Right, that’s it, I’m going carb free

[Newshoesrubbingmyfeet]

It’s the only thing that’s worked for me in the past. So tired of feeling tired and ill, looking awful and having no confidence. I’m a larger size 16 now and really need to lose it and go back to how I was, I felt amazing slimmer, physically and mentally, could wear what I liked instead of hiding away feeling ashamed.
My plan is to cut out bread, potatoes and pasta completely. I’m guessing a little rice would be ok and some cereal/oats?
Any tips please? 🙏 I’m getting desperate now and feeling really low

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

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

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.

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

we need carbs but you did say some rice and or pasta so yes possibly you’re on the right track. I’ve lost a stone and a half (nearly) over the past year by:

halfing the amount of cereal I had (I used to be an addict- 2/3 bowls a day

drinking more water

halving the crap I ate (crisps mainly lol)

only allowing myself 2/3 slices of bread a day(white bread addict as well as cereal)

not eating after 8 or if I did it was frozen grapes or yoghurt as they take longer to eat so stopped me picking- this was the hardest part and for the first two weeks I literally had to sit on my hands, do something like knitting or go to bed as all I wanted was a bowl of cereal at about ten o clock!!!!

my biggest tip is to remember at least if you have a bad morning/ day you’ll have had less than you’ve had before and also a glass of water and some fruit before breakfast (now usually an egg) gets you in the frame of mind for a healthy day and also remember that when you do eat rubbish you’ll appreciate it!!!!

best of luck whatever way you go op!!

Have you looked at Zoe? It's all based on the most recent nutritional science. Since I did Zoe and started eating the Zoe way, my weight has pretty much stabilised at a weight I'm happy with. ZOE—Understand how food affects your body

Thanks everyone, I don’t eat much sugar, aside from fruit, my weakness is not cake/choc/sweets, it’s all savoury-bread, crisps 😩that’s why I think low carb has worked in the past
I’ll join the thread on here now, thanks so much

Have you looked at Zoe? It's all based on the most recent nutritional science. Since I did Zoe and started eating the Zoe way, my weight has pretty much stabilised at a weight I'm happy with
Me too, and the podcasts are free! I can't recommend it highly enough.

From what I can see the testing is £299 then it’s £35 per month? I can buy a lot of delicious, healthy food for that.

I've only lost weight with two diets.

One was food combining (protein and carbs are eaten 3h apart. You can't have bread because it contains carbs ie wheat and protein ie fats).

The other was going sugar free. So not eating anything with sugar as an added ingredient. Fruit is ok as is organic natural honey .

For a reduced carbon diet the easiest way is to not eat anything white. So brown rice, brown bread, brown pasta etc are OK.

Brown rice/pasta/bread etc have nearly the same amount of carbs in as the white version.

I feel really good on low carb. Much more energy, stable mood, sleep better. It's just so hard to come off the ruddy stuff.

Yep I think lowing our intake refined of white carbs is a good idea (for everyone). I no longer have cereal for breakfast but full fat Greek yoghurt with flax seeds and a glass of kefir. Lunch I eat stir fry veg or salad a meat/fish etc. Then I eat carbs as normal for dinner eg spag Bol, curry etc. Don’t avoid full fat things as they make you feel fuller for longer. Avoid UPF, refined carbs and anything low fat etc.

@SuddenlyOld

For a reduced carbon diet the easiest way is to not eat anything white. So brown rice, brown bread, brown pasta etc are OK.

If you read my post upthread you'll see that this isn't the case though.

From what I can see the testing is £299 then it’s £35 per month? I can buy a lot of delicious, healthy food for that.
Sorry - I should have been more precise. I haven't been tested, or pay for a programme, but follow the podcast, which is free.

My husband was found to be pre-diabetic at the beginning of the year, so he (and by extension, we) have reduced our carb intake.

We are not carb free, but are not eating refined carbs (pasta and white rice), potatoes and bread. Also no puddings, sweets, chocolate or obvious sugar, as he felt he could manage better with just cutting these out, rather than reduce them.

However, we haven’t cut out carbier vegetables like sweet potato and sweetcorn, and no fruit is out of limits. Also still eating grains like bulgar wheat and porridge.

We both have felt more energetic and less tired since making this change. It is relatively fuss-free, as long as we meal plan and shop in advance, so it’s not difficult to think of what to cook for dinner.

What has been helpful is that he likes cauliflower, so we’ve had a lot of roast cauliflower/sweet potato replacing potatoes. Also cauliflower ‘rice’, and cauliflower or celeriac mash.

Culturally, glass noodles have always been part of my diet, and (as long as you check that it’s the mung bean noodle) they are lower GL than normal noodles, so they have been an easy replacement.

Konjac rice was OK, but not the right texture and gave him stomach cramps.

Haven’t tried things like courgetti or spaghetti squash yet for long pastas, as he doesn’t like the sound of those, but he’s happy with a lasagne made using aubergine instead of pasta, and crème fraiche as the base of the cheese sauce rather than a proper bechamel.

he’s also been eating a lot more salad, which is good.

The only thing I would say is that you have to be a lot more intentional about your shopping, and it has been more expensive as no more quick spag bols, etc.

He’s not had his HbA1c rechecked yet, but we’re hoping it will improve.

Ah ok, I’ll take a look! Thank you

If you want to get into ketosis and lose weight, you’ll need to be under 50g of net carbs a day, which means no rice or oats. Once you’re in the maintenance phase, you’ll be up to 100g a day, which means you can incorporate them into your diet.

I'd certainly agree where Slimming World is concerned - I was never truly fat till I did SW. It teaches awful habits and reinforces any disordered eating/food issues that already exist.

I've spent my whole life battling my weight and have both Binge Eating Disorder and a tendency towards bulimia. I can confidently say that WW is the easiest and most satisfying "diet" I've ever done.

It's also pretty much the first time I've ever truly recognized and accepted that this isn't actually a diet. It's a cliche but it's true - it's a lifestyle and one I'll need to continue forever if I want to stay in control of my weight in a relatively healthy way.

I've got ibs and most carbs trigger it but yet I keep eating them.
I'm doing no potatoes,rice,pasta or bread.
I'm sticking to 1200 calories

I've been eating very few white carbs on week days since Christmas and have dropped a dress size and developed a flat stomach. I also feel really good in myself.
I'll have no carbs for breakfast or lunch, but will have a small portion of brown rice with dinner a couple of nights a week.

I do whatever I like at weekends, within reason. So for instance yesterday I had a jacket potato with full fat tuna mayo for lunch and a Singapore Chow Mein from the Chinese for dinner. But my 'baseline' is a diet low in white carbs.

I wasn't saying she should do this to go low carb. I was questioning why low carb? As long as the carbs you eat are quality and unrefined, you're eating healthily.

This is correct but it depends what your aim is and how those foods affect you

Someone might be low carbing to get into ketosis in which case it makes no odds

Or they might be just aiming to lower their count overall and IF brown rice/bread/pasta makes them eat smaller portions then they would lower their count in any case even though as you say the difference per 100g is often negligible.

OR they might have a different reaction to eating those in terms of cravings, even though I dont eat pasta personally now, I can tell you that eating wholemeal pasta doesnt give me the cravings that white pasta used to, same with rice. Bread is similar although the difference is not as marked.

Why are you eating carbs? If its because it makes an easy meal whete the carb is 80%+ of the meal, like toast, sandwiches, pasta+ [sauce] etc then it's pointless because yu aren't addressing a root problem like meal planning.

If you just love carbs, get better quality meals from them - sourdough at the weekend, small quality pasta with with big salad etc.

So, why do you eat carbs?

Yes, but you probably won’t lose any weight, which appears to be the OPs aim.