AIBU to feel constantly hungry on a low-carb diet?

[Touty]

Been doing low carb for a while now and seems to be the only way for me post middle age

But OMG I’m hungry all the time, like a wolf. I find myself snacking on peanut butter and cheese to keep me going.

Tonight I’ve eaten a whole tray of turkey meatballs, must be about 350g of meat, I’m still hungry.

Any tips?

How does low carb mean you can lose weight without a calorie deficit? 1600-1700 likely is a deficit for most people but ignoring that, what’s the science behind it?

i thought ryvita was ok for low carb, 7 grams of carbs?

I doubt she is documenting every morsel on the thread and ryvita of course is part of a low carb diet because low carb doesnt mean no carb, usually 70 to 100g a day

You were in a calorie deficit. Its physically impossible to lose weight without it.

what is everyone eating for breakfast on low carb? I’m sick of yoghurt and eggs.

You need to eat a lot of fibre as well as protein.

(Vegetables and also pulses are good.)

You could make shakshuka? https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/shakshouka_74716

What fiber can I eat that’s low carb?
I eat broccoli

You dont have to eat every single meal as one thing or another. its your total carb intake over a day or even over a week.

You can certainly have ryvita, perhaps with smoked salmon and greek yoghurt, I eat the Kallo veggie cakes, they're made with lentils, slightly more carbs per slice than a ryvita. I put tuna mixed with greek yoghurt, spices etc I eat a lot of greens like spinich, watercress, lettuce, cabbage

I eat skins on things.

Concentrate on higher protein 'carbs' like lentils or pulses but lentils come out on top in terms of protein but they are essentially carbs, they are good for fibre.

Im on a low carb diet, calorie controlled, I have pinhead oatmeal, made with protien powder and full fat milk. I make up 5 portions in one go because it takes over a hour to cool, I freeze each portion and have that for breakfast. 20g of protein and it means my medication can be managed because if I dont take it after something substantial like that they make me ill

I also very much like tarka dhal for breakfast in the winter, I try to put protein powder in those when I cook it up.

@Touty that’s a terrible diet.

Focusing on ‘low carb’ is not the answer.

of course you are hungry eating only yogurt and eggs for breakfast.

Neither are sufficiently high in protein to fill you up, and if you are not eating carbs either, you’re simply not fuelling yourself adequately.

You can improve your breakfast by eating 0% fat Greek Yogurt (a brand like Fage or similar), with added kefir, pure peanut butter, seeds, berries (especially blueberries & raspberries). Or eggs with additional egg whites or cottage cheese (eg scrambled). Or porridge oats, made with water, splash of milk, egg whites. Yes, that’s carbs but also high protein, contains fibre, good for satiety.

You are eating far too much protein in the form of meat; you do not need the kind of protein amounts you are eating unless you are exercising intensively.

Where is your fruit and veg intake?

Find a good recipe book written by a qualified dietician and plan from there. It’s worrying how poor your eating habits are

My goodness there's so much misunderstanding as to what a low carb diet is!

You need to be eating food in the following ratios:

Fat:protein:carbs

Roughly 70:25:5 in terms of grams.

This changes the 'recommended' diet on its head, which is carbs:protein:fat.

The difficulty with carbs is that people react to them differently. So it's actually really hard to give a recommendation as to the daily amount that you should allow.

But anything like the suggestion made up thread that it's 70-100g a day is impossible to confirm. But bear in mind that a keto diet generally (if you're doing it strictly) is 20g carbs a day. And the first two weeks of Atkins is 20g per day.

Dr Joh Briffa used to say 150g a day, or 30g carbs per meal each day. But that also depends if you're looking to lose weight, or to maintain your weight loss.

Calories do count, but you really don't have to obsessively count/lower calories if you're low carbing.

Here's a good piece from The Diet Doctor which explains that:

Calories count, but they are not the whole story

Generally speaking, if you take in more calories than your body needs, the extra calories will be stored as fat. Similarly, if you take in fewer calories than needed, your body will release its fat stores, and you will lose weight. Because of this, some contend that calories are all that matter.

All you have to do to lose weight is reduce calories.

It sounds simple, but humans are more complicated than that.
There’s far more to weight regulation than just monitoring calories in vs. calories out.

Indeed, most members of the human race appear to have regulated their weight effectively for millennia, before anyone even knew what a calorie was.

The modern obesity epidemic seems to be an unprecedented phenomenon, and it coincides with an ever-increasing focus on counting calories.

At best, counting calories seems to be an imperfect strategy for weight control.

So what’s really going on? As it turns out, hormonal regulation is a key factor and can affect our hunger and cravings.

Hormones play a large role in influencing appetite, fullness, and fat storage. Research suggests that low-carb and keto meals may trigger satiety hormones and suppress hunger hormones, leading to a natural reduction in calorie intake, especially in those who are overweight or have insulin resistance.

Consider the following example of why “a calorie is just a calorie” is too simplistic of a theory. In one study, overweight people consumed a breakfast of eggs or a bagel. Although each meal contained an identical number of calories, the group that consumed the egg breakfast stayed full longer and ate fewer calories at lunch than the group that ate the bagel breakfast.

The two sources of calories — equal in number — consumed at breakfast had differential effects on the number of calories consumed at lunch.

Gut and brain hormones that regulate appetite aren’t the only ones that affect how the body consumes and metabolizes calories. Insulin – and how sensitive your body is to this pancreatic hormone – influences whether you store or burn calories.

Basic physiology dictates that higher levels of insulin will promote the storage of energy (calories) in the form of fat, while lower levels allow the body to mobilize fat stores and use them for energy.

Clinical studies have yielded some helpful insights into how this simple physiologic concept operates in real life, which is decidedly more complex.
For example, one study looked at people who had lost weight and kept it off versus those who lost weight and regained it. It found that those who kept it off maintained better sensitivity to insulin (i.e. had lower levels), while people who regained weight had worse insulin sensitivity – not too surprising. But, subjects who lost weight and kept it off also had better insulin sensitivity than their BMI-matched controls with no weight loss history.

The good news here is that multiple intervention trials have shown that decreasing carbohydrate intake may help those at significant risk for weight regain to maintain the weight they have lost.

Again, this would suggest that a calorie isn’t always just a calorie, as the low-carb diets performed better than other types of diets for the purpose of preventing weight regain after loss.

Calories count, but you don’t have to count them.
– Dr. Eric Westman, MD

What’s more, low-carb diets regularly outperform or perform no worse than low-calorie diets for weight loss, even in studies where calories aren’t intentionally counted or restricted during low-carb eating.

Regarding ‘low fat’ v ‘low carb’.

Take a look at the revised food pyramid! We are supposed to limit out intake of high fat foods, though of course some fats are good. We are, typically, not designed for very low-carb diets, and definitely not no-carb diets, tho individuals do make that choice. The challenge is many preferred carb choices are highly calorific, and often UPFs, hence why they get a bad rep. Carbs are good for us.

The poster who recommended adding cream and butter to everything when eating low carb - words fail me. You’ve heard of cholesterol, right?

We are, typically, not designed for very low-carb diets, and definitely not no-carb diets, tho individuals do make that choice.

Who has said that?! Humans can perform perfectly well with a lower carb intake.

The poster who recommended adding cream and butter to everything when eating low carb - words fail me. You’ve heard of cholesterol, right?

You don't get high blood cholesterol from eating dietary cholesterol.

We confirm from the review of the literature on epidemiological data, meta-analysis, and clinical interventions where dietary cholesterol challenges were utilized that there is not a direct correlation between cholesterol intake and blood cholesterol.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9143438/#sec6-nutrients-14-02168

What's that’s saying is that low carb/ high protein may help you feel fully longer. Which is all anyone else has said. It’s no silver bullet, it works for some people, and you have to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight.

I have a 2 egg omelette with plenty of cheese, and mushrooms or chopped scallions. Cook it in butter. Keeps me going till the afternoon. You're not eating enough fat. Butter and olive oil are best for satiety.

@BIWI
Foods high in saturated fats, like full fat dairy products, red meat, absolutely are linked with raised LDL.

Your posts are alarmingly strange.

It’s true that judicious use of fats is helpful but it’s not that she’s ’not eating enough fat’. It’s that she’s not eating sufficient calories, with sufficient non-meat protein, early enough in the day.

She seems obsessed with low carb intake and eating far too much meat-based protein.

This is also why I need to stay away from MN threads on this topic.
did you read that article you quoted? I just scanned it. The investigation was based on egg intake. Only eggs. Linked to the mistaken belief that eggs were a contributor to high cholesterol. If you finish the article, it specifically says that other sources of saturated fats in the diet are, indeed, a contributory cause of elevated LDLs.

It actually makes me angry, when posters throw in random links they’ve clearly just googled, don’t understand the science & then someone else reads your inaccurate summary of the findings and believes it.

Also never eat low fat versions of things, do not eat 0% greek yoghurt as someone else said

That said, Im not sure gin and tonic and negroni cocktails, flavoured nuts and olives are optimum dietary intake and this is what tonights tea is!!!

I agree in principle about not eating fat-free or low-fat versions.

That’s for a few reasons - you will be less satiated, and the low-fat versions are usually replaced by other ingredients that are not good for us, including sugar or sugar replacement products.

However, in the case of 0% fat Greek yogurt, this does not apply. There are no problematic ingredients (if you choose a genuine Greek yogurt like the brand I mentioned, there are others) and if you are controlling calories, but want sufficient protein, especially for breakfast, this is where that’s helpful. An equivalent full-fat version, with the other added ingredients, will be unnecessarily calorific.

Balance is good too! Enjoy your tea!

Is anyone eating beans on a low carb diet? I used to add them to stews and chilli etc but stopped doing it when I realised beans are high in carbs 🤷

Yes of course, in limited amounts, weighed out and as part of th whole balance, they are good for fibre.

Just like when someone eats a 'low fat' diet, they dont eat NO fat at all, they eat things with fat in it like oily fish but balance it out so they dont go above a particular level of grammes per day (or a weekly average)

Same with a low carb diet

And people on a low fat diet dont disregard calories and just hoover up anything low fat, same with low carb, you have to watch your calories still.

There is some absolutely terrible advice on low carb diets on this thread along with some odd fixations on fibre, low fat foods and cholesterol levels. If anyone is thinking about starting a low carb diet or now thinks they’re doing low carb wrong, please do yourself a favour and visit a reputable low carb website such as Diet Doctor or look at the Low Carb Bootcamp threads here on Mumsnet in the Big/slim/whatever weight loss club Talk category.

A low carb diet is based on reducing your carbohydrate intake to 5-10% of your daily macros which is under 50g carbohydrate per day and may be as low as 20g for some people. The reduction in carbohydrate calories is made up for by increasing your fat intake to around 60% for weight loss (70% for weight maintenance) - this equates to a total of around 110-120 ml of olive oil for an entire day; it isn’t a licence to eat as much fat as you want.

The easiest approach is to eat whole foods, choosing fattier cuts of meat, fish, eggs, full-fat dairy, olive/avocado/nut oils, butter/coconut oil/lard/beef dripping and lots of low carb vegetables which are generally those that grow above ground: mushrooms, broccoli, leeks, spinach, cauliflower, courgettes, asparagus, salad vegetables etc. Small amounts of berries, nuts or dark chocolate are often included to add variety.

Pulses and legumes are generally not included, except for vegetarians. As a rule of thumb, a food should be below 5% carbohydrate to be low carb.

The low carb diet works by stabilising blood glucose and insulin levels. It provides satiating hormone signals and typically involves eating foods that take longer to digest (than carbohydrate foods) so that you feel fuller for longer and hunger levels rise slowly rather than sharply spiking. This naturally results in eating fewer calories, producing weight loss.

Low carb diets aren’t ideal for everyone, the best diet for you is the one that you enjoy and can stick with. If you want to calorie count or use intermittent/extended fasting or take a GLP1 medication or even have bariatric surgery, these can all work for losing weight as well.

If you genuinely want to follow a low carb diet then it can be very effective for weight loss and also weight maintenance, if you stick to it long term.