. I'll eat a bit of watermelon if I'm being a bit lax with it. And vegetables do the same job without so much sugar. I've always preferred them anyway as modern fruits have been ruined by breeding. Give me an Italian tomato or an alpine strawberry, I'd miss it. But the giant. shit. overly sweet. overbred fruits in the average supermarket? Yuk.

I do low carb rather than no carb - if I have carbs I try for them to be wholegrain and not the main focus of the meal.

I find it pretty easy to maintain in the long term as it's enjoyable to cook and easy to do for more than one person eg make curry, just don't serve yourself any rice, meat + 2 veg, don't serve yourself any potatoes.

The major downfall is holidays. I had a break for a holiday as I just wanted to eat normally and it took years before I could quit the sugar again, by which time all the weight had gone back on.

I did a VLCD and then keto/low carb for a couple of years after finding out I had T2 diabetes. Weight dropped off, great energy. Sugars went from super high to normal.

Hair also got much thinner and had weird heart palpitations but I am probably perimenopausal too so could be that but decided to stay LC rather than keto.

Then had a bout of awful sickness where I couldn't eat anything apart from very dry bland foods for a week or so and since then have really struggled to get back into the low carb mentality. It didn't help that I could eat some carbs without spiking my sugars once I had lost weight. Now have completely lost the plot and am piling on weight. Sugars creeping up again. Feel awful and so angry with myself.

Your thread has helped inspire me to try and get back on it so thank you and I hope it works for you!

Current research is showing that as a female it’s not great to run or exercise fasted. Spikes our cortisol.

But that’s a whole other area of science. I used to think I ran better fasted but science really doesn’t support that - you just have to train your stomach to cope with the fuel beforehand. It’s one of those situations where just because you can run long distances fasted doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

But we can agree to disagree. I wholeheartedly think you need to fuel your body for the exercise you are doing and many women don’t actually eat enough. Or they have a very disordered relationship with food

For anyone interested Dr Stacy Sims has done a lot of research in this area. Particularly on perimenopausal women. There’s a great book on this subject called Next Level.

I know about eating a healthy balanced diet and not obsessing over food. So no I don’t know what you can and can’t eat on keto as that is a restrictive diet.

I eat a lowish carb diet but definitely not Keto, nor would I want to be. I try to only have carbs 2/3 meals, and make sure I don't have a lot eg 1 piece of decent wholemeal bread, or half a baked potato, or a small handful (25g?) oat or barley flakes in yogurt.

I have been doing low carb for over 30 years now! Started because I had PCOS and pre-diabetic. Totally normal diet now. Oh and it 'cured' those heath issues.

I wouldn't try it if I were you. There's a lot of research linking low carb diets to all sorts of things - cancer, kidney damage, heart arrhythmias, heart disease, stroke etc etc. It's not good for you and it's not safe to do long term imo.

www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322881