Hi everyone, I started this plan with very good intentions but I am consistently hungry. I haven’t had any carbs and sugar just meat, fish, veg, nuts. Am I doing something wrong? I have never been a huge eater but I do eat little and often as I cannot eat big meals. Typically, without dieting, I would eat about 6 times a day but small meals. Is there something that I am missing? Am I supposed to be feeling full so that I don’t overeat? I need to lose 20kgs. Thanks!!

Hi,
My experience is that it would be wise to check the amount of carbs in each item you are eating. Lots of items that we think of as heathy especially different vegs have quite high levels of carbs. – If you use one of the apps / websites such as fat secret to enter each thing you eat you will find it easy to check up on the actual level of carbs in your diet. The key to loosing the desire to eat does appear to linked to getting the carbs level low, which then takes your body into the mode of burning fat rather than needing you to eat to provide fuel.
I would never have expected to be comfortable not having breakfast, but after a couple of months of a target of 20g of carbs a day I have naturally changed over to only having one meal a day.
I would suggest trying to change your little multiple meals each day so that they are very low carb. – Maybe scrambled eggs, or just a large glass of soda water with some lime or lemon. – It may be that the amount of carbs you are having in each meal is enough to prevent your body from getting into fat burning mode.

Hi JGwen, that’s amazing that you are only having one meal a day, I want to strive to have one meal a day too! Thank you for highlighting that it is probably the carbs in the foods that I am eating that is preventing my body from going into fat burning mode. I have not thought about that. Are there any other apps, etc that i can use to check the level of carbs in foods? Also, I am really struggling to find family friendly recipes that I can eat that does not mean that I have to cook twice for my two young children who are eating a normal diet. My older son is severely underweight and needs to put on weight! what irony! Thanks!

Hi tomatoplant, and welcome! These forums are rich with experience, knowledge and
support, so I hope that by posting often we can all help you over the rough spots 🙂
You didn’t mention how many days/weeks that you are into this way of eating. One of
secrets to managing hunger is to include some healthy fats with each meal. If you
can handle 2 1/2 – 3 liters of water, that will also help. Are you weighing and measuring
everything and counting carbs and calories? With everything there is to learn at the
start, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that this is a low carb, moderate protein, higher
fat style of eating. I’ve been very successful at this way of life for @ 20 months and
would be very happy to make more specific suggestions tailored to how you are going
about things, but need just a bit more information 🙂

Best of luck,

Allie

Hi Allie, yes, sorry, I am very, very new and still finding my way around. I am on day 5 but sadly, I am slipping terribly as I was so hungry, I couldn’t think and was getting depressed and grumpy. I know it to be expected but I want to enjoy living and dieting and losing weight and not feel miserable! I have had a slice of sourdough bread on day 3 and brown rice yesterday. Sorry!! I know I am being bad and I feel guilty for eating what I shouldn’t be eating so I have resorted to help for you seasoned guys! I drink lots of water about 6-8 litres a day and I have switched to pinhead porridge in the morning for breakfast. I am not weighing and measuring as I don’t what to do! Thanks for all of your support and suggestions in advance!

Hi again, tomato plant – PLEASE don’t feel that you ever need to apologize 🙂 At 5 days in,
it’s early days for you, and everyone has a learning curve when attempting to master a
new way of eating! We don’t call it a “diet” around here, but a new way of life (WOE). There
are several apps, fatsecret is just one of them, that will give you a breakdown and total
for the day. Once you get into the habit of weighing and measuring, then recording, it
all becomes second nature. It’s extremely important to set a benchmark for the number
of carbs consumed until you find a level that gives you the results you are looking for.
I’m highly insulin resistant (not pre-diabetic of T2D) so for me, <20g was the magic
number. Others begin at 50g, then adjust downward if necessary. I wouldn’t recommend
eating once a day. It’s not the norm for those just starting out, and most do well on
2-3 meals a day, trying to accomplish it within an eating window of 6-8 hours. When
your body switches from burning carbs to burning fat for fuel, the rapacious hunger
will go away, and you’re likely to have energy to burn. Allowing porridge or bread into
your diet will work at cross purposes to reaching this state of ketosis though. I’m sorry!
Vegetables that grow below ground harbor tons of carbs, too. Keep posting. There is
a large community of successful maintainers here, and there is nothing we enjoy more
than talking about the BSD. I hope that you will be posting successes very soon….and
call on me anytime. I’m always out and about! So are many friends also, and we work
together, sharing the word 🙂

Allie

Hi tomatoplant.
I use fatsecret, which has both a website and app. I think the other one people talk about is myfitness but hopefully someone else can leap in here.

Because I am a vegetarian I was eating a very carb high – low cal diet for decades which meant that I was always struggling to understand why I was so over weight but most days ate less cals than the books say I should have needed. Understanding the impact that carbs have on your appetite and the mechanism to switch over to burning fat has been a revelation. – I have been on this way of eating since mid October and so far have lost just under 30kg. (66lbs) dramatically changed my eating patterns but feel more energetic than I did before.

For me, changing to regular, small, low carb meals was a stage I went through to get to the point where I could recognise the difference between hunger and cravings for carbs and the carb cravings were manageable. But I had to take myself to a target of 20g of carbs per day to get to that point.

Trying to cater for other people at the same time isn’t a problem I have, but I know that others on the list talk about making side dishes so they have the main course and a salad or veg and others in the family who need more cals in their meal have extra dishes.

thank you so much for your replies and I’m pleased to hear it’s a way of life not a diet as I do indeed hate dieting lol right, so, start weighing and measuring and recording. what should be a reasonable target of carbs to start?? you mentioned knowing the difference between hunger and craving. how do you know the difference?

The last question is a hard one to answer, tomato, because it’s such a subjective thing.
I don’t have children around to cater to, so it was rather easy to purge the house of
anything but BSD friendly food. I always have hardboiled eggs in the frig. for emergencies.
When I opened the door of the frig. when I just “wanted something”, I usually left the
eggs in there if I wasn’t truly hungry. That’s how I learned to distinguish between the two
concepts 🙂

Hi,
I would like to second Alliecats point that having one meal a day isn’t one of the targets of this way of eating. Its still a new WoE for me, and I had/still have a lot of fat to loose to get to a healthy shape. Because I work from home I have more flexibility than most on planning meal times, so I have taken the opportunity to get into the habit of listening to my body as to when I am hungry. But that’s my personal choice. I just thought it would be helpful to share the change to my appetite that came from changing carb intake to help you understand that reducing carbs could be the solution to your hunger.

JGwen, we never know who our experiences will resonate with here, so every journey is
well worth sharing, and is much appreciated 🙂 🙂 🙂 I hope that you understand that my
remarks weren’t intended as criticism of any kind, and that you haven’t taken them that
way.

Allie

thank you for the recommendation for the fat secret app!! I’ve recorded my snack! one celery stick and 20g cheddar cheese and I will feel full for now! lol but I now know how much carbs and calories I’m consuming. so, on to a good start again hopefully, thanks!!

Excellent, tomato!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Alliecat,

No, I didn’t take them as a criticism. Just different people sharing different experiences.

Hi Tomatoplant.

I agree with Alliecat that your questions are difficult to answer because there is no right or wrong answer, just our own experiences. I think most people start by cutting out all the obvious carbs, bread and rice etc, and look at where in their normal eating range that leaves them on number of carbs per day. Often I see two stands of advice on the list, the first is to aim for 50g a day and if the weight loss doesn’t occur with that figure then start dropping the numbers down. Others report that because of Insulin Resistance they have to aim for 20g of carbs a day to loose weight. I spent time lurking on the forms reading all I could of advice to others and following links, and started off with the 50g target, but then brought it down as I saw the benefits to me of being lower.

The differences between hunger and carb cravings for me. = With one my stomach is telling me that its empty, with the other my head is telling me that I fancy eating something.

Hope that helps.

Very relieved to hear that, JGwen 🙂 I’m always fascinated to read your very unique take on
things, always a pleasure. Utterly fascinated to come across your faulty electrical grounding
story, as well as the information on Reiki. So generous of you to offer a “distance session”,
too!