Could anybody advise on what your carb limit should be per day 50g ? 75g?
Also after the eight weeks, on maintenance what should you aim for then? The calories I understand but the carb limit would be useful. Thanks in advance.

Hi Yvey-fights back – most of us try to keep carbs below 50g per day, but some will find they can increase that level and still see good weight loss. We are all a little different, so it’s a case of trying and seeing how you body reacts. The same will apply to the maintenance levels. I have not been on maintenance counting carbs, as the maintenance periods I have done, have been whilst on vacation, when I have neither counted calories or carbs. For me though, I’m thinking that I will always need to control the carbs more than the calories.

Hopefully someone else will have a more definitive answer for you. Good luck with your BSD quest.

You don’t say if you’re a diabetic. Those of us who had diabetic blood sugars when starting the BSD often reduced our carb level to around 25g per day with no ill effects but with good results on blood sugars.

I have been trying to stick to 800 calories for my first week but tend to be just over.However my carbs are way over 50g,so this week will concentrate on keeping them down.I’m eating mostly vegetarian food which tends to be high in carbs compared to meat so think it’s all about meal planning.I haven’t been eating much bread,rice or pasta,a tablespoon or a very thin slice of rye bread.I’m also missing fruit which is high in carbs ,a 100g of mixed berries is 13g!Onions are surprisingly high,I use them a lot.

My advise would be to try and ditch all bread, rice and pasta as these will not be doing your efforts any favours. Try spiralised courgette or cauliflower rice or mash instead and gem lettuce leafs make a fair compromise for the bread – or make some almond flour pancakes to use if you need something bready. If you eat cheese and eggs, these are a boon on the BSD as they add fats and protein, but very little in the way of carbs.

The BSD way of eating takes a little thinking outside the box, but once you have it pegged, it’s really simple. I do not miss bread, pasta etc. At Christmas I allowed myself one small roast potato and one small roast parsnip and found that actually, they are something I really don’t enjoy anymore. Our pallets definitely change on this regime.

Thanks for asking the question and for all the helpful replies as it’s something i’ve been wondering and was thinking i’d somehow missed it in the book!

wndyq, 50g of carbs is not way over, in fact it is the optimum amount, although some people go lower it is hard to do. You say you eat some bread and pasta so maybe you are having more than 50g also you are vegetarian so will be eating more pulses, beans and lentils. Do you eat eggs and cheese or am I thinking vegan. As SunnyB says, you should ditch the white carbs completely.

Thanks SunnyB and sunshine-girl for your advice and tips.I would like to eat less eggs and cheese but very difficult to not eat these and be low carb.Beans etc seem to be quite high in carbs.You’re right,I have to stay off bread,pasta and rice ,I was only having a spoonful of rice or pasta just for a taste and a thin slice of rye bread but too much I’m afraid.I’ll try the almond flour pancakes and saw a recipe for spinach bread in the Rose Elliot vegetarian low carb diet,will try that even though it doesn’t seem like bread at all to me.There are actually some good ideas in the Rose Elliot book,I’ll have to study it some more as well as studying a few more books and articles.

Hi Wendy

Just a thought, but if you are desperate for a low carb bread substitute, have you tried making Cloud Bread? I’ve not tried it myself yet, but it gets quite good reviews and is both fairly low calorie (about 50 – 60 per portion) and virtually no carbs. Lots of recipes online, just google it – probably recipes on here too for that matter, if you put it into the search box.

Good luck.

Although cloud bread is egg, cream cheese and air, can’t see the point.

Sunshine girl, I guess the point would be if you wanted a bread substitute for a sandwich or similar? Otherwise, I can’t see the point in any bread substitute which is why I have never tried it.

I LOVE bread, good artisan bread not fluffy commercial rubbish (though used to eat that too!) and if you eat bread because you LOVE it, then IMO nothing can ever be a satisfactory substitute and, personally, if I can’t have it, I would just rather go without. But we are all different.

We usually eat Real Bread,made locally,nothing like shop bought bread.I’ll google cloud bread.Spinach bread is more like a spinach omelette made in a swiss roll tin,haven’t tried it yet.I shouldn’t have bought any rye bread at the weekend,too much temptation!