New to/attempting low carb

[anon1968]

Hi.

I’d like to lose at least a stone/stone and a half, and i’ve realised i need to reduce my carbs in order to do this as calorie counting hasn’t really resulted in a loss due to me being predominately carbs as i’m a very fussy eater, my question is would i be successful in losing weight if i did low carb mon-fri, whilst enjoying roast potatoes and “higher carb” vegetables like parsnips with a sunday lunch, and the odd pasta dish or jacket potato at a weekend without over indulging too much ,I’ve also cut out white sliced bread but thought the odd slice of danish bread for toast at breakfast time as a weekend treat (not all the time)
Im not really much of a meat eater and have an egg allergy so it will be mostly veg dishes for me. Found some fab recipes on here, My reason for thinking mon-fri is so that i don’t fall off the wagon missing out on the food i really enjoy. I will also add i”m active running at least 3 times a week. Thanks. x

I don't really think that would work - although it's always worth trying.

The key thing, though, is to switch your body from burning carbs to burning fat. This transition can take a couple of weeks, so I'd try a couple of weeks without the potatoes/higher carb vegetables, and then see what happens if you introduce them.

Beware, though, eating carbs again is likely to impede your weight loss - or at the very least slow it down - and also it can trigger cravings for more carbs.

Thank you for taking the time to respond, I cut out bread and pasta last week, i did have a couple of parsnips and one roast potatoe with sunday lunch, i did manage to lost a pound and a half in a week, im trying some off the low carb bootcamp recipes this week so am really looking forward to trying to be more adventurous, at present i’ve been mainly sticking to chicken and veg.

I think I would find low carb hard to do without eating eggs or much meat. Do you enjoy fish? Might get pretty repetitive with chicken and veg / cheese etc.

The day after eating carbs I get hunger cravings and I'm back on the blood sugar rollercoaster and it takes a day or two to re-stabilise into low-carb eating. I find you have to be quite committed and strict to eating this way, to reap the benefits. You may feel like you never really find your groove with it, if you are eating carbs a couple of days every week. You say you're a runner - perhaps just stick to eating carbs pre-exercise? Fuel your runs well and eat lower carb the rest of the time? My DP is a cyclist and that's pretty much how he eats.

Thank you for taking the time to respond, i really appreciate it, i do think it will get repetitive but i’m pretty much used to that anyway as i’m not very adventurous food wise, hence me previously being carb heavy, it never used to be a problem till i’ve hit my 50s 🙈 and i just can’t seem to keep it off with just exercise, I’ll keep going and i’ve found some good recipes on here, soups, stuffed mushrooms etc to vary things a bit. I never associated hunger cravings with carbs, makes sense now as i’ve felt a lot better this week, certainly less bloated from the massive amounts of bread i used to eat. Good idea re exercise/carbs, I”ll def give that a go as it may help me sustain the lower carb the rest of the time. Thanks again.

Further question, I’m confused how to work the total carbs out on uk packaging, do i count the total carbs on the label per packet etc or is it the carbs of which sugars. Some advice given on another thread was carbs minus fibre = net carbs. Totally confused tbh, though i’ve lost weight by giving up bread, pasta etc but i’d really like to be able to know which carb figure to use to keep a track of whether the things im eating is actually reasonably low carb.

Net carbs is something used on American packaging. In the UK you look at the total carb count.