How do you cope with the cost of low carb diets?

[Touty]

I have had great success with low carb, lost 20 pounds; the only way I can keep it off is no potatoes, no pasta, no rice etc.

However, my food bill is almost three times as much, I eat meat, diary and fish, obviously not cheap.

Does anyone have any tips for inexpensive low carb meals?

How low carb are you? Beans and pulses are cheap but not carb free. A nice bean casserole with steamed veg or you can make your own falafel and have with a salad.

Meat alternatives such a vegetarian sausages are slightly cheaper than meat ones.

Eggs are also high in protein and carb free. If you mix them up and pan fry very thinly (like a crepe) they make a good alternative to a bread wrap. You can also use them instead of flour to make cheese muffins etc.

Quite a few low carb diets I've done in the past allow oats (something to do with the GI content I think?) and they are cheap.

@brrritscoldoutside thank you. I try to stay under 20g carbs per day.

Great suggestion about eggs.

see I thought oats and beans were too high in carbs🤔

I follow a regime of having either two carb free and one carb meal a day (all breads or rice are wholemeal) or one carb free and two medium carb meals (beans and pulses are counted as medium carbs). I lost a couple of stone 2 years ago and have managed to keep it off using this method.

Batch cooking and freezing also helps to keep costs down.

For keto beans pulses etc are too high. However, if this is purely for weight loss then you might find that it's equally effective to up your carbs a bit now that your body has trained itself to burn fat effectively.

The you could introduce some low gi or complex carbs in small amounts to bulk things out a little.

Eggs, cheese, fattier meat cuts, tinned mackeral in olive oil or spring water us good and cheap. Tubs of cream cheese are pretty cheap and go well with an avocado. Pate is also reasonable price and carb wise. Peanut butter too.

Now that I low carb rather than virtually no carb, I will make lentil soup and eat porridge made with whole milk.

Cottage cheese (Longley farms full fat, it is the ONLY option, Iceland, Morrisons, home bargains)
Boiled eggs (or scrambled, fried, poached)
Greek yoghurt
Cauliflower
Frozen berries

There are cheap and filling high protein, low carb options.

I'll also have small amounts of brown rice or pasta. Good with tinned fish and mayo for a cheap filling meal.

Again now that I'm not that strict, I'll have one if those brown thins (about 16g carbs if I remember correctly) thick with pate or cream cheese.

I've been trying to put weight on but stay low carb for blood sugar reasons and I put the same couple of pounds on and off all the time and have done since July. Eating low carb is actually making it near impossible to gain weight.

Mince is cheap:

H/M burgers - add chopped mushrooms to bulk them out a bit.
H/M nuggets if you get chicken mince, I just add seasoning and a little bit of melted butter.
Bolognaise on courgetti, sliced leeks, cabbage etc.

How are you getting on @Touty ?

Hi @Gobolina still low carb, managing to keep the weight off, I gave up alcohol too so that probably helps with weight loss. I’ve started eating some beans and lentils though to cut down with the cost of food.

I’ve also found low carb bread which is not cheap but it’s a cheaper option than eating meat so I can have say, cheese on toast one night which helps keep food costs down.

how are u getting on?

@Touty Well done, its not easy. I'm doing ok, ty, only just really getting on it properly even though I was supposed to be starting on 1st January. I had a few events etc that disrupted me but have been 100% since the weekend.