Hi everyone I shall try to be brief. Vegan for 23 years, have had success in the past following a whole foods, plant-based diet (with no added oils). Due to lifestyle issues I am looking for a rapid loss of around 28lb. I have lost 10-11KGs in a few months bit have stalled.

If I did the BSD I would eat pulses and vegetables (and eat once a day only, I prefer eating once a day whether I am following a plan or not). MY carb intake each day would be 86g to 93g (around 388cal worth) depending on the combinations of veg and pulses I eat.

Now, to the WFBP person this is ultra low carb. And I thought that I would benefit weightloss-wise from eating just 800cal a day, even if it is higher in carbs than the diet others eat.

Having read these forums I am not so sure. I get the impression that I will be caught between the BSD and WFBP stools, following a bit of each, but not lose much as a result.

So, my question is this: is it worth me doing the BSD if my carbs will be around the above levels each day?

Hi Lightswitch,

Welcome to the forum. – I am a life long vegetarian who has been following a Low Carb diet since October 2017. -I presume you are used to spending time researching diet, but if I have the tone of this reply wrong please let me know and ask any questions.
I have always eaten a low calorie diet, and have not eaten meat from as early an age as I can remember because I have a strong reaction to meat fat. I have always struggled with my weight, it has been a revelation to me the science behind the links between carbs, blood sugar, insulin and accessibility of stored fat. – On these forums there seems to be a mixture of people who need to loose a relatively small amount of weight (around a stone) and those who want to target health problems or who have a lot of weight to loose. For the latter group “normal” low carb level is around the 50g carbs spread over the course of the day, and some find that to be effective on weight loss they need to aim for around 20g of carbs per day. This is taking it beyond the figures in the BSD book, but is based on practical experience of people who are in maintenance having lost substantial amounts of weight. There are many members of the forum who enjoy learning about advances in science in this area and sharing the information on how they put them into practice with other forum members.

I would recommend having a browse through the Take a look at this thread on the forum for links to useful podcasts. Jason Fung podcasts are particularly useful in understanding how raised insulin levels prevent the body in accessing stored fat, and importantly how if you have a high carb/low calorie diet your body adapts to become more efficient so you need less calories to maintain that weight, while if you have low carb and calorie restricted diet your body does not adapt to the calorie reduction.
There is also a link to a video by Dr Bikman I posted about a month ago on that thread that I think helps with the science particularly regarding protein levels. I realise that one of the reasons for none meat eaters having higher carb levels than meat eaters is the concern about maintaining protein levels and therefore the mixture of pulses in the diet. – However, the current research into Autophagy suggests that periods of very low protein intake are positive for the body. Autophagy is the process where the body breaks down old cells and reuse the components to create new cells. It appears that Autophagy occurs when protein intake is low, and as one of the benefits of autophagy is prevention of loose skin during rapid weight loss its a target a number of us have.
Is your focus on loosing weight or loosing fat? = The two are not necessarily the same. Increasing the ratio of muscle against fat will produce what people on the forum describe as None Scale Victories. (NSV) inch loss, increase in fitness, but no weight loss. – As a result of the video by Bikman I have been ‘experimenting’ on taking L-carnitine as a supplement. The main source of this trace element in our diet is meat, you can get lower levels from some foods most of which are off the menu if you are eating low car. L-carnitine helps to transport fat, particularly long-chain fatty acids, into the mitochondria of cells. Once there, they can be oxidized—used as fuel. My experience is that since starting this Way of Eating in mid October I have lost 6 st, however since taking L-carnitine I have continued to loose inches but my weight loss has dropped down to the rate of 1kg a month but my ability to maintain physical activity and body temps have increased.

Wow JGwen thanks for such a brilliantly illuminating reply, I really appreciate it.

As for whether I want to lose weight or fat, I should have been more specific: fat. I haven’t got loads of muscle by any means but have built a bit doing resistance exercises on and off the past year and would want to maintain most of it (though I would imagine on whichever fat loss diet some lean tissue will be lost, which is fine).

If I recall, Boots sell (or certainly did) L-carnitine as a supplement so I will keep an eye out.

So what is low carb for me is not low carb in the grand scheme. But will I still lose from the calorie deficit, albeit not as rapidly as someone who is under 50g and 20g of carbs?

I think I will give it a go. I shall continue trying to exercise as well. I know Dr Moseley recommends HIIT but I mist admit I prefer steady state cardio even if it is not as efficient. It’s easier for my motivation-wise and I like the calming effects of aerobic exercise.

Also, congratulations on a phenomenal loss of 6st in 9 months. You must look and feel like a different person!! Inspiring stuff. If I could lose 3 to get me down to 13st (at 5’11) I would be very happy.

Thanks again for sharing your experience and thoughts.

Will you loose weight staying around 90g of carbs a day. – The answer has to be ….. it depends.

The work of people like Jason Fung and Dr Bikman identify that if your carb intake is high enough to cause high insulin levels your body will not be able to draw on its fat stores for fuel. Instead the body will adapt to require less calories. How high is too high carbs or insulin levels, well that’s different for each individual. Its not one size fits all.

I bought my L-carnitine from Holland and Bennet. They had the 30 tablet bottles of 500g tablets on sale at half price. – But apparently the bottles containing more of the same size tablets were not on sale !

Personally I have aimed for around the 20g mark for carbs to achieve weight loss, but I realise this is easier if you have dairy products and eggs. – I am currently researching fasting mimicking diets, because I think that would be helpful to avoid loose skin, and for future maintenance.

Hello, lightswitch, and welcome to the community 🙂 Without knowing much about you, the best I can do is to generalize
about the BSD, and hope that it might help you to make a decision about whether or not this way of life might be of
help to you. There are other vegetarians here, and they have found ways to be very successful in lowering their carb
intake. Basically this is a low carb, moderate protein, high (healthy) fat lifestyle. A lot of us have researched low carb,
whole food based mediterranean diets, and the accepted definition of low carb is <50g of net carbs per day. The Fast800
is predicated upon calorie AND carb restriction, so limiting calories alone might be helpful in losing weight short term,
but the carb amounts per day that you are considering really couldn’t be called the BSD. I’m so sorry! 🙂

Allie

I’ve just lost my post while I checked if lightswitch is diabetic. Alliecat is right, there is no way you can keep to the low carb and 800 calories when eating the pulses, lentils etc you include in your diet. You could still do it by add some extra protein like meat, dairy, eggs etc but these are not allowed. Just researching and see tofu is a good source of protein and low in carbs and calories. This diet is hard to negotiate even for a non vegan so would make your life super difficult. However, I have seen posts by vegans and you could put it in the search engine to see what others are saying.

@ Alliecat – no, no need to apologise, your conclusion is pretty much what I was thinking and that I might be better sticking to WFPB (which is low fat). Because trying to do the BSD with that amount of carbs and (for me) high fat might make me put weight on or at least make it difficult to lose. (I believe that low fat, high complex carbs and high fat low carb can be routes to the same destination: like setting off flying Eastwards to get to Japan or setting off Westwards. One may be longer but still possible). I am thinking now of maybe 1000-1200 cals a day with WFBP, which would also enable me to exercise, aerobically, hard.

I am not a diabetic, no physical health issues Sunshine-Girl. Yes, meat, eggs, cheese would make it *much* easier.

JGwen – thanks again for your thoughts, it seems that I would be caught between WFPB and low-carb ‘stools’ if I did this WoE: not really conforming to the tenets of either one, pitched in the middle, with poor results.

I might actually try my own variation on the old-fashioned Rice Diet (I can imagine the looks of horror on your faces! :-D) eating wholegrain rice and veg. At the end of the day, I still think loss boils down to calories in and calories out, with how we choose to make-up those calories accelerating or slowing the loss down. I have lost before by adhering to the WFPB, but it is not as quickly as I would have hoped for at this time.

Thanks again for all the lovely replies, and best of luck to you all in continuing your paths of health improvement!