Low carb people - show me your food diary

Looking at going low carb (less than 30g a day) as a trial (for 10 days),
No idea how i'm going to achieve this, so i want to see food diaries.

Pretty please :wink:

Replies

  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,267 Member
    why would you want to do this? seriously...
  • vmclach
    vmclach Posts: 670 Member
    Take a look at mine. Just for perspective.
  • aelkz
    aelkz Posts: 4 Member
    I'm almost dying to not pass 100g of carbs... lol
  • GuybrushThreepw00d
    GuybrushThreepw00d Posts: 784 Member
    why would you want to do this? seriously...

    Uh, to lose fat. durr. :laugh:

    In all seriousness, i'm not a MFP newbie, i've lost a load of fat and i'm struggling at the moment.
    I'm looking for something different to try to kick my motivation up.
    Having never done a "diet" before i thought trying low carb for a short period would be worth a trial.
  • parkscs
    parkscs Posts: 1,639 Member
    The problem you will run into is that 10 days on a ketogenic diet will not give you any sort of meaningful perspective on what these diets are all about, because it takes time for your body to adapt to the lack of carbs. You'll drop a bunch of water weight within 10 days (which will come back when you carb up again) and you'll probably be through the worst of the initial sluggishness, but it can take several months until your exercise performance fully recovers. I've known quite a few people who report losing a bit of strength when first starting these diets but regain it after a couple of months. In short, 10 days really isn't enough time to do anything other than make yourself miserable and deplete your glycogen levels.
  • GuybrushThreepw00d
    GuybrushThreepw00d Posts: 784 Member
    The problem you will run into is that 10 days on a ketogenic diet will not give you any sort of meaningful perspective on what these diets are all about, because it takes time for your body to adapt to the lack of carbs. You'll drop a bunch of water weight within 10 days (which will come back when you carb up again) and you'll probably be through the worst of the initial sluggishness, but it can take several months until your exercise performance fully recovers. I've known quite a few people who report losing a bit of strength when first starting these diets but regain it after a couple of months. In short, 10 days really isn't enough time to do anything other than make yourself miserable and deplete your glycogen levels.

    Food for thought.

    I'd been reading about "Carb nite", which is what sparked my interest.

    Carb Nite If you want to get shredded and strong, use Carb Nite, which takes advantage of your body’s weekly hormonal rhythms to help you lose fat, maintain muscle, and increase strength. You can cut significant fat without even working out.

    1) Start With a 10-Day Recalibration Prime your body to use fat for energy instead of carbs and stop all the processes that make it easy to store carbs as fat. You do this by following an ultra-low-carb diet for 10 days. Eat 30 grams of carbs or fewer per day (approximately one piece of fruit or a small serving of oatmeal). Any starches and sweets in your meals must be extremely limited.

    2) Enjoy a Carb Nite On the evening of your 10th day, starting around 5 p.m., begin eating carbs. Your discipline can take a hiatus: eat pasta, pizza, french fries, or any other sugary/starchy carbs you can get your hands on. Want brownies or Krispy Kreme doughnuts? Go for it. High-glycemic carb sources like these are actually better choices than sweet potatoes and rice. You need to refill your carb stores, crank up your metabolism, and give your mind a break. You’ll get the best results if Carb Nite falls on a day you lift weights, so try to time it accordingly. Don’t worry about getting fat. Several studies show that because of the change in enzyme production that occurs in your body throughout your low-carb days, gaining fat on a Carb Nite is nearly impossible.

    3) Lean Out At this point, you’ve gotten your body to switch over from using carbs to fat as fuel. Return to the menu you used during recalibration, but this time you won’t have to follow it as long. Eat 30 grams of carbs per day and, once per week, have a Carb Nite. Note that this is a six- to eight-hour “night,” not a daylong carb binge.

    4) Maintenance This is where you get to look ripped all the time. Once you drop below 10% body fat, you’ll probably need two Carb Nites per week to keep your metabolism going and spare muscle mass. So you could have your first Carb Nite on Wednesday and your second that Saturday.

    - See more at: http://www.mensfitness.com/nutrition/what-to-eat/carb-backloading-to-get-lean#sthash.UqPAGAvo.dpuf
  • SonicDeathMonkey80
    SonicDeathMonkey80 Posts: 4,489 Member
    The problem you will run into is that 10 days on a ketogenic diet will not give you any sort of meaningful perspective on what these diets are all about, because it takes time for your body to adapt to the lack of carbs. You'll drop a bunch of water weight within 10 days (which will come back when you carb up again) and you'll probably be through the worst of the initial sluggishness, but it can take several months until your exercise performance fully recovers. I've known quite a few people who report losing a bit of strength when first starting these diets but regain it after a couple of months. In short, 10 days really isn't enough time to do anything other than make yourself miserable and deplete your glycogen levels.

    Food for thought.

    I'd been reading about "Carb nite", which is what sparked my interest.

    Carb Nite If you want to get shredded and strong, use Carb Nite, which takes advantage of your body’s weekly hormonal rhythms to help you lose fat, maintain muscle, and increase strength. You can cut significant fat without even working out.

    1) Start With a 10-Day Recalibration Prime your body to use fat for energy instead of carbs and stop all the processes that make it easy to store carbs as fat. You do this by following an ultra-low-carb diet for 10 days. Eat 30 grams of carbs or fewer per day (approximately one piece of fruit or a small serving of oatmeal). Any starches and sweets in your meals must be extremely limited.

    2) Enjoy a Carb Nite On the evening of your 10th day, starting around 5 p.m., begin eating carbs. Your discipline can take a hiatus: eat pasta, pizza, french fries, or any other sugary/starchy carbs you can get your hands on. Want brownies or Krispy Kreme doughnuts? Go for it. High-glycemic carb sources like these are actually better choices than sweet potatoes and rice. You need to refill your carb stores, crank up your metabolism, and give your mind a break. You’ll get the best results if Carb Nite falls on a day you lift weights, so try to time it accordingly. Don’t worry about getting fat. Several studies show that because of the change in enzyme production that occurs in your body throughout your low-carb days, gaining fat on a Carb Nite is nearly impossible.

    3) Lean Out At this point, you’ve gotten your body to switch over from using carbs to fat as fuel. Return to the menu you used during recalibration, but this time you won’t have to follow it as long. Eat 30 grams of carbs per day and, once per week, have a Carb Nite. Note that this is a six- to eight-hour “night,” not a daylong carb binge.

    4) Maintenance This is where you get to look ripped all the time. Once you drop below 10% body fat, you’ll probably need two Carb Nites per week to keep your metabolism going and spare muscle mass. So you could have your first Carb Nite on Wednesday and your second that Saturday.

    - See more at: http://www.mensfitness.com/nutrition/what-to-eat/carb-backloading-to-get-lean#sthash.UqPAGAvo.dpuf

    I love arbitrary discipline.
  • GuybrushThreepw00d
    GuybrushThreepw00d Posts: 784 Member
    I love arbitrary discipline.

    It's not arbitrary, I've quoted the bro-science - you can clearly see there's a system. :smile:
  • parkscs
    parkscs Posts: 1,639 Member
    Carb nite is basically a sloppy version of a cyclical ketogenic diet. I say sloppy because they recommend you eat things like pizza, french fries, ice cream and so on as part of your refeed and suggest that you cannot gain fat this way - but that's a bit misguided. When your body is glycogen depleted, it tends to prefer to use excess carbs for glycogen replenishment (rather than converting them to fat for storage) and excess carbs tend to be burned as energy. We've got a few studies out that that reinforce this notion. However, that doesn't mean your body won't store dietary fat and this is why you see refeeds on a CKD typically keeping fat very low while eating a surplus of carbs. If you're chowing down on krispy cremes, pizza, fries and the like, you shouldn't expect the same results, because even if your body doesn't store the carbs as fat, it can still store the fat as fat.

    That doesn't mean it's not worth trying if you want to see how it works for you but I'd give anything you try longer than 10 days if you want to properly evaluate it.
  • GuybrushThreepw00d
    GuybrushThreepw00d Posts: 784 Member
    That doesn't mean it's not worth trying if you want to see how it works for you but I'd give anything you try longer than 10 days if you want to properly evaluate it.

    How many days then sensai?
  • carolinadaltton
    carolinadaltton Posts: 7 Member
    Oh damn I just eat and forgot to take a picture, But anyways I eat broil chicken wiht a teaspoon of ranch, asian salad mix from dole, and 5 croutons
    So probably I eat less than 200 calories.
  • SonicDeathMonkey80
    SonicDeathMonkey80 Posts: 4,489 Member
    I love arbitrary discipline.

    It's not arbitrary, I've quoted the bro-science - you can clearly see there's a system. :smile:

    I'm afraid of the no-pooping thing :laugh: :sick:
  • parkscs
    parkscs Posts: 1,639 Member
    That doesn't mean it's not worth trying if you want to see how it works for you but I'd give anything you try longer than 10 days if you want to properly evaluate it.

    How many days then sensai?

    I would give any diet/exercise change at least a month, if not several, before evaluating how it affects you and whether it "works." The same with a new lift. If you decide to start doing sumo deadlifts instead of regular deadlifts, you might not be able to pull the same weight after only 10 days of practicing sumos. That doesn't mean sumo deadlifts are inferior, but only that it takes more time before you can truly gauge your progress/results.

    Keto diets affect everyone a bit different, and while some people will feel great after just a few days, many people will feel like *kitten* when first starting a ketogenic diet. After all of 10 days, they would just barely be feeling normal again by the time they stop the diet. At a basic level, your body is having to adapt to burning ketones for energy rather than dietary carbohydrates, and that transition process takes time.

    I'll also throw out there that I typically see people going to a carb cycling routine like this when they're already having success on a low carb diet but they're wanting to introduce some carbs to help with their athletic performance. If you're not currently doing low carb, I'm not entirely sure what you have to gain from this sort of plan.
  • matthawthorneisamyth
    matthawthorneisamyth Posts: 196 Member
    You can look back at mine from around 10 weeks ago.

    I've moved on from low carb into moderate carb intake. I feel much more energetic on more carbohydrates and my weight loss hasn't really suffered much.
  • GuybrushThreepw00d
    GuybrushThreepw00d Posts: 784 Member
    Oh damn I just eat and forgot to take a picture, But anyways I eat broil chicken wiht a teaspoon of ranch, asian salad mix from dole, and 5 croutons
    So probably I eat less than 200 calories.

    Sounds fine apart from the croutons.
    2oz of chicken?, I'd eat 4 times that.
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,267 Member
    why would you want to do this? seriously...

    Uh, to lose fat. durr. :laugh:

    In all seriousness, i'm not a MFP newbie, i've lost a load of fat and i'm struggling at the moment.
    I'm looking for something different to try to kick my motivation up.
    Having never done a "diet" before i thought trying low carb for a short period would be worth a trial.

    Hence my question...

    Struggling? with losing or staying the course with logging etc.

    Giving up carbs I think would be the last thing to kick up your motivation...ick.

    I did low carb at first (Pre MFP) and I couldn't even do Zumba without feeling like I was gonna puke from lack of energy.

    i know better now...
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,267 Member
    Oh damn I just eat and forgot to take a picture, But anyways I eat broil chicken wiht a teaspoon of ranch, asian salad mix from dole, and 5 croutons
    So probably I eat less than 200 calories.

    Sounds fine apart from the croutons.
    2oz of chicken?, I'd eat 4 times that.

    I'd eat 4x that amount too holy crap
  • GuybrushThreepw00d
    GuybrushThreepw00d Posts: 784 Member
    Struggling? with losing or staying the course with logging etc.

    Logging and evening food binges.
    I've put on 14lb in the last 6 months after getting so close to where I want to be (see my ticker below).
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,267 Member
    Struggling? with losing or staying the course with logging etc.

    Logging and evening food binges.
    I've put on 14lb in the last 6 months after getting so close to where I want to be (see my ticker below).

    You don't need low carb to fix that you need a kick in the butt. I won't be personally doing it...you will have to do that yourself.
  • MelRC117
    MelRC117 Posts: 911 Member
    I eat low carb and I have an issue already with this Carb nite.

    I don't know someone who would eat their carbs in oatmeal or fruit while doing low carb. I don't know if you do that in one small amount of food how you'll eat your veggies without going over your carb count.

    I've had no issue with feeling sluggish or fatigue while working out. Even the first time I started eating low carb I started working out consistently and lifting...no issues with feeling sluggish or sick. I actually feel a lot more energized eating low carb.

    For food:
    This morning I had coconut oil in my coffee (I don't do butter which is typical for bullet proof coffee), a cheese stick and some deli meat
    lunch- cucumbers with cream cheese and deli meat

    snack - 4% fat cottage cheese

    dinner - no clue yet...probably a fattier meat since I haven't had a lot of fat today. Mmmmm bacon
  • _Terrapin_
    _Terrapin_ Posts: 4,301 Member
    why would you want to do this? seriously...

    Uh, to lose fat. durr. :laugh:

    In all seriousness, i'm not a MFP newbie, i've lost a load of fat and i'm struggling at the moment.
    I'm looking for something different to try to kick my motivation up.
    Having never done a "diet" before i thought trying low carb for a short period would be worth a trial.



    bump
  • _Terrapin_
    _Terrapin_ Posts: 4,301 Member
    Struggling? with losing or staying the course with logging etc.

    Logging and evening food binges.
    I've put on 14lb in the last 6 months after getting so close to where I want to be (see my ticker below).

    bump part 2.
  • milocamolly
    milocamolly Posts: 91 Member
    I'm just starting the low carb lifestlye for medical reasons, how low do you want to go in carbs a day? I heard that for Keto it is 50g or less.

    Edited: sorry I just re-read the OP, less than 30g


    Here are some things I have found to have very low carbs so far...greens, veggies, eggs (I've been making deviled eggs), nuts, chicken, fish
  • GuybrushThreepw00d
    GuybrushThreepw00d Posts: 784 Member
    I like your bumps terrapin - thats the core of the problem/question.
    Iifym calories in / out just isn't cutting it at the moment.
    I need to change something to expect a different result.
  • MelRC117
    MelRC117 Posts: 911 Member
    I like your bumps terrapin - thats the core of the problem/question.
    Iifym calories in / out just isn't cutting it at the moment.
    I need to change something to expect a different result.

    Are you hungry at your current calorie intake? Is that why you maybe aren't logging everything and binging?
  • icrushit
    icrushit Posts: 773 Member
    Feel free to check out mine, its public. 50g net carbs is as low as I've went though, below that I found I would have to cut out things I would rather keep in my diet personally :) These days I'm not so precious about keeping to the 50g, and my carb intake can vary from 50 to about 80g, and as I get closer to my goal I plan to bring my carbs back up, aiming for a moderate level of about 150g by the time I reach my target :)
  • GuybrushThreepw00d
    GuybrushThreepw00d Posts: 784 Member
    I like your bumps terrapin - thats the core of the problem/question.
    Iifym calories in / out just isn't cutting it at the moment.
    I need to change something to expect a different result.

    Are you hungry at your current calorie intake? Is that why you maybe aren't logging everything and binging?

    Eating seems to fuel my hunger. I won't be too hungry beforehand, but then I'll eat dinner and then just want to keep on eating.
    Also boredom seems to be a little bit of a problem.

    Like an alcoholic, the worse thing is once i start evening snacking i can't stop. I just need to get better at ignoring those urges (like i used to when i was awesome at this whole weight loss thing)