Hello,
I live in Australia, and my husband and I have just started the blood sugar diet.
We are confused about whether we need to be counting carbs or calories. I know the BSD relies on 800 calories a day, but how many carbs should one aim to eat to have a low carb diet? We have researched a fair bit and have found that to lose weight you roughly need to aim for 20g of carbs. I need to lose weight, while my husband is a TOFI….thin outside and fat inside, been diagnosed with Type 2.
We would very much appreciate any guidance or help that more experienced people may have.
Thank you for taking the time to read this!
Best wishes
Buggerlugs

Hi buggerlugs, long time since I have heard that term – I’m from Yorkshire in England and it was a common phrase when I was a kid. As for the calories versus carbs I can only tell you what I found. If you have the book and you cut out all the white carbs like wheat, rice, bread, cereals, potatoes, pasta, sugar and any processed foods AND try to keep to 800 calories the carbs will pretty much take care of themselves. Some do go for 20 grams but I found the juggling act to get enough calories at that low level caused me such a headache. Even with the good carbs you are likely to make some mistakes i.e. not realising how many carbs are in a carrot for instance. You will also eat good carbs and make mistakes with the calories i.e. how many calories in an apple or avocado. Do what I do and share and apple or an avocado with your husband. My husband is also a TOFI and not much wrong with him until he went to the doctors this week and found he is on the edge of pre-diabetes.

Good luck with the diet and dont hesitate if you have any questions. You might try the search engine first as many people have asked and many people have answered so they might just already be there for you. But dont worry if you ask something that has been dealt with before, it is always good to remind people who are new to this. We are all learning all the time.

Hi Sunshine-girl, Thank you for you reply and tips, much appreciated. We’ve cut out all the usual high carb foods, but definitely making mistakes and learning on the way. I’m very interested to see what my weight will be after the first week and a bit of low carbs. I have looked through forums but couldn’t find the answer to my query, but then I could just be blind and it’s staring me in the face!! 🙂
Best wishes
Buggerlugs

Hi I think sunshine-girl has answered your query in as much as there is no definitive number of carbs. Low carb means something different to each person. Lots of people aim for below 50g a day, many stay around 30g but for some below 20g a day is the only way they can lose weight. So it’s a bit of trial and error to find your best level. Maybe if you try one of the apps or computer programs such as Fatsecret or myfitnesspal and weigh and log your food you will get a better idea of what your intake is. As sunshine-girls says if you keep low enough with your carbs the calories will take care of themselves. It doesn’t always work the other way. For example a small apple can have 19g of carbs but not a huge number of calories. So if you are keeping really low carb an apple, or half, is a real treat!

Hi Verano, thanks for your reply. Yes, I’m using a couple of apps already and weighing food. We’re learning more and more as we check different foods out as to how many carbs it has. At the moment we are concentrating on carbs, counting those and just being mindful of calories.
Best wishes
Buggerlugs

Sorry buggerlugs, should have been clearer. If you follow the 800 cals rule you will probably be having around 50 to 70 grams of carbs and that is okay. As Verano says it will be trial and error. Some people go as low as 20 grams but as I said, that is rather too low for me as I find it gets complicated as to what you can or cant eat and if you are extremely low carbs you will be extra low on calories and having to find something to add to keep the calories up. Right now you might think that you will never get as low as 800 calories but with practice you will and find it pretty easy once you get rid of the junk carbs.

Hi Buggerlugs, I’m a day late getting to this thread to welcome you. I hope you have
a long and successful journey here with all of us. There are as many different ways
to do the BSD as there are personalities here. By trial and error, you and your husband
will find what works the best for the 2 of you. I’ve lost 50% of my body weight doing a
strict form of Fast800 limiting carbs to under 20/day. I came to this decision when
I wasn’t satisfied at my rate of loss prior to that. After I made the adjustment I never
experienced another plateau. With the help of the generous people on this forum,
learn everything you can about the carb content of foods, drink up to 3 liters of
water each day, and recognize that healthy fats will prevent you from feeling hungry.
It’s really no more complicated than that 🙂 I wish both of you the very best of luck.
See you out and about on the threads, and please join in wherever and whenever
you like. This will transform your life!

Allie

Hi Allie, thank you for response. Congratulations on your weight loss, that’s amazing success. I’m looking forward to see what we can achieve. It’s a big learning curve and definitely a complete change in lifestyle. We are trying to stick to 20g of carbs a day and that seems to correlate with 800cal. At the moment we have lots of delicious summer fruits coming into season, so it’ll be a challenge to resist eating them in bulk! 😁😁

Best wishes
Buggerlugs

Hi Sunshine Girl, actually we’re ok with 800 calories. We’re coming from 5:2 where the limit for females is 500. We have cleared out pantry and fridge. I think breakfast is the highest carb meal we have, so the challenge is/was to reduce the carbs there. But we are slowly getting there.
Thank you for your reply and advice.
Best wishes
Buggerlugs