my carb count is still too high help?

Jennym93

How do you ensure you get enough fruit and veg?
Even the stuff that's supposedly lower in carbs such as berries seem to bump my carbs up too high.
How do I get more fat in my diet? I'm still in the 'fat is bad' mindset and I'm trying to get out of it
I've opened my diary so if anyone wants to give some advice around what I eat that would be great just be nice please, I tend to slip up and go over my calories a lot
So far my carb count is higher than my fat and I'd prefer my fat intake to be higher.
Any suggestions?

Twibbly

Just looking at today, the main things that jump out at me is that your sausage has a ton of carbs, your yogurt lists 21 grams of sugar but no carbs (definitely listed incorrectly), you're eating a lot of fruit, no greens, and using milk instead of cream.

So, I would:
1. Eat greens (salads) instead of fruit
2. Use/make a salad dressing with no carbs and lots of fat and use it on your salads, or saute spinach in butter & load it up with cream cheese
3. Switch your sausage brand
4. Use cream instead of milk and load up your tea and coffee with it

Jennym93

Thank you, yeah the sausages are way too high in carbs but it was all we had plus they taste good
I switched to whole milk to try and get more fat but it's clearly not got enough in, I'm very new to high fat and I was bought up on low fat products so I'll try the cream approach, might fill me up better too.
I thought that about the yogurt too but I didn't have the packaging to check for myself, way too high and if I'd have known I wouldn't have eaten it

Twibbly

A few things I do:

I pretty much don't eat fruit unless I've already plugged it in and made sure it works, then I portion it out. I had 1 cup of strawberries in my bowl, not the whole package.

I don't worry too much about getting in enough fruits & veggies, but I keep frozen steamer bags of veggies at the ready. I probably eat 2 or 3 bags a week, mainly asparagus, cauliflower, and broccoli.

Spinach is our friend, and I also saute mushrooms in butter, then add an herbed creamy cheese (Alouette brand, don't know if you can get it over there) and portion them out in little containers in the freezer to top burgers or other meat with or just eat straight up.

Everything I cook is cooked in bacon grease, tallow, red palm oil, or butter (I would use coconut oil, but hubby wouldn't touch a thing then).

I keep meat that's already cooked around, whether it's breakfast sausage patties, bacon, burgers, or chicken. I can easily pop a frozen, already cooked burger into the microwave, top it with bacon & cheese, and have lunch (I generally wrap it in a lettuce leaf, and sometimes add a fried egg or mayo).

I eat tuna salad with mayo and pickle relish mixed in for lunches when I remember to make my mayo (I can't have soy or canola).

I'm baking pork chops covered with apples for lunch - I plan on leaving the apples and adding coconut oil to the top of my pork chop and let everybody else eat the apples if they want them. I logged a bit of apple juice to make up for whatever drips in.

Hope that helps!

Aruba08

the peaches and bananas are a big no no. Absolutely packed with sugar especially when in syrup. I sick with strawberries and blueberries in full fat greek style yoghurt with a shake oh stevia. Really really tasty and low in carbs, high in fat

Kitnthecat

Great suggestions Twibbly. Jenny, replace your low fat dairy with high fat versions, as they are lower in sugar, and therefore carbs. Low fat dairy has been processed a number of times when removing the natural fat, which makes the dairy higher in sugar. The low fat stuff has more carbs and less good stuff like protein. If you like yogourt, try looking for a Greek yogourt with the highest % of fat in it. I use one that is 11% BF, and put very few berries in it, maybe 1/4-1/3c. I also put stevia sweetened vanilla protein powder in mine. Pre packaged flavoured yogourt generally has either a lot of sugar or bad sweeteners in it, so watch out. Also, get rid of the milk and put heavy whipping cream in your coffee.

It looks like you are eating a lot of sugar and may not even realize it. Most fruit is so high in sugar that you can't eat it on LCHF. Raspberries I believe have the lowest sugar, and the other berries have various amounts, but all berries are much lower in sugar than the other fruits....and sugar means carbs. If I have fruit at all, I make sure I don't even eat a whole serving. I feel great without the extra fruit. I sometimes nibble on frozen berries as a treat but not part of my daily routine.

Read the list of ingredients on all food products you buy to ensure you are not buying stuff with a lot of extra carbs in the form of various forms of sugars and starches. Watch for sugar in a whole lot of products like the mayonnaise. Low fat versions of food items generally contain more sugar and other stuff to improve on texture and mouth feel. So the high fat mayo is better for low carb since it has about half the sugar, and you can bump up your fat. Ideally, the least amount of ingredients, the better.

JPW1990

As a general rule, stick to the top half of this list:


Everything from the top down to plums - those numbers are for 100g measurements, so use the last number (net carbs/g) to calculate how much a realistic serving will be. Also, mushrooms should be in the top half, but for some reason are sorted to the end of the list out of order.

If you're going to use something from the bottom half, use it sparingly. Some of the things on that half are things you'd only use a tiny bit of in a serving anyway, like garlic and shallots.

Jennym93

Thank you
I'll have to go shopping again soon, I've been looking at carb and fat content in some products online so I've got an idea of what I can buy

jetsman32

First off get yourself a multi-vitamin and a potassium supplement- this will help make sure you are getting your basic nutrients. I personally love coconut oil for cooking or mixing 1 tbsp into my coffee. Also- I would avoid fruit entirely, the vitamins will help with that. Also- walnuts are a great low carb snack - just eat in moderation. Oh and eat full fat everything to include salad dressings and sour cream! Good luck!

Liftin4food

Just had a peak - the harvest moon thing - that's cereal right? If you can swap that for something low carb that's an easy one to swap out.

And what are chicken tenders? they appear a few times the last few days - and contain 28g of carbs each time. That's a lot higher carb count than any of my protein based foods.

Jennym93

yeah it's not cereal we normally have and I tried it and then just *had* to have another bowl
The chicken things are breaded, it was all pretty ok carb wise until I had more cereal, I just feel a need to snack, it's not helping, I start out with good intentions, plan it all out and then end up snacking on things I shouldn't
I need to go shopping again as I'm out of what I'd prefer to go for and I'm going for higher carb stuff

Jennym93

I know what I'm eating is awful, I try and keep the high carb stuff in small amounts but clearly I'm not very good at it.
I'm going to plan out a shopping list and hopefully will be able to go shop tonight, Any suggestions for things I should stock up on?

Liftin4food

My shopping basket at the moment is full of meat (not processed - so no breadcrumbs), cheese, butter, eggs and cream. I try and plan what I eat around that. I could up large batches - and eat it throughout the week.

You may also find a few mushrooms and salad leaves / cucumber in there. Today I had raspberries (swimming in double cream) for lunch - but the fruit thing is pretty rare, I just was craving some today. (I actually fancied strawberries - but prelogged what I intended to eat - and just decided that carb countwise the raspberries were a better option - and still satisfied my fruit cravings.

At the moment I buy a large pack of chicken drumsticks a week, cook those up in advance and keep them in the fridge to snack on when needed. I also have a stash of pork scratchings that I keep around for that purpose too.

Most people don't need to cut out all carbs - they will still lose weight eating some. and you don't have to go cold turkey on carbs if you don't want to. Why not start out making some easy swaps (eg. swap the chicken portions for ones without breadcrumbs), try that for a week - see how you get on - if you are losing at a rate you are happy with - great keep doing what you are doing, if not look at what the next easy swap you could make would be.

Jennym93

Thank you I'll add some of these onto my list
I'm not planning on dropping my carb count too low, I'd prefer it under 100g it's more a case of having a low carb base for all my meals and having snacks with higher carb counts if I really fancy them so I don't go over 100g. I'm just trying to find the right balance at the moment.
I'm losing weight so where I am might be ok, I need to see how it goes for now.

Liftin4food

Great - why reinvent the wheel - if what you are doing is working and you feel happy and well doing it then you're already doing better than you think

Teneko

My grocery list ends up being like this:
Bacon
Eggs
Butter (Kerrygold)
Heavy cream
Coffee
Tea
Plain lunch meat (ham, turkey)
Unsweetened mayonnaise
Cheese (cream and sliced cheddar)
Frozen broccoli.

I eat more than just this and don't always have the lunch meat, but it's a basic set of things I pretty much always have on hand.
I need to cut back on the sliced lunch meat and cheeses, though, and start getting more raw meats instead, but man, that sausage (like you said) is good...haha

-T.

wabmester

Your carb level is probably fine, but you need to watch the types of carbs. Stuff like that cereal is addictive, which you've already discovered, and will lead to more carb cravings.

You'll know a bad carb when you meet one. Sugary drinks, potato chips, etc.

KnitOrMiss

Jennym93 wrote: »

Thank you I'll add some of these onto my list
I'm not planning on dropping my carb count too low, I'd prefer it under 100g it's more a case of having a low carb base for all my meals and having snacks with higher carb counts if I really fancy them so I don't go over 100g. I'm just trying to find the right balance at the moment.
I'm losing weight so where I am might be ok, I need to see how it goes for now.

Just as fair warning, carb levels between 150 grams and 50 grams are dubbed the danger zone because it is difficult to completely kill the carb cravings in that range. My endocrinologist had me start at 100 grams and step down at the beginning of each week 5-10 grams until the cravings ceased. That was between 35 grams - 50 grams. Once you start cutting them out, you'll be pleasantly surprised how easy it is to continuing cutting out certain this... Best of luck, wherever your sweet spot number of carbs is!

Jennym93

KnitOrMiss wrote: »

Just as fair warning, carb levels between 150 grams and 50 grams are dubbed the danger zone because it is difficult to completely kill the carb cravings in that range. My endocrinologist had me start at 100 grams and step down at the beginning of each week 5-10 grams until the cravings ceased. That was between 35 grams - 50 grams. Once you start cutting them out, you'll be pleasantly surprised how easy it is to continuing cutting out certain this... Best of luck, wherever your sweet spot number of carbs is!

Ah I will have to try that and see if my cravings are any better, thank you

glossbones

Just to support that statement with my own anecdote.. I tried to eat <100g and failed. I dropped it down to <25g and thrived, without the cravings.

Also, make yourself some fat bombs to snack on, if you can't not eat between meals, until your hunger evens out. I made a batch of the strawberry cheesecake fat bombs my first week. They were so delicious I made a second batch before the first had even run out. They're all still in there, because a couple days later I just didn't *need* to snack anymore.

If you're experiencing a mental block about fats, try reading this article: http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/nutrition/a/How-To-Overcome-Fat-Phobia.htm

You seem to be stuck where I was: trying to fit as many carbs as possible into the plan, fixating on what food you think will satisfy cravings. I learned, at least for me (as always YMMV), that trying to satisfy those cravings just made them bigger.

Sajyana

I had to drop mine really, really low to stop all the cravings. It's taken 5 months but I've found that I have to keep it under 5g for the cravings to disappear. It's different for everyone so I urge everyone to experiment until your cravings cave in.