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Need help with LCHF

K

khanm78

Member
Messages
18
Location
England
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
Most Veg
Not to long ago I started the LCHF life style all seems to be going ok, my BG is stable and mostly within range.
I do get hungry from time to time ( looking at making safe snaks ) and I still have the "I WANT SUGAR" but thats my deamon to fight.

the thing is im finding it hard to understand what carbs are ok to disregard what i have seen floating around as good carbs ( if any ) and what should be counted in as part of daily carbs ( not looking at 0 carbs ).
so far I have been counting every carb based on the per 100g packaging and then calculating it to the indevidual items weight. am I doing it right?

is there a chance a more informed person or persons could make or direct me to a sticky about how to carb count foods and what foods are counted towards the carb count and if any what foods are not counted.
I want to make a list to better aid me when shopping for foods.

I have been using the low carb food list from: http://www.etoolsage.com/Chart/Low_Carb_Foods_List.asp?
is this a good thing, should I keep using it?

Just need to add this thred is not about recipes or meals but indevidual food items such as sausages, carrots, almonds etc etc

thank you
 
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I wouldn't use that website as it is American where they have a different way of noting how many carbs there are in foods, and also importantly it seems to concentrate on sugar.

Basically you can eat any meat or fish (without breadcrumb or batter coatings) and that includes tinned salmon/tuna etc. Bacon is fine, and sausages if they are very high meat content such as 97% - packed sausages will always have the total carb content on the nutrition label. Dairy except milk is fine, but watch the carb content on yogurts. Tomatoes in moderation, mushrooms, salad stuff, eggs, vegetables that grow above the ground. (root veg tend to be starchy). Most nuts in moderation, avocado, olive oil, mayonnaise..

On nutrition labels look for total carbs. Best to keep it under 10g per 100g and lower if possible unless you only eat a tiny amount such as with condiments. Yes, you are calculating it correctly by doing the maths on the portion size you eat.

This site will help you

https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/60-seconds

If you have a meter, use it to test your choices. Keep any rise from before to 2 hours after under 2mmol/l and once you manage that, lower it to 1.5mmol/l. The less rise the better. Eat to your meter and you won't go far wrong - and keep a food diary including portion sizes.
 
okay a lot of the low carb food types do contain a bit of carbs as well like almonds and in avocado a very few carbs pro 100 grams of the food type..
but to what kind of carbs are good, then you also need to know that some kind of foods are very fast spiking foods containing very much fruit sugar and also not much fibres to lower the time it takes to release the carbs into the blood...
thats why people do use the glychemic Index to know which kinds of foods that one first of all needs to avoid..

and among the most spiking foods are french baguettes even more fast and high spiking than toast-bread because white flour has a glychemic index of 100 and baguettes hasn´t hardly any other Things added than white flour , a few foods spike even more
you can find a lot of different glychemic oversights indexes on the web... I would use the ones added on a university-site or added on a site where people with diabetes are adviced... because many of the web indexes are not very precise, and also some kinds of food do vary from one sub-type to the other... like some says that very new potatoes do not spike their bloods as much as older potatoes... and potatoes stored in the fridge also seem to create more carbs than potatoes stored in a temperature of about 7-8 degrees celcius. well potatoes I would also avoid.

we are so diffenrent in what kinds of foods we prefere each of us... fruits should be particular bad for diabetics as the kind of sugar is even more interfering with the liver, and creating fatty liver much more effectivly than many of the other kinds of sugars.
berries that do also contain fruit sugar has very much fibres in them and are to be prefered to apples and oranges and pears and especially bananas that are very very fruit sugar and carb heavy...
I myself am actually a person that loves fruits very much .. so once in a while I still eat a piece of fruit but try to not do it more than once ot twice in a fortnight.. but blueberries I eat every week sometimes more days...

I think we ought to have a glychemic index in this site too as it can help many to decide which foods not to eat and which to prefere.

to complicate all this even further there are foods that also spike insuline when not even being too high in carbs...and in the end it is the very high spiking insuline that is the problem in type 2 diabetics , at least to start with in our disease career. there is a rather new threat of that subject here : http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/food-insulin-index.115055/#post-1363890
 
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khanm78 said:
Not to long ago I started the LCHF life style all seems to be going ok, my BG is stable and mostly within range.
I do get hungry from time to time ( looking at making safe snaks ) and I still have the "I WANT SUGAR" but thats my deamon to fight.

the thing is im finding it hard to understand what carbs are ok to disregard what i have seen floating around as good carbs ( if any ) and what should be counted in as part of daily carbs ( not looking at 0 carbs ).
so far I have been counting every carb based on the per 100g packaging and then calculating it to the indevidual items weight. am I doing it right?

is there a chance a more informed person or persons could make or direct me to a sticky about how to carb count foods and what foods are counted towards the carb count and if any what foods are not counted.
I want to make a list to better aid me when shopping for foods.

I have been using the low carb food list from: http://www.etoolsage.com/Chart/Low_Carb_Foods_List.asp?
is this a good thing, should I keep using it?

Just need to add this thred is not about recipes or meals but indevidual food items such as sausages, carrots, almonds etc etc

thank you
Click to expand...


there is an APP for iPhones and maybe also now for androids that is named "LIFESUM" I use that APP for counting my carbs and also proteins and total amounts of calories every day, and I am very satisfied with that APP...
if you can find out to use that kind of APPs I will recomend you to try that APP
 
Thank you im sure i have already been recomended that app. What im after is defining counted carbs vs not counted carbs.
 
khanm78 said:
Thank you im sure i have already been recomended that app. What im after is defining counted carbs vs not counted carbs.
Click to expand...

Initially when I was beginning this journey I counted everything. The only things that were zero carbs were meat and fish, eggs, butter and some cheeses. I don't need to count these days as I judge portion sizes and eat to my meter, plus I look at carb content in any packaged food I haven't had before.
 
to begin with you need to count all carbs , and then when you have the rutines under you skin you´ll not have to count as much anymore..

the only carbs that are not having to be counted are the fibres ... but if you just count all carbs in , you´ll not get too much carbs.
 
Ty thats already more info than i had. Im seeking info not just for me but for a sticky post. Even if its just for a list of zero carb foods. Lots of bigginers ask these questions and if its good @daisy might add it to welcome message.
 
khanm78 said:
Ty thats already more info than i had. Im seeking info not just for me but for a sticky post. Even if its just for a list of zero carb foods. Lots of bigginers ask these questions and if its good @daisy might add it to welcome message.
Click to expand...

That is almost impossible. Even lettuce has a few carbs - 2% I believe. Meat, fish, butter is all I can think of. There may be others.
 
There are low carb food lists in the Low Carb section of the forum. If you eat those foods then you won't need to count the carbs in them.

I usually eat 20g carbs a day, with the odd foray up to 40g, and I try not to count anything.
I simply avoid grains, root veg, starchy foods, sweet fruits (basically I only eat small portions of berries) and keep away from processed foods.

If you just do that, and check with your meter how your meals are affecting you, you will very quickly find a way of eating that suits your body. Then you get to start playing with the little extras and interesting variations that prevent boredom from setting in.
 
Brunneria said:
There are low carb food lists in the Low Carb section of the forum. If you eat those foods then you won't need to count the carbs in them.

I usually eat 20g carbs a day, with the odd foray up to 40g, and I try not to count anything.
I simply avoid grains, root veg, starchy foods, sweet fruits (basically I only eat small portions of berries) and keep away from processed foods.

If you just do that, and check with your meter how your meals are affecting you, you will very quickly find a way of eating that suits your body. Then you get to start playing with the little extras and interesting variations that prevent boredom from setting in.
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Thank you. I am working on that list as well as otber lists to compile a better understanding of foods. For me its a matter of finding what is nill carbs upto 5gm per 100gm. This will allow me to keep experimenting with foods.
 
khanm78 said:
So not imposible. Hence why im asking.
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Well, nil carbs is nil carbs, but even if a food doesn't contain carbs in it, it will be digested and broken down in the body in such a way that it generates glucose. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis
The amount of glucose is dependent on other factors (portion size, amount of ingested protein or fat, etc. etc.) but even if we don't eat carbohydrates, we still get blood glucose rises.
 
khanm78 said:
Yes. im not unhappy about it im just getting as much as possible. Im sorry if it seems like im being disrespectful its not my intention.
Click to expand...

Not disrespectful at all. You are being proactive, which is a good thing. Good luck with all your lists, but I do urge you to use your meter correctly and eat to what it tells you.
 
Bluetit1802 said:
Not disrespectful at all. You are being proactive, which is a good thing. Good luck with all your lists, but I do urge you to use your meter correctly and eat to what it tells you.
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Ty. Im using meter about 8 times a day while i get a read for foods b4 and aftet reads. And i hpe i get the list done soon will make ahopping so much easier.
 
If you can find a copy of Dr Atkins New Diet Revolution, then you will get lost of useful information about carbs. The later books, after Dr A died are not so useful as they revert back more towards the mainstream arguments about good and bad fats and good and bad carbs. In the UK packets are labelled with the net carbs - the digestible ones. If you go by the American numbers then the fibre is counted in the carbs, which could be dangerous for those using insulin, as the fibre is not digested and can actually slow down the digestion of what carbs there are in the foods.
Personally I stick to under 10 percent carbs for just about any food - but I can't resist grapes, so I try to limit them - I am pretty good with everything else, and I know to take a few grapes out of the box and put the rest back in the fridge.
If I eat meals which only raise my BG a little, and stay away from the grapes, then I can happily lose weight and also keep my BG normal.
 
Our shopping list is very simple.
We DO NOT BUY:
1. anything containing or made from grains (flour, bread, cakes, biscuits, pasta, rice, pizza, pastry, breakfast cereals, porridge etc)
2. anything starchy (potatoes, parsnips, sweet potatoes, etc)
3. anything containing sugar (sweets, deserts, sweet yoghurts, fruit (apart from occasional berries ) fruit juice, jams, sauces, chutneys, fruit juice, beer, sweet drinks etc)​
We DO BUY:
Fresh vegetables and salad items, eggs, cream, butter, plain full fat yoghurt, fresh fish, meat from the butchers, cheese, modest quantities of carrots and onions, nuts, seeds, red wine.​
This works. Non-diabetic numbers for approaching four years, now. The only carb counting I ever do is for passing interest.
Sally
 
There are several ways of approaching this:

1) don't count carbs as such, but exclude anything with more than 5g carbs per 100g. If you do that, you are unlikely to exceed 30g per day. This is what I do - no grains, potatoes or other root veg, or sugar. Some people using this approach exclude milk as well. Only small amounts of lower carb fruits (berries, mainly) and no tropical fruits.

2) Count all the carbs you eat and decide a limit. The only thing to be aware of there is that American databases give you total carbs, from which you have to subtract the fibre content to arrive at digestible carbs, whereas UK/EU labels have already done the maths for you

3) use your meter to test before and after eating, and only eat things which don't spike your BG too high. In my opinion, 7 is too high, you may think otherwise. If a particular food takes you too high, your options are either reduce the portion size, or don't eat it at all.

4) put everything you eat into a tracker (e.g. myfitnesspal), see how many carbs it is and what that does to your blood glucose, and adjust your carb intake to give you BG numbers you are happy with.

Which of these is the best way? Depends entirely on your personality and circumstances. It would do my head in to count everything - some people love it. No single right answer for everyone.
 
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