Just looking at today, the main things that jump out at me is that your sausage has a ton of carbs, your yogurt lists 21 grams of sugar but no carbs (definitely listed incorrectly), you're eating a lot of fruit, no greens, and using milk instead of cream.

So, I would:
1. Eat greens (salads) instead of fruit
2. Use/make a salad dressing with no carbs and lots of fat and use it on your salads, or saute spinach in butter & load it up with cream cheese
3. Switch your sausage brand
4. Use cream instead of milk and load up your tea and coffee with it

A few things I do:

I pretty much don't eat fruit unless I've already plugged it in and made sure it works, then I portion it out. I had 1 cup of strawberries in my bowl, not the whole package.

I don't worry too much about getting in enough fruits & veggies, but I keep frozen steamer bags of veggies at the ready. I probably eat 2 or 3 bags a week, mainly asparagus, cauliflower, and broccoli.

Spinach is our friend, and I also saute mushrooms in butter, then add an herbed creamy cheese (Alouette brand, don't know if you can get it over there) and portion them out in little containers in the freezer to top burgers or other meat with or just eat straight up.

Everything I cook is cooked in bacon grease, tallow, red palm oil, or butter (I would use coconut oil, but hubby wouldn't touch a thing then).

I keep meat that's already cooked around, whether it's breakfast sausage patties, bacon, burgers, or chicken. I can easily pop a frozen, already cooked burger into the microwave, top it with bacon & cheese, and have lunch (I generally wrap it in a lettuce leaf, and sometimes add a fried egg or mayo).

I eat tuna salad with mayo and pickle relish mixed in for lunches when I remember to make my mayo (I can't have soy or canola).

I'm baking pork chops covered with apples for lunch - I plan on leaving the apples and adding coconut oil to the top of my pork chop and let everybody else eat the apples if they want them. I logged a bit of apple juice to make up for whatever drips in.

Hope that helps!

Great suggestions Twibbly. Jenny, replace your low fat dairy with high fat versions, as they are lower in sugar, and therefore carbs. Low fat dairy has been processed a number of times when removing the natural fat, which makes the dairy higher in sugar. The low fat stuff has more carbs and less good stuff like protein. If you like yogourt, try looking for a Greek yogourt with the highest % of fat in it. I use one that is 11% BF, and put very few berries in it, maybe 1/4-1/3c. I also put stevia sweetened vanilla protein powder in mine. Pre packaged flavoured yogourt generally has either a lot of sugar or bad sweeteners in it, so watch out. Also, get rid of the milk and put heavy whipping cream in your coffee.

It looks like you are eating a lot of sugar and may not even realize it. Most fruit is so high in sugar that you can't eat it on LCHF. Raspberries I believe have the lowest sugar, and the other berries have various amounts, but all berries are much lower in sugar than the other fruits....and sugar means carbs. If I have fruit at all, I make sure I don't even eat a whole serving. I feel great without the extra fruit. I sometimes nibble on frozen berries as a treat but not part of my daily routine.

Read the list of ingredients on all food products you buy to ensure you are not buying stuff with a lot of extra carbs in the form of various forms of sugars and starches. Watch for sugar in a whole lot of products like the mayonnaise. Low fat versions of food items generally contain more sugar and other stuff to improve on texture and mouth feel. So the high fat mayo is better for low carb since it has about half the sugar, and you can bump up your fat. Ideally, the least amount of ingredients, the better.

Just had a peak - the harvest moon thing - that's cereal right? If you can swap that for something low carb that's an easy one to swap out.

And what are chicken tenders? they appear a few times the last few days - and contain 28g of carbs each time. That's a lot higher carb count than any of my protein based foods.

My grocery list ends up being like this:
Bacon
Eggs
Butter (Kerrygold)
Heavy cream
Coffee
Tea
Plain lunch meat (ham, turkey)
Unsweetened mayonnaise
Cheese (cream and sliced cheddar)
Frozen broccoli.

I eat more than just this and don't always have the lunch meat, but it's a basic set of things I pretty much always have on hand.
I need to cut back on the sliced lunch meat and cheeses, though, and start getting more raw meats instead, but man, that sausage (like you said) is good...haha

-T.

Jennym93 wrote: »

Thank you I'll add some of these onto my list
I'm not planning on dropping my carb count too low, I'd prefer it under 100g it's more a case of having a low carb base for all my meals and having snacks with higher carb counts if I really fancy them so I don't go over 100g. I'm just trying to find the right balance at the moment.
I'm losing weight so where I am might be ok, I need to see how it goes for now.

Just as fair warning, carb levels between 150 grams and 50 grams are dubbed the danger zone because it is difficult to completely kill the carb cravings in that range. My endocrinologist had me start at 100 grams and step down at the beginning of each week 5-10 grams until the cravings ceased. That was between 35 grams - 50 grams. Once you start cutting them out, you'll be pleasantly surprised how easy it is to continuing cutting out certain this... Best of luck, wherever your sweet spot number of carbs is!

Just to support that statement with my own anecdote.. I tried to eat <100g and failed. I dropped it down to <25g and thrived, without the cravings.

Also, make yourself some fat bombs to snack on, if you can't not eat between meals, until your hunger evens out. I made a batch of the strawberry cheesecake fat bombs my first week. They were so delicious I made a second batch before the first had even run out. They're all still in there, because a couple days later I just didn't *need* to snack anymore.

If you're experiencing a mental block about fats, try reading this article: http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/nutrition/a/How-To-Overcome-Fat-Phobia.htm

You seem to be stuck where I was: trying to fit as many carbs as possible into the plan, fixating on what food you think will satisfy cravings. I learned, at least for me (as always YMMV), that trying to satisfy those cravings just made them bigger.

I am doing really good at 20-30, but yes, everyone is different.