Carbs fats and proteins

[Katarta]

Hi. I’m trying to input on my fitness pal to help keep my carbs low. What % should I be having of each please it’s basing my calories as 1400 I know we don’t count canaries but then it’s asking for % split. I don’t know what to set it as. Should ft be higher than carbs or what ? I’ve had a banana today I totally blew my carbs o didn’t realise I should have had cheese or nuts 😩 thanks for the advice in advance.

[TheAwfulToad Ambassador]

Those apps are a bit of a waste of time, Katarta. Bear in mind that keeping carbs low is a means to an end. It's not the goal itself. What you're trying to do here is keep your insulin as low as possible. The most effective way of getting the desired result is to memorize what foods are likely to raise your insulin, and then not eat them. The 25g number is a guideline that forces you to do that, but there's nothing magical about the number itself.

If you just want to get a rough idea what the percentages look like, induction is typically 20-25% protein, 5-7% carbs, fat 70-75%. But if you set those percentages as a goal, you'll probably end up tripping over your own shoelaces. It's far, far more important to put food on your plate that's enjoyable (or at least halfway so) and filling. If you do that, you'll soon learn what the right macro fractions look like. I realise this is hard to accept since we've been told for so long that we have to count this and that, but the aim of LCHF is to achieve freedom from that sort of thing.

PS I'm just having a giggle over your typo: "counting canaries". I'm imagining a new celebrity diet plan that involves counting little yellow birds in your head to take your mind off eating.

[Fruitandnutcase in reply to TheAwfulToad]

Exactly how I do it. I don’t count calories or % carbs etc.

I started LCHF to reverse my steroid-induced T2 diabetes. I found a very helpful book that advised measuring by blood sugar before and 90 minutes after I ate.

I recorded everything I ate and was able to work out the sorts of foods that spiked my blood sugar - in my case pretty much any kind of grain - I’m totally gluten free - so I don’t eat whole grains - nice healthy things like jacket potatoes - awful, parsnips etc.

Once I’d worked out what spiked my blood sugar - carbs, even the so called ‘good’ carbs, I cut it out of my diet and now that I know the sort of things that do it I just avoid them.

Basically I go for chicken, fish, some red meat but not masses, vegetables that grow above the ground and berries - I tend to avoid tropical fruits and stick to berries although I do have a mashed banana omelette for breakfast every now and again so I’m not rigidly tied to low carb - I am strictly gluten free though.

Like you say, you have to like the food you put on your plate.

[Katarta in reply to TheAwfulToad]

Thank you for the advise. Ha that would be a lot easier. Must have been my subconscious as just booked to go to lanzerote on Tuesday so may have to have some carbs so I can drink.

[MikePollard]

So long as you understand the principle behind LCHF and have eliminated processed foods, white foods such as bread, rice, potatoes, pasta and sugar you'll be fine. Eat till satisfied then stop.

Our ancestors didn't understand what a carb was, let alone how much they should eat any more than an animal in its natural environment does.

Try intermittent fasting if you really want to make an impact.

[cheritorrox]

I don't like MFP but I did discover a nutrition database which is really useful. It's info from US Agricultural Research Service. The link below is just one bit of the site - you can look up low net carbs food for example:

myfooddata.com/most-nutriti...

Although I agree with all the comments above, I also remember starting out and not very sure of what I was doing. Personally I used a notebook rather than an app to record amounts & macros of everything I ate so I could review whether I had e.g. eaten enough fat. It's a bit of a pain but you do get used to knowing what 50g of cheese, mascarpone etc looks like! The above database would have saved me loads of time googling stuff!!

[Fruitandnutcase in reply to cheritorrox]

I made myself a little spreadsheet that I leave in the kitchen and quickly jot down what I’ve eaten. I started using my Fitbit to log everything but I didn’t f8nd it as easy to do.

There’s a book called Carbs and Cals that gives you photographs of servings of all sorts of foods - shows photos of various sizes helpings - tells you how much each is by weight - with approx carbs, cals, protein, fat, fibre and sat fat for each picture. It’s very clever the way it lets you see the portions - brings home that what you might consider a small portion isn’t really! It’s in association with DiabetesUK

[cheritorrox in reply to Fruitandnutcase]

That sounds like it does the job