LCHF "real" foods diet - help starting
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LCHF123
Posts: 26 Member
Thanks for letting me join the group!
Has anyone come across the guidelines from the Public Health Collaboration (UK)? You can read them herehttps://phcuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Healthy-Eating-Guidelines-Weight-Loss-Advice-For-The-United-Kingdom-Public-Health-Collaboration.pdf
Or, in summary, the guidelines are:
- eat real food until satisfied (foods that are naturally nutrient dense and are minimally altered from their natural state)
- avoid fake foods (these are foods that have been highly-processed from their natural state)
- be active every day
- minimum fat intake of at 40g for men and 30g for women (so 30g for me)
- minimum protein intake of 1g protein per kg of body weight per day (around 70g for me), primarily from animal sources
- macronutrients to exceed the current recommended nutrient intakes
- minimum 30g fibre
- maximum 130g carbohydrate/day
- all foods to have a carbohydrate-density of less than 25% (i.e. less than 25g carbohydrate per 100g)
I am in the process of enrolling onto a clinical study that involves eating normally, as I usually would, for one week (recording all my food intake on here) and then four weeks following the PHC guidelines. I have been interested in the low carbohydrate/sugar way of eating for a while - sparked by my struggle with depression and reading lots of information about how a low sugar / low amounts of processed carbs can really help but never really had the impetus to start. This seems like a perfect opportunity to give this way of eating a go, whilst getting lots of information as to whether or not it works well for me (they'll be testing my calorie expenditure, weight and body fat, glucose, haemoglobin and cholesterol levels before and after the four week diet along with weekly mood, sleep and appetite assessments done via email)·
If you look at my diary at the moment, please don’t judge me! I actually feel quite disgusted with myself having to write it all down and am trying really really hard not to let it influence how I eat until next Thursday (when I have my pre-study assessment and can start the LCHF diet) but seeing it in black and white and not being allowed to do anything about it is harrrrrrrd!
I cannot eat eggs, so lots of recipes out there (particularly breakfast options) are not appropriate for me, but I'm looking forward to having to experiment! If anyone follows this diet, or anything similar, and has any advice or suggestions (particularly on the egg-free side that I need!) I'd love to hear from you.
In particular, what do you recommend my fat/protein breakdown should be? Since this "diet" does not involve counting calories, I have manually set my calorie allowance to an arbitrary 2000cal/day and set my carbs to 25% as this gives me 125g/day. I then didn’t know what to do with my protein and fat so divided the remaining calories in half and set fat to 40% (89g/day) and protein to 35% (175g/day). My minimum fat and protein intake is around 35-40% of what these ratios have set them to. Should I change the split between fat and protein? Increase my fat and decrease my protein? Or vice versa?
Has anyone come across the guidelines from the Public Health Collaboration (UK)? You can read them herehttps://phcuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Healthy-Eating-Guidelines-Weight-Loss-Advice-For-The-United-Kingdom-Public-Health-Collaboration.pdf
Or, in summary, the guidelines are:
- eat real food until satisfied (foods that are naturally nutrient dense and are minimally altered from their natural state)
- avoid fake foods (these are foods that have been highly-processed from their natural state)
- be active every day
- minimum fat intake of at 40g for men and 30g for women (so 30g for me)
- minimum protein intake of 1g protein per kg of body weight per day (around 70g for me), primarily from animal sources
- macronutrients to exceed the current recommended nutrient intakes
- minimum 30g fibre
- maximum 130g carbohydrate/day
- all foods to have a carbohydrate-density of less than 25% (i.e. less than 25g carbohydrate per 100g)
I am in the process of enrolling onto a clinical study that involves eating normally, as I usually would, for one week (recording all my food intake on here) and then four weeks following the PHC guidelines. I have been interested in the low carbohydrate/sugar way of eating for a while - sparked by my struggle with depression and reading lots of information about how a low sugar / low amounts of processed carbs can really help but never really had the impetus to start. This seems like a perfect opportunity to give this way of eating a go, whilst getting lots of information as to whether or not it works well for me (they'll be testing my calorie expenditure, weight and body fat, glucose, haemoglobin and cholesterol levels before and after the four week diet along with weekly mood, sleep and appetite assessments done via email)·
If you look at my diary at the moment, please don’t judge me! I actually feel quite disgusted with myself having to write it all down and am trying really really hard not to let it influence how I eat until next Thursday (when I have my pre-study assessment and can start the LCHF diet) but seeing it in black and white and not being allowed to do anything about it is harrrrrrrd!
I cannot eat eggs, so lots of recipes out there (particularly breakfast options) are not appropriate for me, but I'm looking forward to having to experiment! If anyone follows this diet, or anything similar, and has any advice or suggestions (particularly on the egg-free side that I need!) I'd love to hear from you.
In particular, what do you recommend my fat/protein breakdown should be? Since this "diet" does not involve counting calories, I have manually set my calorie allowance to an arbitrary 2000cal/day and set my carbs to 25% as this gives me 125g/day. I then didn’t know what to do with my protein and fat so divided the remaining calories in half and set fat to 40% (89g/day) and protein to 35% (175g/day). My minimum fat and protein intake is around 35-40% of what these ratios have set them to. Should I change the split between fat and protein? Increase my fat and decrease my protein? Or vice versa?
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Replies
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Hi,@LCHF123, am in the UK. I have been doing this since March of this year. I have lost 2 and a half, nearly 3 stone. My H has lost around 4 stone and has now cleared himself of Diabetes type 2 and no longer takes any medication.
I am 4'10" (4'11" on a good day!) female and as you can see, quite petite. I weigh a tad under 8 stone and have just got myself comfortably into a new pair of size 6 jeans.
What gender are you, and what physique/height have you got?
Starting weight?4 -
First, in terms of judging, the wisest man to ever walk the earth said, "let him who is without sin cast the first stone." Therefore, no stones coming from me.
Anyway, I have a copy of that document I downloaded a couple months back. I think there are some quality people who were involved with putting this together. IMHO, the recommendations are great for how we can get the entire society back on track. For those who are already metabolically damaged (T2D, heart disease, HBP, etc.), more extreme changes like keto, fasting cycles, etc. are needed. However, if everyone started eating this way from childhood, most chronic disease would disappear.
To start with, it sounds like the most pressing issue is what to eat. For some ideas, there is a link to several recipe sites in the Launch Pad for this group:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10103966/start-here-the-lcd-launch-pad#latest
There are also a couple of threads that have pics of foods people eat that could give you some ideas:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10274397/what-does-your-low-carb-meals-look-like#latest
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10535785/post-your-keto-dinner-pics#latest
Personally, my go to is my crockpot/slow cooker. I find it very easy to throw in some meat with whatever seasoning I want along with a little olive oil and water/broth and let it go on low for 6-8 hours. For the last hour or so, I might throw in some zucchini sliced up. That is a regular Sunday thing for me to make lunch for the week. I owned the crockpot for over 20 years before I ever used it. Now, I can't believe I lived without it so long given just how easy it is.
In terms of your macro percentages, I would suggest increasing the fat part. I know we have been fed the line about how bad fat is for us, but that a) there was never any science behind that and b) science is showing that low fat is related to poor health outcomes. Here is just one article from the British Medical Journal that explains how current guidelines are not scientific.
http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h4962
Zoe Harcombe has also had an article published there that specifically looked at the fat recommendations. I don't have that link at my fingertips, but it shouldn't be hard for you to find if you try.
I say this because at 9 calories per gram in fat and 4 for protein, it is easy to have a higher % of calories from fat without trying and you may have to actually try to eat lean to keep them down. For instance, if you fixed a chuck roast as I described above, 100 gram serving would have 25 g of fat and 27 g of protein which comes out to 225 calories of fat and 108 calories of protein. (for reference: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/beef-products/3690/2)
Also, there are some potential issues for over consuming protein assuming you aren't a hard core athlete. I would say you should keep it to no more than 2 g per kg of your ideal body weight. You can get away with less if the protein is from animal sources as then it is "complete" protein. When you get it from plant sources, you are not getting complete protein and that is generally why most people need more. Getting 175 g/day is a LOT. That is more than I get and I am a very active 6'1" (186 cm) tall man weighing 185 lbs (84 kg) lifting weights 5 days a week with 16-18% body fat.
As that report states on page 12, you need not fear going over 35% fat.
Good luck with this and please report back how it goes.6 -
I am a little confused, but it may just be a difference in what you consider to be 'low carb'. I consider 130 grams of carbs a day as moderate carb levels. I believe, and I could be wrong, but 'low carb' is typcially 50 grams a day or less.
With that in mind, are you wanting to do a Low Carb or a Moderate carb diet? This group supports both, but I just wanted to understand what you are wanting to do.
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In this group we consider low carb 150g or less.
I think those guidelines sound absolutely reasonable and you'll probably have great success following them using only real foods.
The only one I personally wouldn't worry about is the fiber at 30g being a goal. Though it sounds like you'd get easily near that if you're eating 130g carbs and it's all coming from veg.
I would say to consider your protein a minimum goal to make sure you hit every day. If your protein sources are beef, dark meat or skin on chicken, pork including the fat or fatty fish, I think you'll get enough fat without specifically adding extra. Especially if you cook your veggies in a little or use oils on salads and things like that.
It sounds like simply making every meal a meat that includes some fat and a vegetable is all you need to do. Sounds like a great plan to me.4 -
1thankful_momma wrote: »I am a little confused, but it may just be a difference in what you consider to be 'low carb'. I consider 130 grams of carbs a day as moderate carb levels. I believe, and I could be wrong, but 'low carb' is typcially 50 grams a day or less.
With that in mind, are you wanting to do a Low Carb or a Moderate carb diet? This group supports both, but I just wanted to understand what you are wanting to do.
Low carb is under 150g. Keto is under 50g2 -
1thankful_momma wrote: »I am a little confused, but it may just be a difference in what you consider to be 'low carb'. I consider 130 grams of carbs a day as moderate carb levels. I believe, and I could be wrong, but 'low carb' is typcially 50 grams a day or less.
With that in mind, are you wanting to do a Low Carb or a Moderate carb diet? This group supports both, but I just wanted to understand what you are wanting to do.
Yes, I agree. It was with that (and other comments) in mind that I posed the questions on more detailed information.
I realise this is the standard 'eat what you want' week, but 2000 calories/day is actually quite high, if you're a woman, though easy to reach, depending on whether you are looking at the provenance of these calories, or the quantities of foodstuffs.
A colleague of my H's is an exhibition bodybuilder and regularly partakes in regional, national and international competitions.
When he's focusing on building his musculature and toning, and using weights, he can consume anything up to 5000 calories/day.2 -
1thankful_momma wrote: »I am a little confused, but it may just be a difference in what you consider to be 'low carb'. I consider 130 grams of carbs a day as moderate carb levels. I believe, and I could be wrong, but 'low carb' is typcially 50 grams a day or less.
With that in mind, are you wanting to do a Low Carb or a Moderate carb diet? This group supports both, but I just wanted to understand what you are wanting to do.
I said in my response to the post in the main section (the same, I think) that it sounds like a moderately low carb plan, not a LCHF plan, but that's just a matter of terminology. (I was struck by the min of 30 g of fat for women, which is actually quite low fat although of course it's a minimum, as well as the 130 g.)
But it is at least somewhat low carb, and I think a sensible sounding way to try eating.
The not more than 25 g of carbs/100 g is a somewhat weird requirement, I think the idea is that foods generally have to have some fiber or other source of volume (even a potato is quite a bit less -- 16 g of carbs/100 g).
Since this is the UK, 130 g of carbs is net, I think.
As I said in my other response, OP, I think a really good protein goal is about .8 g per lb of a healthy goal weight.
My own general way of eating (although I have not been logging) is about 100 g of protein, less than 100 g of carbs (total, not net, it's largely fruit and veg, so net is lower), and whatever the rest turns out to be in fat. I was lower but decided to eat more carbs for a while because I like summer fruit and it has no negative effect on me.3 -
Oh, advice that I think fits that diet pretty well --
Come up with a standard, easy breakfast that fits how you like to eat and your numbers. I'm an egg fan, but a couple of breakfast ideas are: (a) just forget about eating a traditional breakfast unless you really like them; or (b) I LOVE plain greek yogurt with some nut butter (I buy the nothing but nuts kind) swirled in. I also sometimes do cottage cheese, raw veg, and some smoked salmon.
Build other meals around a source of protein (meat is easy) plus vegetables (getting lots of vegetables is good and you have plenty of carbs for them). Add in other things you like to round out the meal -- cheese or a sauce with fat, cook with olive or coconut oil, avocado, nuts, stuff like that, and since you have more carbs maybe smaller amounts of starches like potato or legumes or sweet potato or grains of some sort.1 -
Thank you all so much, I'm going to head off and read some of the links you've posted!
And apologies for the confusion caused by me referring to it as "low carb" and also "high fat" - that's what the title of the study I'm enrolling is calls it and I didn't know any better!
I'm a bit confused by what a couple of you mean when you're referring to "net" carbs. What is subtracted from the gross carbs to give you a net value? Do you mean that a USDA potato and a UK potato have different amounts of carbohydrates, because they are calculated differently? From reading the guidelines, I count total carbs, not net carbs (or at least the guidelines don't mention anything about net carbs). My understanding from reading the guidelines is that the purpose of the less than 25g carb/100g food is to ensure you're eating "nutrient dense" foods but I may have misunderstood it!
In terms of calories - I set my calories to 2000 because I'm going to be enrolled on a study that EXPLICITLY forbids me from counting calories (yet asks me to track my food intake on here, go figure.....). As the guidelines are to "eat until satiated", I'm hoping I will eat less than 2000 calories. Once the study is over, if this way of eating works for me (which I'm hopeful it will!), then I'll reduce my calorie limit. Do you guys use the "normal" calorie reduction as calculated by MFP, or do you generally find that going low/moderate carb means you need a smaller/larger deficit?
I'm female, 31, 5'4" and weigh around about 70kg. I walk around 13,000 - 15,000 steps a day. When I put these stats into the calorie calculator on here (with my activity as lightly active), for maintaining my weight it reckoned I needed 1,960 calories a day which corresponds nicely to the round 2000 calories I put in.
I have changed my macros to 25% carbs (125g), 20% protein (100g) and 55% fat (122g). So long as I stick to <130g carbs, >30g fat and >70g protein then I'll be doing what's required for the study!
lemurcat12 (cute profile pic by the way!!) - I think you've got a solid point there about forgetting all about the idea of "breakfast food" and simply considering three meals a day in which to hit my macros using whichever foods I fancy! Yogurt and nut butter sounds right up my street though
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Good luck on your journey. Most people find that it is the fat that makes them feel full. You might want be aware of that as you track your food and notice your hunger. If you have meals that are mostly carbs, and you feel hungry, you might want to try for meals with the macro percentages you determine instead of trying to 'make up the fat' at the end of the day.
Also, everyone is different about what levels of carbs they feel the best at. I understood that you are doing this for a study, but at the end of it please take this into consideration as you weigh your long term plans. It takes some of us a while to figure out what works best.2 -
Thank you all so much, I'm going to head off and read some of the links you've posted!
And apologies for the confusion caused by me referring to it as "low carb" and also "high fat" - that's what the title of the study I'm enrolling is calls it and I didn't know any better!
I'm a bit confused by what a couple of you mean when you're referring to "net" carbs. What is subtracted from the gross carbs to give you a net value? Do you mean that a USDA potato and a UK potato have different amounts of carbohydrates, because they are calculated differently? From reading the guidelines, I count total carbs, not net carbs (or at least the guidelines don't mention anything about net carbs). My understanding from reading the guidelines is that the purpose of the less than 25g carb/100g food is to ensure you're eating "nutrient dense" foods but I may have misunderstood it!
In terms of calories - I set my calories to 2000 because I'm going to be enrolled on a study that EXPLICITLY forbids me from counting calories (yet asks me to track my food intake on here, go figure.....). As the guidelines are to "eat until satiated", I'm hoping I will eat less than 2000 calories. Once the study is over, if this way of eating works for me (which I'm hopeful it will!), then I'll reduce my calorie limit. Do you guys use the "normal" calorie reduction as calculated by MFP, or do you generally find that going low/moderate carb means you need a smaller/larger deficit?
I'm female, 31, 5'4" and weigh around about 70kg. I walk around 13,000 - 15,000 steps a day. When I put these stats into the calorie calculator on here (with my activity as lightly active), for maintaining my weight it reckoned I needed 1,960 calories a day which corresponds nicely to the round 2000 calories I put in.
I have changed my macros to 25% carbs (125g), 20% protein (100g) and 55% fat (122g). So long as I stick to <130g carbs, >30g fat and >70g protein then I'll be doing what's required for the study!
lemurcat12 (cute profile pic by the way!!) - I think you've got a solid point there about forgetting all about the idea of "breakfast food" and simply considering three meals a day in which to hit my macros using whichever foods I fancy! Yogurt and nut butter sounds right up my street though
In the US the fiber is counted as part of the total carbs so some people subtract it and count net.
In your case, I think it's automatically net so just disregard that advice.
Make protein your main goal and then dress every meat up with whatever veg and healthy cooking fat you like. Don't go crazy with added fat and it'll help you keep your calories down. Meat is very filling and it already has the perfect ratio of fat.1 -
One last piece of advice is make breakfast the lowest carb meal. Higher carb makes you hungry sooner. Starting your day with a meal that stimulates hunger within a couple hours makes the rest of the day harder4
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I'm a bit confused by what a couple of you mean when you're referring to "net" carbs. What is subtracted from the gross carbs to give you a net value? Do you mean that a USDA potato and a UK potato have different amounts of carbohydrates, because they are calculated differently? From reading the guidelines, I count total carbs, not net carbs (or at least the guidelines don't mention anything about net carbs). My understanding from reading the guidelines is that the purpose of the less than 25g carb/100g food is to ensure you're eating "nutrient dense" foods but I may have misunderstood it!
Sunny_Bunny explained this, but since I brought it up, yes, foods may have different amounts of carbs as counted in the US and UK, because in the US we include fiber as a carb (and so net carbs are carbs without the fiber included). So when I was eating really low carb, and most of my carbs were non-starchy vegetables, I would regularly eat under 35 g of net carbs and around 55 g of total carbs (in the US).
In the UK, as I understand it, you more sensibly do not include fiber in carbs, so your carb count would be what we call net carbs here in the US. (I think Canada may be like the US too.)2 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »I'm a bit confused by what a couple of you mean when you're referring to "net" carbs. What is subtracted from the gross carbs to give you a net value? Do you mean that a USDA potato and a UK potato have different amounts of carbohydrates, because they are calculated differently? From reading the guidelines, I count total carbs, not net carbs (or at least the guidelines don't mention anything about net carbs). My understanding from reading the guidelines is that the purpose of the less than 25g carb/100g food is to ensure you're eating "nutrient dense" foods but I may have misunderstood it!
Sunny_Bunny explained this, but since I brought it up, yes, foods may have different amounts of carbs as counted in the US and UK, because in the US we include fiber as a carb (and so net carbs are carbs without the fiber included). So when I was eating really low carb, and most of my carbs were non-starchy vegetables, I would regularly eat under 35 g of net carbs and around 55 g of total carbs (in the US).
In the UK, as I understand it, you more sensibly do not include fiber in carbs, so your carb count would be what we call net carbs here in the US. (I think Canada may be like the US too.)
Yup, @lemurcat12 is correct. In the UK, we list fibre content as a separate entry. So the carb content is net. We also list "of which sugars" directly underneath the carb content, so if there is a difference in the quantities of each, that difference is starch.
Eg:
Carbohydrates 39.5
Of which sugars 20.2
the 19.3 difference is pure starch.3 -
Interesting reading, as usual lots of wonderful advice from friendly people within our group....
Looking forward to following your progress.4 -
Thanks everyone so much, I really appreciate you taking the time to help me out 1
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Yep, Canada shows carbs total on the Nutrition Data panel, then fibre carbs and sugar carbs (that are included in that total) so you have to subtract fiber carbs to get net.
Let us know how things go for you. Looking forward to following your progress.3 -
Counting carbs in uk is lot easier, is done for you already no need to use your brain to work out the difference in carbs, it makes shopping easier. Well it does for me.
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Counting carbs in uk is lot easier, is done for you already no need to use your brain to work out the difference in carbs, it makes shopping easier. Well it does for me.
Lol, yes it does! Otherwise I'd totally be wandering around the supermarket with a calculator, frowning and peering at every packet I pick up!0 -
canadjineh wrote: »Yep, Canada shows carbs total on the Nutrition Data panel, then fibre carbs and sugar carbs (that are included in that total) so you have to subtract fiber carbs to get net.
Let us know how things go for you. Looking forward to following your progress.
Thanks, I'm looking forward to it too! I feel a lot more prepared than I did when I posted the original message 0
