Low carb diet

Hi all, first time on here 😀 I’m currently on a low carb diet eating around 30g of carbs a day. I’ve been on the diet since the second week of March and have lost over 3 stone. I still have at least another stone and half to lose.

Is it healthy for me to stay on this level of carbs or should I be thinking about increasing them? And how would I go about it?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

[MikePollard]

It's important that you recognise that lowering carbs have got you to where you are now and carbs will put you back to where you were if you are not careful.

LCHF should not be considered as a 'diet' but rather be considered as a lifestyle change.

Keep on doing what you are doing and you will reach your goal.

Remember - you need ZERO carbs and if you never ate another gram you would be perfectly healthy.

[SofaJockey]

The main thing I've learned is don't do anything dramatic. 30g Carbs/day is pretty low. Maybe take it up to 40g/day for a week, then 50g, checking what happens.

You may still be losing weight (but more slowly) or you may stop.

The key is to tinker gently until you have a nutritional approach that you enjoy and can keep doing to lose that last stone and a half and then maintain gracefully.

[Hidden]

When I started I lost weight and did worry that it might not stop and I'd get too thin. But what happened is that I just lost all my fat but retained muscle, I went down to the weight I was when I was 30 (I'm now 70) and stayed there. Whatever I do, no change in what I eat, still keto, I just stay the same weight, what I regards as my natural weight and build, I didn't get thin.

Glad it's going well 😀.

[Pink4eva]

Hi, 3 st in 14wks that’s amazing, what sort of things have you been eating?

[Hidden in reply to Pink4eva]

Mostly meat and salads and plenty of water I’ve been averaging around 1000 calories a day. I stopped eating bread, flour, sugar and replaced dairy with almond milk, it took a while to. I used the fit bit app to record all my food , water and exercise

[help2020]

Hi gettinghealthy43 and welcome I’m so glad you joined! I’m very new- half way through week 2 on LCHF and to read your weight loss is so inspiring. Wow - well done!!! and thank you for sharing!

I’m not much help at this stage I’m afraid but I’ll be watching progress with interest - please keep us posted 😀

What I would say is that the advice on here is mainly objective, practical and scientific which is so refreshing! This community has been incredibly helpful to me in my first few days and hours. I hope you enjoy it as much a I. Good luck!

[Pink4eva in reply to help2020]

Yes I would agree with everything you have written, I think I would still be in my binge/yo-yo dieting cycle if it wasn’t for the info and support.

[TheAwfulToad Ambassador]

Great result! The short answer is "yes you should", but not because staying keto is unhealthy (as far as I know). If you let your carbs rise to the 50g+ range, it just gives you a wider variety of food to enjoy. This is particularly important when you're eating with friends - you don't want to be "that" person who can't eat this or that or the other.

I get the impression you're counting calories as well as reducing carbs (or are you just reporting your eat-to-appetite average)? If you're deliberately limiting your portion sizes, there's really no need to do that as long as you keep carbs low. Follow SofaJockey 's advice: the aim here is to end up at a place you can live with forever, so start adding back a few "carby" things and see how you get on. And eat until you're full.

[Hidden in reply to TheAwfulToad]

I’m not counting calories only my carb intake, because I’m logging all my food on an app it tells me what calories I’m eating. Thanks for the advice I think I’m gonna take my carbs up 10g a week and see what happens, as you say I don’t want to be the friend that can’t eat anything on the menu😀

[Subtle_badger in reply to TheAwfulToad]

I don't really understand this advice. You can always eat a few more carbs when with friends. Once your metabolically healthy, a few extra carbs will do you no harm, you don't need to prepare in advance.

If you are going to have a lot of carbs (eg poppadoms, naan, rice, mango chutney etc), you may as well start from a baseline of 30g as 50g - I don't think it would make much difference.

And if you are going to have more moderate carbs than that, we'll you can go from a base of 30g to 100g without much pain, you will be back to baseline insulin the next morning.

If you are eating out more than once a week with people whom sticking to a simple eating plan would be awkward, then maybe that should be examined. Someone who is drinking too much should examine their social life if cutting down is hard. Ditto for someone eating too many carbs.

[TheAwfulToad Ambassador in reply to Subtle_badger]

Of course you're right, but the problem is that when you're keto, you're keto. An occasional 100g evening out with friends kicks you out of keto, and you get stuck into a mindset where you think "OMG I can't eat anything on the menu cos of my keto" ... which is technically true, but not relevant to your progress.

It's much better to just let go of the idea that you have to remain very-low-carb or your weightloss will stop. As you mentioned a long time ago, there's really no obvious reason why anyone should have to go keto, ever. My response was that it's just a system reboot that gets your carb metabolism working nicely again ("metabolically healthy"), and once you're back on the level your body can handle fairly large amounts of carbs on the average (50-100g, depending on the individual) and will take very large "treats" in stride ... as long as they're only occasional.

So my advice was more about thinking patterns than physiology.