All nuts contain substantial carbs (ie sugar), and lots of PUFA with not optimum O6/3 ratios. Some, however, are better than others: pecans, macadamia, walnuts, Brazils. Because of their very high selenium content, Brazils should be eaten only occasionally. We talk about Brazil nuts here.
Snacking is not recommended. If you get hungry between meals, eat more at meals. You can easily incorporate nuts into your meals, rather than as snack food.
I used to snack on Macadamia or almonds because that was what I was accustomed to. I always would eat a apple or granola bar at 9:30 am. So I switched to nuts. Over time I reduced and later eliminated snaking. I do Enjoy a handful of nuts as a desert after lunch or dinner but it is probably counter productive.
They don’t have much sugar in them. Generally just a couple grams for a 1 oz serving. Eating snacks is way more counterproductive than eating a few grams of sugar. Weight loss is in large part a battle against insulin. Every single time you eat, you are increasing your insulin levels. Insulin inhibits fat burning, and facilitates fat storage. The single most effective way to prevent fat loss is to eat frequently.
That’s why time restricted eating is so popular here. You eat during a small window of time during the day like noon to 6pm. That gives you 18 hours where your insulin levels are very low and you’re body is primed for fat burning. That can be challenging right off the bat, but it’s something you can work up to pretty easily by shrinking the “eating window” a little bit each day.
Check out “The Obesity Code” by Dr. Fung for a fantastic book on the topic of keto and fat loss. It’s worth every penny!
If you buy the nuts near the front of the store or near the candies, yeah, they all have sugar added to them. If you buy them in the baking aisle, they generally don’t have sugar added. Good catch on not buying the nuts with added sugar!
I get baking walnuts, almonds, pecans, macadamia nuts and put them in the food processor, then add shredded (sugar free) coconut and make a granola out of them. I do need to be careful not to eat too much!
I completely agree with this. I recently realized I wasn’t eating enough at my one or two meals a day, so I would get hungry between. I added more food to being satisfied, and actually dropped 4 lbs this past week!!!
As for nuts, I have to stay away from them because they are too easy to overeat for me. I can use almond butter on occasion with no problem.
Black walnuts have 0 sugar or Sunflower seeds have the least amount of sugar.
This is good to know for Maintenance later on for me =).
I love them, but I would find it hard only to eat a few, as pre-Keto would eat an entire bag at a time, so personally I just don’t buy any nuts since starting Keto at all.
If you can control yourself and just have a few, that is great. For some of us, they are a food that would trigger a binge on them is all so that is why I don’t have any for now.
Later in Maintenance -I might once in a while =).
Ugh…Nomention PUFAs… No mention of anti-nutrients, either. Or damage to the Earth (here’s looking at you, almonds).
For Pete’s sake, they chose pecans and brazil nuts based solely on carbs, but these are very high in PUFAs:
https://www.holistichelp.net/blog/carbohydrate-mufa-and-pufa-content-of-nuts-and-seeds/
Note that macadamias are unique. Higher in saturated fat, lowest in PUFAs.
That Diet Doctor article is worthless.
The key in my mind is moderation. I view them like tomatoes and onions in a way. Food I can eat but cant eat in vast quantities. I realize that a lot of the keto “doctrinaire” types have other reservations but I think the original poster is probably like a lot of us who do keto to lose weight and maintain it… sometimes you are hungry and to me a handful of pecans will get me over that.
In my past life it might have been a slice of pecan pie! Everything is relative here.
Indeed… I tasted pecan once and fell in love. If I met a pecan pie a little time ago, I probably would have eaten half of it (if it was allowed for me, I don’t eat other people’s pecan pie)… If I ate cake, I meant business, 10-20 slices was quite common. After fat adaptation and several years on low-carb (with the rare cake and other carby days).
I am very good at moderation if it’s about certain items. Not cakes, usually. I was better with nuts but if I love something in bigger amounts, it’s often easiest/best not to eat it at all (if it’s doable. I usually can learn moderation but it may take years in some cases).
Our attitude may be very powerful. I have this with tomatoes and onions myself as I won’t give them up but I use them in very tiny amounts and it’s good! They are so flavorful, a little goes a long way now. This attitude change never fully worked with peanuts though. Probably the carbs. If I am not a controlled one but my usual undisciplined hedonistic self, it’s usually due to the carbs. Truly.
My bad, Bob. I think the jury is still out on the subject of MUFAs and PUFAs eaten in nuts, as distinct from consuming the concentrated and purified nut oils.
Start here (1999):
The full text is available as a PDF
Here’s a general reference (originally published in 2003 and last updated in 2018):
From 2014:
This one compares various fatty acids, 2017:
I want to finish this with the two articles I referenced in the topic on Brazil nuts in my first post above.
I just pulled my walnuts off the shelf. Labels say less than 1 gram per 1oz serving. Where do people get the idea that there is “a lot” of carbs in nuts?
7g/100g in the database I use (net carbs, total is way higher). It can be pretty much from a ketoer’s viewpoint, not everyone eat 1 oz only and many of us have plenty of other carby items (I only had that until recently but then I never could do <20g net carbs, I could do 40g net and I never tracked but surely often 100+ g total)… For 20g net, I pretty much need to forget about oily seeds and vegetables.
Most fruits are fine, even sweet ones as I can eat little of them. But nuts as snack? That’s not a few pieces for me and carbs from various food items add up.
I can’t eat nuts because they are just too delicious and I wind up essentially bingeing on them. I can eat two handfuls of nuts and not feel like I’ve eaten anything.
My SO uses peanuts (legume but still similar) as a meal. Nowadays 100-130g but he had 250g as a big meal at work in the past…
I was never at that level but I was pretty much addicted to peanuts. I have no idea how much a handful is or how much I ate but 100g is nothing when I am not already satiated, disappears in very little time… And it never satiated me well. I could stick to my 5-20g portion only when I ate it right after my big lunch (after some training).
I don’t eat much of the real nuts as snack. Walnut in a sweet dish, that’s different but alone?
The only nuts I use, and now infrequently, are macadamias. Otherwise, I try to avoid them.
I will eat peanuts if they are offered at a restaurant, such as 5 Guys (burger place) or steak places. For me, this is at most once a month or longer.
I hate to continually harp on this, but one reason people overeat nuts might be because they are high in PUFAs, which cause your fat cells to be insulin sensitive and therefore increase hunger.
I also don’t mind the occasional nut to provide flavor.
And we used to get whole nuts in the shell at Christmas when I was younger. I remember having to shell the nuts and giving up after a few. They were difficult to shell. Now, it’s rare to see nuts in their shells, and we can gobble handfuls of them.
And we’re concerned about the minor PUFA differences between grass-fed beef and grain-fed beef, yet think nothing of eating handfuls of nuts or tons of nut butters. It doesn’t make sense:
Hmm…that version no longer has the graphs, which really aided understanding. Anyway, here’s one quote:
Since there is over 200 times more omega-6 in walnuts than in grain-fed beef on a per weight basis, in order to get the amounts to be similar in the chart below, I had to compare 3.5 ounces of beef to one half of a single walnut.
Another quote:
All it takes is three walnut halves to equal the amount of omega-6 fat in a ten ounce grain-fed steak. Remember, I could throw back the handful shown above (14 half walnuts) in a single bite, so that would be the equivalent to the omega-6 found in a three pound steak. And as I mentioned, I could easily throw back multiple handfuls over the course of the day, if I allowed myself.