Slowly getting into and used to LCHF. Coconut... Good or bad?! And how to work out how much Protein you should have a day?! Advice needed.

[becky3344]

Hi. I've been slowly for the last 2 weeks reducing my carbs, and increasing my healthy fats. I've cut out bread, and grains, breakfast cereal now.

With starting to look at what new things i'm supposed to eat, and being vegan for a long time.

I bought a vegan keto 30 day cook book arrived 2 days ago. And it's very insightful and tells me alot of what i need to know about nutrition and what i should and shouldn't be eating.

Along with loads of new recipes in it, and showing me a new style of cooking which i've never done before. So looking forward to following more of the recipes in the book.

But i still am unsure about coconut.. And whether to use it much, alot or not at all. Due to it's major high content of saturated fat.

Can anyone shed anymore info about that, and whether or not they still use it much?!

Also I read about trying to work out how much protein you should be eating. I read that to work it out: how many lbs you weigh, then times it by 0.7 or 0.9. Then you will get how many grams you can eat of protein.

Thing is when i worked mine out it said: 118-152 grams of protein a day. Now that seems almost impossible to do anyway. Before trying out LCHF i was looking to increase my protein to 50 grams a day, which in UK they say is recommended amount for a woman on a regular diet. And i was finding that slightly hard. So to raise up to 118 grams seems ridiculous. I must have worked mine out wrong. But i don't know how i did.

And Especially as it says for LCHF diet, your protein should be moderate intake and not high.

Any advice and help welcome please.

[flo72003]

Hi Becky

You should aim to eat 0.8 g per kilo not per pound. So you just multiply your weight in kg by 0.8 and you will get the amount of protein you need to eat per day. For example, someone who is 60 kg should consume 48 g protein a day (60 x 0.8 = 48).

I am not sure what are the best sources for protein for vegans, but I assume lentils or beans or chickpeas would be good. 100 g of lentils contain about 9 g of protein and not too much carbs (about 20 g). Have a look at the article below for the lentils' nutritional values:

healthline.com/nutrition/le...

In respect to your question about coconut - I use coconut milk when cooking some curries. Just read on the tin about the amount of carbs and sugar in it. It can vary a lot. I buy a brand that has 1.1 g of carbs per 100 g and 0 sugar (or at least it says on the tin).

I use olive oil for cooking. So I have not got first hand experience for using coconut oil for cooking.

About the saturated fat in the coconut, I am not so sure. I mean, it does have high percentage of saturated fats, however, from what I have read, there were some studies that actually suggested it would not affect badly your cholesterol. The article bellow actually suggests that there is evidence that it might lower the bad cholesterol:

healthline.com/health/high-...

Hopefully you find the information above useful.

Good luck!

[becky3344 in reply to flo72003]

Hi Flo. Thanks for your swift reply. Yes that makes more sense what you said. I've read the two links you added, yes the coconut debate is an interesting one.

The lentils look okay, high carbs but with less of them it might work. I'm going to look into protein powder as well if my protein still comes up short. But it seems quite expensive.

Thanks though for replying, i appreciate it.

[Nomash]

I use an app called carb manager (it's on play store) anything I'm unsure of I can check on there. It keeps track of carbs protein and fat. I don't use it all the time as I want to just incorporate lchf into every day rather than as a diet.

[becky3344 in reply to Nomash]

Thanks.

[becky3344]

Yes that's right, that's what i read on the nhs website. 260 kcal for carbs. Protein is important though, especially for us vegans.. I don't want to get ill from the advice.

[MikePollard]

Just curious, but do you supplement with Vitamin D and B12?

[becky3344 in reply to MikePollard]

Hi Mike. Being vegan for a long time, i have been taking vitamin D3 and Iron. For last 2 months being taking Vitamin B Complex. But i haven't been taking B12 on it's own, as i get my bloods checked, and my B12 is usually in the normal range.