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

I'm lost

nounou74

Member
Messages
7
Type of diabetes
Don't have diabetes
Treatment type
I do not have diabetes
Hi everybody,
I must recognise I am a bit lost and the more I read, the more I am lost.
I do not have diabetes, but overweight and need to lose weight, a lot of weight..
I think the low carb is a good one for me. Now, what drives me crazy are the macros.
I well understood I ideally must have around 20gr carb, ideally coming from vegetables,
What drives me mad are the macros for proteins and lipids.
How do you define the proteins and lipids you need? Do you well respect these macros or, finally, does only the carbs matters?

Thank you very much for,your views
 
Hello and welcome to the forum.

Personally, at the beginning, I ignored everything else and concentrated on reducing my carbs as low as possible. After I got my blood glucose to a good level I then started thinking about other macros. This way of eating is hard enough at the beginning without making it even more complicated.
 
I agree with @Chook. I was diagnosed diabetic in May and have been counting only carbs since then. I started on < 100g/day and then after a month I dropped to between 50 - 70. I don't look at any other counts although I don't go mad with the double cream on my strawberries or the cheese grated on my salad, you get the picture. I have lost over three stone so far. It's the easiest diet I've ever tried. In the past I've tried a lot, calorie counting, fruit diet, diet shakes etc … I drew the line at the cabbage diet though!
 
Hi @nounou74

Low carb can be up to 130g a day. There's no reason why you can't eat moderate portions of things like bread, potatoes, etc if you choose to.

I suggest you write down what you're currently eating, then look for ways to improve each meal. You might also find an app like MyFitnessPal useful to keep records of your intakes.
 
Macros make my teeth itch. At the begining concentrate on losing the carbs and filling up on the protein and fats. When you reach your desired weight loss or are making steady progress in that direction then you can adjust for best amounts of macros to suit you. Don't set your goals too high, be realistic and good luck.

It is not a smooth road so surprises may be in store but stick with it, you'll be great, I'm sure.
 


hey dear, Nounou don't worry so much as long as you go very low in carbs, then you´ll probably lose weight much easier than on a normal high carb eating style.

when it comes to proteins do try to eat at least like 0.8 grams of protein pro kg body-weight .. when it comes to fats I think they are more essential than we have been told the last 3 decades .. so eat some fats every day, no fat eating style is not healthy at all.

to know how many calories you need daily to lose a certain number of pounds a week or a month, then you need to have a look at how your body looks right now at the moment, in this link there is a calculator in which you can fill in you own information and get suggestions t how much you need to eat of the macros daily..
http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/DietMakeupCalc.php
 
There is a much easy option than making it up yourself, just buy a copy of "New Atkins For a New You" and keep to it 100%.
 
Personally I use the New Diet Revolution - last edition before Dr A died - simply because the later books would not work for me. I find that I need to eat low carb foods, not just cut down on the heavy starches and sugars. When I do that I can eat anything else without bothering about the amounts - but I have been eating low carb since the 1970s, whenever I could avoid my doctors.
 
Thank you very much for all these notes. More than helpfull!
All in all, I am may be asking too much questions to myself and, some are right saying, I should may be focus only on carbs as a first step.
I read the last Atkins book (french edition). There are plenty of interesting explanations but, refering to the macros, there is not much (or I may want to strict guidelines!).

I'm just trying to, at least, know the ideal "macro plan" for me and then, play with food to be as close as possible to these targets.
According to what I read, I should have 20gr carbs, 127 protein, 167gr lipids and 2100 calories.
I must recognise, it's not that easy... but it will work.

I am using urin tests (to be safe ) and I have 8mmo/l ketone. It seems to be good, so I'm probably not that wrong. I would just love to have a bit more vegetables.. (I can't believe am saying that.. no carbs is really fine even if I was eating a lot of them but extra vegetables would be great!

I will now have a deeper look at all the posts in the forum. Surely, I will see many other interesting threads!

Thanks again
 

As others have said concentrate first on cutting out carbs.. try and cut as many as you can and ideally get to less than 20g per day. Once you have done that for a month or so you will (hopefully) not miss them and won't want to have them any more. If you want to have more vegetables that is the time to try and re-introduce some and see if your weight loss stops. if it does and you have monitored then you will probably know what your maintenance level is. This is what I did to loose a lot of weight. You could also try not eating a meal a day. I gave up on breakfast and just ate lunch and dinner (without snacking). This I believe also helped greatly with loosing weight.
 

But for significant weight loss I think 130g per day would be too many and would leave the OP open to hunger pangs because of too many carbs being eaten with none of the benefits of having switched to fat burning mode to loose weight. I know that you aren't a great fan of very low carb but for a lot of people with large amounts of weight to loose it really does work.
 

That's why I said "up to"

I'm a fan of whatever works for the individual
 
Thanks a lot for these other comments.
Since a few days, I manage to keep carbs at 20 and will continue to focus on this.
With the extra olive oil I am adding, plus more fat ingredients such as cheese or meat or eggs, I must say I am not hungry at all, and this is just perfect. I was eating enormous quantities of carbs (pasta, rice...) and I am now more than surprised not to be hungry with much lower quantities of food. This makes me think this is a good thing for me..

Thanks to you all
 
That sounds very similar to my experience.. I hope it works as well for you as it did for me.
 
bulkbiker said:
That sounds very similar to my experience.. I hope it works as well for you as it did for me.
Click to expand...
Forgot to say I'm easily "fasting" now, so have no breakfast but only lunch and dinner with no snack except a coffee with full cream in the evening. Seems you do fast as well @bulkbiker Surprinsigly not that difficult...
Hoping I will look as slim as you do And have the same success as all others in the forum..
 

Please keep us updated on your journey @nounou74 ?

.... & a warm welcome to the forum!
 
You may want to try coffee and cream in the morning I usually have my first around midday.. seems to help keep me sated for a few hours.. I can quite often then just eat dinner.
 
Defìnitely coffe/cream is a good tool and I love it. Now, am still just too nauseous in the morning to eat anything of this type, so I am fasting... but, later in the evening I enjoy it.
Yesterday, I managed to get 2100cal, 20g gl, 177g lip and 135g prot. Seems to be working well for me as lost 1 kilo.
As long as it works, I think I will keep on this, focusing on carbs, and having a try to keep lipids and protein at these levels as we said above.
I think it's good, at the beginning, to note in MyFitnessPal, learning the new habits

August was quite good as I lost 7,5kg.

Nice weekend to you all
 
Hi welcome to the forum You are doing really well. I rarely go as low as 20g carbs and find 50-80g more manageable and sustainable. As you are not diabetic you might find a higher level is OK for you personally too. Keep posting, it will be good to see your progress.
 
I just count carbs - lipids that getting to techy for me
 
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.…