A lot of people join our forums with this question in mind, so I have pulled this quote from an earlier thread called ‘what to aim for carbs wise’ which was posted on 20th February.

It seems like generally good advice, although I’m not sure how sound it is for followers with diabetes, you may have differing requirements perhaps.

How Many Carbs Should You Eat?
It is important to experiment and figure out a way to match your carb intake to your own goals and preferences.
That being said, these guidelines are reasonable:

100-150 grams per day: This is a decent maintenance range, and is good for people who exercise a lot.
50-100 grams per day: This should lead to automatic weight loss, and is a good maintenance range for people who don’t exercise that much.
20-50 grams per day: With a carb intake this low, you should lose weight quickly without experiencing much hunger. This carb range should put you into ketosis.

I think I also remember another very informative post on carbs but I can’t remember which thread it is in. If anyone else can remember it or if the author can remember where they wrote it, perhaps you could add it on here?

Hi Janet1973 & MBee

Look at forum Fast 800 , Topic : Percentages. It might be helpful
Eureka

Interesting thank you. It looks like I’m eating too many still – averaging around 100. It’s something I’ve not really been checking or knew what I should have been aiming for. Most seem to be coming from fruit and veg so a little bit of tweaking looks to be in order.

Thank you – this is JUST what I was searching for! I went to see Michael Mosley at a charity talk about the diet this week in Auckland – unfortunately this topic wasn’t covered.
I lost 4 Kg in the first two weeks, then if anything I have put on a tiny bit in the last 10 days. I suspect as I was doing so well and as time got on and I wanted more variety, the ratio of carb to protein/fat increased. Still staying around 800cal’s but eating more carb type veggie’s like beetroot carrot, pumpkin and kumara, and having two pieces of fruit a day. Why do they have to taste so good!

Anyone else finding their bodies have adjusted and now not losing weight??? Goal for this week is to keep carb’s around 70g and see if I can restart the weight loss.

Hi Kiwispot,
Yes, I think it is very easy to let things start to creep back in like fruit and even low fat stuff as that’s a hard habit to break. Dr Mosley says to keep fruit to non-tropical ones or berries as there is a lot of sugar in tropical,fruit. Maybe once you got to your target weight you can reintroduce your favourites. On the plus side, you can be more liberal with the butter and other dairy products and the fat in meat is no longer to be feared. Well done on your weight loss so far. I’m sure if you keep an eye on things you will continue to do just fine.

Thanks for the encouragement – yes I have been sticking to blueberries, raspberries (no strawberries ripe any more) or two plums as these are ripe and sooooooo delicious at the moment. But decided the plums, and carb veggie’s have to go again, so just gone and bought lot’s of fresh low carb veggie’s and will carry on. Realised it is actually 13 days since I had a loss, so that has spurred me on to action!
I did Atkins successfully so I have been happily eating full fat ingredients for years (having done the low-fat things for years before that – biggest mistake of my life!). Eating so low carb gets very boring – so I am really hoping this will re-set my insulin response to carbs and allow me to maintain on 5:2 without having to be so strict with carbs.
Might start a thread and ask if anyone post 8 weeks is finding it easy to maintain.
Good luck with your journey 🙂

Hi Kiwispot,
You can continue to enjoy some of the carb vegies, you just have to eat less of them.
I still cook with kumara, parsnips etc but I weigh them and include them in my daily count. I then make sure I have two low carb meals for the rest of the day so that I can have enough allowance saved up to spend on the carb veg.
I make kumara, chick pea and cauliflower curry and can enjoy it with a couple of popadoms or a curry flavoured flatbread from the recipe on this site.
I also do a bean, tomato, parsnip and carrot shepherd type pie with a cheesy cauliflower mash on top. I am vegetarian but you could adapt these ideas to include meat.
Do you use some kind of app to track your intake? I’ve found the easy australian diet diary helpful but not sure if you can get it in NZ. If you weigh what you want to eat and check the carb count, then keep a daily tally it will help you to be more mindful of what you are eating. It’s so easy to eat two carb heavy meals in a row if you don’t keep track of your intake.
Fruit, I agree, is the worst temptation. One smallish nectarine is more than a fifth of my carb allowance and who stops at one when they are ripe and just hanging there? I have to limit myself to a quarter with full fat yoghurt for breakfast. Or I stew and then freeze them and just have a couple of spoonfuls with yoghurt. It’s hard but it’s the only way to stay healthy.
Stick with it, be mindful of the carbs as much as the cals and you’ll soon see the weight loss again 🙂

Thanks so much Cherrianne for the lovely encouraging and helpful reply. I stuck to very low carb today, so cross my finders I see a loss tomorrow! Even starting HIT in my exercise program this week, my body is going to have to respond! 😃. Good luck with your goals.

Hello. I’m new – just started the BSD and found this thread because I was searching for a definition of ‘low carb’. The info here has been very useful, but I’m surprised to see that quite a few people are actively pursuing ketosis. My copy of the BSD book is still on its way from the UK so I’m curious to know whether it actually recommends achieving ketosis to go into full ‘fat-burning mode’. I know that ketoacidosis can be life-threatening for Type 1 diabetics and it’s always been my understanding that it isn’t entirely desirable for the rest of us either (horribly pongy breath being one side-effect I’ve read about). I was thinking of aiming for 50 – 80g of carbs per day, specifically to avoid ketosis, but maybe that’s not necessary. I’d be very interested to hear from others about how they’re doing on seriously LOW low carbs and the various pros and cons. Btw, I’m doing the BSD to stave off the Type 2 diabetes that runs in my family. I’d like to lose the recommended 10% of my body weight and reduce my waist measurement for health reasons, but am not aiming to be a supermodel, so maybe I can stick to 50-80g of carbs and still drop up to a kilo (2.2lb) a week – any thoughts would be appreciated! 😊

Hi vjc,
Welcome to the forums. You are absolutely right that ketoacidosis is dangerous. It is a life threatening emergency for type 1 diabetics and end stage type 2’s who aren’t producing insulin at all. A characteristic of this is the breath odour, described as ‘fruity’ like ‘pear drops’ due to the acetone being excreted by the lungs.
Ketosis is different and is a state where stored glycogen has been used up and the body is burning fat stores for energy.
I didn’t see any reference to ketosis in the book but neither does it mention what carb range to aim for. I think the book has been designed to be a simple easy to follow plan.
Many people who post on here are still losing weight without trying to stick to a particular carb target. I think if you follow the 8 week plan it will happen anyway, simply because it’s designed to be low cal/ low carb.
Some of us who are diabetic might monitor our carbs but more for blood sugar control reasons than weight loss.
Sorry it’s a bit of a long reply 🙂
Good luck with the diet, hoping to hear of your successful weight loss soon. You’ve already taken the first step.

There is a reference to the difference between ketosis and ketoacidosis in the book…not sure what page but I think it may be in the “errors” or mistakes made for/by diabetics or their doctors…

Hivjc2270
your comments about ketoacidosis are correct, it is very dangerous. The only distinction made between that and ketosis in the book is that some medical professionals could mistake ketosis for ketoacidosis just based on the urine test.
I am testing and it isn’t a constant thing, some days (strangely when I have a raised sugar reading) I show ketosis, other days I don’t.
I try to stick to around 50 carbs a day and I have suffered no side effects. Bear in mind also that ketosis testing is a personal thing and not required by the diet.
Try not to overthink things, the majority of people on here are in the same carb range as me or lower and no one has taken ill with ketoacidosis yet.

A-ha! Thanks for that response, Bill. I was also making the error of thinking that ‘ketosis’ and ‘ketoacidosis’ are the same thing. Duh! 😜

Thanks for the response, Cherrianne. Turns out I was confusing ‘ketosis’ and ‘ketoacidosis’. Let’s call it a ‘rookie mistake’. 😜 Loving the diet so far and think it will work out really well for me – have already lost a kilo (2.2lb), which is very encouraging. 😄

Way to go vjc, great weight loss already. You are managing really well by the sounds of things.
Health professionals have also been known to mix ketosis and ketoacidosis up so not surprising.
That’s what the forums are here for, to ask advice or clarification of things. There’s always someone who will be able to help.
I’m looking forward to hearing your next set of results 🙂

Just been on a diabetes course and raised this diet and the dietician mentioned keto acidosis and also seemed to have made the same mix up. Basically she said the diet wasn’t a good idea for people on metformin or glucazid. What a disaster the course was. Although I did mention the diet loads.

Perhaps someone should have told her that the diet can negate the need for metformin & gliclazide?
I despair at the medical profession at times.

What a numptie!

I know this is an older thread, but have only just joined and have found it really helpful. I’m aiming for between 30-50 a day (okay I’m only on my 4th day, but still) and after reading this I think I may try to stick closer to the 50-60gm range. I’m not finding it very hard at this point. I’ve been doing 5:2 for a few years, and on my 2 fast days I pretty much ate this BSD way. I’ve had anywhere from 800-1,000 cals in the past 3 days, and am down 4.9 lbs, breaking through a plateau that has been lingering for a couple of months.

I’m thrilled I’ve found these forums. Thanks all for sharing!!

Hi there!

Lots of stuff here about best carb quantity – have you tried typing appropriate words into SEARCH box (or perhaps that’s how you found this thread thinking about it)

Lots of people stick to 50g or under, and lots of people just count the calories.

There’s a thread here currently started by Verano which is pushing a 7-day 20g carb reboot to get the weight losses off again.

It really depends on you and what you want. I didn’t have type 2 but wanted to kickstart my target 20 lb weight loss on BSD and did the whole 8 weeks on 20g carbs which was hugely effective for me (26 lb loss) and OH followed the same and has pushed his type 2 into remission and come off Metfornin

It’s quite possible to continue relatively low carb (50g or under) long term, still eating really well and enjoyably, if it suits you.

Good luck! 🙂