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Low carb again

  • Thread starter Thread starter AnnieC
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AnnieC

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As some new to all this..I am prediabetic..I am finding it quite hard to understand the very low carb diet. I have read that some of you only eat about 30gm carbs a day so how is this possible to be that low.
I bought the Carbs and Cals book and looking at the amount of carbs in our everyday foods it seems there could easily be that much and more in one small meal or snack So I wonder what do you eat to make up for the lack of carbs.

I don't eat very much in the way of starchy carbs like rice pasta bread etc but I do eat lots of fruit and vegetables of all sorts ...have to get my 5 a day..but looking up in the book what I do eat would add up to much more than 30gm a day so don't see what I would be able to eat if I went low carb.

I did have a small portion of wholemeal rice with my meal the other day something I rarely eat and it said half the packet ..one portion..was over 37 gm carbs but I did not actually eat that much
 
Hi, I tend to be under 30g of carb a day. Here is an example of the things I eat;

breakfast
2 hearta frankfurtas
or
some full fat greek yog with a small handful of berries

lunch
homemade soup, today is curry butternut squash with cauliflower
other soups, chicken and leek, brocolli and stilton, all homemade in a big batch then frozen in portions to take to work
bowl of sugarfree jelly (i make 2 pints with 1 tin of fruit (tinned in juice which I drain)) this lasts me a week
portion of 'almost bounty bar' or 'rocky road' recipes found in the chocolate paradise thread on here

dinner
homemade curry or stew with meat and veg in it (low carb veg)
or
chicken breast wrapped in bacon covered with cheese served with veg, brocolli, cauliflower celeriac mash etc
or
liver, onions and gravy with celeriac mash,
portion of sugar free jelly or greek yog with berries.

snacks I have are nuts or I make sugarfree jelly sweets - I make 1/2 pint of jelly then add 1 sachet of gelatine mix then pour into silicone ice cube trays to set.
 
Basically we eat more fat and protein. The carbs we do eat tend to be things like broccolli, asparagus, green leafy veg and salads which is all more fibre than carb (you can have as much fibre as you want as your body will not metabolise it in the same way, and it will help remove bad cholesterol). I actually ended up eating more veg than, I did before I started low carb.

Your body is very happy to use fat as a source of energy instead of carbs, it can also use protein, however something in the region of 30% of the calories in protein end up being used just to convert the protein into energy you can use. When. I am very low carbing I get 15% of my cals from carbs, 40% from protein and 45% from fats (mostly from fish, eggs, lean meats, butter and olive oil - avoid trans fats these are no good.

It can be quite tricky working out what weight of different food type to eat as the calorie percentages are not the same as the weight percentages. There are a number of tools kn the internet that work this out for you though, I use myfitnesspal.

I increase the amount of carbs I eat from time to time and I can usually tolerate up to 60-80g for a while, but everybody is different in this regard, so it's best to keep testing and find out what suits you best.

Do not be too worried about dietary fat ending up as body fat. It's actually excess carbs which your body converts to body fat, not dietary fat. The key thing is to make sure you eat the right amount of food, and don't overeat. I lost weight and have much more lean tissue now than I had before, its helped keep my BG levels down and drastically improved my cholesterol and trigyceride levels.
 
If you are prediabetic, you probably can be more relaxed about low carbing. Many low carb advocates followed some rather poor advice from the NHS to 'eat plenty of carbs' and have suffered as a result, some for several years. This leads to a loss of the beta cell function and so what remains good, needs to be preserved. As a pre diabetic, you are not in that situation. I eat 100g to 150g per day but have still brought my BG levels down. But, I was diagnosed early and started being careful immediately.

Obviously you need to avoid all the sugary foods, buns, biscuits, sweets, sugary drinks etc. This will make a difference. Secondly, you should avoid refined carbohydrates, white bread, white rice etc. Thirdly, go easy on your portion sizes of complex carbohydrates, brown rice, wholewheat pasta, wholegrain bread etc and try to switch to things like peral barley, couscous, quinoa, ryvita and so on.

It is true that they still contain carbohydrates but they are released more slowly into the bloodstream so the insulin that you do produce is better able to cope. You can help also by watching portion sizes. The real problems are when you have refined carbs which elevate your BG levels and which have not returned to normal levels before its time for the next meal. If you do the same, you elevate your levels yet again and so it keeps nudging upwards. If you stick to low GI foods and are careful about quantities, you can usually prevent this escalation. You will probably find watching a low GI diet easier than a strict low carb diet.

On things like fruits, I stick to northern european fruits, apples, pears, plums, berries etc and also some things like clementines. I avoid grapes, melon, pineapple and eat bananas only as a treat. I eat a lot of tomatoes in the form of tomato salads, with thinly sliced red onion and a little oil and balsamic vinegar. After abstaining from sugary stuff, this is now a very sweet dish for me.
 
hi, my diet is similar to lennys, i also used fitness pal app, i treated low carbng as a game at first, i assumed 30g was beyond impossible, so each day i looked at my daily carbs and then set about reducing my highest carby meal, once id reduced that, id look at the next highest and so on, in the end 30g is a doodle, i could easily eat less and still be happy with my diet, on saying that i do have the odd higher carb day, I'm a sucker for low carb baking but have a control issue when it comes to eating the cakes, this week was 2 batches of low carb mince pies, they were low carb but only in moderation.....oh well, hard to regret such a treat though

best of luck, if you do want to get to 30g I'm sure you will :)
 
Lenny3 said:
Hi, I tend to be under 30g of carb a day. Here is an example of the things I eat;

breakfast
2 hearta frankfurtas
or
some full fat greek yog with a small handful of berries

lunch
homemade soup, today is curry butternut squash with cauliflower
other soups, chicken and leek, brocolli and stilton, all homemade in a big batch then frozen in portions to take to work
bowl of sugarfree jelly (i make 2 pints with 1 tin of fruit (tinned in juice which I drain)) this lasts me a week
portion of 'almost bounty bar' or 'rocky road' recipes found in the chocolate paradise thread on here

dinner
homemade curry or stew with meat and veg in it (low carb veg)
or
chicken breast wrapped in bacon covered with cheese served with veg, brocolli, cauliflower celeriac mash etc
or
liver, onions and gravy with celeriac mash,
portion of sugar free jelly or greek yog with berries.

snacks I have are nuts or I make sugarfree jelly sweets - I make 1/2 pint of jelly then add 1 sachet of gelatine mix then pour into silicone ice cube trays to set.
Click to expand...

Thanks Lenny most of what you say you eat is the same as me.. After seeing it on this forum I now have celeriac or cauliflower mash instead of potatoes it is lovely..I do sometimes still eat new potatoes . I do make a lot of soup... cauliflower soup is delicious...
I try to avoid all high sugar foods if I really crave something sweet I do have a few dried fruits sometimes and I do eat nuts. I am going to have a go at making some low carb cakes
 
Thanks everyone I can see now that you can low carb and not starve. So hopefully I am on the right track with my food I don't think I need to do very low carb yet but just try to cut down on them a bit I probably need to have smaller portions as well. Trouble is I just love food but I am not overweight
 
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