Hi ,
I am finding the path of low carb always seems to lead to keto.
If I want to eat some carbs, how do I then get the balance right with the fats? If carbs and high fat are a disaster, how exactly do you get the balance of low carbs and fat? Can anyone advise me please?
If you look at the Diet Doctor recipes, they are graded low carb, moderate carb and liberal carb.
Your carbs should come from vegetables and a little fruit, not grains/sugar.
Most people once fat adapted, may have the occasional piece of bread, or cake, without consequence.
Thanks, I should probably stick to one website! There so much different info out there.
True. the information from different sources and also people give different concepts. That too now a days anyone can post anything they think or believe or worked for them. But there is no ONE METHOD FOR ALL system.
i suggest do some trial and error, provided if that is feasible, depends on your current health condition, and then stick to whatever suits you. That is basically pure Ayurveda type of concept. but due to fast and furious commercialisation of medicines, even ayurvedic medicine also become one for all type. (if that works fine, else people will blame it).
That's very true. The more bread and cake I ate, the hungrier I seemed to be for more. I haven't had (the urge for) bread for a long, long time. Cakes are now for special occasions like birthdays, not the everyday "treat" like they used to be.
One thing that's not mentioned much is how much our taste buds change. Whereas before I'd love to snack on sandwiches and cakes, nowadays, I can easily leave it. They just don't taste "good" any more.
My daughter isnt doing any specific diet but she says the biscuits and stuff just taste ugh!! She does still like chocolate tho!!
Does that include no potatoes sweet corn ?? I get cant eat many eggs they constipated me. I rarely eat bread. I've just started my diet Saturday and did well until today when I went had 2 chocolate bars. I do like a weetabix muesli or porridge for breakfast and find that hard to give up. But even if I have celery and some crab meat protein which is supposed to keep you full for longer 2 hrs later I'm hungry again. It's very hard.
I do like my veg and white fish or chicken.
It sounds as if you're trying to mix low carb with low fat, which really doesn't work. For at least the first couple of weeks, you'll need to give up porridge, muesli, Weetabix, bread, potatoes, sweetcorn and chocolate and think beyond white fish, chicken and celery.
Have a look at this for a comprehensive introduction dietdoctor.com/low-carb
If you eat the right amount of the right food, you won't be hungry.
Yes I hear what your saying but I have severe acid reflux and have been told no fatty food spices and I've had pancreatitis and you have to have a low fat diet which even my vet told me my cat must have when she had pancreatitis. I also dont have a gallbladder. I'll have a look anyway thankyou
Before I started on a low carb way of eating, I lost my gallbladder which was probably due to years of low fat dieting and had severe acid reflux, heartburn and indigestion. LCHF cured all of those symptoms.
I know someone who almost died of acute pancreatitis who now lives a very healthy life following LCHF.
I'm no doctor, I'm just telling you what has worked for my friend and me.
I have GORD, (gastro oesophegal reflux disease) and am on Omeprazole medication for it, and suffer a lot of pain if I don't take it. This may well be caused by my previous diet or weight, I don't think they know what causes it. Normally, things like cream would cause me a lot of problems, but on this diet I haven't had any problems at all, in spite of how rich it is.
Just sharing my experience.
It depends what you want to achieve. If you want to reduce the symptoms of epilepsy and arthritis, then a keto diet is a good idea (excess insulin seems to cause different types of inflammation in the body). Just to be absolutely clear, the brain does not run off fat molecules, and needs either glucose (carbs) molecules or ketones. If you are eating low carb diet, the body will use up all the glucose molecules on powering your brain first, and then make ketones out of fat (a chemical process in the liver) to make up any shortfall. At what level of carb consumption you produce ketones, is entirely dependent on your body and energy consumption. I am still in ketosis but probably eat more carbs in milk and vegetables than the average person in ketosis. If you simply want to lose weight and feel very well, it does not matter too much whether your low carb diet leads you to ketosis or not. What matters (in my view) is keeping your carbs as low as you can reasonably sustain in terms of your life. 80g carbs a day that you keep to for five years/forever, is better than 30g of carbs that you can sustain for a couple of months, only to collapse back into the arms of a daily ciabatta or whatever.
I don't think that carbs and fats are particularly a disaster. That is conventional calorie counting thinking - I must cut my calories from somewhere, either I cut my calories from carbs or I cut them from fat. Actually, you are regaining your ability to listen to your appetite hormones by cutting carbs and reducing the amount of insulin you produce. If it were me, I would stick with lowish carb (not necessarily keto) for 3 months to give my hormones the best chance of getting their proper voice back. One of the most amazing things I have learned on my low carb journey is that our appetite should be set by our fat cells - our fat cells actually produce a hormone that says we are full. You will then be able to completely trust your hunger. Lowish carb in my view is no bread, potatoes, pasta, quinoa, cake, root vegetables, squash or cashew nuts - but I would not worry about the carbs in tomatoes, red pepper, cauliflower or greek yoghurt. Then, if you wanted to add a weekly meal with carbs - we eat butternut squash once a week for example because we like it - I am sure you can accommodate that, or a periodic piece of dark chocolate. I eat something like a cake or a hot cross bun about once a month - and seem still to be still lean (my body has not been this hard since my 20s!). I don't enjoy it that much interestingly, but its usually a family celebration type thing and churlish not to.
Thanks Hidden I have cut rice, bread, potatoes, flour, pasta out completely. I am just probably worrying too much about eating too many strawberries etc. I just don't want to be eating all this extra fat and overdo the carbs, which can be in all sorts of places you don't expect, therefore totally messing up the effect. Also missing the odd glass of juice, and crunchy cereals, I loved Special K!
I am moderating my approach every day. I have a tablespoon of mascarpone with my morning coffee to keep me going. So far my blood sugars haven't shown any problems although I know it can be off before it registers in tests. I have a slightly underactive thyroid, but , touch wood, no other health concerns and just want to lose a few stone, and pre-empt coming down with Type 2.
Well - says she setting up herself as an expert just because she’s read a biochemistry book on all this & now has rock hard thighs - see what the tape measure says. If it’s moving, eat the strawberries. Or cut them back& see what the tape measure says. You have time to experiment - as the food writer Lee Janogly says, what’s the rush? No one’s asking you to pose for a centrefold are they??
Heaven forbid!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣
PS I eat roasted pumpkin seeds for the crunch. (They go straight through so carbs irrelevant...)
Hi guys, hope you don’t mind if I join in the conversation. I am following LCHF as well, with IF for weight loss, I am also 56, started HRT about the same time. I am a month in now, have been struggling a bit over last few days. I caved in to chocolate on Sunday evening, been feeling guilty ever since. To try to keep it in perspective, only had approximately 500cals, but it has given me a bit of a ‘wobble’, if you know what I mean. Have been trying to just eat when hungry , but this can be hard to determine as I have a history of binge eating. So yesterday I just wanted to keep eating, had more carbs, blueberries and a lot larger portions of fat. Although I have lost 7 1/2lbs, weigh in tomorrow, I keep trying to push for more and I think this is causing the problem. I keep seeing others posting bigger weight losses, so I keep wondering what I have been doing wrong. Not sure if I have been having to much fat or not enough, or too many carbs. So when I read your posts and Slims replies it helped with my confusion. It is good to know I am not the only one struggling with LCHF.
Don't worry, you're not alone! LCHF is a really big change to our eating habits, binging or not. Let's give it time. I bought some coconut flour today, Sainsbury's sell it, I might try to make some little pancakes for breakfast one day. It's my mum's birthday at the weekend and I am making her a birthday cake. I thought I might make a mini low carb cake for myself , just so I don't feel left out!
Thank you Sue, it’s my birthday next week, not sure what to do. Traditionally it would be all out cake, cake, chocolate, gin. Unfortunately these are all the things I have given up. Will definitely ask people not to buy chocolate, or gin,my daughter usually does the cake, she is on a restricted diet, might ask her to try to make it low carb rather than having no cake at all. Let me know how you get on with the coconut flour, I shop at Sainsbury’s. Dreading weigh in tomorrow in case I have put on.
I am not feeling overly optimistic about my weigh in which is due on Friday.
You can make little low carb truffles with very dark chocolate and cream, the recipe is on here somewhere, I will tag you. I have also seen a recipe for cheesecake using ground walnuts as the base. We can be quite free with the topping, using cream cheese etc. And there is always strawberries and cream which always feels like a nice summery treat! Good luck, speak again soon. x
Ok thank you x
Tried to put link to cheesecake recipe, but it didn't work. Look on YouTube, lots of recipes and films about low carb on there. Look for Tara's Keto Kitchen. You might need to get some sweetener too, maybe Xylitol. I know some on here don't advocate sweet snacks etc and say we should learn to live without hem, which we probably should, and if our insulin gets sorted presumably we won't feel the need. But we are human, and we need treats especially on special occasions. I am no puritan I'm afraid!
Ok, my last post on the subject. Here is a dietdoctor guide to sweeteners, just FYI
dietdoctor.com/low-carb/ket....
Thank you😊
Pink4eva
healthunlocked.com/lchf-die...
Also ganache can be used as icing on a cake. Be careful of portion sizes, or it will stop being low carb.
Don’t dread your weigh in and if you haven’t lost as much as you want, or have even gained a little, don’t get disheartened. Weight loss for most people is not linear, there are wobbles up and down, such is life! The main thing is not to let it get to you and give up or go back to old habits. There can be many reasons for not losing as you wish, it could be the water you have drunk or the food still in transit. It could even be your body hanging onto whatever it can and then letting go when it realises everything is good. On another site this is known as the whoosh effect.
Thank you for the support Annie.😊
Just read your profile, the bit about exercise. Have you looked on You Tube? There are some great routines on there and you can try lots to find someone/style you like. I Do Tai Chi, Pilates, yoga and general workouts - basically whatever takes my fancy. I’ve even been known to do them outside much to the amusement of the neighbours when the fence was down.
Hi Annie, thanks for your post, I know it sounds limp, but I am really struggling with motivation to exercise at home. I was walking about 7k/ day but that has tailed off as well. I just really got into the routine of going to the gym I’m very disappointed that they didn’t get the green light in the Govt., announcement today. I know they had made a lot of changes re distancing and cleaning. I will definitely try some yoga routines on you tube, I do feel the benefits.
I struggle with exercise at home! I miss my swimming! Roll on the day we can go back to the leisure center!
Hi hope you don’t mind me joining the conversation. It’s my birthday at the weekend and I’m resigned to not having carbs other than my daily allowance so no cake for me. I’m happy with that as I want to continue to lose (I’m on wk 2). But giving up gin?! Eek 😁 how are you coping haha?! I’m assuming you’ve given up all other spirits? I just wanted to say that on LCHF you can drink spirits which are zero carbs (vodka, brandy, gin). I’m drinking vodka and soda water (too many carbs for me in slimline tonic) with a slice of lime and lots of ice. Delicious. It’s just about retraining your brain to realise that to lose weight you’ve got to massively reduce carbs in the beginning and eat lots of fat to keep you satiated. As Subtle Badger said try introducing carbs again gradually later on.
I gained my info from this community and diet doctors where there are some excellent videos on what low carb really means. Good luck and chin chin!
Hi, I had noticed that my gin consumption had gone up considerably under lock down, I’m sure not the only one🙂the trouble I have is that I am a lot more likely to binge eat after I have had alcohol. I found that wine was the worst for this, so I swapped to gin. I had to be realistic and to give myself the best chance of sticking to this new way of eating I had to knock the gin on the head. To be honest I haven’t missed it very much at all. Not sure if I am going to have some gin on my birthday next week, I don’t want to risk r
Sorry, accidentally touched the tab, cont. don’t want to risk a carb binge.
Ah yes I see crikey well done you!! Gin doesn’t really agree with me never has so I’m drinking vodka funnily enough I’m managing to stop after one but wine consumption during lockdown just got ridiculous!! So yes I know my drinking increased during lockdown. I think the weight I lost in the first week was probably wine!!! 😁
Oooh, interesting to know about the spirits!!! This could be dangerous!! 😂🍸🍸
At one stage I had a bunch of mint in the kitchen, so I muddled a handful in the bottom of a glass, poured over a shot of gin, added some ice and topped up with fizzy water. It was delicious, but felt like drinking something abstemious at a Buchinger Wilhelmi spa.
You can give a health halo to anything if you add the right herbs.
😇 😇 😇
Enjoy that gin girl - there are no carbs in it! It’s the tonic that can have carbs, but on your birthday....
Ooh coconut pancakes, have not done them for a while. My recipe has egg whites beaten & whisked in separately. They don’t turn over easily so I make them tiny...
Its worth bearing in mind that the more you have to lose, the faster you lose it. A 30 stone person might well lose a stone in a fortnight or a week, but it won’t come off so fast for a 14 stone person. That’s significantly because the larger we are, the more water we will lose. I spent 3 months stressing about why I wasn’t losing ANY weight on low carb when it was dropping off everyone else, until I realised my body did not think I had any more weight to lose.
Also, if you have a history of binge eating, low carb should help that. It just might take a couple of months for all of those cravings to go. As I’ve said above, that’s ok, no rush. It is indeed really hard to learn what hunger feels like, but that’s ok. Eat when you think you are hungry and don’t try to fight it. Just make sure it’s something low carb - it’s quite hard to overeat on cheese, beef or eggs - without toast & chips to go with.
I have another 4 st to loose, I have been feeling much better generally since changing to LCHF, but not felt great over past 3-4 days. Feeing more lethargic and aching. I have fibromyalgia so not sure it’s due to this. I have read about keto flu, might it be this kicking in, like I say , have been eating LCHF for 4 was.
Keto flu tends to occur before a fortnight, it usually means we’re short on salt. All the water flushing out of our system takes salt with it. Maybe add a bit of salt in case you think that applies to you. And curl up with a book if you can xxx
The water here is very hard, so have been adding see salt and apple cider vinegar to make it more palatable since pushing fluids. Thanks for the info and support, it makes a big difference. So glad I found this site.
I find Bovril does the trick.
I have a few days off now so getting some sun and then will take your advice, I have the stopping binges book, can’t remember the name, to read😊
People say keto flu is due to salt. But that confuses me.
When you switch to a keto diet, you are switching your muscle and your brain from glucose to ketones. Surely there is a period of adjustment. Isn't that (at least partially) the keto flu?
It sure seemed that way to me. When I completely bonked 6km into a ride, the best explanation was I had no glycogen left, not that I needed salt.
Salt was a problem, but not this problem.
Pass. Out of insight on this one...
PS bonked as a term does not translate to the UK too well...I don’t ‘think’ you meant to tell me you had sex a few miles into your cycle ride... and if you did, I don’t see how you can hold your glycogen stores responsible... 🤣🤣🤣
I was quite worried/disturbed by the bonk reference. I trust it was all socially distanced!?
How did I miss this?
Many words have more than one meaning; fluent speakers of English can usually understand by context signals. For instance, if I told you I dropped out of London-Edinburgh-London after 100 hours and 1200km because I was completely f*cked, I would expect you to understand that I was really exhausted and a broken woman, and not that I had engaged in joyous congress on a squeaky inflatable mattress with a man who hadn't showered in 3 days with dozens of witnesses. Or perhaps with dozens of men and one witness. 🤔
True fact: the first time I heard bonk used in any sense was uttered by Bruce Willis in Moonlighting. He was using it in the coital meaning. I thought it was a useful verb to add to my vocabulary. I use both meanings.
(sorry for the diversion, Sue)
Joyous Congress 🤣🤣🤣
This has re-piqued my interest! I've done very very low carb on and off for years now.. but rarely been able to maintain it for longer than a few weeks at a time without going off the tracks. I also never really got the leptin sensitivity reset I was hoping for. I never felt really full like others said they did. Instead I found myself feeling deprived, unsatisfied and unhealthy... all things I was promised a keto diet would banish. Yes my concentration and my sleep were better but my digestion wasn't good, skin wasn't good, migraines a little worse. And most irritating about it all I wasn't getting less hungry.
What I really want is a leptin sensitivity increase - and I think I'm going to go again into a 3 month effort to do that through lowish carb as you describe it. Sticking at it for 3 unbroken months is the key maybe..rather than deathly strictness
Thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts on this, I'm feeling hopeful!
Yep. 3-6 months that you can sustain, even at 150g of carbs, is better than 2 weeks of keto. Intermittent fasting has a similar effect on insulin & leptin sensitivity, if that’s easier for you.
PS there’s this received wisdom that we should start super-low carb, but there’s nothing to stop you trying 150g carbs, seeing how that goes, then 100g etc. If you find super keto too overwhelming, then do it another way.
This was really interesting . I am sticking to virtually no carbs just getting them from foods that may naturally have them ie berries . My husband is cutting back on carbs he may have 1 slice of bread daily but we have both started a low carb high fat diet . He would not be able to cut out totally and this is a way I can help him lose weight . The science is fascinating.
What I should say is that there isn’t masses of research on this for purely weight loss. Dr David Unwin has a lot of patients who have reduced & reversed their T2D using low carb & there are his lectures showing results on YouTube. They have also lost loads of weight but he’s primarily tracking their T2D indicators.
My husband is also following low carb now - he was really anti it, and then he saw me drop a dress size almost overnight in January 🤣. He loves all the meat...
Mine is anti diet full stop so the addition of a little carb is keeping him on board . Sounds like you are doing really well . This is our first week . I am hoping to drop 2 dress sizes . I live in hope as slimming world and eating unlimited carbs did not work in fact I have gained weight plus also eating a lot of refined carbs and sugar .
I think I am there. This is me now. healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh...
I thought I’d lose another stone, but it looks like my body weight thinks I am fine as I am as my weight has been stable for 4 months.
I too had eaten a lot of carbs - and a great deal of sugar...
PS True acceptance of where I am - I have ordered an expensive wetsuit. I always hired before as my weight was all over the place. But this not the year for wetsuit sharing! I could have bought something a bit nasty from eBay in the hope I’d be a stone less next summer, but I’ve accepted this is is me, and getting a decent one. This is a BIG emotional step for me...
How fantastic, good for you! ❤👌
I cannot tell you how excited I am about going camping in 10 days!
You are an experiment of one person (n=1). I would suggest you stay low carb for a few weeks, avoiding all "carbs" (grains, sugars, potatoes etc), and then gradually introduce stuff you want add, and see how your body responds. A tape measure is a better tool, because with carbs come water, so you will put on a few kg of water. The scale can't tell that from fat.
If you are happy with the results, keep doing it. If not, try something else.
I haven’t eaten potatoes, bread, pasta, rice for a while. My binges were mostly chocolate, cake, biscuits, ice cream, cereals, anything sweet basically. Just have to stop myself trying to rush things for fast weight loss, because, I know if I try to cut back too much, I am more likely to binge. I am really enjoying LCHF way of eating. I am struggling with only eating when hungry as my body hasn’t used that mechanism of eating for a long time. I have been either binging or restricting for at least 10yrs, thus yo-yo weight. LCHF has mostly stopped the urge to binge and with the help of other members, like yourself, I know I will reach my goal and most importantly, be able to maintain.😊
I'm thinking the term Keto seems to have been hijacked to mean any type of low carb diet these days, where to me it has always been reserved for very low carb. I found a lady "doing keto" who eats potatoes regularly (I'm not judging her diet, but it's just not howi understand keto to work)
Because it's the new trend too, keto is a must have tag line for recipes.
In terms of low-ish carb, higher fat diets, perhaps worth looking at paleo? It still allows a reasonable amount of carbs via root veg. Newer takes on it include some dairy and legumes, but it doesn't require carb counting.
Well sure people say keto when they mean low carb, but I personally haven't noticed it. I haven't even seen potatoes on a diet described as low carb.
But paleo gets misused too. It's supposed to be about how our paleolithic ancestors ate, but the are thousands of recipes out there for paleo cookies and similar nonsense. It's possible our ancestors cooked a crude flatbread on a hot stone, but nothing resembling a modern cookie.
Yes, I do think Keto and low carb can easily appear merged once you hit the internet and for someone starting out it gets confusing. When counting calories is familiar territory, having to start counting all your 'macro's' and get the balance broadly right is quite a step up.
For those seeking cake, you could try this:
fedandfit.com/paleo-blueber...
I leave out the maple syrup and serve with chia jam. You could sub Stevia if you did want sweetness though.
Coconut flour is very dense and doesn't work well as a substitute in regular cake recipes. You need a lot of eggs compared to regular flour too. It's best if you can find a specific recipe that uses coconut flour (the lady in the link has some nice ones 
)
😳 Or paleo scones. Oops!
in this case it's more of a descriptor for the shape. I've made "scones" entirely of sweet potato and coconut flour before on autoimmune paleo
I do know what you mean about all the cakes though! I feel like any diet seems to come with a lot of cake cheats these days!
To me, paleo isn't a very good descriptor for the diet itself, it's more of a whole food plant based diet that includes meat. I don't know if it's a case that it's been hijacked also, or if it was always intended to be this way but outsiders misunderstood it!
I think you have done the same thing with paleo diet, as your potato-woman has done with keto. She assumed that it mean reduced carb. And you assumed paleo meant "whole food plant based diet that includes meat". But that's not it. What it is about is eating what our paleolithic ancestors ate. It's nonsense of course: because we don't know what they ate; because what they ate depended on where they lived; because most of the foods they had available are not on the planet now; because we don't live a lifestyle remotely like they did; because they weren't as in tune with their environment as is assumed - survival of the fittest represents a constant struggle.
So yeah, eat what makes sense to you and call it what you like, but don't judge someone who eats less potatoes and calls it keto.
I said I didn't judge them, I just wasn't expecting to hear potatoes included in a diet described as keto,l. It was a means to highlight how the term has been used to encompass low carb in general.
I think that because we can't eat exactly like our palaeolithic ancestors did, that's the reason paleo is what it is in the mainstream today, but I'm not the only one that defines it this way
You said you weren't judging her diet. I am sure that is true. You were judging her use of the word keto. Otherwise you wouldn't have mentioned it.
And you are right. A keto diet is a diet that puts you into ketosis. Someone eating potatoes better be posting purple urine strips if they want to convince us that is a keto diet.
I am not judging anyone's diet, but I will judge someone who describes food as paleo if it is clearly something unobtainable to our paleolithic ancestors.
Each to their own
I expect our paleo ancestors ate honey when they found it...
Ate it? Oh yes. Baked it into cookies? Let me think....
😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣
Scoffed it out of the tree before Winnie the Pooh showed up...
I find that life is too short to worry about exact measurements of food. I’ve cut out rice, pasta, potatoes, flour etc. I tend to be very low carb if I do check. I don’t add loads of fat to my food, but don’t hold back on olive oil, mayo and cheese!
When we first started in was Atkins, who had a staged program - very strict for the first couple of weeks, as I remember and then relaxed after then. The Austrian GP, Wolfgang Lutz, published a brilliant book 'Life without Bread'. If you go to Amazon and put in "Life without Bread" - you can go into the 'look inside' feature and scroll to page 5 where he starts a section on "BASICS". That worked very well for my husband and I, but it was only when we dropped the carbs further that we got back to our youthful weights - we dropped a further 10kgs. We never go hungry and we have remained weight stable throughout the lockdown - both in our 70s. I think the work of Dr Unwin with his sugar equivalence infographics, that indicate the impact on blood sugar and Diet Doctor's visual guides on carb content of different foods, are brilliant. Wolfgang Luzt's book is based on 50 years as a GP. He died well into his 90s.
I just had a quick look, it looks like an interesting read, I see a section on a trip to the Arctic, by one Vilhjalmur Stefansson and his observations of the Inuit diet. It sounds worth reading for that chapter alone!
See here for more about Stefansson : atlasobscura.com/articles/a...
Yes, 'Life without Bread' is a brilliant read and highly respected. I first learnt about Stefansson reading Barry Groves - he had a brilliant web site second-opinions.co.uk. Barry wrote 3 excellent books. First was a very simple 'Eat Fat Get Thin', then went with a bit more detail and his final book 'Trick and Treat', is excellent and fully referenced. When I last spoke to him (email) he said that a University in the US was going to use it as a text book. Sadly he died shortly after that. The web site is kept going by Zoe Harcombe's husband Andy to ensure his work remains available. Andy Harcombe also keeps spacedoc.net active to enable the amazing information to remain available to us all. Enjoy the reads.
Switching to LCHF from keto
Low Carb Bread
Heartburn & Low Carb