Hi. I am on my second day of BSD and finding it easier than anticipated (early days, I know). The thing I am struggling with is getting my carbs low enough. Am I right in thinking that I should be aiming to have below 50g of carbs per day? I am using my fitness pal to show calories and carbs. I have no difficulty keeping my calories below 800 but my carbs are above 50g. I’m veggie and eating mushrooms, beetroot, carrots etc and having eggs, cottage cheese, feta and nuts for protein. I’d be grateful for any advice. Thanks.

I think most on here aim for 50g or lower – some people sustain under 20g or under 30g – if you use the search box, I think there is guidance somewhere that states the amount of carbs is up to the individual, rather than being a set figure.

I aim for less than 50g – but I have noticed that it’s days when I don’t eat meat or fish that my carbs are likely to be highest – so you may find it harder to go very low carb following a vegetarian diet. I did read somewhere that any diet with under 100g of carb is ‘low carb’ – but of course if you’ve already moved away from regular RDIs by reducing to 800 calories then other things should shift in line with that.

I’d suggest continue using my fitness pal to log all of your food, and then when you have a weeks data, reviewing to see where you could further reduce carbs if you feel you need to. If you are losing weight /reducing blood sugar levels with slightly higher carbs than 50g, maybe you don’t need to.
The other thing to do is to search for existing threads on vegetarian diets & read through those – you may find existing discussions around the topic that will be useful.

I’ve been on the diet for 9 weeks and have not counted carbs just followed the menu plans and recipes. The last couple of days I have been adding up the carbs and find that some things are higher than you would think. Who would have thought there would be so much carb in a courgette. For me the main thing is these are good carbs so if I average around 50 or 60 it is not a worry but sometimes it pays to calculate before you eat just in case something is a surprise. Thing is I have only had 550 calories for the day so will have to find something else to eat but with zero carbs to keep me on track.

sunshine-girl

very very low carbs, but good re protein/fat/calories???

CHEESE!!!

Well, it’s my go-to. And I enjoy it too. 🙂

Added- but why are you finding so many carbs in a courgette?

I have 150g (which I think is plenty for me) cut into chunks and seared in a dry pan till it’s browned and succulent and according to MFP that’s 27 calories and 3 carbs. I’ve been doing 20-30g of carbs a day and can manage that within my total.

Where else are you spending your carb grams?

I will list todays food
Breakfast, melon (1/6th of a galia melon) 7 carbs, 50 g blueberries 7 carbs, handful spinach 1 carb, 200 ml almond milk 7 carbs = 22 carbs 133 calories
Lunch 1 cup sliced courgette 7 carbs chicken breast 0 carbs half a peach 9 carbs plain yog 1 carb = 17 carbs 175 calories
Dinner 4oz tenderloin pork 0 carbs, 1/2 med carrot 3 carbs, half onion 5 carbs, 1/2 cup of courgette 4 carbs, beans sprouts 2 carbs = 14 carbs 280 calories (ginger pork stir fry) – the recipe says I can have 2 tbsp brown rice for a further 70 calories but that would take me way over on carbs so I prefer to do without or have cauli rice which I have not counted here. (Okay I now put c rice on counter and it is only 13 calories and 3 carbs so I am still light on calories) (okay so brown rice gives me a further 6 carbs and 28 calories).
Total 53 carbs which is perfect but only 588 calories. What I was saying is that if I want to find more calories I have to watch how many carbs are in, or in fact looking for zero carbs. So, in conclusion, what I am saying is that it is a complicated business getting the balance between carbs and calories right. Also, less carbs in brown rice than in my serving of courgette (just).

The easiest way of gaining calories and no or very little carbs is to increase meat portions and/or add in some cheese and/or oil. Remember that fat is a friend on this diet. Also remember you don’t have to use your full calorie allowance everyday – tomorrow you might want a few extra for a meal out, or a cheek glass of wine and might register a calorie intake up around the 1000. We are in this for the long haul, so don’t expect to score exactly 800cals everyday, as it will balance out in the long term.

Thanks Sunny, it is not every day I would have melon and then peach and I know how it all works, just saying it is a bit of a balancing act. After dinner I will have a 10g square of v dark chocolate so I am now up to 648 calories and only added 1 carb. Guess it will be a slice of ham before bed.

Going to have a boiled egg, 0 carbs yipee (I forgot to buy cheese)

It’s one of the amazing things about this diet. Yesterday for lunch I had a two-egg omelette with 20 g of cheddar, cooked in 10 g of butter. Not your average diet food and absolutely delicious with a huge pile of salad. I came in at under 800 calories for the day. If you’ve got plenty of room to spare in your calories, you might consider a full-fat plain or even a Greek yoghurt. A guilt-free creamy treat.

Thank you all, plenty to think about especially the foods I have usually considered forbidden. Don’t get me wrong, I have been doing this for 9 weeks, have lost weight and most important got my b/g dooooown but somewhere in the back of my brain I am conditioned to think eggs bad, meat bad, cheese bad and yet these are the things I love about this diet. Need to reprogramme my brain but still don’t like too much meat meat, prefer some tuna with cream cheese or a bit of chicken. Thanks again it has got this thinking outside my comfort zone. Going for a swim now, which is why I needed some calories, scrambled an egg with butter in about 30 seconds flat.

Thanks for all the replies. Plenty of food for thought, if you will pardon the pun. I don’t think I’m eating anything high in cards but peppers, beetroot, aubergine… it all adds up pretty quickly. I am happy to eat plenty of cheese but the diet does say cheese in moderation. I’m sure I’ll get into the swing of it.

Sorry rbbadger, seems your question got swallowed up (pun intended) in the discussion, hope our little debates proved helpful to you, I still don’t like too much cheese and would stick to a 30g portion 2 or 3 times a week but it is probably because I had an intolerance of all things dairy and eggs for about 2 years, got over it but still think twice. Now I come to think of it, I haven’t had a bad stomach (the D word) since starting this diet.

Hi rbbbadger

I found these visuals presentations of carbs in veg useful – I have colour printouts of them on the kitchen wall now (thare’s also a fruit one)
http://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/vegetables

Don’t know if it helps but as I’m a great fan of onions, both white and red, and they are rather full of carbs, I have been having great success with chopping just one or two spring onions into my food instead. I’ve found them surprisingly oniony for their size/carb count!

I don’t eat meat, but I do eat fish, so that helps with the protein (and a bit with total calories, though not as much as meat would do). My 8 weeks was 20g of carbs, and even now on maintenance I am achieving 30g per day.

You can do a lot with eggs, as Snoop says, and a lovely veg frittata with some feta cheese on the top should give you a good protein hit.

I also found 20g of spinach (a small handful, enough to cover a dinner plate) was a surprisingly filling base for most things, even my fried breakfast eggs.

But in general I’ve found that relatively small quantities of veg, topped up by much larger salads of baby gem lettuce, are quite filling.

Good luck! 🙂

That’s a handy visual presentation, Frog. Thanks.

rbbadger, there’s also the option of looking at generalist dieting sites for info on food values. I have an account on fatsecret.co.uk. You can enter what you’ve eaten or propose to eat and get a breakdown of calories, fat, carbs, protein and more. Someone on another thread here recommended it. I’ve found it quite useful for logging food and exercise. You can also start a journal there. They don’t seem to know anything about the Blood Sugar Diet, so it’s good to come here for support. But you might find it useful for tracking carbs.

My go-to on any diet/healthy lifestyle change is to reduce processed food and greatly increase vegetables (ie from almost none). But on this plan that means I am generally eating over 60g of carb – from veges, a little fruit, and yoghurt. More meat/cheese would be too many calories and more fat than I’m already having makes me queasy (but I have plenty). So I’ve decided that my average of 60-65 gram of carb is fine, it’s all from good food, vegetables are very healthy and contain all sorts of good things my body needs. I’ll revise that thinking if I stop losing weight.

Getting better at carb counting, only had 9 today so well within 50. Dinner gives me 30 but that is because it has butternut squash, still under the 50. Only 350 calories, so again looking for something to eat later. I have some ham left from lunch and will make a dip of tuna and cream cheese plus my usual 10g of v dark chocolate. Total 45 carbs.

well done, sunshine-girl! Planning is everything, isn’t it.

I bought some butternut squash today under the mistaken impression it was relatively low-carb. Wrong.

So have already warned OH that he will be having a tiny taster of it, otherwise my life will be hell as he puts his carb count into MFP this evening……

😉

Hello!
I’m on day 6 of the diet and have been sticking to the daily/weekly plans in the Blood Sugar Diet book. I know it’s early days but I’m not anticipating having dropped a huge amount of weight after the first week and my clothes don’t really feel any looser. I’ve seen so many posts saying that you need to keep carbs down but surely if I’m following the plans I should be doing it right, no? I’ve started using MyFitnessPal but as other people have pointed out the calories seem to be wildly different to those in the book. I could be getting more exercise and I need to address that. I just feel slightly frustrated/worried that I might not be doing this right. On the plus side though I’ve eaten more healthily in the last 6 days than I have in years – no duvets of Wotsits or bags of Maltesers the size of my head! – so that has to be a step in the right direction in itself 🙂

Hi Morti, I am one of the people who uses the menu plans and the recipes from the book. I have not counted the carbs on each day but I have counted the calories, especially if I started swapping things around due to not liking some things or not having something available, despite my methodical planning. I have not lost masses of weight but put that down to the fact I take insulin which makes your body hang on to weight. Despite that I have found this method successful and my testing b/g each morning went from 190 to 132 in one week and further reduce to below 100 since then (9 weeks in and still low). When I reached week 6, and still just using the book as my guide, it was time for me diabetic check up with full blood tests. My HBA1c was down from 8.2 to 6.7, my cholesterol and triglycerides were down as was my blood pressure. I have just this week started doing the calculations myself and made one or two mistakes in getting the balance right but all in all, if you are following the low carbs in the menus you should be okay.

You don’t say if you are diabetic but sounds like you want to lose weight. Tomorrow will be the end of week 1 for you, are you going to get weighed. You will probably be surprised, but you should be aware that in the early stages of the diet not looking any different can be because the fat you lose is around the pancreas, liver and other internal organs. Also try taking your measurements as a different indication of how you are doing. Hope to hear from you soon.

Hi sunshine-girl
Thanks very much for your message. I’ve had trouble with my internet for a couple of days, but today is weigh-in day, so…. I’ve lost 7lbs which I’m delighted with. Just half an inch off my waist but 2.5 off my chest (typical!). No other inch loss but hopefully that will come. I’m doing it to lose weight but supporting my husband who has diabetes. I feel great within myself so definitely sticking to this as a lifestyle. Great results on your tests. Hope
It keeps going in the right direction.

Morti, 7lbs , wow that is great. I have lost 10 lbs in 10 week but still very happy as I have never been able to lose anything before. Keep on keeping on (and taking off).

You too!