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.

Had planned to do 2 week bootcamp but only got weighed last night - 12st 9½lb - so too late to do it now, think I would rather edge myself into this WOE gradually (if that makes sense?)

Can I ask a simpleton question about carbs please?

On the table of nutritional information on food packets, do you consider the total Carbohydrates amount or the 'of which sugars' amount?

Total carbohydrate. Starch is just a load of glucose molecules stuck together and depending on the type of starch it can actually raise your blood sugar more than the equivalent weight of table sugar.

Hi all, I've been following this thread and have been eating lower carb for 10 days, but only just dropped the porridge and bananas. I've lost 1kg and am eating nice food although my brain misses the junk!

Question, does anyone know if beans like borlotti, canneloni, kidney etc are ok? They're carby but unprocessed and have protein too.

From what other people have said I think I'm in ketosis now as not that hungry (but still getting hungry for meals).

Can't actually believe i'm sticking to this despite choc and biccies in the cupboard, have never successfully dieted before. I do realise it's early days.

Hi pyjamalover, the great thing about this way of eating is that it actually gets easier to stick to the longer you do it - I have no interest in bread, chips etc anymore and desserts are normally far too sweet for me.

Beans unfortunately are actually really bad for you, not so much because of the carbohydrate content but because of the lectins and phytates. Plant lectins can cause inflammation and even autoimmune disorders because antibodies we make against them can react to our own lectins. Phytates are antinutrients which bind to essential minerals and prevent their absorption. They're present in nuts too but the general consensus is that nuts have enough nutrients in them to balance out the phytates.

Should I still eat at meal times if I don't feel hungry?

Only been doing this for a week but already feel so much better and still no wheezing!!

Eat when you're hungry. If that means eating one meal some days and five meals on others that's fine. If you're having a particularly hungry day it's a good plan to try and eat as low carb as possible because the carbs can add up quickly if you're eating a lot of food. Also, if you find yourself craving a particular non carby food then you should eat it because it could be your body wanting a particular nutrient. I quite often crave avocados which I think is my body wanting more potassium.

That's so cheap Will have a bash and let you know how we get on.

Thanks Queen. At the moment I feel great on it, don't know if I've lost anything but am not exhausted and that's even after the first one of nightshifts so 24 hours without sleep and only about five hours this morning.
Had raspberries and full fat natural yoghurt in the middle of the night and smoked haddock with poached eggs this morning.
So nice not to feel sluggish and drained.

Can I join?
Just ordered John briffas book.
I need to lose over 2 stone :(
I am planning to do a Pilates DVD and go swimming over the hols too.
I am on day 4 of low carb - or what I think is low carb!
Not doing too badly...feel I'll today though...headache and fluey feeling and ache from the Pilates earlier.
In 4 days I have only cheated twice...had half a glass of cola (at a party) and some of my homemade gluten free flapjack today as I felt a bit faint and horrid.
Was going to have gluten free pasta for tea but am sensing from th thread that that would be very bad?
It may be my imagination but I think my shorts are looser!
I am now 12 stone and would like to be 9 stone so 3 stone to go :(
One thing I have been doing is eating fruit which is also not good? I just had some blueberries and strawberries....better get reading the book!
How long will it take for that sort of weightloss do you think?

That's the thing with low carb - you feel so much better on it that the weight loss almost becomes secondary. I'm sure if Creamtea had been doing weight watchers and hadn't lost for three weeks she'd have packed it in.

Can I ask a question re: lacto free milk and gluten free pasta?
Can I have these on a low carb diet?
What about potatoes?
Amazingly I haven't missed bread that much (which is weird as its the staple of my diet) or rice. I could quite happily never eat ripple again tbh...

Im on day two and really struggling. I hadn't anticipated how bad my cravings would be. I'm obviously in a carb crash but I feel like um starving! Should I snackor not? I've already used my carbs so I suppose I could have ham cheese and egg as pick me up. Roll on the time when I don't want carbs anymore

Erm, rice I mean...

Pp I am shocked that I haven't given in and had bread. I used to eat some form of bread product at every meal.
Having breakfast each day is hard for me...I just don't always want to eat early in the am

Can I ask a simpleton question too - is off limits . Even if it is just a few glassses a few days a week ?

Not to worried about booze either! :)
Just checked the website and the pasta I use us 76g of carbs for every 100 g of pasta...that's high isn't it? :(

Hi Badvoc. People generally think the achey, fluey feeling is just a symptom of switching over to fat as the primary source of energy but it's actually due to the fact that on a high carb diet your kidneys retain salt and when you switch to low carb they start flushing it out instead like they are supposed to. So when you are on a low carb diet you need to make a conscious effort to keep your electrolytes up. The easiest way to do this is to put a load of lo-salt on your food. It's also worth buying meat on the bone e.g. whole chickens and making stock with the bones - this is how aboriginal cultures keep their electrolytes up.

Ooh, interesting.
Feel totally spaced out today!

Pregnantpause - if you're hungry then eat. Feel free to stuff your face with as much cheese and ham as you like - your body will soon figure out that carbs aren't the only source of energy. Mushrooms are ridiculously low carb and really filling when fried in butter - 250g of mushrooms is 1g of carbs. A good way to get past the carb cravings is to make sure you have lots of wonderfully indulgent low carb food about. Smoked salmon filled with full fat philadelphia is one of my favourites. If you like steak buy yourself a nice one for dinner. Put cream and butter on everything.

Really though, if you're on day two and struggling with the level of carbs you've set yourself then maybe you've set your levels too low to begin with. It would be better to have a few more carbs than you planned now (like a bowl of berries and cream) than to fall massively off the wagon and gorge yourself on toast later.

That spacey feeling is normally my first sign that I need to up my salt. Go stick a stock cube in a mug of hot water and drink it - you should feel better within 30 mins. Then as soon as you can go out and get some lo-salt.

This thread has suddenly started moving a lot faster than I'm used to!

Gluten free pasta - extremely high carb but at least it's gluten free which makes it a lot better. If you're going to eat it then I suggest you follow the Harcombe diet rules where you eat it in a very low fat meal and keep the portion small. So you could have it with a tomato and vegetable sauce but you can't have any cheese with it. You'd also want some lean protein with it so maybe a chicken breast or some white fish.

Lactofree milk - half the carbs of normal milk but they've replaced the lactose (GI = 46) with glucose (GI = 100) so you only need half as much to get the same blood sugar response. You're better off watering down double cream.

Potatoes - pretty carby so I give the same advice as the gluten free pasta. Also, new potatoes will be better than normal potatoes because they are lower GI.

If you don't feel like eating at breakfast time then don't but have a low carb snack ready in case you do get hungry later on and there is nothing suitable to eat. Small packets of brazil nuts and biltong (watch out for added sugar etc) are great for having in your handbag. Cooked meats, cheese and hard boiled eggs are great to have to hand if you're at home.

Wine is reasonably low in carbs so the odd one won't kill your diet on that front - vodka and soda has no carbs though so it's worth thinking about drinking that instead. You need to watch out for alcohol though. It won't kick you out of ketosis like eating a cake would but it does get burned in preference to anything else so while you have alcohol in your system you aren't burning fat as fuel. I had 6 weeks of an insatiable appetite due to medication I was taking which meant I was eating 3,000 calories a day - I didn't gain or lose any weight in that time. Then my grandmother went into the final stages of terminal cancer which lead to all sorts of stress and family fall outs which still aren't resolved which has lead to me drinking a bit too much to try and cope. I'm still eating very low carb and am probably consuming less calories than I was when I was on the medication but I have put on weight.

So, a glass or two of wine 2-3 times a week will probably be ok but drinking a few glasses every day will probably not be. Everyone is different though so it's just trial and error to see what works for you. If you are drinking wine and not losing weight then that is the first thing you try cutting to get you losing again.

Bugger - thought I'd answered everyone there but I've just noticed I've missed a question. If I've missed anyone else's questions then please do ask me again.

Badvoc - you'll probably lose the first half a stone really quickly due to glycogen depletion and lack of water retention. After that you'll only lose 0.5-1 pounds a week. This is lower than some diets but the fantastic thing is that it will basically all be fat. On a normal calorie controlled diet about half of the weight you lose will be muscle mass. On a low carb diet you aren't losing the muscle mass so you are limited to losing the 1 pound a week of fat that it is possible to lose. It's possible that you will get the body you want sooner on low carb while being heavier than you were expecting to be at that body size.

Thank you qs- I have some lovely Parma ham and smoked salmon there that I will hit as soon as dc go to bed. I'm aiming for Under 50, but may increase that if I'm still feeling this way tomorrow.