How do you stop feeling so hungry when you cut out/down carbs?

[CatchCatchThePigeon]

I am right at the bottom of the pre diabetic range so trying to change my diet. I'm not hugely overweight but could do with losing about 3-4kg.

I've taken all sorts of advice, I signed up to Zoe so I could monitor my blood sugar but the 'new' way of eating, even if the same calories, is leaving me so hungry, it's stopping me sleeping at night.

e.g. this morning I had greek yoghurt with walnuts and blueberries and about 10 mins later, I was absolutely starving

Yesterday I had salmon for lunch with salad (big salad with avocados and feta) and for dinner I marinated chicken in garlic and herbs and had that with the remainder of the salad

I can see my diet before was way too carb heavy. I love potatoes. I'd often have toast with jam or honey for breakfast. I know this has to change but I just don't seem to fill up on anything other than pure carbs. Has anyone got any recommendations?

I've never found carbs to be filling, but fat and protein are.

I just seem to be the opposite :)

Drink plenty of water. Exercise or occupy yourself instead of thinking about food.

Your body will adjust.

I would probably not eliminate carbs completely. Just have less of them. So say you just guessed when you cooked pasta, actually get the scales out and weigh a portion. Same for cereal and anything that you may be over estimating.

I eat a lot of soup! For example, chicken noodle, and I stir an egg through it for extra protein. It's a lot of liquid so very filling. I make a pot that lasts 2-3 days, and have lost about 3 stone doing it.

This is a diabetes project run by a gp surgery in Essex. Lots of good info on there.
https://lowcarbfreshwell.co.uk/

Livlife bread (Waitrose and I think some coops have it) is less than 4g carb a slice, and nice if you need a toast fix. Carbzone make wraps that are only 4g per wrap (they’re smaller ones, still what I would say was a normal size wrap). You can order from them, or ocado. If you are a real bread eater then there’s a recipe by carb king on lime that works really well. We made it pretty often (in our bread maker when we first went very low carb. Alternatively there’s a company called seriouslylowcarb.com that make great keto/low carb bread and rolls.

If you search online there’s a lovely recipe by Tom kerridge for flaxseed biscuits. Roll it a bit thinner than he says to get a nice snap.

Celeriac is a good potato substitute (as is swede, though a little higher in carbs), and (never thought id say this) cauliflower really does make amazing mash. The secret is adding some butter and a dollop of soft cheese in it before mashing.

the Diet doctor website has some good recipes. Love their French pancakes one. And the blue cheese dressing. You don’t need to sign up to look at the recipes.

Planning a weeks meals is a good idea. And prep. I hard boil a load of eggs, make egg Mayo with some and leave the others for snacks or to slice into salad. Make either a big bowl of coleslaw, or a big bowl of broccoli and bacon “salad”. That way there are things I can grasp quick of I need a snack or can’t be bothered making something.

Adding various seeds, or chopped nuts, or flaxseed to salads is good for filling you up, plus adding fats and fibre.

Thanks - I have started weighing food so it's a good idea for me to get used to portion sizes!

I didn't think of soup but you're right, I'm likely to be filled by liquid so that's a good shout

Thanks - will trawl through that website. This is all new to me. I know it sounds odd but I've never had a problem with any other major health issue so it's the first time I'm having to take something seriously.

Dp is away at the moment but when he is back, I need to get him on board as he is a far worse carb monster than me and he does have quite a lot of weight to lose so I think the new diet will be useful for him.

Just had salmon and lentils and feel a lot fuller!

You've gone from pizza and potatoes to Greek yogurt and berries!

I'm not sure it's a carbs-to-low thing as much as it is a something-to-nothing thing. Eat more fat and protein and I swear you will be fine.

Definitely up the protein and fats. See how you feel eating that way.

I need to lose stones and stones, so we are on different levels there. But i can totally relate where carbs are concerned as I think many can.
Have they discussed Metformin with you? This could be helpful. Also there is a reason why we are told to eat carbs in our diet, each to their own if it ends up suiting you, longer term to reduce them a lot, but it's also the type of carbs you eat that counts. I know just last year I cut out refined foods, and felt good and still ate carbs, lost weight.

For breakfast you could have low GI toast or Wholemeal etc, with Peanut Butter if you like Peanut Butter, not everyone does I know. Obviously the no added sugar type without the palm oil. Or eggs as suggested by another poster could help fill you, or some other meats/cheese.

Bear in mind Yogurt doesn't have much in it and could be high GI, plus then apart from the nuts there is not much to fill you.

I have given up cereals pretty much, as I felt so hungry after eating them.

I am back on Metformin since around 6/7 months ago, having not been on it for around 10 yrs, originally given it because of PCOS, and with daily walks, little experiments in my diet(no calorie counting or removing carbs) i lost 3 stone whilst being on that.

A stone in 6 weeks! That's amazing. How did you do it?

I've lost 1stone 3 in total but it took ages for the weight to start coming off properly because I wasn't eating right. I haven't cut anything out and I still have days where I just eat crap tbh, last night I ate 2000kcal in mcdonalds so that's not great obviously but I need a long term sustainable solution. Most of the time I am in a calorie deficit. My maintenance calories are around 2400kcal. I eat roughly 1200 - 1800 kcal a day but I don't do anything too rigid because I simply won't stick to it.

My daily meals go something like;

Breakfast (10am) - Overnight oats, 40g oats, 10g chia seeds, 100ml almond milk, 150g 0% fat skyr and some fruit like grapes, blueberries and strawberries, this comes out at 380kcal, sometimes I have an apple as well but this is an extra 100kcal.

This is roughly 23g of protein.

Lunch (12pm) - at the moment is chunky tinned soups which is 160kcal with a high protein yogurt, I use Lindahls because they're usually on offer and around 80 - 90 kcal a pot. I do also eat leftovers for lunch as well but I halve what I had for dinner so the calories are lower.

This is roughly 20g of protein depending on the soup and yogurt.

Dinner - 6pm ish - This is anything really but usually something quite filling and around 600-900kcal depending on the day. Protein depends on what we have but it's usually full of black beans and what not. My daughter is vegetarian so most of our meals are.

Snack - I like to eat most of my snacks on an evening, this is anything from a few biscoffs to ice cream, Morrisons do an amazing high protein, low calorie ice cream for £2.99, you can eat half a tub for 150kcal :)

I do listen to my body though, if I'm hungry I will eat more, I do treat myself and I do understand this is a long term solution. I also weigh myself every day but this is to help my understand when my weight goes up or stays steady, I hold a lot of water / bloat around ovulation so I tend to put on weight and hold it for a week or so, this then drops again minus a couple of lbs, I also weigh more around my period but again this then drops.

If you're putting on weight but in a calorie deficit it is almost always water weight and this will come back off. A positive mindset helps :)

I hope this helps!

well done@Tdcp !

thanks for all your links, they were massively helpful, especially the freshwell/dietdoctor ones

dp is away at the moment but he has a massive amount of weight to lose because he had a hospital stay a few years ago and when he came out, he was immobile for a few months and just piled on the weight. He has really struggled to lose it since then and needs to lose around 20kg to start with and about 30kg to be at the weight he was before he put it all on. He has his head in the sand on his weight (not that it bothers me one bit but he is in the obese category now and I don't want to lose him to something that could have been preventable!). This is not a criticism from me as I totally get how hard it is (I was 76kg a few years ago). But I sent him those links and he is now totally transformed. We've done a meal plan for the next few weeks - the low carb diet doctor one - I think keto would be a step too far you're right - and we are going to start it tomorrow when he's back.