LOW CARB...HOW LOW IS "TOO LOW"?

The Low carb diet is a way of life, is it hard?, maybe, what it is ,is different, we have been eating, refined, sugary crap food all our lives, and have caused our bodies to be in the poor unhealthy/fat, state it is in. Someone says it is too hard so it won't be a long term way of life. Does that mean, if I decide to take up some form of exercise/sport, and it is hard, that i should just cave in, becauase it "won't be a long term " way of life. Surely we have more guts and brains than to fall for that old rubbish. Any radical change of life is difficult/different/strange, especially as we have so many people close to us telling us ,it is unhealthy, you need to eat fruit, you need carbs, etc. The truth of the matter is to sustain life, we need Water, protein, and fat, all the rest can be made by the body. As for vitamins and minerals, there is more of most of them in meat than any plant source, remember we do eat leafy fibrous greens. Her is a good site to let you know nearly everything you ever wanted or (not wanted) to know about the low carb/ ketogenic diet. Good luck, and don't listen to the nay sayers. cheers

135 minimum per day is what I was taught in my nutrition class. I'm in nursing school, and apparently there have been a lot of people getting extremely ill from these low carb diets. Your brain, and all of your body's cells need carbs as their main energy source. Relying on fat for energy is dangerous enough to kill you. Focus on calorie count and eating enough of each macronutrient.

My partner is following a very, very low carb diet (and I'm talking like 10g and under per DAY). I don't think this is very healthy. She's getting a lot of fat and protein in her diet. How low is too low? I'm very worried.

If you're American and using "Total Carbohydrates" then 10 grams a day means very little fiber. Below about 50g or maybe 30g a day of carbs gives you the low carb effect - 50g is only 200 cals or ~3 hours worth of energy. Dr Eric Westman uses 20 grams a day of total carbs in his MD supervised program, I don't see what the benefit would be of going lower but equally apart from the fiber I'm not aware of any massive downside either.

Guess they forgot to tell the pre contact Innuits they needed that much carbohydrate. lol

135 minimum per day is what I was taught in my nutrition class. I'm in nursing school, and apparently there have been a lot of people getting extremely ill from these low carb diets. Your brain, and all of your body's cells need carbs as their main energy source. Relying on fat for energy is dangerous enough to kill you. Focus on calorie count and eating enough of each macronutrient.

Sure, your body needs carbs. It passes the first condition for being an essential nutrient.

It fails the second. Your body can make carbs from non-carbs. It can also adapt to using ketones, which offsets the need for glucose.

Personally, I would not give up carbs, but it is something that can be done safely.