Is anyone else on the LOW CARB diet??

[Sunshine0801]

I am and I am getting very, very bored and frustrated with my meals.

The diet is great insofar as weight loss is concerned, but I was just so surprised at the types of food that I can't eat. Oranges, bananas, oatmeal, whole wheat bread, bran cereals, brown rice... I mean, so many foods that I always thought were healthy are not pretty much off limits, at least during certain parts of the day.

Is anyone else on the low carb diet? If so, what do you eat for breakfast and lunch? I pretty much have the dinners down...some type of meat (chicken, fish, or steak) and vegetables. Sometimes I spice things up with a salad. :rolleyes: LOL. Yes, that is sarcasm. I want some tasty foods to eat while on this diet!!!

Anyone else in a similar position??

[Sunshine0801]

bumpity bump bump bump... :grin:

[gone_fishing]

Well...first of all, I was on the diet. Now, for me it's more of a lifestyle. But, I'm going to try to help you out. :)

Here are some low carb recipes...you can browse them and see what you like...

http://www.atkins.com/recipes

Also, here's a very detailed list of how many carbs are in each food.

http://www.atkins.com/carb-counter

I printed it out and left it in my kitchen.

These tools are great even if you aren't doing atkins specifically.

[tocktick]

i posted in the other thread and so did someone else. i guess it just got deleted :perplexed. i typed up a lot of advice and meal ideas but i'll just post a brief version here.

low carb can be hard but it does work. i carb cycle, which means i eat mainly low carb then have one high carb day and then a moderate carb day. the weight has been melting off pretty much daily since i started a week ago. i'm into month two of my programme so it's not like this is that early stage where you lose tons. in that stage i was eating too many carbs and not losing much. i scaled back my exercise from 2hrs 6x per week to 1hr maximum 4x per week, yet the scale is reporting a loss and so is tape measure (2 1/2 inches off waist alone) after my first time cycling. i thought being 5'1" and only "somewhat" :rolleyes: overweight, the loss would be slow.

as for meals, spice up protein like salmon, chicken etc and try out new ways to cook veggies like oven roasting them. if you plan well you can have your banana/rice etc but you'll have to stick of salads, low carb veggies, good fats and a good amount of protein for your other meals. planning is essential. protein is key for me in not being hungry on my low carb days (about 90-97g carbs on those days...181g on high days).

stick with it and you will see results. maybe even try carb cycling if you really crave some of the high carb stuff. it will boost your metabolism and speed up weight loss so there's nothing to lose (but fat, of course).

[la929]

I low carb as it is the only way I have found that actually works...here is a site that I use for low carb recipes made with everyday items.

http://www.genaw.com/lowcarb/


she has menus and recipes with pic's, she also has the recipes * for induction recipes...she provides nutritional information also...I love this site, and it keeps my menus interesting...check it out

she also provides blank menu calendars so that you can plug in what you plan to eat the day and plan ahead.

[Sunshine0801]

Well...first of all, I was on the diet. Now, for me it's more of a lifestyle. But, I'm going to try to help you out. :)

Here are some low carb recipes...you can browse them and see what you like...

http://www.atkins.com/recipes

Also, here's a very detailed list of how many carbs are in each food.

http://www.atkins.com/carb-counter

I printed it out and left it in my kitchen.

These tools are great even if you aren't doing atkins specifically.

Awesome! Thanks!

[Sunshine0801]

i posted in the other thread and so did someone else. i guess it just got deleted :perplexed. i typed up a lot of advice and meal ideas but i'll just post a brief version here.

low carb can be hard but it does work. i carb cycle, which means i eat mainly low carb then have one high carb day and then a moderate carb day. the weight has been melting off pretty much daily since i started a week ago. i'm into month two of my programme so it's not like this is that early stage where you lose tons. in that stage i was eating too many carbs and not losing much. i scaled back my exercise from 2hrs 6x per week to 1hr maximum 4x per week, yet the scale is reporting a loss and so is tape measure (2 1/2 inches off waist alone) after my first time cycling. i thought being 5'1" and only "somewhat" :rolleyes: overweight, the loss would be slow.

as for meals, spice up protein like salmon, chicken etc and try out new ways to cook veggies like oven roasting them. if you plan well you can have your banana/rice etc but you'll have to stick of salads, low carb veggies, good fats and a good amount of protein for your other meals. planning is essential. protein is key for me in not being hungry on my low carb days (about 90-97g carbs on those days...181g on high days).

stick with it and you will see results. maybe even try carb cycling if you really crave some of the high carb stuff. it will boost your metabolism and speed up weight loss so there's nothing to lose (but fat, of course).

Awww man! I'm so sorry to hear that you (and someone else) posted in the other thread. My computer was acting up and I was having trouble loading the thread - I didn't realize it loaded multiple threads. Sorry about that. I'm so glad you posted again though!

Yeah, at first I was semi-watching my carbs, and was mainly not eating bread, but I was still eating oatmeal, fruits, and bran cereals. I was losing weight at a steady pace, but then wanted to kick it up a notch and try the low carb thing in addition to my regular exercise routine (5x a week, interval cardio + weight training). Since I've started it, the weight has steadily been coming off, but I've also noticed that my energy level has also dropped SIGNIFICANTLY in my workouts since I've been on the strict low carb diet.

Did you scale back on your workouts because the low carb diet affected how much energy you had during your workouts?

[Sunshine0801]

I low carb as it is the only way I have found that actually works...here is a site that I use for low carb recipes made with everyday items.

http://www.genaw.com/lowcarb/


she has menus and recipes with pic's, she also has the recipes * for induction recipes...she provides nutritional information also...I love this site, and it keeps my menus interesting...check it out

she also provides blank menu calendars so that you can plug in what you plan to eat the day and plan ahead.

That's super helpful. Thanks for the link! :grin:

[tocktick]

.
Did you scale back on your workouts because the low carb diet affected how much energy you had during your workouts?

actually, i didn't. to be honest, i didn't know at the time that going low-carb would affect my workout. i scaled back because i realised i was over-exercising.

additionally, i became convinced it was actually stalling my weight loss. in 4 weeks i had lost about 1lb. then i decided to stop all exercise and eat around 2, 000-ish calories a day for three days. i dropped 1.8lbs doing that. i immediately started carb-cycling after that and dropped 2.2lbs in 7 days (relatively quick but still healthy, imo). that's more than double what i had managed to lose when i was eating just high carb and killing myself with exercise for 4 weeks. i've lost inches too so i know a good amount of that is fat.

on my low-carb days i try to do the lower-intensity workouts like slim in 6 or P90X. on my moderate and high carb days i do high intensity interval training (jumping rope).

do you exercise pre-breakfast? it may be worthwhile having something that contains a good carb content before you workout so you don't feel so tired.

or maybe you could carb cycle? you pretty much get the low-carb benefits but it's generally safer, your workouts wont suffer if you do your highest intensity stuff on high/moderate carb days, your metabolism runs more effectively, your body won't get used to the same carb total everyday and as a bonus you'll still be losing weight well also.

i've seen strict low-carbers have success eating something like 20-30g carbs on their low days and 60-80 on their high days. see this thread (http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=199958) at the low-carber forum. btw, people there say they gain weight on their high carb days but this isn't required nor an unavoidable outcome because i actually lose weight on these days. imo, they just have their high carb days longer than needed (e.g for 6+ days). i have 3 low carb days in a row, then only 1 high carb day, then two low carb days and then a moderate carb day etc.

if you want more info, let me know and i'll pm you an extract from the e-book that i have explaining all this much better. hth!

[Sunshine0801]

actually, i didn't. to be honest, i didn't know at the time that going low-carb would affect my workout. i scaled back because i realised i was over-exercising.

additionally, i became convinced it was actually stalling my weight loss. in 4 weeks i had lost about 1lb. then i decided to stop all exercise and eat around 2, 000-ish calories a day for three days. i dropped 1.8lbs doing that. i immediately started carb-cycling after that and dropped 2.2lbs in 7 days (relatively quick but still healthy, imo). that's more than double what i had managed to lose when i was eating just high carb and killing myself with exercise for 4 weeks. i've lost inches too so i know a good amount of that is fat.

on my low-carb days i try to do the lower-intensity workouts like slim in 6 or P90X. on my moderate and high carb days i do high intensity interval training (jumping rope).

do you exercise pre-breakfast? it may be worthwhile having something that contains a good carb content before you workout so you don't feel so tired.

or maybe you could carb cycle? you pretty much get the low-carb benefits but it's generally safer, your workouts wont suffer if you do your highest intensity stuff on high/moderate carb days, your metabolism runs more effectively, your body won't get used to the same carb total everyday and as a bonus you'll still be losing weight well also.

i've seen strict low-carbers have success eating something like 20-30g carbs on their low days and 60-80 on their high days. see this thread (http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=199958) at the low-carber forum. btw, people there say they gain weight on their high carb days but this isn't required nor an unavoidable outcome because i actually lose weight on these days. imo, they just have their high carb days longer than needed (e.g for 6+ days). i have 3 low carb days in a row, then only 1 high carb day, then two low carb days and then a moderate carb day etc.

if you want more info, let me know and i'll pm you an extract from the e-book that i have explaining all this much better. hth!

Interesting. Hmmm, yes I think I may have to resort to doing the carb cycle. All of my workouts are currently high intensity (intervals on the treadmill) but recently I just couldn't do it and had to do circuit training with weights instead because my energy just wasn't there.

No, I normally don't work out before breakfast, but I sometimes do and on those days I think I may have to throw in a little bit of carbs to boost my energy.

A part of me wonders if I need to be so strict with my carb intake at all. I mean, I'm curious as to what would happen if I was on a moderate carb diet continuously. Have you tried that by any chance? The reason I'm curious is because I haven't been doing the strict carb diet for a very long time (maybe a couple of weeks), and I've steadily lost 11 lbs in the past four weeks. So it's hard to say if its the strict low carb diet that's doing it or whether I was fine before with the moderate carb diet and high interval workouts (that kick my butt btw, lol).

But yeah, something has got to change because I have never felt as exhausted during my workouts as I have in the past few days.

[tocktick]

Interesting. Hmmm, yes I think I may have to resort to doing the carb cycle. All of my workouts are currently high intensity (intervals on the treadmill) but recently I just couldn't do it and had to do circuit training with weights instead because my energy just wasn't there.

No, I normally don't work out before breakfast, but I sometimes do and on those days I think I may have to throw in a little bit of carbs to boost my energy.

A part of me wonders if I need to be so strict with my carb intake at all. I mean, I'm curious as to what would happen if I was on a moderate carb diet continuously. Have you tried that by any chance? The reason I'm curious is because I haven't been doing the strict carb diet for a very long time (maybe a couple of weeks), and I've steadily lost 11 lbs in the past four weeks. So it's hard to say if its the strict low carb diet that's doing it or whether I was fine before with the moderate carb diet and high interval workouts (that kick my butt btw, lol).

But yeah, something has got to change because I have never felt as exhausted during my workouts as I have in the past few days.

i've never done a truly moderate carb diet. earlier this year i lost roughly 10lbs in about 8 weeks and my carb intake would be around 155g-220g. i was never tracking my carb intake; i was only concerned with eating 120g+ of protein. however, i don't think my body can handle a huge amount of carbs because i either get sleep or bloated by them. i think i was only able to lose that time because i did a huge volume of exercise 6x per week. i did it again in november/early dec and it wasn't helpful because whilst i did a lot of exercise, it wasn't as much as i used to do.

in your own case, i'll say: "if it's not broken, don't fix it," that is to say that it seems your way of eating worked for you before. it is very hard sometimes to find a plan that you can live with that gives you results and is healthy for you.

it doesn't seem like eating low-carb all the time is beneficial to you all the time if you feel it's hurting your workouts, making you tired and ultimately making you dissatisfied with what you're doing. when you're unhappy like this it's all the more tempting to go back to your old ways. imo, you should go back to what you were originally doing. then you'll be able to lose weight due to your diet plus speed up the changes now that you'll be able to workout to the best of your abilities.

if you find that once you're back to how you were eating before that your weight loss slows then try carb-cycling. your calorie intake will never be as low as those who do atkins etc - they may be around 80-100g on a low day and 180-220g on a high day but you'll still get the fat-loss benefits of being strictly low-carb without feeling deprived or miserable. it takes planning but if i want rice on a low day, i can have it. i can even have a banana too. atkin et al keeps you at around 30g of carbs which is pretty much one banana and some change and if you're very active then it's not good at all. cc is technique favoured by body-builders to lose fat and i tend to think with their low body-fat % no one really knows how to do that better than them; so if it works for those guys & girls, i think it will work for the "average" person.

[tocktick]

here is an extract from the e-book i have: burn the fat, feed the muscle (http://burnthefat.com) explaining carb cycling:


Regardless of what you name it, carbohydrate cycling is probably the most
powerful fat burning strategy on the planet. Nothing else even comes close. It is the ONLY guaranteed way to outwit the body’s starvation response when calories and carbohydrates are low. Not only do you avoid a negative response, but you also invoke many positive responses that do not occur when holding your carbohydrates and calories at the same low level day in and day out. That’s the main problem with conventional low
carbohydrate diets – they suggest that you drop your carbohydrates and keep them low. What I am suggesting is that you drop your carbohydrates for a few days, then increase them again before your body figures out what the heck is going on!

Carbohydrate cycling has been a well-kept secret of bodybuilders and fitness models for decades, but anyone can use it to accelerate fat loss or break a plateau. The beauty of this method is that it allows you to get all the fat loss benefits of low carbohydrate dieting without the low carbohydrate side effects. Most important, it keeps your metabolism elevated and prevents you from going into starvation mode.



Carbohydrate cycling is based on the concept of rotating low carbohydrate days with high carbohydrate days instead of keeping carbohydrates low all the time. Every fourth day your glycogen levels are restored with a “carb load” or “high carb day” (also known as “high day”). Your energy stays up, your muscles fill out and tighten and your metabolic rate gets a boost as if you squirted lighter fluid on a dwindling fire

On average, women would consume about 90-130 grams of carbohydrates on low days and about 200 to 250 grams of carbohydrates on high days.


there is a member here called jenny (http://public.fotki.com/jen2262/weightloss-maintain/) who credits that book in helping her lose weight. she lost about 39lbs (153lbs to 114lbs). as far as i'm aware she didn't carb-cycle but it shows the book isn't full of hot air, imo. it's completely changed the way i view "diets" and weight loss.

[Determined22]

here is an extract from the e-book i have: burn the fat, feed the muscle (http://burnthefat.com) explaining carb cycling:





there is a member here called jenny (http://public.fotki.com/jen2262/weightloss-maintain/) who credits that book in helping her lose weight. she lost about 39lbs (153lbs to 114lbs). as far as i'm aware she didn't carb-cycle but it shows the book isn't full of hot air, imo. it's completely changed the way i view "diets" and weight loss.

That book sounds really interesting...but $40? :ohwell: I just can't do it...

[tocktick]

That book sounds really interesting...but $40? :ohwell: I just can't do it...

you do get about 8 extra books with it, which are basically recipe guides, food lists, "secrets" to get hard abs etc. you also get membership into the online "members club" and the author sends emails quite regularly about success stories, how they did it etc which can be motivating. for someone who needs some kind of guidance yet is not willing or doesn't have the funds for something like jenny craig, weight watchers etc then it's a very good resource. a lot of people have had success with it and it's helped me come out of stalls before. in a nutshell, what i'm learnt about nutrition and fitness from that book is invaluable to me. out of all the "unnecessary" purchases i've acquired since i've been a broke as heck student, this is one i definitely do not regret.

[STLCoverGirl]

I am "watching my carbs". I am taking Metformin for PCOS and if I eat too many carbs while taking it, the side effects are killer. In the past the only way I could really lose any weight was to do some form of low carb dieting. With this medication I don't have to be as strict with the carbs, so that's a plus.

[Sunshine0801]

here is an extract from the e-book i have: burn the fat, feed the muscle (http://burnthefat.com) explaining carb cycling:





there is a member here called jenny (http://public.fotki.com/jen2262/weightloss-maintain/) who credits that book in helping her lose weight. she lost about 39lbs (153lbs to 114lbs). as far as i'm aware she didn't carb-cycle but it shows the book isn't full of hot air, imo. it's completely changed the way i view "diets" and weight loss.

WOW. That's really interesting. My SO first turned me on to eating low carb, and lately I've been telling him that I always feel like I'm still hungry and my workouts are getting more difficult because my energy just isn't there. Reading those excerpts really confirms what my body has been trying to tell me - that I need to increase my carb intake, at least some time during the week.

Thanks so much for posting that information and the link to that book! My SO and I are now both looking into carb cycling as opposed to a strict low carb diet. :happydance:

[tocktick]

no problem! i hope it works for you :)

[paco43]

I used to do low carb style eating and I was able to get alot of answers and support from this forum. HTH.

http://forum.lowcarber.org/