Hi all I’m just preparing to start the BSD and am a total newbie to it. I’m vegetarian but that doesn’t seem to be a problem as there seems to be lots of great food to eat. However I can’t seem to find a definitive answer to how many carbs we should be eating a day. 50 g per day seems to get bandied around lot but couldn’t find that in the book ( I have read it honest!) so I’m just looking for thoughts on this?

Ta

Heather

Hi and welcome. The book doesn’t mention carbs, focuses on the 800 cals but many folk on here with blood sugar issues keep their carbs at 50 and below. If you are doing this for weight loss only then keeping them below 100 should be ok, but the lower the better really. Best wishes for the outcome you are aiming for.

It isn’t in the book as a limit, but keto and other low carb sites use it as a level at which for almost all people the body enters ketosis which will maximise the fat burning capabilities of your metabolism. Some people go as low as 20g if they feel it works better, particularly those needing to lower blood sugar drastically, and likewise some vegetarians particularly have lost weight and entered ketosis on 60g or so which is easier to achieve with their protein demands. Likewise people with a lot to lose sometimes start at 1000 calories a day rather than 800 if they are not diabetic. There will be an ideal path for you, but as everyone is different we can only advise in general terms and you will need to find your own path. Good luck, and welcome to the forum, let us know what you plan to do and we can offer you more specific advice about many aspects of this way of eating.

Hi Heather — welcome to the BSD forums! Although it is not in Mosely’s book, I have used the recommendations from Gary Taubes book, “Why We Get Fat and What to do About It” because the ideas are so similar and it educates me about WHY I want to eat (many people on the forum follow the same general advice).
The point is to lower carbohydrate enough to lower insulin production — the lower the better — when insulin is low, the body can “mobilize” your fat stores but when insulin is high, the fat is “locked away” and you cannot access it to fuel your body.
When you cannot access your fat stores, you get hungry and panicky and angry and are driven to eat. This is a biological function — you are low blood sugar and your body needs fuel so it reacts to get the fuel you need (by making you hungry so you eat).
Keeping insulin levels low by reducing carbohydrate will let your body use its fat stores and keep hunger in check. Over time you lose the desire to eat sugars and easy carbs.
The recommendation is as low as 20 grams of carb per day but you need to work out your own sweet spot through trial and error. It takes some time but you will learn what your own “carb limit” is.
Start by cutting out flour, sugar, extra fruit, any refined flours, potatoes, starchy vegetables, milk, grains (even whole), beer, etc.. and any added sugars in any form — it takes some time but the result is worth the effort.
Check labels and Google foods to get accurate carb counts. In the US, carbohydrate is figured by taking the carbohydrate count and subtracting the fiber. In the UK, I believe your carb count already figures in the fiber (so your numbers are net carbs).

OK thank you all- I think I feel a bit more confident at starting out now! I think to begin with I’ll keep to 50g or just under and see what happens along with an 800 calorie allowance. I can always reduce it as necessary. I don’t have blood sugar issues- so far as I know!- but do have massive issues with losing weight, possibly as a result of many many diets over the years which may have damaged my metabolism. Hoping this will give me the kick start that I need and I’m really looking forward to eating real fat for the first time in years!

Other than the dairy products does anyone else see a resemblance with this programme and the Eat to Live by Joel Fuhrman? I think the principles are massively similar and I might calculate his recipes to see how they fit.

I do have a couple of Mosley’s books but when his “book” is referred to which one are we talking about? Sorry if I missed it ( :-
This thread on carbs has really helped. I cut down to fifty grams per day and now seeing a better weight loss. Thanks.

The book referred to is the Blood Sugar Diet.
Maggie

Thanks Maggie.

Apologies if I’m posting somewhere I shouldn’t but I’m hoping someone can help. Several times on this forum I’ve seen people stating the ‘keep to less than 20 carbs’ a day rule. Now I’m knew at this but have done other VLC diets in the past, with meal replacement (shakes) I can see how sticking to under 20 works but eating food I just don’t know how people do it. Are there any recipe plans/weekly menus that give examples.
I’ve only been doing this just over a week so I’m willing to learn, clearly some folks have better planning skills than I do or am I missing something?

Oh Toddy 67, it must be very confusing, I’m sure! Welcome to the forums! MMosley doesn’t specify a precise number
of carbs in his books, but a low carb diet is generally believed to be <50 net grams per day. Many of us have been at
this low carb, moderate protein, high (healthy) fat diet for a very long time though, and some of us who are highly
insulin resistant have learned through much trial and error that we need to go further, and reduce our carbs to <20g
to obtain the results we are looking for. There are no hard and fast rules, though. It’s very worthwhile to count your
carbs though, to establish the level that works best for you. In terms of real food, you might type “20 G Carbs, Anyone”
in the search box to locate a thread where some of us have listed what we’ve done to accomplish this. We are always
happy to share tips with those that are new to the community, so please ask any questions that enter your head,
and someone will always respond. Very best to you,

Allie

Hi Toddy-67
My experience – as someone who doesn’t need to control blood sugars but needed to stabilise blood pressure and lose visceral fat – fell under the advice that AnnieW and MixnMatch outline above. My total carbs fall between 50-100g/day (I try to stay towards the 50g side of the spectrum most days). While on the 800cals i ate whole grains very occasionally (a slice of Keldermans wholegrain bread for eg) and found it didn’t derail me. The advice everyone gives -to tune in to your own body’s responses and sensitivities -is key I think. Some people can’t tolerate oats, others find them invaluable -including MM. Find your own equilibrium using the guidelines as just that and good luck.

TB

Hi Toddy, I agree that it’s worth your while to experiment with the amount of carbs that work for you.
As for the 20g/day, yes it is possible to stick to that while eating real food! Maybe google keto recipes to get ideas for things to eat and cook as keto diets keep the carbs under 20g.
Also worthwhile to weigh and log everything to keep an accurate count.

Hi Toddy,
I started off by cutting out the “big whites”, bread, pasta, pizza, sugar etc. Then I started to use an app on my mobile phone called myfatsecret. It allows me to enter each meal or ingredient and see what the number of carbs, protein and fat works out at and I could tweak the ingredients to try to stay on target.

Its easier to stay under 20g of carbs if you are a meat eater, a bit more difficult for vegetarians, but I found by cutting out the carbs I wasn’t craving food at regular intervals a day, so that gave me the option of reducing how frequently I eat so I can save up my cars/cals to have a varied diet when I do eat.

I have been eating this way since last October. Have lost over 6 stone, without feeling deprived once the carb monster was kept in its box. – You may hear people talking about eating 16:8, or 20:4 which means that they are doing mini fasts for 16 or 20 hours and eating in an 8 or 4 hour window. Thats where I am at now, I tend to eat 20:4.

Ha ha, JGwen! I think that you’ve just come with a new expression, “big Whites”, in addition to you excellent advice 🙂
All you left out of your description was “rice”. I think that you will see it used on the forums in the future. Reminds me of
shark descriptions on my side of the pond, Great Whites! Or is that Whales? 🙂

Ha ha Allie, it’s only whales if it is Moby Dick, otherwise the Great Whites would be sharks — and California has more and more of them with more and more beach closures!
I wanted to drop by and talk about carbohydrate and insulin levels. I’ve been spending several hours each week while driving back and forth to Lake Tahoe listening to Dr. Bikman’s podcasts and it is more and more clear that we’ve got to start thinking “insulin” and not so much “blood sugar”.
I think this will be the new, future critical measurement — not “what is your blood sugar level” but instead “what is your insulin level”.
Standard blood panels don’t test for this (not yet) but Bikman makes the critical point that your insulin levels are raised for TEN YEARS before you have high blood sugar.
Therefore, insulin levels are a better predictor of future blood sugar levels, and we can catch the problem earlier and avoid damage.

Hi Californiagirl and Alliecat,
Well personally I am working on moving away from being a Great White, avoiding the beaches because of the risk of being confused with a beached whale, to being a Curvy Suntanned with this WoE.
I think you are right about the issue of it being insulin rather than blood sugar levels that should be measured, while there isn’t a current easy method of home testing for insulin, testing for ketones could be a useful way of monitoring and identifying the personal carb threshold. I found his work on the impact of combining carbs and protein particularly interesting. So there may be some science behind the food combining diets of years gone by.