Hello. I am keto newbie. I am finding it difficult to stay under 20g net carb because of my heavy belief in greens and fresh food. I look at what I am eating with such very little greens worried about the way they add up and feel discouraged about the entire thing.
Anyone have any advice ? I don’t know what to think anymore.
Of course you can have greens and fresh food. The whole way of eating is all about fresh food.
Dr. Westman’s famous page 4 diet requires 2 cups of leafy green vegetables plus 1 cup of low-carb above ground vegetables per day.
This site has some great info:
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/keto/how-low-carb-is-keto
And this from the same site - showing you what 20g of carbs looks like:
I like my veggies too, so I eat them. My daily NCs usually sit at low 30 grams. Close enough for me.
Are you subtracting fiber to get net carbs? Because going over 20g net carbs with green veggies would require an obscene amount usually.
I would go so far as to say you can pretty much have an unlimited amount of spinach and lettuce per day, if you are going with NET carbs. You’d need 45 cups of raw spinach to hit 20g net carbs.
I find that I can easily get 2- 1 cup servings of vegetables per day, rather easily if I use my carbs wisely.
Just eat more of these:
Carb counts are provided as net carbs per 100 grams (3½ ounces) serving.
And try to avoid these:
Well, cronometer.com says 3.5 oz of cooked eggplant is 6.1 net carbs but 3.5 oz raw eggplant is 2.7 carbs… It’s still not terrible.
Nutritionix puts it at about 6g net carbs per 100g of raw eggplant. Which is about 1/6th of an entire eggplant.
That is a very generous amount of vegetables, potatoes and carrots can blow the budget, but greens would have to be boiled in sugar.
I try to have a big bunch of veggies and I add butter on top with meat of some sort, steak, fish, chicken. Perfect keto numbers. I eat until rather full.
Cronometer seems to be pretty conservative in the carb assignment department. I notice a lot of discrepancies between various sites but I rather stick with the conservative number just to be safe. 
I think it’s better than nothing. I find it useful to get a general idea of how many carbs you should stick to. I know of people that actually get up to 30 net carbs a day and still stay in ketosis, so all you really need is a general indication
I came from a vegetarian background so I can kinda relate to the idea of really liking the veggies.
When I first started, I had a tendency to eat my veggies and skimp on the proteins. I had to make a concerted effort to make sure I got my proteins and let the veggies fill in a little of where I was still hungry rather than the other way around. When I did not do that, I tended to fill up on veggies and when it got around to the protein, I was already too full to finish. Not a good place, at least for me. Maybe not horrible, but it wasn’t what I needed.
Fats were never really that big of a deal since most of my proteins come with a generous amount of fats, stuff like fatty meats, fatty fish, eggs (nearly perfect just the way they are), that kind of thing. Plus, when I make veggies, I don’t skimp on the butter. Love some browned butter on my asparagus or butter and garlic on my broccoli. The thing I had to do, though, was to focus more on making sure I ate the protein.
Protein tends to be quite filling for me. I haven’t analyzed whether it’s the fat with it or the protein itself, I just eat food. Yes, I do mix things a little as I eat but I do not just wolf down a ton of veggies before I ever start on the protein. Protein takes priority. When I’ve eaten the protein and still want a little, I’ll allow for another serving of veggies.
Interestingly enough, my tastes have changed over the years and I don’t have the desire to overeat the veggies anymore. What I crave is the protein. It’s not ridiculous amounts. But my appetite demands that I get my protein and I listen. It also desires some veggies and I will even admit to some not-so-keto-friendly veggies from time to time. It’s always small amounts, though. The protein is became and still is king.
Not sure if that’s even a little helpful but just sharing.
Good luck!
P.S., stepped on the scale today and it’s a new low since starting keto a year and a half ago. Less than 20 pounds to my goal weight. No fasting, no special eating, just ketoing on. Haven’t weighed this little for close to 20 years. Loving it. And able to enjoy life way more, too, as I’m able to do stuff! I refuse to jump through physiological hoops to lose that last bit of weight really fast. I’m working towards a very soft landing such that when I get there, it’s just a matter of continuing on with what I’ve been doing all along.
