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.