Low carb lurker...please advise

[UglyBettyIsMyHotterSister]

Hello,

I came across mumsnet a couple of months ago and was inspired with all your low carb success stories.

I don't want to gate crash but wondered if anyone would mind telling me if I'm on the right lines please. I feel like I'm eating too much loads and feel shocking!

Yesterday I ate-

Breakfast- blueberries, strawberries and full fat greek yoghurt.

Lunch- halloumi salad with olive oil

Tea- Chicken breast stuffed with boursin and wrapped in bacon with asparagus.

Today I had-

Breakfast- scrambled egg with mushrooms and tomatoes.

Lunch- Chicken ceasar salad and a diet coke. (I forgot I was only meant yto drink water!)

Snack- Latte and a bag of pork scratchings.

Tea- Pork chop with gorgonzola, creamed spinach and broccoli.
Strawberries and cream.

Thank you for your help.

Come join us on the thread for people who don't want to be hardcore - I promise we don't bite and you'll get a lot of great advice and support.

You look like you're going high fat so I wouldn't recommend the latte - they can have 40g of carbs in one serving! You also shouldn't go too mad on the berries if you are doing high fat - limit yourself to 100g a day and try to focus on eating raspberries and blackberries since they are the lowest carb.

Since you are low carbing you need to look out for symptoms of low electrolytes since a high carb diet artificially lowers your need for sodium and potassium in particular. Really you need to be adding a load of lo-salt to your food. Here's the list of symptoms I find most noticeable cut and pasted from the other thread:

• 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 but not in a good way
• 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 electrolytes the more you drink
• things that you know to be very salty don't taste overly salty and actually taste very nice.