Low carb for those of us who aren't hardcore enough for Bootcamp/Atkins induction etc

[QueenStromba]

This is a thread for anyone who wants to eat fewer carbs but has either failed on plans than start out really low carb or just doesn't want to eat very low carb for whatever reason. I'm of the opinion that the high carb diet recommended by the government is the cause of obesity and related diseases and that any reduction in carbs will boost health.

While the Bootcamp threads are fantastic, I think a lot of people find it difficult to dive straight into eating very low levels of carbs which leads to giving up by day five. I did this myself when I first tried low carbing last April. I wasn't even trying to eat induction level carbs, just cut out the obviously high carb elements of my diet (rice, potatoes, pasta, bread etc) and I still nearly killed my housemates. It was about six months before I tried low carbing again and I went about it in a completely different way and have ended up eating induction level carbs through preference.

First I cut down my carb portions slightly in each meal, waited a week or two then cut down the portions even further so I was only eating about half the starch element that I had been in each meal. The next thing I did was completely remove the starch from one meal - I think it was breakfast I did first. I had been eating a poached egg on a slice of toast with a slice or two of lean bacon and some mushrooms or spinach - all I did was cut out the slice of toast and replace it with more veg or an extra egg depending on how hungry I was feeling. Once I was happy with that I started on dinner. Instead of rice I had cauliflower rice, instead of potato mash I had cauliflower, swede or celeriac mash and instead of noodles/pasta I had either shirataki noodles or thin ribbons of courgette. For the first while I still mixed in half a small portion of e.g. rice with my cauliflower rice. I normally made enough dinner to have leftovers for lunch the next day. I lost really well on that without worrying about how many carbs were in veg and I still had milk in my tea and berries with yoghurt. I also had a couple of beers a week and the odd slice of cake or whatever. I only went very low carb after doing a lot of reading and deciding that eating a diet very low in carbs and high in fat (including saturated fat) is the healthiest diet for us.

I believe a stall under Atkins doesn't count as a plateau until it's been at least four weeks. Did you try my lo-salt suggestion? Could you be suffering from carb creep? Are you drinking alcohol? You may just have reached the point where your body doesn't want to give up any more of its fat. Have you been doing a ketosis diet? If so, are you still getting the appetite suppressing effect?

Hello folks, how's the low carbing going? I've had an awful start, really bad cravings which ended with sweet and sour chicken balls with egg fried rice and creme eggs. I had such a sore head and felt really lethargic after a completely low carb morning/afternoon but think that was more due to early starts and not enough sleep/relaxation. Off to get lo-salt tomorrow, see if that helps.

I'll second watersign76s flowers QueenStromba, that's an amazing talk you linked to. Who would have known sugar was so toxic? Scary to think of all the stuff that's just pumped full of the stuff - yoghurts, sauces, fruit juice. I had black coffee all weekend so coffee with double cream today was just bliss :) Nice to read your troubles are better now, thanks for all the great advice and please, keep it coming

Eek. I'm all embarrassed now - I was studiously ignoring the first lot of flowers! I'm glad you've managed to cut the sugar out of your coffee - it's far nicer with cream than with milk and sugar isn't it? It is a fantastic video isn't it? It's one of the things that cemented me in thinking that I'm going to eat like this forever. You should also have a read of Wheat Belly - you'll feel about the same way about wheat as you do about sugar now. It's pretty terrifying that it's almost impossible to buy any pre made food without wheat and sugar.

These packed lunch ideas are meant to be for kids but they could be useful for people who have to take lunch to work or are planning on taking a packed lunch on days out this summer.

Hi queen - yes have been using the lo salt. Strange phenomenon the last 2 days - have been going to the loo (weeing) every 20 mins - quite the opposite of the pattern over the last couple of weeks. So that's great. I don't ever really know if in in ketosis as I always feel hungry psychologically, I am rubbish like that.
Last night had prawns, calamari, cos lettuce, lemon mayo and some cheese. I also need to try and eat dinner earlier - not 9pm like normal - as morning weigh ins then always include dinner.
Have discovered the global fat scale (on bbc website, google it) which tells you what % of women in your country are the same bmi.

I've started low carb today (i think) I have to do something as having lost a few stone calorie counting its creeping back on- but I can't face counting again as it took over my life tbh.
Hoping low carb will be less headwork and healthier. Really reluctant to increase fat but that's a mental barrier I need to overcome.
Is anyone else using mfp to log carb/protein/fat and is there a better tool that doesn't have the calories in red at the top?

Great to feel less alone in this.

The weeing every 20 mins means I was probably right about water retention due to low potassium - I'll be very surprised if that doesn't translate into a scale loss. I know what you mean about the psychological hunger - I've probably been in ketosis for the last six months and I've only just got to the point where I can take or leave food a lot of the time. Food can be enjoyable even if you aren't hungry but I've come to the realisation that it's a lot nicer if I leave it until I am hungry - I don't have to eat it just because it's there.

Thanks queen, will report back with hopefully slightly lower weight later on

I'll join as I'm low carbing again. First time with great success. Just need to lose a few lbs. Had celery, cheese triangles and egg for breakfast and sardines and mangetout for lunch. Tonight green bean salad and salmon. Trying to induce ketosis today :) Will eat the occasional carb like beans and basmati rice - not really intending to do extreme low carb unless I can't shift the weight.

2 days in, 4lb down

Is there a lo-carb recipe site you would recommend or even a lo-carb recipe book?

I have autoimmune conditions and know I feel better when I cut wheat from my diet. But do you ruthlessly eliminate all carbs? What about oats and rice?

And if stir frying or roasting veg what oil, if any, are you using?

They do say animal fats are best but for frying rapeseed oil, olive oil for roasting veg and lard :/ for roasting chicken. I'll try a link for low carb recipes (never done it before): www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/low_carb/

Sorry - didn't come out... duh!

Well done :)

I like this site for low carb recipes.

All of my carbs come from dairy, nuts, seeds, veg and berries but if you want to incorporate some starch into your diet then rice and oats are good choices. According to the Harcombe diet you can have starchy food like porridge as long as you don't have it in the same meal as fat - so porridge with skimmed milk is ok but you can't have it with cream. Normal oats are contaminated with wheat so you'll have to get them from the free from section.

The fats I use are:
coconut oil - in Asian food, it's wonderful in a curry and is good for stir fries
butter - on veg and for low heat cooking
ghee - for pretty much any cooking, roast veg, frying etc
animal fats - duck and goose fat make nice celeriac chips, lard is really cheap and doesn't deserve its unhealthy reputation
olive oil - great as salad dressing but don't cook with it because it destroys the phenols which defeats the purpose of eating olive oil
fish oil - as a supplement

The only other plant oil that's healthy is cold pressed flaxseed/linseed oil due to its high omega 3 content - most seed/nut oils have lots of omega 6 which isn't good for you. Also, they use a lot of harsh industrial processes to extract the oil.

You need to check the box below the text box that says "convert links automatically".

Here's the link for you:

www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/low_carb/

Olympicnmix

I'm not sure I've done this right (day 1 and I'm already stressing about this) if I count carbs I've had 54 but minus the dietary fiber of 15 and I'm below 40 which for me is brilliant. Or should I not be taking the fibre from the total ?

It depends on the source of the carb count. If you've added something generic like raspberries then the nutritional info will probably be American and so the fiber will be included in the total carb count and you need to subtract it to get net carbs. If you added something specifically British like "Tesco raspberries" then the carb figure will be net carbs and you don't need to take the fiber off. I don't log on MFP anymore but I do sometimes use it to work out the carb count of a recipe and when I do that I'll search for the name of the thing I'm looking for plus the name of a British supermarket (sometimes I have to try a few) to get something with a British carb count.

Hi pregnantpause I was already using mfp. I think if you go onto goals you can customise your carbs/fat/protein levels. I don't take fibre away from carbs, but currently my carbs are now quite low. Today they are 12%. Mfp has told me I haven't eaten enough today but I think I am in ketosis and it deducts any exercise. I am ignoring as it is above my bmr too.

Thanks nappyaddict we are going on a picnic today.

Dp is starting to get it as I apparently look much better and the low carb berry pudding was a big hit, so it can be delicious! He has actually got a copy of Waist Disposal, so now he needs to read it. He is a big carbaholic, though with such a sweet tooth. Mil is diabetic so it's important.

I came over all foodie today. I made a cucumber and avocado gazpacho to have for lunch tomorrow and made four different Indian dishes for dinner. One was slow cooker dahl for my DP so I didn't have to worry about it, but I decided to cook mushroom bhaji, saag paneer and creamy masala chicken all at the same time. Surprisingly it all turned out well. The saag paneer wasn't great but I think that's because I used 750g of frozen spinach and that is not the same as 750g of fresh - I'm going to resurrect it in a couple of days by whacking in a load more of the spices.

More to QueenStromba & DiamondDoris, hope the pollen isn't getting to you!

Colette, are you at the bow-shaped tan mark on the back of my neck or something else?

Evening all, thanks QueenStromba, coffee is just gorgeous with cream and yes, amazing video. I liked all the science stuff but I must be honest, I did think yay, wine's better than cola (just). I'll enjoy showing off to the cola drinkers at the next do, slurring 'well acshually, my tocshins better than your tocshin' . I'll add Wheat Belly to my library reserve list. I'm reading Not On The Label at the moment, even dh doesn't realise how the supermarkets work, and he's pretty clued up, but sorry, off topic.

Funny you should say about wheat, dh dislikes liver but he'll eat it in lots of gravy to disguise the taste. He was talking about having it this week so I asked him what's actually in gravy, and it's the 2 main culprits - sugar and flour. I should have guessed they use wheat as a thickener but so disappointed all the same.

Looking forward to bacon and eggs for breakfast, well done for all the cooking. I can barely make one meal at a time :)

Will your DH eat pate? Chicken liver pate is really cheap and easy to make. I get frozen chicken livers from Sainsbury's - 50p for 400g. Then I just fry them up with some garlic or shallots and a load of butter, put it in the food processor and then put about a spoonful of brandy in the pan and then tip the residue in the food processor too. Needs an hour or two in the fridge and goes really well with slices of cucumber.

Before I started this way of eating I only ate meat once a week or so and was quite squeamish about meat - couldn't eat meat on the bone because it reminded me that I was eating a bit of an animal. I liked pate but rarely ate it because I found it hard to get the idea of what it was out my mind so making and eating my own pate is a big change for me. Rather than just buying chicken breasts I can now buy a whole chicken and make it last for 3-4 meals plus stock. I took some chicken stock out of the fridge today and was rather happy that it was practically solid because that meant I'd got all the goodness out of the bones - the idea of that would have made me feel ill a year ago.

Stock is really easy to make in the slow cooker. For chicken stock I'd put the carcass, a couple of bay leaves, some black peppercorns and a liter of water in, put it on high for an hour and then leave it on low for 7-12 hours. It's great because you can leave it on overnight and forget about it.

0.9 kilo (2lb ish) off
Note to all to keep an eye on your salt and potassium levels!

Congrats! So really you have been losing 0.3 kilos a week for the last 3 weeks and that was being masked by water retention due to low potassium - I think I may have revealed the whoosh fairy's secret identity.

Seriously though, keeping an eye out for the symptoms of low electrolytes (particularly potassium) is very important on this way of eating. High carb eating makes the kidneys retain salt which artificially lowers our body's salt requirements - when you stop eating carbs you need to up your salt levels by putting lo-salt on your food. If you drink 4-5 liters of water a day like me then you might well need an electrolyte supplement too.

Symptoms of low electrolytes to look out for - There are quite a few but these are the ones I notice the most

• fatigue - if you feel fatigued on this way of eating then you probably are low on electrolytes
• sore/tired/aching muscles - if your legs hurt walking up stairs then you are probably low on potassium/electrolytes in general
• salt cravings - when you stop eating crap your body gets better at telling you what it wants, if you start craving salty food then you are low on electrolytes. Don't forget that sodium isn't the only salty tasting thing but is the main one you'll find in processed food - you could well be short on potassium too which is why lo-salt is important
• Feeling spacey - just general lack of being able to concentrate and feeling a little bit high
• headaches - low sodium can make it difficult for your body to retain enough water so you can actually get dehydrated despite drinking plenty of water which manifests as headaches
• feeling thirstier the more you drink - means that you're flushing out your sodium which means you can't hang on to the water

Oh - another one I've just remembered is that things that you know to be very salty don't taste overly salty and actually taste very nice. I reckon the electrolyte drink I just had was about as salty as the sea but tasted nice rather than really salty.