Hi all,
I have recently found your amazing forums – they are a wealth of knowledge. I am almost three weeks into the BSD, and am having some success (after years of trying other things and not losing any weight at all). So far, 3.6kg down so feeling happy. However, I have a question. How do you all make sure you are getting enough vegetables on the 800 cal per day, whilst still keeping your carbs low? I am trying to keep carbs below 20g, and am basing my 2 meals a day heavily on protein, always with baby spinach leaves, some olive oil etc. My protein is quite high – sometimes 80-100g per day. Admittedly, I am a coffee adddict, and so about 8.5g of my carbs go towards milk (I know, I know, this is a habit I really need to drop but it is my one and only vice as I don’t drink any alcohol at all). I absolutely love broccoli and broccolini, but have noticed that it is surprisingly high in carbs – 5.8g carbs per cup of broccoli. I am wondering how all of those who have had success in losing approach your daily eating?
Many thanks for any advice you can provide – what a great community this seems to be 🙂

Hi Welcome to the forum. –

You may find this link helpful in working out veg options. https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/vegetables

There have been studies that the fibre in vegetables helps to reduce the impact of carbs in comparison to the same amount of carbs from processed food but I can not find a good article to explain it at present.

One other tip I would suggest is that you join in the weekly thread. A lot of people only follow specific threads rather than monitoring the forum for all new posts. So you will get a better answer to any questions you have if you ask them on the weekly thread. We start a new thread each monday / tuesday and the date is in the title.

Thanks so much JGwen, I really appreciate all of that information. The diet doctor page is great – I love asparagus also, so since that is lower carb than broccoli I might indulge in some of that whilst I am still trying to lose. I will also make sure I join the new weekly thread this Tuesday – thanks for everything.

Hi hopeful, will see you over on the thread but I just wondered if you knew that whole milk and cream have less carbs than semi skimmed or skimmed – obviously more calories but if you can stomach them in coffee you need less to make it creamy and can reduce your carbs – personally I can’t stomach it but I like my coffee on the black or almost black side so that’s just me!

Lauren x

Thanks so much Lauren – I had actually planned to do a bit of a side-by-side comparison, but didn’t know that the ceamier it is, the less carbs. I had thought about testing different soy/oat/almond milks etc but past experiments years ago usually resulted in the milk separating from the coffee (hmmm….a bit unappealing!). I’m also not a big fan of all of the different additives. Realistically I probably just have to kick the coffee habit for my own health – but I sure do love it 🙂

Double cream (heavy cream) 100ml = 503 cal (so use sparingly!), 2g carbs, 54.8g fat, 2g protein

Whole milk 100ml, 64cal, 4.7g carbs, 3.6g fat, 3.2g protein

Semi skimmed 100ml 46 cal, 5g carbs, 2g fat, 4g protein

Skimmed 100ml, 34 cal, 5g carbs, 0g fat, 5g protein

It’s a negligible difference but if you’re drinking a lot of milk it does make a difference, that said almond milk makes a mean latte but you have to make sure you don’t boil the water (which you shouldn’t anyway because it burns the coffee 😉) Oat milk is lovely and creamy too and can withstand higher temps but has more carbs I think than semi skimmed, if you try alt milks use the unsweetened versions and don’t fall into the trap of rice milk, it’s got basically no nutritional value and added sugar

I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself, as habits and vices go, milk in tea or coffee is not the worst one! If it gives you some pleasure or something to look forward to then go for it, just account it into your count for the day! No point making yourself miserable as you won’t stick to it!

How are you getting on now?

Lauren x

Thanks so much Lauren. I have decided to cut down the amount of coffee I am having, so a total of 120ml of milk a day. I hadn’t thought about oat milk so I will look at those today definitely. Today is 3 weeks on the diet, down from 68kg to 63.8kg. I know that isn’t anywhere near as much as some people, but I have spent the past ten years trying everything with pretty much no success, so I did a bit of a ‘happy dance’ when I got off the scales this morning 🙂 Without a doubt, this appears to be the most successful WOE I hav ever come across for my body. Next weekend (Easter) will be slightly difficult – we have young children, lots of eggs to put out for an Easter Egg hunt, and chocolate is my weakness….. I hope you are having a good day?