How low carb to be?

littlelily613

I understand everyone functions better at different carb levels. Right now I am transitioning to paleo, and plan to be fully paleo by the middle of October. As I gradually cut out things I am used to, I am still hoping to eat fairly low carb and avoid things like most grains (tomorrow I'll be having a 1/4 cup non-paleo granola with my breakfast...but I would usually have a 1/2 cup. I will phase it out entirely by mid-October). So basically my question is, how many carbs are considered to be low carb (not reaching for severely low carb at this time)? I used to eat almost 200 g carbs per day. Tomorrow I have 3 meals planned and am at 99g but may end up adding a few more depending on what else I have with supper. Is this low-carb and a step in the right direction to paleo?

camtosh

Hi littlelily,
I am eating 50 to 80 gr carbs on average per day, and maintaining my weight. When I was losing (slowly over the past year and a half) I had to cut to 20 grams per day, but frankly I never managed to do that consistently. Weight came off slowly. The main thing was upping my fat intake at the same time, to keep me from being hungry. Now if I eat more than 80 carbs, I get instant water gain on the scale!

I tend to go in and out of ketosis I think (don't measure for ketones as the strips are even more expensive in Japan, where I live) and so have carb flu tiredness here and there. When I up my fat, I feel much better.

How low to go depends on your goals for eating paleo. If you are trying to lose weight, then go LCHF to as low as you can manage. If you are dealing with health issues, higher carbs may be ok for you. The average SAD is about 300 plus carbs per day, so less than 100 is comparably low, but not the keto level of < 20 carbs...

fwiw, here is a comparison blog post I found: http://lchfchallenge.wordpress.com/2013/10/29/lchf-diet-vs-paleo-diet-vs-ketogenic-diet/

Wantingtolose1

I've been told under 100 is considered low as well and u normally lose at this amount it just depends on the person. As the person above said if you want a keto diet u need to be under 20

Akimajuktuq

If you have excess body fat, and issues with cravings, sugar addiction, depression, anxiety, blood sugar problems, list goes on.... then YES, a low carb lifestyle may be of benefit. For many people 50-75 is a good range. If you are crazy active, maybe higher. For someone like me, I do best under 50 grams. At that level there is no limit on how many veggies I can eat but fruit and starchy foods must be limited. Whenever I go over my limit for a couple days in a row I return to storing fat, craving, and all the rest. Not everyone is me though.

Generally, high fat, moderate protein, and low carb will help the transition and break addictions to sugar.

It's subjective: to me 99 grams of carbs is crazy high; for you, not so much.

Wantingtolose1

I've been told under 100 is considered low as well and u normally lose at this amount it just depends on the person. As the person above said if you want a keto diet u need to be under 20

Sorry typo up there meant to say that I lose weight at 100 grams or less but the amount varies for each person. Saying this though normally I would have 2 very low carb meals and then might have a meal with some carbs in it like pasta, rice (before paleo when I was just trying low carb maintenance plan) or a dessert (3-5 bites) so I would normally be a lot under 100 anyway and still lose weight. If you are purposely trying to do low carb I think it will be quite difficult to go over 100 especially with paleo as the only carbs u will get is through veggies and fruit so unless you eat tons of fruit or lots of high starch veggies you should be fine.