LCHF or LCFF?!!

Thank you @Kat100 I also hope the same for you x

I don't know where the notion comes from that with LCHF you should stuff yourself with fat until it comes out of your ears. Maybe people just read the title and not the content? When I and other members talk about LCHF we usually refer people to the dietdoctor website. Below are extracts from what it actually says (my bold for emphasis):

Do you want to eat real food (as much as you like) and improve your health and weight?

A LCHF diet means you eat less carbohydrates and a higher proportion of fat. Most importantly you minimize your intake of sugar and starches. You can eat other delicious foods until you are satisfied – and still lose weight.

I agree, @sanguine .

If someone starts talking about a High Vegetable Diet, or a High Fibre Diet, or a High Calcium Diet, no one assumes that they are eating badly. They just assume a few more veg, or a bit more dairy products.

Yet so many people make the assumption that a High Fat diet means blocks of lard for breakfast.

The truth is, of course, that we all eat exactly the amount of fat that we are comfortable with - which may be only a little more than before we reduced the carbs.

I agree that high fat may be misleading to some especially newbies. I have heard it said on here that you can't do low carb without doing high fat that may sound to the new ones that you have to eat lots of saturated animal fats and that may put them off.
I do moderate carbs but I do not eat much saturated animal fats in the way of red meat sausages bacon etc not keen on most meat I much prefer chicken and that is classed as low fat. I get my fats from eggs olive oil coconut oil cheese and nuts I do have full fat mayo and I use some butter on veg I still have some spread and semi skimmed milk as they are what I prefer Even if I went much lower on the carbs that is still the way I would get my fats

cold ethyl said:

It's about enough fat to replace the carbs - as fat is highly calorific you don't actually need that much of it as a substitute, especially if you have weight to lose as most of us type 2s have at diagnosis. I think we have to be vary careful with the high fat unlimited foods message as a fat person who overrate carbs will put on even more weight eating a bucketload of nuts and cheese - I think of it as a two pronged approach. Stick to about 1200 cals a day with a bigger percentage of the total coming from fat and protein than carbs.

Click to expand...

Do you really recommend a daily calorie intake of 1200 calories? That is starvation and can't be healthy for anybody. I'd say it is dangerous. Normal calorie intake for a woman is around 2000 per day. At least in my country.

@BeeGee, do you really have 3oz of Alpen? That's nearly 90g or a huge 60g of carbs. That is more grams of carbs than I eat in a day.
Also check the label on your bread for grams of carbs per slice, and the jacket spud is not a wise choice. A couple of new boiled spuds (or roasted) maybe OK, but jackets and mash are the worst cooking methods for spuds and raising BS.

Totto said:

Do you really recommend a daily calorie intake of 1200 calories? That is starvation and can't be healthy for anybody. I'd say it is dangerous. Normal calorie intake for a woman is around 2000 per day. At least in my country.

Click to expand...

I stuck to 1200 calories from January to September with no ill effects at all. Never hungry, never felt deprived. I increased them to 1600 when I hit target weight.

Totto said:

Do you really recommend a daily calorie intake of 1200 calories? That is starvation and can't be healthy for anybody. I'd say it is dangerous. Normal calorie intake for a woman is around 2000 per day. At least in my country.

Click to expand...

It's about right for someone who was 6st overweight at diagnosis. Most diets such as Weight Watchers , Rosemary Conley will work out between 1000 and 1500 cals I couldn't eat 2000 cals a day even at my lowest weight without gaining. I am only 5ft 3 Ditching the carbs isn't everything if you are overweight.

Bluetit1802 said:

I stuck to 1200 calories from January to September with no ill effects at all. Never hungry, never felt deprived. I increased them to 1600 when I hit target weight.

Click to expand...

It is a free choice. I just questioned the suitability to recommend people completely unknown to starve themselves.

Totto said:

It is a free choice. I just questioned the suitability to recommend people completely unknown to starve themselves.

Click to expand...

It isn't a starvation level. It is a recognised weight loss level for women. It is the level My Fitness Pal recommended for me in order to lose 2lbs a week, which was my aim, and which I accomplished.

sanguine said:

I don't know where the notion comes from that with LCHF you should stuff yourself with fat until it comes out of your ears. Maybe people just read the title and not the content? When I and other members talk about LCHF we usually refer people to the dietdoctor website. Below are extracts from what it actually says (my bold for emphasis):

Do you want to eat real food (as much as you like) and improve your health and weight?

A LCHF diet means you eat less carbohydrates and a higher proportion of fat. Most importantly you minimize your intake of sugar and starches. You can eat other delicious foods until you are satisfied – and still lose weight.

Click to expand...

I think the problem with that is that if you are very overweight, you don't know that feeling of satisfaction - if you look at the food the diet doctor serves up, he is eating a high % of fat but none of his plates are overloaded with food. All too easy to eat unlimited nuts or cheese and gain. I found it easier to ditch carbs but restrict the higher fat things at first until I got a feel for what normal appetite is like.

1200 calories would be starvation for me. It is a quantity that I tried to maintain for a long time. Never worked (neither did fasting, 300 cals, 500 cals and 1400 cals).

I agree with @Totto that giving a specific number to newbies is unwise.
I would never dream of telling someone they should stick to a specific number of carb grammes. The number should be what suits their body, activity and metabolism. Same for calories.

Yet so many people make the assumption that a High Fat diet means blocks of lard for breakfast

Click to expand...

As someone looking on, I find it hard to know what people mean , certainly I get the impression that many people who claim do eat high fat don't because their total calories aren't high .
Many years ago (admittedly before the high fat tag became popular, snapshots of some peoples diets on here were analysed for both macro and other nutrients, by a dietitian using her work related software. There was hardly anyone who actually ate more fat than the UK GDA for fat ( 75g men, 90g women). This thread has now disappeared as part of 'ancient history'
Two years ago one of the members (not a dietitian this time) did an exercise just looking at macro nutrients and again calories were on the whole low Fat though was probably higher than the earlier thread since the era of HFLC had arrived (but even then most would be within or just outside the GDA)
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/share-your-diet.30311/

There is no doubt though that some people consider that high fat means exactly that. This high profile blogger claims that he even has to take it 'easy on the greens'
Here is a tweet from him.
https://twitter.com/livinlowcarbman/status/456821043177328640
There are also recently people who drink their fat as bullet proof coffee. which doesn't have a whole load of nutrients but does (apparently) fill people up.
http://authoritynutrition.com/3-reasons-why-bulletproof-coffee-is-a-bad-idea/
The variation between peoples fat intake on here is probably quite wide, just as those of us who are labelled, usually by others ,as high carbers probably eat very varied amounts .
(Personally, I don't think I approach the GDA for carbs except when I'm doing a long distance walk and that's when I need more readily available fuel. At other times I eat fat fewer calories because I don't need that many And I don't eat low fat products normally either! )

Bluetit1802 said:

It isn't a starvation level. It is a recognised weight loss level for women. It is the level My Fitness Pal recommended for me in order to lose 2lbs a week, which was my aim, and which I accomplished.

Click to expand...

What should my daily intake of calories be?



Within a healthy, balanced diet, a man needs around 10,500kJ (2,500Kcal) a day to maintain his weight. For a woman, that figure is around 8,400kJ (2,000Kcal) a day.

http://www.nhs.uk/chq/pages/1126.aspx?categoryid=51

And who says it is reasonable or even healthy to aim for a weight loss of 2 lbs a week? That is close to one kilogram!

Kat100 said:

Whatever diet anyone follows , may it work for you and your health in 2015 ....best wishes kat

Click to expand...

Wow kat, where have you been, not seen you on the forum for a while, nice to see you back

Apologies BeeGee, good luck with the diet.

Kat100 said:

Whatever diet anyone follows , may it work for you and your health in 2015 ....best wishes kat

Click to expand...

Lovely post Kat - Hope you have a great 2015 also

Totto said:

What should my daily intake of calories be?



Within a healthy, balanced diet, a man needs around 10,500kJ (2,500Kcal) a day to maintain his weight. For a woman, that figure is around 8,400kJ (2,000Kcal) a day.

http://www.nhs.uk/chq/pages/1126.aspx?categoryid=51

And who says it is reasonable or even healthy to aim for a weight loss of 2 lbs a week? That is close to one kilogram!

Click to expand...

Who says it isn't healthy?

This is what the NHS says:
Aim to lose weight at around 0.5kg to 1kg a week (1lb to 2lb), until you achieve a healthy BMI


For me, personally, the 2000 cals a day is too much. I am a pensioner and retired, with just walking as exercise. Lifestyle makes a difference.

Squire Fulwood said:

One lad at my place of work heard that excessive salt was bad and so his wife cut all salt from his diet and he started to pass out occasionally. I have answered questions on this site on the same subject and when I looked it up I learned that salt is essential and about 6g a day is the recommendation.

Click to expand...

I was wondering if it's the salt (NaCl) that's essential or the Sodium (Na) or the Chlorine (Cl). I cut salt out of my diet because I used to have very bad fluid retention and it helped but I can see from my clever bit of software where I record everything that I eat that I'm still getting my 2.5 gms of Sodium (equivalent to 6 gms of salt, so NHS Choices says) from things like cauliflower, broccoli, cheese, ham, prawns, chicken . . . . . . . . .

One thing to look out for if you are watching salt intake is effervescent tablets like vitamin supplements, and pain killers like cocodomol, they will contain as much as 1 gm per tablet. It surprised me when I found out.

The OP wanted to lose weight as well as improving their BS levels. While both can go hand in hand, I have seen several posters on here who have embraced the high fat aspect and not lost weight, and indeed have gained. Hence my suggestion that they OP low carbs and finds a calorie intake that enables them to lose weight at a level that they are happy with. For me that was around the 1200 calorie a day mark; I appreciate that for others it may be substantially higher, depending on start weight, level of activity, other health issues and so on, as well as how quickly they want to lose the weight. Some may be happy with a pound a month or less - I just needed the motivation of lower levels on scales and smaller clothes to keep me off the carbs.