Reduced carbs

[CelticNate]

Hi all, I'm a week in and really enjoying it, feel great and so much energy I'm not sure what to do with it!

Trying to stay around 1,600 calories, minimal fat and carbs, high veg protein diet plus hitting the gym every day.

I've been reading about reduced carbs and ketosis. Any tips? Should cut them out totally or aim for 20 or 30g a day?

Which leads me on to my next question. Do you have any suggestions for a calorie counting app?

All tips greatly appreciated!

[moreless Administrator 7 stone]

Have a look at the LCHF forum, CelticNate, you'll get a lot of advice there. healthunlocked.com/lchf-diet

Where did you get 1600 cals from? Did you put your details into the NHS BMI calculator? nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-we... It's important not to eat too little.

[CelticNate in reply to moreless]

Hey,

I think I got 1800 calories. So thought if I can up my game for the first week and over achieve....

I know I need to stay around 1 or 2lb a week but.... With all this enthusiasm, I'd try and get ahead of the curve 😂😂😂

[moreless Administrator 7 stone in reply to CelticNate]

Sadly, it doesn't work like that, your body will just slow down to match the intake and will hang onto its fat stores to ride out the famine.

[CelticNate in reply to moreless]

😭😭😭😭😭

So maintain the calories, if anything eat more to compensate for the exercise.

But eat properly, so low carb, low fat, lots of protein, veg, fruit?

[moreless Administrator 7 stone in reply to CelticNate]

No, low carb, high fat, moderate protein, eat when hungry, stop when full, fresh produce only, lots of veg, small amount of fruit, ditch the processed stuff

Remember rest is required for exercise to work, so alternate days would be better than every day.

[Flossyflo55 2kg in reply to moreless]

I can't have high fat because of my colestral level so I'm doing the low fat and high protein x

[CelticNate in reply to Flossyflo55]

How's that working flossy? Have you been on it long?

[moreless Administrator 7 stone in reply to Flossyflo55]

There's a lot of information about cholesterol and I would advise you to do your own research on the subject reboothealth.co.uk/blog/cho...

[cheritorrox in reply to Flossyflo55]

Here's another link about the myths of cholesterol:

huffpost.com/entry/the-chol...

Honestly please read!!

[TheAwfulToad Visitor]

As moreless said, you need to be replacing your carbs with fat. A low-carb, low-fat, high-protein diet is extremely dangerous: google "rabbit starvation". Humans are not carnivores: we cannot use protein for energy efficiently. You might initially see results, but you will quickly "crash" if you keep this up - you will most likely start to feel lethargic and get irresistible cravings for carbs and/or fat.

It's really quite depressing how the nutritionists are still banging on about fat->cholesterol->heart disease. This purported link has been repeatedly debunked, but the advice still hasn't moved on. If you join the LCHF forum there's a lot of chatter about this: cheritorrox just posted her latest cholesterol test results, and there is increasing evidence that older people with low cholesterol are at greater risk of stroke.

Oh .. no need to control your calories on low-carb diets. They work by fixing your appetite (or more accurately, low-fat high-carb diets fail by severely disrupting your appetite - there are a wide range of "healthy" diets that work fine, but low-fat high-carb is not one of them).

[cheritorrox]

Apart from the conversations about cholesterol above, please look at this whole way of eating as a change of lifestyle. If you can't change everything at once then start by cutting out junk, then try to cut down other carbs (bread, pasta rice, spuds) and get into the habit of more healthy fat (e.g. ditch anything that says it's "low fat" as it's yet another food industry con!)