My daily goal is under 40g. Generally is go below 25g I don't feel so hot.

Reading this makes me realize how high my carbs are, I'm usually eating between 40 and 150 a day!

Different people can eat different amounts of carbohydrates. Some folks can eat many more carbs than others and still lose weight. This principle is explained and driven home when you do the 4 steps in the Atkins plan.

I've done it before and lost 45 lbs in 5 months. I felt fantastic, but I was dumb and let myself regain. I am kicking myself in the butt everyday for doing so, because this time around, it's been much slower and harder to lose weight. I have to make a permanent lifestyle change, or I'm bound to be an insulin dependent diabetic.

I found out during my 4 phases of Atkins that I have extreme sensitivity to carbs, even slow digesting, low GI carbs. My maintenance carbs were under 40 g net carbs per day. Many, many folks can lose like gangbusters on this low level of carbs. I don't lose at all with that many, and will stay the same weight. Go over it and I will gain very quickly.

This 28 lbs that I regained, I gained between Christmas of 2013, and May 31, 2014. I was exercising and eating healthy, just too many carbs.

I say, if you can stay at a healthy weight on 40-150 carbs a day, you are very, and enjoy it!

I agree. I lost 50 pounds counting calories and keeping my carbs under 150 a day. I was really hopeful that lowering my carbs to around 20 a day would really jump start my weight loss again but it hasn't. I've lost about 2 pounds in the last 10 days. That's not the big loss I was expecting and I'm not even sure I can attribute it to the lowered carbs or just the lowered calories. I think I'm going to work my way back up to a more enjoyable number of carbs, under 100, and not stress so much about whether I can have a salad with dinner or add some onions to my stir fry.

I think thats it, a consistent steady appraoch that is maintainable long term obviously works better than staying say under 20g then falling off the wagon. Needs to be maintainable and for me eating between 50g and 150g a day is easy as pie (no eating of pie though!)

Reading this makes me realize how high my carbs are, I'm usually eating between 40 and 150 a day!

Different people can eat different amounts of carbohydrates. Some folks can eat many more carbs than others and still lose weight. This principle is explained and driven home when you do the 4 steps in the Atkins plan.

I've done it before and lost 45 lbs in 5 months. I felt fantastic, but I was dumb and let myself regain. I am kicking myself in the butt everyday for doing so, because this time around, it's been much slower and harder to lose weight. I have to make a permanent lifestyle change, or I'm bound to be an insulin dependent diabetic.

I found out during my 4 phases of Atkins that I have extreme sensitivity to carbs, even slow digesting, low GI carbs. My maintenance carbs were under 40 g net carbs per day. Many, many folks can lose like gangbusters on this low level of carbs. I don't lose at all with that many, and will stay the same weight. Go over it and I will gain very quickly.

This 28 lbs that I regained, I gained between Christmas of 2013, and May 31, 2014. I was exercising and eating healthy, just too many carbs.

I say, if you can stay at a healthy weight on 40-150 carbs a day, you are very, and enjoy it!

Interesting, Yes I remain 6 pack lean on up to 150g a day, even once I notice a little fat gain I can just remain strict (like less than 100g a day) for a few weeks and the fat drops off, guess I'm lucky

Yes, you are lucky to have a body that uses the preferred fuel (glycogen) efficiently. I do have insulin resistance and some other health issues related to hormones. It's a struggle, but it is doable, as I've proven before. I just have to stay vigilant at counting (not just carbs, but calories as well). I can't eat over my calories or let in the carb creep, no matter how much vigorous cardio or strength training I participate in, I will gain.

I say do what works for you (and that goes for everyone) because I'm 100% positive that the same WOE doesn't work for everyone's goals, and since not everyone on MFP has the same goals or enjoys the same physical activities, or has the same degree of health, results are going to vary.

18g total is my 5% goal, so I aim for that but don't beat myself up if I eat 20-23g total. I try to net as close to 10g as possible.

I've been eating around 20 - 25 carbs for about a week now and testing my blood sugar to see what effect it's having. I don't have a blood sugar problem but I was probably borderline. The two readings I've taken have been 72 and 84 (fasting), which is great. But I don't see being able to stick with 20 grams a day for much longer and have raised my goal to 40. I'm just curious what everyone else's net carb target is?

Bound4;

You have received some excellent advice on this thread (a rarity on many MFP boards when it comes to Low Carb, and why this one is so good, even if not as active as one might like).

Anyway, the 20 carb/day number is generally accepted as the "gateway" to achieving ketosis. 2-3 weeks, more for some, less for others, to obtain the keys to the kingdom.
During this phase, it's pretty important to keep every day (not just the weekly average), at or under 20. For many, going over just one day requires a "restart" from day 1.

Some experience keto flu (usually goes away in a couple days), some a few other mild side effects.

Once in keto, most people are able to (gradually) increase the total daily carbs.
How far?
Who knows - only you can determine how high you can go and still remain in keto. 50 seems a common "goal" and while no actual documentation exists (at least AFAIK), anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that 50 is the break point for many.

Once in keto, a one day "cheat" (as long as it's not crazy) - usually won't require a total restart but maybe just a couple days reduced and you're back in. As always the "everybody's different" proviso applies.

I'm not a big fan of the Dr "A" plans and if I had my druthers his name would be banished from the lexicon but not for the reasons others might advocater. His plan, despite being based on some pretty solid science (unlike the lo fat/lo cal one so readily and blindly accepted) has become the "kleenex" of the Low Carb world and there are now so many more "versions" and so much more solid science that it's just plain wrong that so many know so few actual "facts" but prefer to rely on dogma and bias. Sadly, "many" of those many are Drs and other "health professionals" - although it's getting better.

The "problem" with it is the connotation the name has taken on over the years. "Fad Diet" is the most common one spouted (which it absolutely is not) and the result is that sheeple just blindly march like lemmings and dismiss LCHF out of hand.

Off the bandstand, my bride and I have recently switched from LCLF to HFLC after having done considerable research.

LCLF actually worked for us (for the weight loss part) - she reached her goal and is now at maintenance, I'm most of the way there but still have about 28 to go.

We're switching, not for weight loss reasons but rather for long term health ones.

She's not interested (at least not yet) in achieving keto and set her carb goal at 60-70/day since that's pretty close to where her numbers showed her on LCLF.

I'm going the whole nine yards and in the second week of <20/day shooting for keto.

From what I've seen, ours is a pretty typical situation, I "think" something significantly less than 50% of those using LCHF ever attempt keto while the majority, for whatever reasons, decide on a number somewhere between 50 and 100/day, or so.

The way I look at it, if you (or anyone) gets and stays, near 100, that's probably a 1000% improvement in their long term outlook.

For those that can achieve, and maintain keto, there's no question that there are numerous benefits obtained in addition to those experienced by the 100/dayers - BUT rather than a 1000% improvement it's probably more like an additional, incremental one of another 100% or so (all numbers for example only, grabbed out of mid air).

Nutshell......whoever said "it's a continuum" got it exactly right.
Most start out at 4 or 500/day, or so and gradually adapt down to 100ish which is major, and many stay there.

The smaller group continues the journey, gets to 50 or so and then faces a decision to stick there or shoot the proverbial moon, take a stab at keto.

Some succeed, some don't.
For those that do, and assuming that the preponderance of the scientific evidence to date proves correct long term, it could be the best decision they've made their entire lives.

For those that don't (maintain keto) but continue under 100 or so, it's ALSO likely the best decision they've ever made if the choices available to them are 100 or 500.

As to your Blood levels, you should see changes (improvements) over time although one number that might concern you (if you test for it or your doc does) is an elevation in LDL - it's not "really" an elevation in the "bad" part of LDL so don't be overly concerned. If you haven't already, look to current research (or post back if you need some links).

If keto is in your plan, now or in the future, I'd suggest you will probably be best off sticking pretty religiously to <20 at least until you've confirmed. There is a test strip for some (not all) of the common test kits that specifically measures keto. There is also a urine test called KetoStyx (sp?) but many report less than stellar results with it.

All comes down to what works for you and what you can sustain, long term. The weight loss part is, at least for me, just icing on the cake. (oooopps......probably not the best analogy, sorry)

I try to stay in the 30-40 net carb range which allows me the occasional low carb fruit, which I miss terribly!

I keep it under 40 grams / day (that's gross, not net. There's not a lot of open diaries in this thread, but some of those I peeked at have left me confused. Do some of you log certain foods as net carbs and other foods as gross? This seems counterintuitive to me). Most of these come from veggies (a few from nuts & seeds, a few from my daily indulgence of blackberries in my smoothie). I don't eat bananas, or rice, or French fries (I don't know how to fit them into my 40 g's a day), but I've been cooking more lately than I have in years. Shopping the outside of the market makes me feel so good about what I'm doing for my health. Feel free to send me a friend request if you want to peek at my diary.

Congratulation nancytyc! Your story is really inspiring.

Sorry, I don't know how to do the quote box thing!