Hi guys diet going well but I am using an app to watch how much calories, fat, protein etc. I am horrified that I am consuming around 60% plus of fat more days than not. How are you all finding it. Is this just too high, what is the recommended amount, does anyone know?

Hi there

We have been educated to understand that fat is BAD, but certainly on a generally low calorie and low carb diet, you need to balance intake out. Fat is not necessarily a problem, which is why the BSD explains we should all eat full fat dairy, for example, and have olive oil.

May I suggest you have a look at the following website –
http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com
This helps you see what the best balance of nutrients is for you.
During the BSD and continuing now (I am on maintenance after a really successful BSD which ended at the beginning of August), my nutrient targets are 40-50g carbs, 80g protein, and 80g fat, which is about 15/25/60 in percentage terms. So around the 60% you are talking about5

You might also like to read Gary Taubes Why We Get Fat and What to Do about it, which helps you see that Fat is not the demon it’s been painted.

You will see in the BSD Dr MM encourages full fat in order to keep you feeling full.

Igorasusual, I have logged onto the site and do not understand it. It has told me to eat 25 grams carbs but then for the protein it asks me to enter how many g/lbs depending in amount of exercise, then the same for fat, what am I supposed to be putting in here. Am I supposed to decide for myself how many grams I eat. I thought it would tell me. I’m confused.

Hi sunshine-girl

Right, I’m just going to go through it myself.

So you’ve entered in all your details, height, weight, activity level etc., and had the best guess you can about your percentage of body fat (very hard to guess, unless you’ve got some of the scales that measure it).

The next title says How Many Carbs Can I Eat? Then you enter what you are going to do – you can change the figure up and down.
Try 50g

The title afterwards says How Much Protein Should I Eat
Here it will SUGGEST the best amount, giving you a range between two figures for very inactive and very active (obviously if you are very active you may need more protein)
It says, if in doubt, use the middle of the range which it tells you, for you personally. The middle figure is the one I always use, and you type it in under CHOSEN AMOUNT. Mine, for example, is 79g

The next title is How Much Fat Should I Eat
Now here, the best thing to do is to type in your calorie target – if 800, put that, if you are doing higher, put in whatever you are targeting.
That’s the second line, middle figure under CHOSEN AMOUNT. It MAY say that 800 is too much of a deficit (like MFP), but ignore that.

Then the next section gives you YOUR PERSONAL RESULTS which you can enter into whatever app you are using in both percentage Carbs/Protein/Fat and grams.

And below that, it gives you a graph of how you are likely to lose weight on this programme of nutrients.

So basically, YOU enter your target carbs, the PROGRAMME TELLS you how much protein you need to maintain health, and then IT CALCULATES the balance, which is fat.

I hope that’s clearer?

Will you let me know how you get on?

Should have added, you can change the carbs to, say, 30g and leave protein and calories the same, and then of course the fat part will go up to maintain the same calories.

Just for your info as you will probably remember I am now on maintenance, and my stats after entering in 40g of carbs per day and 1200 calories target show
1200 kcal Daily Calorie Intake
40 g Carbs (13%, 160 kcal)
79 g Protein (26%, 316 kcal)
80 g Fat (61%, 724 kcal)

I’m on a LCHF (low carb high fat) Facebook group and they recommend something like 75% fat, 20% protein, 5% carbs and you wouldn’t believe the amazing results some people are getting with that. I do believe that high fat is good but I don’t think it’s necessary to have as much as 75%. Personally mine works out at about 50-60% fat, 20-30% protein and about 10% carbs depending on what I’m eating for the day. That works for me so I’d say 60% fat should be fine. I think the main thing is that we stick to low carb and 800 calories. Other than that eat whatever keeps you full.

Catherine – the site I recommend (which helped me) evidently is in line with what you say. The fat is 61%, as you see. The higher figure is the GRAMS of fat.

And I did also say that you can adjust the carbs if you like. When I was on the BSD, I kept my carbs to 20g per day. Having successfully completed the programme (and maintaining low carb Mediterranean lifestyle), I have increased both calories and carbs, with carbs at 40g

The percentage split you mention is close to what I suggested before in my first reply to EG who was also speaking about 60%

Igorasusual, I had a look at that site. I was a bit worried at first, as the word ‘keto’ always makes me nervous. Anyway, I have to say I found it extremely useful. I aim for net carbs of around 50 g (I’m not diabetic or prediabetic but need lots of fibre from veg sources in my diet). I found the graph very interesting and the predicted weight loss mimics what I am losing. It gave me a good target date for when I will hit a healthy weight – ten days after our mortgage is paid off!
So thanks for mentioning it. I will keep going back as I lose more weight.

Thanks Snoop! 🙂

I usually say when I recommend the keto site to use if ‘if you want to’.

I found it helpful, so I do share it, but I’m not advertising it nor do I have a financial interest in it (I think it’s run by someone who isn’t paid), and if you prefer to run your BSD purely by Dr MM, then power to your elbow!

So you will have a dual celebration when you pay off your mortgage! Great stuff!! 🙂

This is all very reassuring, I knew we were to eat full fat dairy products etc but it was just a bit of a shock….

Found the calculator brilliant, something to work to, thank you

That’s great EG. 🙂

Hopefully you will feel as good as the rest of us on BSD and your medical results will also be good.

It does confirm, however, how we have all been told, over and over, that fat is bad for us and to avoid it like the plague. Only now is it emerging that the sugar lobby actually paid Harvard researchers to report their findings showing more positive results for sugar/other refined carbs and negative results for fat.

The trouble is that in removing the fat from all the products (yoghurt is a particularly good example) the manufacturers added more sugar.

But I do agree it is hard to get rid of the thought engrained in us by years of advice that fat is bad.

Not too much of anything of course, but it is nice to get that olive oil out. And the cheese! 🙂

Cheese is definitely a plus point, especially as I live in France!! Duck also.

EG Just watch out for the confit, magret is good. My best thing was to taste real cheese after years of bringing very low fat Cheddar back from England. You don’t need much of the real cheese it is so full of flavour.

Bon appétite

I have set my carbs at around 85-100g which I reach most days and that is from eating carbs derived from lots of vegetables (not potatoes or parsnips) and one tablespoon of steel-cut oats with half a grapefruit, linseeds, nuts, beans and chickpeas/lentils. My concern of eating a significantly lower carb intake is that you effectively end up with the equivalent of the Atkins diet very focused on high-fat primary protein and a scattering of water-based veg and that’s about it. This then lacks sufficient fibre, trace minerals and vitamins.

Where has the research from Newcastle research and Dr Mosley shown this low carb figure? I still manage to eat 800-1000 cals with my slow-burn carb figure of 85-90g.

Hi DeeToby

You don’t have to restrict your carbs to less than 50g per day.

The BSD makes the whole thing simple by not referring to carb targets, merely advising cutting out refined carbs. This makes it very easy to follow for those who don’t want to get into more than checking calories (or following a programme of recipes).

However the BSD does make the point that full fat, and eating a little more fat than we have all been told is good for us over recent years, is not a problem.

Some people here experiment with lower carbs and this does indeed suit some people.

The Atkins diet is rather more restrictive, and you will also find people discussing what is the best balance of protein. I don’t think that simply reducing the (good) carbs on the BSD, if people like to try this for both health and weight-loss reasons, is a problem.

If you find more carbs suit you, that’s great. It is evident from the literature that some people tolerate carbohydrates better than others and are able to maintain healthy blood sugars on 100-150g per day. Others seem to fare better on lower amounts.

I perhaps should have added that my lower carb diet does not depend on ‘water-based veg’ – not sure exactly what you mean, there – my vegetables and legumes generally include

spinach
lettuce (other leafy salad e.g. rocket)
cauliflower
courgette
kale
leafy cruciferous green veg of various kinds
onions
tomatoes
mushrooms
green beans
peas, sugar snap peas, mangetout peas
lentils (red and green)
split peas
chickpeas
aubergines
avocado pears
peppers
chilli peppers
garlic
ginger
herbs (coriander, dill, chives etc) if these count

gosh, there will be more, I am mentally walking down the veg counter.

So I wouldn’t think these would be water-based except that most vegetables are, aren’t they?

DeeToby, this is nothing like the Atkins diet or even the revised Atkins, although that did get rid of a lot of the bad things about his dad’s book. This plan allows good fats into the diet which have in the past been replaced by low fat versions, like yoghurt, which have been pumped full of sugars and cereals like low fat sausages. Now this diet does not say we can eat full fat sausages or fry all our foods or eat the fat on meat, it actually restricts the amount of red meat. The difference here is between bad fats and good fats and oils. The diet allows butter but so now does the BMA, and, because we are not eating bread or potatoes the butter used is possibly a small amount to cook scrambled eggs for instance, not pile it on toast and crumpets. Oils in the diet have been proven to have health benefits hence the references to a Mediterranean diet, based on lots of highly nutritious veg, not water based – I haven’t had lettuce since I started this diet and I used to eat it every day. My staples in terms of veg are spinach (full of iron and vitamins), red peppers (potassium. Vit C, Vit A, manganese, magnesium, All B Vits except B12), courgette (Vit A, Vit C, Foliate, Iron, Manganese, Niacin etc). I could go on and list the nutrients in cauliflower, brocolli, and so on. What is not healthy about these veg. If you are living on lettuce. Olive Oil (zero carbs, zero cholesterol) avocado (too many nutrients to mention). Then there are nuts and seeds.

I should also mention that since being 6 weeks into this diet I went for a full range of blood tests and everything had improved. Especially my cholesterol, triglycerides and blood glucose. The diet also has the approval of my doctor.

I think that maybe you are not eating the right things if you are living on water based veg. Possibly need to give things a bit of a shake up.

Hi IGOR et al…further to what you said Igor to Dee re different peeps tolerating differing amounts of carbs,you jogged my memory..someone sent me this last week..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3774068/Cracker-test-reveals-need-cut-carbs.html#ixzz4JNeNnhtW

I havent tried the test yet as i dont want to buy crackers, i keep meaning to ask a friend to give me a cracker! X

Yes, I read this too – I must explain that I post work- related news items to a business forum, and unfortunately have to trawl the Daily Mail as well as other newspapers for these, otherwise I’d not be reading it – and I thought that this was purely a method to have people decide that they didn’t need to reduce carbs.

Deciding whether crackers tasted sweet or not didn’t seem to me to be a particularly scientific test.

As you say, without testing it myself I can’t say!

But a lot of the science-based books about low-carbohydrate eating (I’m thinking about The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Eating by Volek and Phinney, which is a well-respected source) mention the variable responses of different subjects to nutrition. Some are able to eat comparatively large quantities of complex carbs, when others find lower quantities better for them.

We see it here with some people having quick and relatively easy success with both weight loss and blood sugar reductions, and other people who find it frustratingly much more difficult and slow, despite sticking rigorously to the ‘rules’. I believe it must be because of the huge number of variables within us all, from insulin resistance to carbohydrate tolerance to gut bacteria, just to mention a few.

Some people have quite tricky ‘carb flu’ and others, who seem to have previously eaten much the same refined carbs, escape it or have much milder symptoms. And that doesn’t even mention the effects one can have from lack of sodium after the amount of liquid we’re drinking.

I think Dr MM has the right idea in making the BSD relatively simplistic and therefore easy to understand and follow. It’s possible to explore further if you want to, but absolutely not necessary. Hopefully this will make the eating plan workable for a huge number of people, because it certainly needs to. 🙂

That’s more or less what I have but as I said, I easily (with small portions) go up to 100g carbs. That’s why I assumed everyone on here who seems to mention this magical 50g carb number must be eating a lot of veg like cucumber, tomato, celery, lettuce etc which are mainly water constituent and very few carb count. Otherwise, I don’t see how they do it.

I’m not living on water-based veg. Quite the opposite. I have a full range of veg and legumes. That’s why my carbs are more like 80g-100g. i was just querying how people achieve 50g carb when eating the full range of veg and legumes as I’m stumped how they do that. As for all your other observations – yes I know what needs to be eaten on this programme and am having great success with it averaging 2 pounds a week (and I started at 13 stone and am 5ft 5inch). I had not considered trying to keep my carbs to 50g until I came on this forum and started reading people’s stories. That’s why I’m now querying where this 50g carb figure came from as didn’t see it in the book or any of Michael’s articles. Who came up with it?

Hi IGOR me neither re DM…. grrrr…!
I think maybe i am one of the lucky ones ! 👍🏻 I only had one day of feeling really bad on BSD and that was on the first day..after that,the cravings had mainly gone..some days later,a quite mild and swift passing carb flu. X
This is a fascinating eating plan,so many factors to muse on, tho like you said MM has kept it simple for us and we can explore as much further as we want..and we’re lucky here that we all share any info we find,and also that we have folk like yourself who have a lot of knowledge.
If we open yr minds to it,and get past the ” oh i couldnt live without toast” frame of mind ( which i had pre BSD)this is a fab way of eating on so many levels! I ‘ ll still give the cracker test a go if i can get my mitts on one single cracker..no in fact I might buy a pack and feed the birds with the rest! X

Hi Dee

Yes, as you and I have both mentioned, many people follow the BSD as set out in the book and experience great success.

Some people choose to monitor carbs as well, and find that this helps with speedier weight loss. It may be due to their individual physical makeup as I have also mentioned.

The 50g is something which people have suggested, and there is as you will know quite a lot of medical research generally regarding low carb (i.e. no refined carb, and lower levels of complex carbs). If you read Volek and Phinney, various grams of carbs are mentioned.

With regard to ‘how you restrict carbs to under 50g per day’ (or 20g per day, as I achieved relatively easily) SHOULD YOU WANT TO DO IT (I appreciate it is just an option, and absolutely not compulsory), then I find it quite easy.

It might be that the portions I have of all the various vegetables are smaller, and I find them quite satisfying at that level. My calorie requirement for maintenance is just 1500 calories per day and I find that although this is rather less than i would eat prior to the BSD, it is perfectly filling, and I am very energetic in my daily life. I have become far more adventurous in cooking (lots of lovely spices!), and non BSD family members generally find our BSD type meals extremely satisfying and don’t want additional portions, or indeed extra refined carbs though these are offered!

But if the BSD is working for you, then please don’t worry about any of the any other carb conversations. Dr MM has made the BSD simple for very valid reasons, in my view.

DeeToby
I find restricting to 50g carbs relatively easy, and 30g a stretch – so I probably average 40g daily – but if 80-100g is working for you, that’s great, it’s probably easiest not to worry too much about what others are aiming for.

If you use the search box (top right hand corner of the screen) and look for “max carbs” you’ll find earlier discussions around this topic – there is an old thread “MAXIMUM DAILY CARBS/SUGAR” that may be of interest.