• Guest, the forum is undergoing some upgrades and so the usual themes will be unavailable for a few days. In the meantime, you can use the forum like normal. We'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

I know I need low carbs but what about fat?

Lawrencepa

Lawrencepa

Well-Known Member
So I thought I had it sussed what I would eat. But my sister is fueling doubt in my mind. I want to start a low carb diet as I've been diagnosed with prediabetes today. But I'm being told by her I need to limit fat aswell? Does this matter if I'll be eating clean anyway? Obviously I'll try and not over do it on cheese. If I watch my calories it should be ok right? I might aim to go keto but is that sustainable?
 
Lawrencepa said:
So I thought I had it sussed what I would eat. But my sister is fueling doubt in my mind. I want to start a low carb diet as I've been diagnosed with prediabetes today. But I'm being told by her I need to limit fat aswell? Does this matter if I'll be eating clean anyway? Obviously I'll try and not over do it on cheese. If I watch my calories it should be ok right? I might aim to go keto but is that sustainable?
Click to expand...

I'm worried too eating LCHF let's wait for the more experienced to advise
 
Lawrencepa said:
So I thought I had it sussed what I would eat. But my sister is fueling doubt in my mind. I want to start a low carb diet as I've been diagnosed with prediabetes today. But I'm being told by her I need to limit fat aswell? Does this matter if I'll be eating clean anyway? Obviously I'll try and not over do it on cheese. If I watch my calories it should be ok right? I might aim to go keto but is that sustainable?
Click to expand...
Watch this video for a good explanation of low carb and the need to increase consumption of fat to compensate ...

 
Hi @Lawrencepa and @barriebanana

I don't consider myself an expert, but can tell you about my experience on LCHF. Since December I have lost 25% of my body weight, got my blood sugars down to non diabetic levels and improved my cholesterol (better HDL and better triglycerides) with a very low carb (20g or less per day) and without watching my fat intake. I don't add gratuitous amounts of fat to what I eat, but use full- fat products rather than low-fat (which often contain hidden carbs), eat the fat on meat, use cream rather than milk in hot drinks and add butter to my vegetables.

Not everyone needs to go so low carb - my meter tells me I do - but in the absence of carbs, fat will fill you up and keep you satisfied longer. Your body will also switch to burning fat for energy.

I don't count calories, but over the past couple of months started putting what I eat into an app as I was interested to see the nutritional breakdown of what I am eating. I am fairly consistently at or under 1,000 calories a day (I don't eat breakfast) - which I think indicates I am naturally eating less as a result of the fat content filling me up.

Try reading Dr Jason Fung's work, or look up his videos on YouTube.

Hope this helps, but the only way you will know if it works for you is to try!
 
Goonergal said:
Hi @Lawrencepa and @barriebanana

I don't consider myself an expert, but can tell you about my experience on LCHF. Since December I have lost 25% of my body weight, got my blood sugars down to non diabetic levels and improved my cholesterol (better HDL and better triglycerides) with a very low carb (20g or less per day) and without watching my fat intake. I don't add gratuitous amounts of fat to what I eat, but use full- fat products rather than low-fat (which often contain hidden carbs), eat the fat on meat, use cream rather than milk in hot drinks and add butter to my vegetables.

Not everyone needs to go so low carb - my meter tells me I do - but in the absence of carbs, fat will fill you up and keep you satisfied longer. Your body will also switch to burning fat for energy.

I don't count calories, but over the past couple of months started putting what I eat into an app as I was interested to see the nutritional breakdown of what I am eating. I am fairly consistently at or under 1,000 calories a day (I don't eat breakfast) - which I think indicates I am naturally eating less as a result of the fat content filling me up.

Try reading Dr Jason Fung's work, or look up his videos on YouTube.

Hope this helps, but the only way you will know if it works for you is to try!
Click to expand...

Liked your post
Take care
barriebanana
 
Lawrencepa said:
So I thought I had it sussed what I would eat. But my sister is fueling doubt in my mind. I want to start a low carb diet as I've been diagnosed with prediabetes today. But I'm being told by her I need to limit fat aswell? Does this matter if I'll be eating clean anyway? Obviously I'll try and not over do it on cheese. If I watch my calories it should be ok right? I might aim to go keto but is that sustainable?
Click to expand...
Does your sister have Type 2 or pre-diabetes? Why does she think fat is bad?
I've been eating keto for about the past year with no problems..
 
Fat has no effect on insulin - you can eat as much as you like and it will not spike your blood glucose, and it is an excellent fuel for your body - in particular the brain.
Cheeses do have a few carbs so should not be over indulged in, but you don't need to be too restrictive.
Your sister doesn't seem to understand that you need to stop eating the 'normal' diet before it causes any more trouble for you.
 
I thrive in vlc keto. 80% fat butnall healthy. Avocado , olive oil, nuts and seeds. SOME cheese but not a lot of dairy OR saturated fats. Mostly mono : plant fats and no seed oils.

Back in the day the low fat high carb thing was horendous for me.

We need fat and protein to survive. There is zero carb requirements though many choose to eat some
 
Eating fat has little to do with diabetes so it's fine. There are different views about fats and cholesterol but many of us believe blood cholesterol mainly results from production by the liver and not to do with the fat you eat.
 
This list from Dr. Bernstein's wiki page always looks like a good overall guide line to me: he suggests
  • Avoiding all foods with added sugar or honey such as desserts, candies, and pastries; all foods made from grains and grain flours such as breads, cereals, pasta, and rice; all starchy vegetables such as potatoes, corn, carrots, peas, tomatoes, and beans; all fresh or preserved fruits and fruit juices; all dairy products except for butter, cream, and fermented cheeses, as well as full fat yogurt(for dairy products the more the fat content the less carbohydrate content)
Everything else is basically OK as far as blood sugar goes. You may want to limit your fat a bit to get weight down or whatever, but if you avoid the stuff on the list and then eat clean, or more or less clean, you should be on the right track. Your sister might have a point if you are going to go egregiously high fat, like 4 cans of spam for every meal, but otherwise, fat is your friend.
Eggs/ eggs and bacon for breakfast, salmon and greens for lunch (or similar) , beef and broccoli for tea (or similar). Black coffee and Black tea to drink. Red wine or spirits when I want alcohol. Good french cheese or pistachio nuts when I want snacks. I lost 4 stone and reversed my type 2 on that diet
 
When you reduce carbohydrates, you need to replace them with an alternative food type as your energy source. With LCHF this is provided by fats and oils.

Low Carb High Fat is a slightly misleading name, as
  • you will be eating normal fats instead of reduced fat/lite products
  • the fat content in an LCHF diet may often just be higher as a proportion of your total carbs/protein/fat ratio due to the reduction in carbs, rather than due to much extra fat being consumed.
And it's worth being aware that:
  • there is nothing wrong with full/normal fat foods - they were an essential part of our diets for 100s of years prior to the 1970s, and we survived pretty well on them
  • eating fat doesn't make you fat, it's generally a diet high in carbs that does so
  • bad cholesterol levels are not necessarily related to dietary cholesterol
  • you body is actually designed to use both fats and carbs as its fuel and will (re-)learn how to do so once you've reduced the carbs in your diet to a sensible low enough level to trigger this process again... and so be able to work more efficiently without you getting hungry every five minutes due to needing a carby top up to your fuel tank :D
I've eaten a low carb normal fat diet for over 3 and a half years, I've lost a fair bit of weight and kept it off, I've reduced my glucose levels from well into the diabetic range down to low pre-diabetic/just about normal and kept them there; I've also come of metformin and most of my other long term medications, and amongst other things have got rid of long term brain fog and reduced the incidence of food related migraines.... So for me LCHF and scoffing fat has done me much more good than any harm.

Robbity
 
I'm in a similar situation to you - it's highly confusing when you're been eating one way your whole life! Basically if you're chopping out carbs from your diet almost entirely, you need to replace them with protein and fats. Luckily, if you're overweight you likely already have a lot of fat on your body already that your system can use!

There are a lot of calculators out there which will help you work out how much you need to eat, but I think this one is quite good: https://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/

Remember:

Protein is a goal. Try and always meet your protein targets because your muscles (including your heart) needs it. This might mean eating more meat than you're used to, as well as fattier meats like pork and beef!
Carbs are a limit. Try not to eat over your allowed amount (up to you what that is)
Fat is for satiety - eat natural fats until you're not hungry anymore. You don't have to hit your target with fats when you've got weight to lose.

The goal of v low carb diets like keto is to get your body to switch to burning fat instead of carbs - which it will do quite happily. It's all quite confusing though so if you want to ask a GP / dietician about it they'll be able to help you out. This is what I'm doing: I did low carb for a couple of weeks and the weight did start to drop off, but I was unsure if my body was getting what it needed. So I'm on pause and have switched to a moderate-low carb 'just make healthy' choices type diet for the time being until I can discuss with my GP and dietician.

I think as long as you're losing weight (assuming that you're overweight) then you're heading in the right direction. Diabetes is a long-lived, long-onset disease and you can afford to take a few weeks to understand what you're doing before you start. That way you're more likely to stick with it.
 
While still overweight most of the fat in LCHF can come from your own body, once you have lost as much weight as you wish, you then need to add fat. Eating some fat tends to make us fill full up and result in us eating less in total so it can be worthwhile to have some fat from the start.
 
Geordie_P said:
This list from Dr. Bernstein's wiki page always looks like a good overall guide line to me: he suggests
  • Avoiding all foods with added sugar or honey such as desserts, candies, and pastries; all foods made from grains and grain flours such as breads, cereals, pasta, and rice; all starchy vegetables such as potatoes, corn, carrots, peas, tomatoes, and beans; all fresh or preserved fruits and fruit juices; all dairy products except for butter, cream, and fermented cheeses, as well as full fat yogurt(for dairy products the more the fat content the less carbohydrate content)
Everything else is basically OK as far as blood sugar goes. You may want to limit your fat a bit to get weight down or whatever, but if you avoid the stuff on the list and then eat clean, or more or less clean, you should be on the right track. Your sister might have a point if you are going to go egregiously high fat, like 4 cans of spam for every meal, but otherwise, fat is your friend.
Eggs/ eggs and bacon for breakfast, salmon and greens for lunch (or similar) , beef and broccoli for tea (or similar). Black coffee and Black tea to drink. Red wine or spirits when I want alcohol. Good french cheese or pistachio nuts when I want snacks. I lost 4 stone and reversed my type 2 on that diet
Click to expand...
I didn't realise that tomatoes were off the list. I cannot have a salad without my tomatoes. I also like tin tomatoes,but choose the lowest sugar ones.
 
AlexMagd said:
It's all quite confusing though so if you want to ask a GP / dietician about it they'll be able to help you out
Click to expand...
Unfortunately there are few GP's or (especially) dieticians who are comfortable or knowledgable about the ketogenic diet. Unless you are lucky enough to find one who is au fait with this way of eating they may well run screaming for the hills. However for those of us with experience of it they seem to work pretty well in most cases. It depends what type of "expert" you want.. those that were taught something years ago or those who have the same condition as you and have succeeded in controlling it by going against medical orthodoxy.
 
derry60 said:
I didn't realise that tomatoes were off the list. I cannot have a salad without my tomatoes. I also like tin tomatoes,but choose the lowest sugar ones.
Click to expand...

I eat tomatoes etc, just nothing with a higher GL than carrots, some people need to go very low carb, most people are OK just by cutting out the foods with the most carbs and the highest GL foods. But I now have a few less tomatoes and more olives then I used to.
 
Tomatoes are low carb - well under my 10 percent limit.
I think that some people assume that they are high carb due to their being close kin to potatoes, but they are the fruits of the plant, not the tubers, different reason for production, different contents.
 
derry60 said:
I didn't realise that tomatoes were off the list. I cannot have a salad without my tomatoes. I also like tin tomatoes,but choose the lowest sugar ones.
Click to expand...
They're not off limits! I eat a few cherry tomatoes fairly regularly with my salad and they're certainly not at all what I'd consider high carb. You may just need keep an eye on quantity/weight though if you eat a lot of the larger ones, and it's definitely the tinned ones that we should be a bit more cautious over. But be aware that Bernstein was recommending a fairly rigid ketogenic diet for his diabetic patients, which will be very much lower carb than many people's LCHF levels.

Robbity
 
Yes, good call Robbity: Dr. Bernstein is *very* strict, so I should be clear it's really a guideline: what I like about it though, is that it really outlines the foods that *may* be cause for concern. Honestly, when I was first diagnosed, I would have thought that things like bananas, tomatoes, oatmeal etc would have been healthy choices. I actually started my 'diabetes control diet' on a diet of oatmeal for breakfast, tomato soup for lunch and an orange or dragon fruit every day for my snack, because I had informed, credible sources that advised a diet along these lines. In fairness, the low-calorie angle and weight-loss I had doing this meant that my sugars *did* go down, but I wish I'd known Bernstein's list earlier, coz it really would have informed me as to what is, and isn't 'carby'. Banting's old-time pamphlet on corpulence was another good one (for the most part)
 
Back
Top