I’m really struggling with this. I think I am insulin resistant and had a three week plateau that then ended when I started eating below 50g carbs a day.
However I’m finding this increasingly hard to know what meals to have, eggs for lunch and meat/fish for dinner but by the time I have added veg and a square of dark chocolate I’m going over the 50g a day!
I would really appreciate any advice on this subject please.

Could you be more specific i.e. what vegetables and in what proportions, you are serving yourself, peachcake? Details
of what you are consuming would really be helpful in accessing your problem. Having eggs, fish/chicken and above
ground vegetables really shouldn’t put you over much more than 20g of carbs a day. We would love to help, but
need a more complete picture 🙂

Allie

Okay lunch so a handful of leaves, cucumber, 4 cherry tomatoes, onion, half a pepper with fish or hard boiled eggs.

Dinner meat or fish, 5 asparagus tips, or half a broccoli spear, 3 handfuls of spinach.

200ml of milk.

Thank you

Hi peachcake4me,

I too am in the same boat as you..

I find that if I eat under 50g carbs, then I am no way near the calorie total of 800, usually dropping to 5-600 which is obviously not sustainable!

I would find it helpful if someone could post various examples of meals using every day ingredients that I could try.

Thanks in advance!

Lucy

Hi Peachcake, how are you calculating your carbs? My app (Samsung version of FatSecret) seems to suggest you’re only having about 23g carbs (plus chocolate) based on what you’ve shared.
Personally I eat yoghurt and berries for breakfast (which feels like a treat every day) an egg or cold meat salad for lunch and generally meat or fish with ratatouille or other veg for dinner. With a handful of nuts, this keeps me under 800kcal and 50g per day.
Hope you get to the bottom of your carbs challenge soon!
Cc

Hi Peachcake, I don’t know where you are but some countries and some apps show net carbs (total carbs-fibre) and some show the total carbs and list fibre separately so you have to deduct them to get the figure. I didn’t realise this when I first started (I am in Australia) and I despaired of getting carbs down. For example, 100g broccoli has total carbs of 7g and 2.6g fibre. Net carbs are 4.4g. Forgive me if you already knew this 🙂
Good luck!

Edited to add- I just looked up your sample menu above and though I had to estimate the quantities It looks like somewhere between 15-25 to me. Depending on your portion sizes.

I don’t know enough to advise on on this but just had a really delicious and quick to prepare lunch.
A can of tuna in water, chopped up cucumber, celery peppers a few spring onion leaves mixed with a teaspoon of mayonnaise and ate in on lettuce leaves like a wrap. About 300 kcal but only 8g carbs. It was a huge portion and really filling

Thank you to everyone that has taken the time and trouble to reply to my post, the suggestions and advice has been most helpful.

Thank you so much 😊

I have been on this diet for nearly 3 years (diabetic not dieting) and never really counted carbs until recently. Based on what I read in recipes and on tins etc I was eating around 50g carbs. I too felt that if I dropped lower I wasn’t getting enough calories. When I explained what I was eating to the good people here who do carb count I was actually nearer to 20 or 30g as I had been counting total carbs. When you get to do it right you will find you are probably having much less than you think.

Hello Sunshine-girl,

I’m a little confused now? Should the 50g of carbs not be total carbs then but some other measurement of carbs?

Many thanks,

Daniele

Can someone explain carb counting and the difference between total and counted. Call out to some of the people on this site who can explain this better than me.

And yes, if you look on the side of a tin you will see carbs (say) 17g, under that it will say what amount of that is fibre and the rest is sugars. So you could have 17g carbs, 10g fibre so your carb count is 7g. Not all app give carbs split like this so you have to find one that does. As I said, I have been counting wrong for 3 years but still being under 50g, turns out my 50 was in fact around 25g. Hopefully someone will give you the correct interpretation.

SG – you are absolutely correct and have explained it well. We count net carbs – which are total carbs minus the fibre.

That is really useful; thank you Daniele/Peachcake for asking the question I wanted to! I am looking forward to having that little bit extra – emphasis on little bit! – and still keeping to ard the 20g mark.

Sorry, just one query on this topic. I bought some Brussel sprouts (to try out a v tasty looking recipe I saw in the low carb section of the Café Delites site someone mentioned). The nutrition table on the pack says 100g has 4.1g carbs and 4.1g fibre – does that mean 0 carbs to count? Also says 3.5g protein which surprised me….

Hi kids! This subject is always a source of confusion, because the answer is different depending
on what country you are in. Here’s a link to explain how to arrive at net carbs in the UK.

https://uk.atkins.com/blog/carb-counting-in-the-uk/

I missed your question, sixturkeys. No, it wouldn’t be zero carbs. All veg. have carbs. I don’t use
grams, but these are my figures for 1 c. cooked brussel spouts: Net carbs 7, Prot. 4, Cal. 38

Thanks Allie – that is what I thought re 0 carbs. I shall draft a stroppy email to my supermarket complaining about misleading information on their packaging! I am a bit confused now though as the link you posted says that you don’t subtract the fibre from the carbs; bang goes my little bit extra! Why there would be national differences in basic nutrition info is beyond me…..

I know sixturkeys.. It makes my brain hurt! My understanding of all this is that in the US, fiber is included in “Total
Carbs”, so the fiber needs to be subtracted out to arrive at “net carbs”. In the UK, this has already been done. If
I wasn’t confident in this answer, I’d never post it, but I’m certain that the portion size for your brussel sprouts recipe is about
the equiv. of a 3/4 portion for me, so the 4.1 figure for carbs makes perfect sense to me. Enjoy your recipe!

One other thought, sixturkeys, about the discrepancies in values from one app site to another…I think there must be
some latitude given for how our veg. are cut. One important tidbit of info that I came across early on was to stick
with one app as there is consistency in doing so. I don’t have a smartphone, so I used a notebook to break food down
by category, and then broke any item that I would conceivably eat by qty., net carbs, prot., and calories. Where
there’s a will, there is a way. I’m stubborn though…This might not be for everyone 🙂

Allie, I am like you – no smartphone so no apps! I do however have a notebook and pencil….I have jotted down cals and carbs – without deducting fibre…all hopes now dashed there…:(. I should also look at protein in veg. I don’t keep a consistent record of daily totals though.

The protein in certain vegetables was a surprise to me, too. We eat a lot of the cruciferous type, i.e. broccoli, b. sprouts,
cauliflower and cabbage, as well as steamed leaf spinach, for that reason. If I’m a little low on protein in terms of
chicken or fish, or an occasional serving of roast pork tenderloin or grassfed beef, the extra from vegetables makes
up the difference. Needless to say, all of this was a revelation to me in june 2016 when I started down this road!
I knew that it had to be for life, and the rewards have been extraordinary. Where are you in terms of turkeys discarded?
Very creative, I must say! 🙂