Low carb diets - there is no way they can limit of 25 to 50 carbs a day?
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When I was pre-diabetic I kept a moderately low carb profile (around 140 grams), so low carb for me would be anything lower than 150 grams. I currently moderate carbs 150-200 g and believe going any higher than that would cut too much into my protein and fat.
Please note when people say 50 grams of carbs it's entirely possible to have 100 grams in total but half of which are either indugestable or fiber.0 -
christinev297 wrote: »OMG!! I'm forcefully removing myself from this thread.
I wasn't hungry until reading the deliciousness of the last few posts
I may have to remove myself for the exact opposite reason... gag reflex
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christinev297 wrote: »The milk in my tea I had this morning added up to 15g carbs!
you actually put tea in your milk ?0 -
my veggie counts have been insufferably low- I normally eat 2-3 times that in a day. I've been on a hellova budget.
There is no way you can eat that many servings of veggies and stay under 20 grams- my black beans alone spiked me to 24. A banana? super high (thankfully I'm only eating them this week b/c of weird calf issues I'm not sure are strain or cramps)
I regularly eat a whole bag of steamables that are "3.5 servings"- (three point five servings- HA).
I'm not saying you can't do low-ish carb- but there isn't any world in which you live where if you eat a decent amount of veggie you're staying low carb.
Black beans ? - pulses. Banana - highest carb fruit there is.
A pound / 500 g of vegetables at 5g/100g of carbs = 25 g of carbs. That's 6 WHO "portions" as in "5 portions a day".
Given that most of the population don't achieve their 5-a-day I don't see low carb as a threat to vegetable intake, given a sensible approach.0 -
This post made me look and I see that I hover around the 100g mark a day on carbs according to the MFP report. Within that, sugar, most days, is particularly low. Except when it is not - I have the occasional biscuit or condensed milk day every couple of months. The highest numbers, normally always in the red, are fat and protein.
I am not trying to cut carbs, but as some other posters have said, it comes down to choices, when you only have so many calories to make dinner with.
I mostly pre-plan, and the internal conversation goes something like this: "I feel like chicken casserole and rice. How much of the casserole will be a satisfying amount? Hrm.. about 200g. How much does that leave for rice? 50g? Oh that is just a stupid amount. I will skip the rice and just have the casserole on its own in a slightly larger portion and add a bit of cauliflower as a base".
Outside of carb filled foods like pastries or bread, it seems I don't reach for sugar, so it just mostly falls away when I cut back on the other things.
I deliberately increased my protein a few months ago when someone suggested it might make me feel less hungry on 1200 calories a day (it does) and carbs were the casualty, as something had to give.
I enjoy carbs and when I hit maintenance, I plan to add more in.
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<snip> I mostly pre-plan, and the internal conversation goes something like this: "I feel like chicken casserole and rice. How much of the casserole will be a satisfying amount? Hrm.. about 200g. How much does that leave for rice? 50g? Oh that is just a stupid amount. I will skip the rice and just have the casserole on its own in a slightly larger portion and add a bit of cauliflower as a base". <snip>
This is what happened with me and baked ziti. I *love* a good baked ziti, but the pasta just won't sit well on my stomach. I keep trying it, because my doc requires I try them all every two weeks, but it doesn't do me well. So, I just make the ziti with half the pasta and eat around the pasta in my bowl. Hubby gets my pasta and I still get all the goodness.0 -
stevencloser wrote: »AlabasterVerve wrote: »AlabasterVerve wrote: »My soft limit is 30g, although I try to keep it below 20g per day. I'll end today with 9g of net carbs. Granted, my portions right now are about half what they normally would be, so I'd still stay below 30g easily. I feel better without carbs, especially breads and pastas, and limiting those allows me to easily limit my calories without ever being hungry. It's that simple for me.
"Can't." teehee That's funny right there.
considering you're barely eating 1000 calories and you are barely eating any vegetables- it's not really a surprise.
A diet consisting mostly of cheese and meat isn't really carb laden- but no one who actually eats vegetables is going to be able to keep carbs that low. It's not happening.
That's really not true about the vegetables; if it's a priority even the lowest carb diets have room for fruits and vegetables. You -- and anyone else -- can get an idea of what I mean by looking at your own fruits and vegetables. I think it might surprise some how negligible the carb counts are. For example from your diary:
Sunday: 58g Total | 51g Net
Bananas, Blackberries
Monday: 14g Total | 8g Net
Stir-fry Veggies, Blackberries, Tomato, Green Pepper, Onion, Jalepeno
Tuesday: 38 Total | 25 Net
Stir-fry Veggies, Black Beans, Blackberries, Tomato, Green Pepper, Onion, Jalepeno,
Now imagine how many vegetables you could eat if you were mindful of the carb counts and chose more low carb friendly options... it's a lot. Low carb is not low vegetable by necessity.
my veggie counts have been insufferably low- I normally eat 2-3 times that in a day. I've been on a hellova budget.
There is no way you can eat that many servings of veggies and stay under 20 grams- my black beans alone spiked me to 24. A banana? super high (thankfully I'm only eating them this week b/c of weird calf issues I'm not sure are strain or cramps)
I regularly eat a whole bag of steamables that are "3.5 servings"- (three point five servings- HA).
I'm not saying you can't do low-ish carb- but there isn't any world in which you live where if you eat a decent amount of veggie you're staying low carb.
Ok, I'll try this one more time since this seems to be a common misconception here. We can use my diary this time -- I picked out a couple of the higher days from last week.
Wednesday: 30 Total | 20 Net
684g or 1.5 pounds or 8.55 servings of: Cabbage, Onions, Garlic, Cucumbers, Lettuce, Peppers, and Tomatoes
Saturday: 42g Total | 27g Net
842g or 1.85 pounds or 10.25 servings of: Cucumber, Bananas, Onions, Peppers, Lettuce, Tomatoes, Green Beans
These are not low-ish levels of carbs; this is considered a very low, ketogenic level of carbohydrate. Low carb does not mean low vegetable -- that's a personal choice just like with any other macro split.
That must have been a very sad salad of almost entirely lettuce.
I had 89g of Romaine on Wednesday and 80g on Saturday. I don't get it... Why would you make such an ignorant comment?harlequin0318 wrote: »So I just peeked through the last few days of your diary, out of keto-curiosity
.....and that really is a small amount of vegetables (compared to what I normally eat ie. 400grams of cabbage in one serving). I've been interested in keto for its anti-inflammatory effects, so my question is, can a person that likes to eat for volume progressively switch to a keto diet where portion sizes are inevitably much smaller?
I mean obviously people here have successfully done that, but are you really reaching satiety and feeling full for hours? If so, how long did it take for you to adjust (I'm sure it's different for everyone, so anyone can chime in with experiences)
What people find satisfying can be an individual thing and expectations play a role in that so I really don't know how you would respond. I generally eat (what I think) are two large meals a day, spaced about 5 to 8 hours apart. That wasn't a deliberate decision on my part but just what I naturally gravitated towards when waiting until I'm hungry before I eat again. I feel like the protein and vegetables I eat fill me up during the meal but the high fat is key and it's what keeps me satiated and uninterested in food in between meals.
I used to eat three meals a day plus snacks and never went longer than 2 or 3 hours between eating but within a month or two of eating low carb that need to constantly eat tapered off and I ended up eating the two meals I prefer now. I was never hungry during that transition.
You can always experiment with increasing your fat without going low carb and see how it affects your appetite.
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Because of all the ingredients you listed, lettuce is the only one that had lower carbs than your total when expanded to the weight.
I also like how you listed "bananas" but the actual amount you had that day wasn't even half of one.0 -
stevencloser wrote: »Because of all the ingredients you listed, lettuce is the only one that had lower carbs than your total when expanded to the weight.
I also like how you listed "bananas" but the actual amount you had that day wasn't even half of one.
So in your opinion I eat too much lettuce and not enough bananas. Thank you for sharing...
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my veggie counts have been insufferably low- I normally eat 2-3 times that in a day. I've been on a hellova budget.
There is no way you can eat that many servings of veggies and stay under 20 grams- my black beans alone spiked me to 24. A banana? super high (thankfully I'm only eating them this week b/c of weird calf issues I'm not sure are strain or cramps)
I regularly eat a whole bag of steamables that are "3.5 servings"- (three point five servings- HA).
I'm not saying you can't do low-ish carb- but there isn't any world in which you live where if you eat a decent amount of veggie you're staying low carb.
Black beans ? - pulses. Banana - highest carb fruit there is.
A pound / 500 g of vegetables at 5g/100g of carbs = 25 g of carbs. That's 6 WHO "portions" as in "5 portions a day".
Given that most of the population don't achieve their 5-a-day I don't see low carb as a threat to vegetable intake, given a sensible approach.
It's a threat to good tasting food though. Oatmeal? Sourdough rye bread? Fresh milk? Yogurt? Sandwiches? Pasta? All the tasty fruits of the world? My favorite barley and mushroom soup? Russian roasted potatoes with mushrooms? Micro-stew on buckwheat or green wheat? Simple pleasures like a plain scoop of peas, a cup of milk, a scoop of ice cream, a square of chocolate, or simply being able to scoop off the last drops of sunny side up yolks with bread. French onion soup is not the same without the toast. Minestrone soup without a starchy carb is just a sad attempt at an imitation. Brosch without potatoes it just heated beetroot juice. Cauliflower is sublime but it's a very poor replacement for pizza, rice or mashed potatoes. The day I'll have to ration my tomato consumption is a day I hope will never come.
OP I totally understand how you don't see yourself going low carb and how near impossible it is to you. I'm in the same camp. Some people enjoy all the greasy one-note (to me) carbless food and may not be a big fan of fruits or dairy, so their preferences may actually align with a lower carb diet.
Personally, I feel there is more to food than preaching perfectionism, micronutrients, and a dry health-centered diet. One of the reasons we survived as a species is that food is appealing to us. A joy we seek. I'm not here to change that for the sake of losing one extra pound every couple of months or perfecting my protein macros to the T. It's a delicate balance between physical and mental health. Some things are beneficial in an indirect way, even if they don't have the "perfect" nutritional profile, by encouraging weight loss with minimum stress.0 -
Hey, if you're going to list "I can eat so many different veggies and still be low carb!" but it turns out you had mostly lettuce with a little slice of each of the other veggies (that are all higher in carb), it looks dishonest.
I could also say I had 10 rum+cokes and stayed under my calorie goal and wasn't even tipsy, because I used diet coke and split a single shot out over all 10 of them.0 -
stevencloser wrote: »Hey, if you're going to list "I can eat so many different veggies and still be low carb!" but it turns out you had mostly lettuce with a little slice of each of the other veggies (that are all higher in carb), it looks dishonest.
I could also say I had 10 rum+cokes and stayed under my calorie goal and wasn't even tipsy, because I used diet coke and split a single shot out over all 10 of them.
My diet isn't dishonest; it's what I eat. How 80g lettuce out of 600g-800g of vegetables equals "mostly" I do not know. I can only assume you learned math at the same school that taught reading comprehension.
What I actually said:
"That's really not true about the vegetables; if it's a priority even the lowest carb diets have room for fruits and vegetables."
"Low carb does not mean low vegetable -- that's a personal choice just like with any other macro split."
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Everything 100 g
Cabbage: 6 total carbs, 3 net At 684 g 40 total, 23 net
Onion: 9 total carbs, 7 net. At 684 g 64 total, 52 net
Garlic: 33 total carbs, 31 net. At 684 g 226 total, 212 net
Cucumber: 4 total, 3 net. At 684 g 25 total, 22 net
Lettuce: 3 total, 1 net. At 684 g 23 total, 9 net
Peppers: 6 total, 5 net. At 684 g 43 total 37 net
Tomatoes: 4 total, 3 net. At 684 g 27 total 19 net
To get to 30 total and 20 net you have to balance the ones that are higher and the ones that are lower out. Only the cucumber, tomatoes and lettuce have low enough total carbs to even out everything else and only lettuce and tomatoes have low enough net carbs to even out.
In other words, 2 out of the 7 have to make up for the other 5 in total volume, you wouldn't be able to get that low without them. And that first one is the easier one to get that low.
100 g of banana already has 23 total and 20 net carbs, and that's usually still less than 1 normal sized banana.0 -
And you don't think it's dishonest to say "I'm low carb but I had bananas today" when you had less than half of one? And unless I've overlooked something that was the only piece of fruit you had the whole month.0
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I personally eat 200 carbs daily so that sounds insane to me0
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christinev297 wrote: »The milk in my tea I had this morning added up to 15g carbs!
you actually put tea in your milk ?
Pfft!! You don't!?
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Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »My soft limit is 30g, although I try to keep it below 20g per day. I'll end today with 9g of net carbs. Granted, my portions right now are about half what they normally would be, so I'd still stay below 30g easily. I feel better without carbs, especially breads and pastas, and limiting those allows me to easily limit my calories without ever being hungry. It's that simple for me.
"Can't." teehee That's funny right there.
considering you're barely eating 1000 calories and you are barely eating any vegetables- it's not really a surprise.
A diet consisting mostly of cheese and meat isn't really carb laden- but no one who actually eats vegetables is going to be able to keep carbs that low. It's not happening.
I eat vegetables every day. My 3 month average total carbs is 38g. Since the veg have a fair amount of fiber my net carb average is around 20. It's insanely simple. That's the part people don't realize. Once you rid yourself of carbs, your body stops craving them. And someone else mentioned dairy as if it wouldn't fit into a low carb plan. That's true with some because many brands add sugar unnecessarily. You just don't buy those brands. I used to think it was crazy too... When I still ate carbs.
What do you mean by craving?
I wouldn't say I crave "carbs." I'd say I enjoy a number of carbs (largely fruit, vegetables, but also potatoes and sweet potatoes, fresh corn in season, etc.) and sometimes feel in the mood for them or look forward to eating my planned servings of them at dinner, as with any other foods I eat. I doubt the ability to enjoy carbs in this way would go away if I did keto, and I don't see why anyone would want it to (unless the goal IS to eat crazy low calories, like the person eating below 1000).
However, I do find that I perceive a real difference in athletic performance, energy when running or biking or lifting depending on the amount of carbs I'm consuming. This is so even if I run fasted as I often do in the morning -- I perform better if I had a normal (for me) amount of carbs the day before vs. a lower carb day.
I don't feel like I perform badly when I am lower carb -- I probably wouldn't notice it, except that I do feel better when I up the carbs. This is actually why I'm considering forcing myself to try 50% for a while to see if it also makes a difference.
Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that this too could be perceived as my body craving carbs -- I know I naturally tend to eat lower carb when I'm less active and am more likely to feel in the mood for some potatoes or rice when I'm more active.
I don't see that as a bad thing, but as my body telling me what it needs.0 -
stevencloser wrote: »And you don't think it's dishonest to say "I'm low carb but I had bananas today" when you had less than half of one? And unless I've overlooked something that was the only piece of fruit you had the whole month.
Fruit isn't necessary, if it was your comment might make some sense.
You have also just pointed out some of the magical wonderfulness of a very low carb diet! 1/2 a banana or in my case 20 measly grams of dark chocolate is a completely satisfying quantity of sweet.
After eating 20g I forget about eating chocolate and have no thought of going for more. That NEVER happened to me on a high carb diet and it is what happens every day now at very low carb.
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AlabasterVerve wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »Hey, if you're going to list "I can eat so many different veggies and still be low carb!" but it turns out you had mostly lettuce with a little slice of each of the other veggies (that are all higher in carb), it looks dishonest.
I could also say I had 10 rum+cokes and stayed under my calorie goal and wasn't even tipsy, because I used diet coke and split a single shot out over all 10 of them.
My diet isn't dishonest; it's what I eat. How 80g lettuce out of 600g-800g of vegetables equals "mostly" I do not know. I can only assume you learned math at the same school that taught reading comprehension.
What I actually said:
"That's really not true about the vegetables; if it's a priority even the lowest carb diets have room for fruits and vegetables."
"Low carb does not mean low vegetable -- that's a personal choice just like with any other macro split."
Eh. Again- low carb is relative in terms of the over all proportion of your diet. Someone eating under 1000 calories a day and claiming she eats veggies and still hitting under 25- no. She wasn't eating veggies. She was barely eating- much less eating veggies.
There is no way you're hitting under 20 carbs eating multiple servings of veggies a day- it's not happening. - not saying you cant' eat SOME- obviously that would be stupid. But if you're eating 2 bags of veggies at 3.5-4 servings a pop- you're not hitting an under 20.
There is no end to this argument unfortunately- b/c it really doesn't matter- it's what works for you- and there is no "right" answer. The reality is "low carb" is relative to the over all diet- and then you get into people splitting carbs- like- well it's not bread carbs- it's veggie carbs. You'll never satisfy the discussion.0 -
stevencloser wrote: »And you don't think it's dishonest to say "I'm low carb but I had bananas today" when you had less than half of one? And unless I've overlooked something that was the only piece of fruit you had the whole month.
Fruit isn't necessary, if it was your comment might make some sense.
You have also just pointed out some of the magical wonderfulness of a very low carb diet! 1/2 a banana or in my case 20 measly grams of dark chocolate is a completely satisfying quantity of sweet.
After eating 20g I forget about eating chocolate and have no thought of going for more. That NEVER happened to me on a high carb diet and it is what happens every day now at very low carb.
I don't eat that much fruit and veggies either, but then again I'm not the one going around saying I get plenty on 30-50 grams of carbs when that's the reality of it.0
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