Low carb struggles

rach3365

Hey guys...I’m not doing keto but I’m doing a lower carb, higher fat and protein diet along with intermittent fasting (16 hour fast). I aim for 50g or less of carbs per day and on bad days under 100. I’m slowly finding out that every keto recipe I look up has an insane amount of calories because of all the fat. I made keto bread the other day and I was really excited but one piece has like 300 cal in it. I’m not getting to eat as much as I would like because I run out of calories very quickly with these keto meals. I know I said I wasn’t doing keto but I still use the recipes for low-carb ideas. I’m thinking about just eating carbs again because I can get lower calorie meals. I know the vegetables are low-carb and low-calorie but I need to eat other things other than vegetables chicken and salads lol.

GottaBurnEmAll

Is there a particular reason you've chosen to low carb?

Low carb, when done to optimize nutrition, is essentially meats, some dairy, vegetables, eggs, nuts, and fats. Some people can fit in some berries too. If you want more than that, maybe low carbing isn't for you.

maureenkhilde

Cooking light has low carb recipes. Also regardless if you are diabetic or not, you could use many of their recipes. And I totally understand where you are coming from regarding Keto recipes. I stay around 45 to 50 carbs during the week, and on weekends will go up to 70. My protein is around 85-90 every day. My fat can be around 35-80 depending on the day.

How I cut down on the calories and the fat. Is where I have recipes that call for full cream cheese, I use the Neufchatel instead. I do not use heavy whipping cream period. I have made some so called skinnier fat bombs that take care of my sugar desire but are not as calorie laden. And I have been losing. I however do not eat bread, pasta at all anymore and really do not miss much. I do have air popped popcorn from time to time. My one grain I will not give up.

I eat chicken, fish, beef, ground, pork, beans. Once in a great while make tacos minus any type of true taco shell, use lettuce. But do have all the other fixings for it. Yesterday I baked baby back ribs in the oven, fall off the bone good. Used spices just no BBQ sauce and I was happy. Had 3 oz of roasted sweet potato as well, with 1 tsp of ghee butter and cinnamon, 1 tsp of brown sugar splenda blend. Had salad as well. Oh and sugar free white choc pudding with roasted strawberries. All within my calories, and carbs, fats, and proteins for the day.

I am just being long winded saying it can be done. Doing low carb, and not doing Keto. There are all types of ways to lose the weight. You need to find one that works for you.

lemurcat2

You don't need to low carb and if you do low carb you don't really need special recipes. When I was doing very low carb I basically ate omelets with cheese and vegetables, maybe avocado or cottage cheese on the side, and then a salad with protein on it for lunch with some olives or nuts or cheese on it, and then dinner would be some kind of meat plus lots of veg. I'd vary the meat and veg and the salads and how I prepared things. I do think it could get boring, although my bigger issue with it was that it was more meat-heavy than I am comfortable with (my preferred veg sources of protein tended to be more carbs than I could fit easily) and I missed fruit and potatoes and so on.

You could also occasionally have the higher cal keto recipes but then stick with eggs/meat plus veg at other meals.

Or if you want lower carb and more flexibility, you could decrease them less and see if that helps, and have one meal with a smaller portion of carbs than you were eating before and one that's more a keto style meal -- if you are only eating 2 meals because of IF that might be easy.

Panini911

i've had great success in weight loss NOT watching my carbs. if going low carb is not working for you don't do it. it's just the latest fad (or one that keeps coming back). it works for some people who like higher fat/protein but not for everyone.

plus remember weight loss is a good time to practice good eating habits you can maintain ALL YOUR LIFE. if you just get thru this low carb phase and lose the weight then go back to your previous eating habits - you're quite likely to just put on the weight again. Practice eating habits now that will help you once you lose the weight and get to "maintenance" phase which last all our lives.

kimny72

The big draw of low carb is usually that eating that way makes it easier to eat less and hit your calorie goal. If that's not the case for you, perhaps low carb just isn't the right fit for you. Fat doesn't fill me up, so low carb doesn't work for me.

I will note that most of the folks I know who do well on low carb don't use special recipes or much in the way of keto-friendly substitutes like keto-bread. They just reconfigured the proportions of their meals by shrinking or eliminating high carb items and adding more fat and lower carb veggies.

whatalazyidiot

You could try looking through Paleo recipes instead. I have been doing that lately (not for low carb, but for gluten/dairy free) and quite a few of them are low carb. When they have carbs, it's just rice, potatoes, or vegetables, so you could easily leave that out or replace it with cauliflower rice or something like that. Or like lemur said, just stick to the basics like lean protein, veggies, nuts and seeds, that kind of thing.

Or just give up low carb completely if you feel like you're ready to go back to carbs. You definitely don't need to do that to lose weight, so it's kind of up to you.

datsundriver87

I have been on and off low carb for about 6 months after losing 90 pounds calorie counting and I can say for me, low carb definitely makes me feel 1000 times better than strictly calorie counting for a year did, and the science behind it makes sense to me. The biggest issue people have with keto/low carb is going into a sort of middle zone, where your still eating so many carbs that your craving carbs, but your eating less carbs than you used to so your hungry. I used to be miserable trying to stay under 2,000 calories when I wasn’t paying attention to macros for a year, but after two-three weeks of strictly no more than 50 carbs a day I’m having no problem staying at 1800-1900 calories a day. I do see an immediate spike if I have a chest day, I end up with cravings for the rest of the day and the following day as well. This is just my experience, you may see something in there you can relate to, you may not, but the take away is.. don’t just aim for a high caloric number just because, for most people fats are more filling, so 300 calories of high fat is more satiety than 600 calories of mixed macros. Once again this is only for some people

cwolfman13

rach3365 wrote: »

Hey guys...I’m not doing keto but I’m doing a lower carb, higher fat and protein diet along with intermittent fasting (16 hour fast). I aim for 50g or less of carbs per day and on bad days under 100. I’m slowly finding out that every keto recipe I look up has an insane amount of calories because of all the fat. I made keto bread the other day and I was really excited but one piece has like 300 cal in it. I’m not getting to eat as much as I would like because I run out of calories very quickly with these keto meals. I know I said I wasn’t doing keto but I still use the recipes for low-carb ideas. I’m thinking about just eating carbs again because I can get lower calorie meals. I know the vegetables are low-carb and low-calorie but I need to eat other things other than vegetables chicken and salads lol.

50g of carbs or less is keto...

lemurcat2

datsundriver87 wrote: »

I have been on and off low carb for about 6 months after losing 90 pounds calorie counting and I can say for me, low carb definitely makes me feel 1000 times better than strictly calorie counting for a year did, and the science behind it makes sense to me. The biggest issue people have with keto/low carb is going into a sort of middle zone, where your still eating so many carbs that your craving carbs, but your eating less carbs than you used to so your hungry. I used to be miserable trying to stay under 2,000 calories when I wasn’t paying attention to macros for a year, but after two-three weeks of strictly no more than 50 carbs a day I’m having no problem staying at 1800-1900 calories a day. I do see an immediate spike if I have a chest day, I end up with cravings for the rest of the day and the following day as well. This is just my experience, you may see something in there you can relate to, you may not, but the take away is.. don’t just aim for a high caloric number just because, for most people fats are more filling, so 300 calories of high fat is more satiety than 600 calories of mixed macros. Once again this is only for some people

You really can't generalize like this. I don't find that the amount of carbs I eat (vs. food choices overall) makes much of a difference in how hungry I am. I've tried very low carb and higher carb ways to eat as experiments (eating moderate carb now), and I ate somewhat low carb/not keto for a while when eating lower calories. One thing that was definitely true for me was that eating lower carb but not keto had no negative effects on my appetite and that keto levels offered no benefits vs. the various other ways of eating.

It may be different for you, it may instead be that you were not paying enough attention to what foods were satiating when "just calorie counting" (I watched protein, fiber, and nutrition and paid attention to some other things that affect my appetite), but since you posted this as if it applied to everyone, I wanted to respond. In particular I hate the idea that you can't just lower carbs some and see how that affects you, you must follow some specific keto protocol.

It's also not true that for MOST people fats are more filling, the research is that it's protein on average that people find most filling.

Total calories does matter for health, and also overall diet matters for nutrition, so saying not to worry about eating super low cal is not great advice. (However, this OP doesn't seem to have that problem, she is struggling with not going over calories.)