Low Carb Confused

Andy12345 said:

perfect!

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I try my best

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cratat said:

I have just been advised to start a low carb diet to aid in my weight loss and am a looking for help and advise as don't know where to turn, I need to lose 5 stone, I have started doing more cardio to help this process. I am struggling to get an understanding of what I can eat for my meals and snacks I leave the house at 6am to go to the gym and workout for an hour before having breakfast then work in an office all day, arriving home about 6pm for my evening meal. Any information or links to information greatly appreciated someone did mention Slimming Worlds Red days as anyone tried this and had any success. Many Thanks

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Who recommended "low carb", and was it as a weight loss diet, for a set period, or as a lifestyle change?

hi, exercise is a terrible way of losing weight, its a great way of staying healthy and reducing blood glucose but for losing weight diet is king

cratat said:

The diabetic nurse at gp practice and as weightloss diet but she has also referred me to a specialist diabetic dietatician to help as a am not losing weight but increasing even though I have started 5 days a week of 1 hour cardio at the gym

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If it's weight loss, I am guessing she has suggested a calorie restricted, low carb, and low/limited unsaturated fat as well?
I did a similar diet over summer, and lost 4 stones, after putting weight on.
I wouldn't have called mine low carb, as I still ate some, I just ate a small amount that I knew I was ok with, little fat, and kept the calories to 800 to 1200, with exercise.
I can't find any diet where you don't have to restrict the amount of food in, to lose weight.

After you have lost it, you need to find a lifestyle diet that will work for you to keep your weight stable.

chubbyian said:

You asked about my diet. Well I will do my best to tell you, but I am not to good at explaining myself. So if you do not understand, please ask. First I will say I am no good living by rules, I try to live by principles.

Here goes. When we eat the body produces insulin to disperse the gutigens. Either to the cells (muscle) or as fat, if we have lots of insulin floating around, the brain wants you to eat more food so that it can be used.

That was part one

Calories are a measure of heat, If you take a gallon of petrol and tip it on the floor and set fire to it all the energy is released very quickly. But put it in a car, or a container with a small wick, the energy is slowly released. The amount of energy is the same in both cases.

So to put the two together, If we eat slow digesting food, our bodies can utilize the suggers, If we exercise after eating we create space for the sugars to go.

So I low card, to bring down the sugar level. and the carbs I do eat I try to get to release slowly, In effect, unprocessed (whole meal pasta, brown rice etc) If I do eat something that "spikes" me (as pasta does) I mix it with something slow like cheese, and I am fine.

To help choose food look out for the Glycemic Load, that will give you the best starting place (google it)

I hope this is of some use to you if you do not understand or want to know more just ask

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thats great ian and i do understand it and helps me along in my quest thanku for ur time it mean alot i do apriciate this thanku x

cratat said:

Andy the exercise is to improve fitness and also burn caloroics due to having a sedate job it is to assist with the weightloss, I do not struggle with blood glocuse levels as these stay stable

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im not knocking exercise, i think its terrific, i just dont think its a good way to lose weight, but as a part of a healthy lifestyle its awesome well done

Exercise is great as part of overall fitness/lifestyle and it will burn calories but most successful weight loss begins and ends in the kitchen.


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cratat said:

Douglas she didnt mention anything else other than reduce the amount of carbs I eat

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That seems fair. Cutting carbs will reduce your weight if you go calorie deficient.
Did she suggest any amount you should eat as a daily limit?
The problems come back when you start to replace the carbs with fats, the calories go back up, and the weight loss stops.

douglas99 said:

The problems come back when you start to replace the carbs with fats, the calories go back up, and the weight loss stops.

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I had no problems, replacing like for like calories from carbs to fat will not mean any increase in total calories. I'm on a maintenance diet now and don't count calories as such as I find HFLC to be self regulating I very rarely feel the need to graze between meals.

tonyS54 said:

I had no problems, replacing like for like calories from carbs to fat will not mean any increase in total calories. I'm on a maintenance diet now and don't count calories as such as I find HFLC to be self regulating I very rarely feel the need to graze between meals.

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i agreee

If someone is overeating carbs in the first instance and replaces the calories in those carbs with calories from fat then they are still overeating. maybe why when people decide to low carb they then look at their diet properly. any diet, needs a plan to follow and carefull consideration to calorie content depending on the individuals lifestyle. Diets, are often a tempory "fix". If you need to.do it no one else can do it for you

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A dsn telling someone to low carb what's the world coming to! Seriously though she's giving sound advice so keep in her good books.

If you ditch the starch and therefore a load of calories it doesn't necessarily follow that you will instinctively replace with a similar amount of fat. First fat is what tells your brain you're full so you naturally find it difficult to eat loads and secondly when you low carb you are probably likely to be replacing a large amount of starchy high calorie carbs with an increased proportion of non starchy but lower carb carbs such as vegetables.

You can get spun the impression that low carb high fat means your meals are dripping in lard. That is anything but the truth just look at some of the meals on the lchf dietdoctor site.

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That's my problem with understanding low carb lifestyle.
It seemed to be a cure for all ills.

1st - it's great for weight loss.
2nd - it's great for a maintenance diet.
3rd - no need to calories count.
4th - you never overeat as you feel full.

So, everyone loses weight, down to their ideal level, never feels hungry, but when they get to their ideal weight, the body levels off somehow?

Hence no doubt the op's title here.

And if you look at the op's original diet, while being "healthy" carbs, I would suggest what the dsn means is to eat less. And the carbs are the ones that put on weight..
That's the standard initial advice I got, ie to eat less.

So lets be honest, whatever diet, low fat, high fat, low carb, we all eat less to lose weight, then up the portion size to maintain weight.

Breakfast 0730 Special K Cereal & Skimmed Milk or Beans on Wholewheat Toast
Snack 1000 Banana
Lunch 1200 Sandwich on Wholewheat Bread or Jacket Potato
Snack 1400 Apple
Dinner 1830 Meat with Veg and Potatoes or a pasta or rice dish these are always a slimming world meal as my wife is a member
Snack 2000 Fat Free Yoghurt

And to be honest, apart from some of the food on their spiking my bs, that's not a lot of food in one day, depending on the size.
For my weightloss,
My breakfast was two ryvita, and cottage cheese,
Sandwich rather than potato at lunch,
Salad at tea,
and I was told off for not eating enough.

i dont understand your point mate? its not about eating less or more its about eating things that dont make you gain weight and dont make your blood glucose rise, i started eating pretty much exactly the amount i eat now, im not hungry and i have stopped losing weight, i suppose and im no expert your body gets to its level off point, since low carbing i of course dont eat to excess anymore, did that play a part in the weight loss? i guess so, if i started to put on weight would i have to reduce the amounts i eat? yes, it isnt a eat whatever and as much as you like as long as its low carb, of course you have to eat sensible portions, but its all part of a healthy lifestyle. is it the only way to lose weight? no, is it the only way to reduce bg? no, what dont you get?

l am still early days on low carbing ... about 2 weeks in now l think loosing track. I am defiantly eating less and not as hungry.

Today l forced myself to each lunch and dinner l still felt full from breakfast... 2 scrambled eggs and 50 gram of bacon.
l just wasn't hungry but from my understanding we need some food in us. Lunch l had 100 gram beef.we were out in town, hub had a lamb roll l asked them to just give me the beef no roll got 200 gram of beef.

Dinner l said to hub l would eat the rest of the beef and some cauliflower... he gave me a pork chop, brussel sprouts broccoli and cauli. I ate most of the chop the cauli the small bits broc amd no sprouts I actually felt ill. Not had my yogurt all day and no berrys or seeds either.

hehe i have to make myself eat when im working, i dont feel ill just not hungry, it just dosent come up, if i had a set lunchbreak i might get hungry i suppose, if i miss lunch its normally about 3pm i start to get hunger pangs which is a little too close to dinner so i make myself eat at lunchtime, but this does mean you dont have to overeat, you can eat the amount you know you should rather than shovelling it in because your starving, this is easier because im normally running about with not enough hours in the day

I calorie counted on my low carb regime after I was first diagnosed. I calculated my activity adjusted BMR then aimed for 500 calories less a day and achieved the expected weight loss of roughly 2lbs a week with a couple of plateau periods over the 6 months. I found it relatively easy after getting over the initial carb cravings most people initially get when they dump the starch. My average calorie intake was around 1800 a day made up from a 15% carb 20% protein 65% fat regime. The fat content certainly made dieting a lot easier than the low fat regimes I'd been advised to adopt in the year before diagnosis. Effectively it was the low fat regime's failure to work at lowering my hba1c even though I followed it rigidly that convinced me (along with advice from my T1 son) to try low carb and take control of the diabetes aspects of my health.

I must admit that the Metformin I take is known to act as an appetite suppressant but it doesn't account for it all.

I agree that the concept that you don't need to worry about your intake on a low carb high fat regime is nonsense. Everyone needs a given amount of calories a day to maintain their current weight. If you consume more you'll gain weight and if you eat less you'll lose weight. That doesn't mean by any means that if you are overweight at diagnosis that you are "fat and lazy" as some would have it. There are many reasons why people gain weight but you should recognise that being overweight is increasing your insulin resistance and making your diabetes far worse which is why it's important to adopt a lifestyle that will help you lose weight if you need to.

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