How much carbs?

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  • posted by enigma
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    I’m on day three of the diet so far so good on the calorie front but I don’t know how much I should be limiting my carbs to? I’m a bit confused are there any guidelines? I’ve read three of the four books but not sure i’m getting it other than I have to reduce them!

    Thanks

  • posted by sunshine-girl
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    50g carbs for a low carb diet. Some do 20g carbs if you are diabetic or really strict on the plan. I stick with 50g as it is difficult to go much lower without dropping even more calories than the 800. Hope that helps.

  • posted by JGwen
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    Hi, The two main issues that come up repeatedly about the books are a lack of guidelines on the macro levels, and also a lot of the recipes are not correct on calorie counts.

    A lot of what you do when starting out depends on how much weight you have too lose and other possible issues such as if you are a T2.

    My advice would be to initially cut out the big carbs (bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, sugar, chocolate) That can be a big change for a lot of people, so just do it for a couple of weeks and get used to that change in eating patterns. During that time use a method of logging everything you eat which breaks it down into macros. – Carbs, protein, fat. as well as calories. The easiest method is to use one of the apps you can download onto a smart phone. I use fat secret, but you could use a spreadsheet or notebook if you prefer.

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    After a couple of weeks you want to start to tweek what you are eating looking for swaps to head towards the following formula. 20g carbs, 0.6 to 0.8g protein per kilo of Target weight, with the rest of your calories coming from fat.
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    The reason I recommend 20g of carbs is that at that level you know you will be in ketosis, (fat burning mode) where your body can easily access your own fat stores to make up the calories you need each day. – If you count calories without being in ketosis then in time your body will reduce your metabolic rate. Which means you will reduce the number of calories needed on a daily basis and will make maintenance harder.

    – Some people can achieve ketosis with more carbs, and if you want to go down the route of learning methods to work out your personal levels then do sing out and someone will come along to help. But to keep it simple aim for 20g of carbs which will also give you the best chance of improving the other health problems high insulin levels cause such as Inflammation and Insulin Resistance.

    Protein levels I have specified are the recommended range for women, its upto 1g for men. – The reason for keeping it in this range is that the body can convert excess protein into glucose. Which would undo all the work you have done in keeping carbs low.

    One of the habits that can be hard to get our head around at the start is that healthy fats are good. – This is a way of eating where you can add melted butter to veg, and double cream to coffee 🙂

    There is a weekly thread which starts each Tuesday and a longer term “road trip” thread which runs for a number of weeks. – On those threads you will find a mixture of newcomers and long term maintainers who will be happy to share their experiences with you. Most people on the forum tend to just read the posts on those threads so you are more likely to be able to draw on a wider range of experience if you join in with one of them.

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