Afternoon! When I started LCHF I was aiming at under 90g of carbs a day but to be fair I was having around 50g-60g. In 6 weeks I'd lost a stone and my Hba1c had dropped from 61 to 52! My weight loss over the last 3 weeks has stalled and I'm not completely sure why. I put in a tracker my food for today including what I plan to eat later and its 44g of carbs, 49g of fat and 56g of protein. Calories are only 809. I have changed what I was eating as I was bored of the keto style porridge I was making for breakfast and I was snacking out of the peanut butter (natural) jar in the evenings so I stopped buying it! I'm aware I'm not consuming enough calories but I don't seem to be able to get a handle of the right balance of macros. Any advice would be appreciated. I really want to be out of the diabetic zone and need to loose another 2 stone before my wedding in October!
What's the right balance?
- Thread starter VikkiB81
- Start Date
I'm not an expert, but I'll throw my understanding out there. For best results you need less carbs and more fat in your diets, as well as more calories. Here's why:
While you are certainly low-carb, you're not low enough to switch over to burning fat as a primary source of fuel, so your body is still expecting to use sugar as fuel, and is less efficient at burning fat because insulin is still driving those pathways. As a result, your constant low calories diet makes your metabolism drop rather than burning body fat.
I would personally recommend you drop your net carbs to about 25 if you can, and eat a lot more fat. My wife and I are both doing Keto with great results without restricting or even counting calories. We count net carbs, and put reasonable limits on proteins. We eat fat without limit. Bacon and eggs, cheese, etc... It's not very hard to stick to.
While you are certainly low-carb, you're not low enough to switch over to burning fat as a primary source of fuel, so your body is still expecting to use sugar as fuel, and is less efficient at burning fat because insulin is still driving those pathways. As a result, your constant low calories diet makes your metabolism drop rather than burning body fat.
I would personally recommend you drop your net carbs to about 25 if you can, and eat a lot more fat. My wife and I are both doing Keto with great results without restricting or even counting calories. We count net carbs, and put reasonable limits on proteins. We eat fat without limit. Bacon and eggs, cheese, etc... It's not very hard to stick to.
Low Fat / Keto is best when done as a 'Way Of Eating' - not as a very low calorie diet.
As has been mentioned above, until your body gets 'fat adapted' any reduction (below maintenance level) in calories will result in:
Starvation mode, Basal Metabolic rate reduction, possible protein scavenging from lean muscle and organs in order to fuel the body.
Wouldn't you rather get normal BG, healthy metabolic rate, lose weigh to a healthy level and at a healthy rate, lower Blood Pressure etc. And all without actually going hungry?
Many of us have done just that, but people still try to do it the hard way because for some reason its seems too easy for it to work - despite the remission of 50% of Dr David Unwin's T2 Diabetic patients, and up to 60% in the Virta Health (USA) study!
As has been mentioned above, until your body gets 'fat adapted' any reduction (below maintenance level) in calories will result in:
Starvation mode, Basal Metabolic rate reduction, possible protein scavenging from lean muscle and organs in order to fuel the body.
Wouldn't you rather get normal BG, healthy metabolic rate, lose weigh to a healthy level and at a healthy rate, lower Blood Pressure etc. And all without actually going hungry?
Many of us have done just that, but people still try to do it the hard way because for some reason its seems too easy for it to work - despite the remission of 50% of Dr David Unwin's T2 Diabetic patients, and up to 60% in the Virta Health (USA) study!
