800 cals but what about protein, fibre, fat and carbs?

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  • posted by Jani123
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    I understand about cutting carbs and have been doing the 5:2 fasting diet for a month (loosing half a stone). Now my OH is thinking (with my encouragement) about doing the BSD. He’s vegetarian so I’ve been studying the recipes here (thank you everyone who has contributed to them) and I am also quite good at creating and adapting existing recipes.

    But although I can easily count the calories, I want to ensure we get the correct protein, carbs (and sugars) etc. What should be our limit for these each day? I saw something here about 50g for carbs but couldn’t tell if this was all carbs or just the sugar element.

    TIA
    Jani

  • posted by SkyWalker
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    Hi Jani123, there are those who count everything and those of us who already ate healthy food but in the wrong quantities. A lot depends on why you start. If you are type 2 it is a bit more serious to ensure a good nutritional balance. In my and my OH’s cases we just cut out bread and flour based products, and potatoes. We weighed foods and counted calories in meals taking care to avoid sugar as far as possible (most hidden) and I managed 11 weeks on less that 30 gm sugar per day averaging <850 kCal/day. I lost 16 kg. I never counted carbs or protein or anything much for that matter. For me a veggie or worse still a vegan diet is not a healthy option but as you have noted there are several who are and they manage well enough it seems. Search the forums from search box and you will find this has been asked before and lots of similar stuff too. Good luck to both of you.

  • posted by Venusflytrap
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    We were worried about this too. We have always eaten a lot of vege meals although we aren’t vege at all these days. I do think you would have to eat very oddly in the UK to manage to be short of the RDA for protein. After all, it’s in pulses, nuts, seeds, etc. Not sure whether he eats quorn, dairy and eggs. If he does, then you aren’t going to have any problems otherwise, just mix up your proteins within meals to get the most benefits from what you are eating. We found if we aimed for 800 kcal, the rest seemed to take care of itself. We did do lots of checking initially, more to ensure that we were under the 800 kcal and 50g carb limits. But we soon realised that we were, so there’s no point in checking except maybe when you think you have had too little or too much. We have honestly never been hungry and have had no problems sticking to the diet from that point of view. We have had some little blips, and had something we shouldn’t have about twice a week. The losses have still been great. As far as fibre is concerned just pile on the low carb veg onto each plate and that won’t be an issue. It is well worth taking your water intake up as that makes a difference. We have always measured oils in tsp and now weigh every small helping of full fat yog and other dairy products. So the fat intake of our diet has automatically gone up as we have excluded low fat dairy. It honestly just seems to take care of itself within the 800 kcal limits. Try it and see.

  • posted by Jani123
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    Thanks for your replies. OH does eat dairy and eggs (and will eat Quorn although doesn’t especially like food that looks/tastes/pretends to be meat). Thanks for confirming the 50g carb limit Venusflytrap. I know when he starts he will become quite obsessive about measuring everything but we originally became vegetarian when on the (original) F-Plan diet many years ago so this low-carb dieting is another complete turnaround for us.

  • posted by neohdiver
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    Jani123 – The formal diet doesn’t have a carb limit. Many people here import one from somewhere else – nothing wrong with that (I loosely follow the carb cap I’ve been using for 6 months), but if you’re just looking to follow the BSD, you need to watch the kind of carbs you eat – but not particularly the quantity (especially if you’re using book recipes). If you’re eating healthy fats, and 60 or so grams of protein, and sticking to 800 calories, the carbs will work themselves out.

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