• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Calories help!!!

B

Byebyebabybelly

Newbie
Messages
2
How do people actually get started with low carb? Do you follow a specific diet eg Atkins or do you just use the foods lists on the stickies/diet doctor and count your carbs? If you count your carbs what do you aim for and do you also count calories? Sorry for so many questions. I am prediabetic, had gestational diabetes and both parents are type 2 diabetic so I know I am at the point where I need to take action but every time I start to do low carb I seem hungry all the time or struggle to get my carbs low enough or have a ridiculously high calorie count.
For example breakfast tomorrow is 15g each of chia seeds and flax seeds mixed with 10g of coconut manna and 100g lindahls turkish yogurt topped with 10 g pumpkin seeds and it's about 400cals and looks tiny!!
I am really sorry for the long post but I know I need and want to do this and I would really love any answers to my above questions and any tips or advice.
 
-How do you start? You eat like you normally do, but instead of eating foods with carbs in them....you eat foods that don't have carbs in them.
-Do you follow a specific diet? At first, that works for some, but overtime we each develop our own version of the diet that works for us.
-What do I aim for when counting carbs? Generally less than 50g, but everyone is different
-Seeds are always going to be very dense in calories....remember that the entire point of a seed is to eventually grow into a plant, lol.


The bottom line to your question is to make the decision to start and start immediately (rather than tomorrow, next week, etc). After you start, you can follow a set plan, or you can figure out what you can alter in your current diet to lower your total carb intake to your desired levels.
 
hi there @Byebyebabybelly
this is a good question and if you start with the basis that there are 4 calories in a carbohydrate , 4 calories in a protein and 9 calories in a fat ( this is per gram in each )
you can begin to build a diet that suits your needs
some that low carb may need to lose weight where as others may need to increase weight -- but both may share the Diabetes tag.
low carbing definitely assists BG levels - so normally substituting protein( for carb) and very low carb veg ( greens and cauliflower mainly ) will help with BG along with some fats to give approx 1000 calorie total
but if you need to gain weight you could substantially increase protein and fat and hopefully gain whilst not impacting BG's
if overweight nearly the same but the ratio of fat might need a tweak lower ( but always aiming for lower carbs )

hope that helps
 
I've not done a carbs crash the way some have, I stopped the heavys completely bread, rice, pasta, cereal, root vegs and been careful with fruit - I forgot about calories and bought a few protein rolls from Lidls and put on a few pounds - not what I need to do. Huge calories in cheese, cream and nuts. I think I've got my head round it now, chicken, egg, fish & veg - though I do love avocado on a toasted Lidl roll - now my Sunday breakfast. I carry boiled eggs, small tins of tuna, 1oz of cheese and 10 nuts with me and graze through out the day - 1kg off this week! I do have butter, but only where necessary and I don't do cream. This seems to be keeping me to 1000 -1200 cals per day.
 
Today was a typical non working day menu. Boiled egg mashed with butter - breakfast. Green split pea & ham soup - lunch. Chicken/veg/chickpea curry - dinner. I had my cheese and nuts with me but didn't need them to day - too busy to think about being hungry.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…