How many grams of carbs do you have a day?

[Sunshine_Kisses]

Hey, new to low carb and just wondered how many carbs others who are following low carb have per day?




Diagnosed Type 2, 22nd Feb 2013
Hba1c 7.5
Three month trial of managing through diet & exercise.
Low carb, pescatarian
Trying various supplements!

 

[stuffedolive]

Hi,
I've been low-carbing for a bit over 2 weeks. I find it relatively easy to do 60-80g a day. I've had a few meals out too and even managed the odd pint
I actually find my new meals more interesting and tasty than my previous NHS recommended diet based around a portion of pasta, potatoes, rice or bread. So far, I feel no compunction to go back to that.

 

[Sunshine_Kisses]

Hi... Thanks for your reply! Have you noticed a change in your sugar readings since going lower carb?

I've just entered all I ate today into the my fitness pal ap, and it tells me I had 100g carbs - which had given me readings of around 7... Not sure I could go lower carb though as don't eat meat - so finding it a little bit tricky!


Diagnosed Type 2, 22nd Feb 2013
Hba1c 7.5
Three month trial of managing through diet & exercise.
Low carb, pescatarian
Trying various supplements!

 

[SamJB]

I avoid all starchy carbs such as bread, rice, pasta, potatoes etc and have around 40g carbs per day from the veg and nuts etc. But, I love meat!

I'm going to sound like a broken record, but it might be worth buying Karen Barnaby's Low Carb Gourmet. There's loads of great ideas in there. You can get it on Amazon.

 

[Sunshine_Kisses]

40g ?! Blimey... I thought I was doing quite well around 100! ;-)

Assuming you eat meat? I genuinely think it would be really tricky for me to cut that many carbs out unless I lived off fish & nuts :-/


Diagnosed Type 2, 22nd Feb 2013
Hba1c 7.5
Three month trial of managing through diet & exercise.
Low carb, pescatarian
Trying various supplements!

 

[ForeverDreaming]

Hi, i am now on a sliding scale of insulin. Though i used to have about 10-15 (15g of cho per ex) exchanges everyday.

Good Luck With Your Diabetes, And God Bless!

-Emma

 

[SamJB]

It's not too difficult actually! I have LC porridge or an omellete for breakfast, salad or soup for lunch. For dinner I have a variety of things including LC Shepherd's pie, curry with cauli rice, meat and loads of veg, stir fry, mousakka, stew etc.

You could use a meat substitute in the meat dishes.

The meat and carb-free things I snack on are nuts, coleslaw, cheese and celery sticks. Probably a few more but I can't think of them right now!

 

[hale710]

40g ?! Blimey... I thought I was doing quite well around 100! ;-) /quote]

I'm not trying to burst your bubble, but I don't consider myself to low carb, yet I eat about 100-120g carb a day. I'm type 1 and haven't changed my diet since diagnosis. I have a steady weight and no health complaints (apart from the obvious) and have had no reason to "low carb".

I would suspect that even with no meat you could bring that down to at least 70g

 

[Sunshine_Kisses]

Thanks for the 'try harder' post Hale710! :-D

A typical day's food for me is:
Breakfast: Almond & egg pancakes

Lunch: bean/lentil salad (1/2 tin of aduki beans or lentils plus lots of leaves, radishes, some saurkraut with lemon juice and olive oil etc)

Dinner: piece of fish, 2 very small baby new potato's, broccoli

Snacks: nuts, spoon of nut butter, a handful of berries.

Maybe that doesn't seem like much, or average but that's quite a shift away from carbs for me!
I am very committed to reducing my carbs, but I know having, say, fish for lunch *and* dinner or eggs for breakfast *and* lunch every day isn't going to be sustainable for me long term...

I'm curious, where do you see that I could easily bring that down to 70g, without doubling up on eggs or fish?


Diagnosed Type 2, 22nd Feb 2013
Hba1c 7.5
Three month trial of managing through diet & exercise.
Low carb, pescatarian
Trying various supplements!

 

[Sunshine_Kisses]

SamJB

Interesting... Some things I'd not thought of there! When you say you have salad or soup for lunch, do you mean just a plain salad / veg soup with no meat etc to bulk it out...? Cos I know if I just had salad leaves and radishes and nothing else I'd probably pass out before dinner... So genuinely interested to know if thats all you eat and you still have enough energy... Maybe I eat too much?! :-D


Diagnosed Type 2, 22nd Feb 2013
Hba1c 7.5
Three month trial of managing through diet & exercise.
Low carb, pescatarian
Trying various supplements!

 

[SamJB]

Ha! No, today I had a salad of mixed leaves, olives gherkins, choritzo, radish, cheese, spring onions, pepper and a good full fat vinaigrette.

I bought a soup maker last year and make brocolli and Stilton, cream of chicken, cream of mushroom.

To stop yourself getting hungry you need to add fat.

I reckon what you're eating is pretty low carb! When I first ditched bread, rice, pasta etc I ate a lot of pulses. One thing I've learned is to do what ever works. Some people get by eating carbs and good for them, if eating 100g of carbs means you are hitting your targets then carry on!

Oh, you can add cottage cheese to the list I gave above too! (Knew I'd forget something)

 

[Sunshine_Kisses]

Thanks for the tips - and phew, was thinking I must be a piglet there!! :-D

It's such a funny one isn't it - we're all so different! If I have cheese it seems to spike me, so trying to steer clear of dairy at the mo...

I can't say I am hitting targets - I'm mostly in the 6's or 7's before eating and 8's two hrs later - which is getting better than it was, but would be nice to be in the 5's pre food and below 8's afterwards

I'm really interested by the fats thing, cos at the moment I am feeling famished pretty much all day - but maybe my body is trying to adjust still; although I was diagnosed end of feb it's only been the last week or two that I've gone (not so; ) low carb, plus I've started running - so I think my body is like 'jeez woman, what are you doing?!?'


Diagnosed Type 2, 22nd Feb 2013
Hba1c 7.5
Three month trial of managing through diet & exercise.
Low carb, pescatarian
Trying various supplements!

 

[SamJB]

Those numbers are pretty good, to get your HbA1c into the 6s you need to be in single digits for days at a time. So keep it up.

And yeah your body might be in shock! I didn't get hungry when I switched to LC, but I did take the micky a bit with the amount of fat I ate! It is a bit of a learning curve. Loads of great advice on here to help you out!

 

[hale710]

Those numbers are great!

Have you tried adding hallumi to your salads? A close friend is vegetarian and she swears by it, and we all love it too! It's great grilled and sliced on top, we use it instead if chicken.

I think for me my diet is "low carb" due to my portion size. I'm a 23 year old girl, I don't have a big appetite! Breakfast is usually porridge, lunch a baked potato and salad, dinner something with pasta or rice. I just don't eat much of it and I rarely snack. If I do snack a couple of nuts usually does it. But that's just me, I've always been like that and I know everyone else is different!

 

[ForeverDreaming]

If you want to know how many carbohydrates you should have, well all i can say is generally, women need fewer grams of carbohydrates each day than men. The amount of carbohydrates you need as an individual depends on many factors, including your size, weight, age, activity level, need and/or desire to lose weight, and food preferences. There isn't a one-size-fits-all amount of carbohydrates for all women. Everyone is different and has diverse nutritional needs.

 

[Sunshine_Kisses]

Emma, I'm so impressed! How does one so young get so wise?!

And thanks Sam & Hale; good to know my numbers don't seem too bad - it's a steep learning curve isn't it?!

I definitely think my body must be in shock; I've not lost a lb, despite two months of no sugar whatsoever (chocolates, cakes, biscuits and crisps were all a daily habit before!) and quite majorly changing my diet... And upping my exercise! So I find it a bit odd that I've still not lost any weight... But know its the numbers that are most important right now.

Hale, I will try halloumi, thanks for the tip! I have before and do love it, but soft cheese, Greek or plain yogurts, etc definitely seems to spike me - but I haven't tried 'hard' cheese, so worth a go!

And I see; makes more sense if you don't eat very much alas, I cannot describe my appetite as small, I wish!

I have never counted calories/fat/carbs in my life, so no idea really what I'm doing (can you tell?! Haha!) - I'm using the ap my fitness pal for guidance but of course it's meant for just calorie and fat watchers... And although I now have the figures (yesterday, for example, I had 55g fat, 114g carb, and 1,130 calories) I don't *really* know if that's good or bad... It tells me it's ok (it advises 50g fat, 205g carb and 1,200 calories, based on my stats and how much weight I'd like to lose) but as I said, I'm not losing weight and feel famished! It's still all a bit of a mystery to me... :-/

So as you can probably tell, though I'm in the 'healthy' bmi range, I definitely like my food - and especially (used to!) like my sweet treats - which I guess is what got me here {sigh} - though it's at least promising to hear that single digits should bring my hba1c down Sam, thank you!

And as Emma wisely says, we're all a bit different - I guess through trial & error I'll work out what works for me eventually...


Diagnosed Type 2, 22nd Feb 2013
Hba1c 7.5
Three month trial of managing through diet & exercise.
Low carb, pescatarian
Trying various supplements!

 

[hale710]

I use my fitness pal AND the carbs and cals app. I prefer the pictures in carbs and cals as its easier than weighing everything, but I also like myfitnesspal pal's barcode scanner for ease.

 

[Sunshine_Kisses]

Ooh, not seen the carbs and cals ap, will look out for it!


Diagnosed Type 2, 22nd Feb 2013
Hba1c 7.5
Three month trial of managing through diet & exercise.
Low carb, pescatarian
Trying various supplements!

 

[MCMLXXIII]

The Very Hungry Caterpillar taught me that I can binge eat carbs and then take a two week nap and I'll become beautiful.!:grin::grin::grin:

 

[hale710]

The Very Hungry Caterpillar taught me that I can binge eat carbs and then take a two week nap and I'll become beautiful.!:grin::grin::grin:

Sounds good to me. Although did he not feel sick before he became beautiful?