Carbs!

I don't like it when people suggest cutting out carbs altogether. How can you? Everything has carbs, even coffee. I'm on a low carb diet, and I cannot imagine zero carbs. You could never eat a vegetable! I wouldn't recommend this. But if you want to lower your carbs, that may help. Lots of people have success lowering their carbs, either to just 100g a day or even lower. But you need to do the research.

Yeah, I hate when people say "cut out all carbs". That's incredibly unhealthy. I follow a low STARCH diet which means all my carbs come from veggies, fruit, and whole grains and I avoid high starch things like potatoes, white bread, etc. I aim for 80-120g of carbs a day and have found this to be very effective for my weight loss. To be clear I try to eat a LOT of veggies every day. Feel free to look at my food diary for ideas.

you need a certain percentage of good carbs to help fuel your body for the day. clean eating, whole grains, veggies, fruits etc

It's hard to say what will work for you. I happen to be EXTREMELY carb intolerant. I can't even look at someone else eat a piece of bread without gaining weight~! But I can't live without them, so here's what I do. Every 2-3 weeks, I purge the carbs out of my system. During that time I follow the first cycle of the 17 day diet. Basically that is cutting out almost all carbs. It consists of eating mostly lean meat and low cal veggies, 2 fat free, low sugar yogurts, and 2 fruits along with as much water as I can stand. Every time I've done that I lose between 5-8 pounds in just a few days (usually 4 or 5 days). Then I go back to eating a more "normal", but healthy diet. When I find myself slipping back into my old unhealthy patterns, I go back to cycle 1 for a few days to reset my body and my mindset.

Thats how I had to do it when I started. I didnt eat enough and most of my calories came from carbs and regular soda. So I cut out most carbs, esp bread and cereal and all regular soda. I started having egg whites scrambled with one piece of turkey bacon for breakfast. Eventually added a glass of almond milk, which I now totally love! Added a turkey, cheese and lettuce wrap with my lunch too. These kinds of changes made all the difference for me. If I dont eat enough I do not lose weight. Its as simple as that. If I get my calories from carbs and dont get enough protein I dont lose either. Hope this helps

I think it is all about moderation. I recently have cut out blatant carbs with some success in getting the scale back to being my friend. Examples would be not to have rice, potatoes as a side dish with dinner. Pasta has gone from a main dish to side dish, but we tried to avoid it all together, but sometimes you can't.

Taking the top off a burger or sandwich. Just yesterday, I had sandwich from Panera bread, took the top piece of bread off (and cheese), sandwich went from 800 to 500 calories, much more manageble caloric wise.

If you have Netflix Instant viewing, check out the documentary, Fathead. It's really enlightening regarding this topic.

I think cutting carbs out entirely is nonsense. I don't even advocate severely restricting them. You will kill your energy level, and you will deprive yourself of something you love. Drastic diets such are effective at loosing weight. However, you will also eventually rebel against the diet and put the weight back on.


What has worked for me is trying to reduce / eliminate refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup. I also avoid "bad carbs" in most situations, and instead choose more complex carbohydrates. Choosing foods with fiber, protein, and healthy fats, will keep you full and satisfied much longer than carbs.

Picking when you consume carbs is also important. For example some simple carbs are ok before intense exercise. In fact if I am going on a 3 hour bike ride I will munch on high carb foods the whole ride. However, a big bowl of pasta before bedtime is not going to do you any favors.

Basically I am saying you should pay attention to how much, and what type of carbs you are consuming, and when you are consuming them. Don't go on a drastic carb elimination diet!!

I was told today that my diet consist of too many carbs and in order to loose weight i need to cut out carbs completly and then bring them back into my diet once i start seeing some weight loss. What are everyone elses thoughts on carbs and what you think is best things to eat to loose weight?

Sounds insane. I'm diabetic, so I have to watch carbs, and I still have 50 or so per meal, and 15-30 per snack, and I seem to be losing weight just fine. Watch out for people who tell you to completely cut out or drastically reduce anything. Unless you're eating mercury for breakfast, then, yeah, you should completely cut that out.



Kris

Having a medical problem makes you look a little deeper sometimes.. I've got diabetes and was told the same thing by some people, cut all the carbs out then add back slowly.. NOT RIGHT!!!
First off, you have to be aware that anything that's not fat (ie, vegetable oil, butter, or nuts) or Protein (meat, eggs, fish, most tofu) is carbohydrate. So that includes not only the breads, cereals and pasta but the fruits and vegetables as well. Most people only think about the breads and not the fruits n veggies.
Your brain needs carbs to function and if you don't have enough stored in your liver and muscles you'll feel out of it, spacey. However what I've found is that with man maid products (pasta and bread etc) I end up with to much carbs which spikes my insulin and in turns tells your body to store the excess carbs as fat.
What my nutritionist told me after everything was to aim for about 40% carbs and 30% each of fat and protein and to try and get most of those carbs from fresh veggies and a little fruit.
Dunno if that will help you but I hope it does.

Who told you this?

I'm wondering this too.

Like someone else who posted earlier, I did cut down (not out) the carbs that came from bread, pasta, potatoes, etc and this helped me a great deal and reduced bloating as well. But I wouldn't completely cut out carbs, you'd be doing more harm than good.

I was looking at a lot of the foods i eat and they all have carbs! What are some foods that you can eat that are low in carbs?!

Almost everything has carbs, but net carbs is what really matter in a lower carb lifestyle. You subtract the amount of dietary fiber from the total grams of carbs, and that gives you the net carb amount. You can find this in tons of veggies. Most low-carbers get their "filler" food from veggies.

This morning I had some eggs and bacon with a side of spinach. For lunch, I just had a burger with no bun. I asked them to put all the toppings on the side. They gave me a lot of lettuce and tomato. Plus, I had a small order of coleslaw. I got my veggies in there too.

Once you get used to it, it becomes easier to incorporate good carbs into your meals.

What has worked for ME is getting my carbs only from fruits and vegetables. No rice. No pasta. No potatoes (yeah I know it's a veggie but it's too starchy for me). I don't even eat the low carb pastas, they stall me.

Honestly, the best way to eat to lose weight is to eat as few processed foods as possible. So shop the outside of the grocery store and stay out of those aisles. Nothing good for you down there. There are site that promote "clean eating." Check those out.

I would watch and stay away from any diet that cuts out any one food completely. Look, food is either FAT, PROTEIN or CARBS. That is the only place you can get your calories from. Watch your food diary and see when you stall, is one of these numbers too high? (Fat or Carbs). It's really hard to overeat protein. As a bander I am supposed to get 100g a day and I hardly EVER hit that.

Also...if you find yourself stalling, be sure you are eating ENOUGH. Yep. That happened to me. I went to 700-800 cals and stalled. I even gained and I was exercising each and every day. Aerobically for 30 minutes. Now I put myself back up to 1300 to 1400 and I'm losing like crazy!!!!

Go figure. And go you! Good luck honey.
xoxoox

Cutting all carbs puts your body into ketosis which is really easy to break, but burns crazy fat. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketosis) However you have to come out of it gently, and there are at least a carb or two in almost everything so it's pretty difficult! You can definitely lose weight eating carbs, though. There are sooo many different methods and ways of "tricking" your body that it's really just best to do what works for you probably