Reducing carbs % not grams

(Elaine) #1

So we’re two weeks into the low carb high fat lifestyle change and I’m not managing to get below 20 grams carbs per day. I am managing to get the percentage down to below 25% of daily intake and fats up to 50% daily intake protein for the balance, so is that good enough?
I have lost a couple of pounds but my husband has lost 4 pounds already and we are enjoying the meals and not missing bread too much yet.

#2

Not if keto is your goal, no. 25% of your calories coming from carbs is a LOT, not just by keto standards, but also LCHF and even “normal” low carb. You can’t have your fat around 50% of your intake if your eating that many carbs, it’s not healthy and that’s when you’re going to start having issues. Your eating a lot of fat for a normal diet AND your eating enough carbs to make the fat work against you and actually become unhealthy. Going by % typically doesn’t work well. What are you eating, have you re-tooled your kitchen to eat this way yet?

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #3

:crossed_fingers::crossed_fingers::crossed_fingers::crossed_fingers:

Without knowing how much you’re eating overall, percentages are useless. But let’s do some simple math. Assuming you’re eating around 2000 calories per day and 25% of those come from carbs and 50% from fat:

0.25 x 2000 = 500 / 4 = 125 grams of carbs per day

0.50 x 2000 = 1000 / 9 = 111 grams of fat per day

This is not even close to keto. This is just SAD with reduced carbs. If that’s all you can manage, it’s better than standard high carb. If you eliminate all processed foods and all items with added sugar and refined grains, you’ll probably be better off for it.

Here’s what typical keto would look like.

0.05 x 2000 = 100 / 4 = 25 grams of carbs per day
0.70 x 2000 = 1400 / 9 = 155 grams of fat per day
0.25 x 2000 = 500 / 4 = 125 grams of protein per day

That said, most folks on this forum try to eat sub-20 grams of carbs per day to insure they remain consistently in ketosis. Some with insulin issues: diabetes, prediabetic and/or insulin resistance, go even lower to remain in ketosis. Others adjust the fat/protein ratio differently to suit their personal preferences and issues. Ketosis brings with it a host of metabolic benefits that don’t accrue otherwise. Weight normalization is one of many good things. But the key is to remain in ketosis consistently. To do that you’ve got to cut carbs to minimal and incidental amounts. After you’ve been in ketosis for a year or two, you can experiment if you like. Best wishes.

(Elaine) #4

Thank for those good points, example yesterday we had sausage and bacon for brekkie, homemade turkey meatballs with a creamy sauce followed by strawberries and cream,then salmon and a little mixed veg for tea so not much processed really there are extra carb though from my husband’s alcohol intake😖

(charlie3) #5

You want it lower. It’s a journey. I can’t advise what others should do, only describe what I do.

Cronometer tells me my total carbs are about 280 calories or 50 grams net carbs. Thats higher than strict keto, 20 grams total carbs (80 calories). It also matters what the body does with the carbs. You always want glucose in the blood stream absorbed rapidly and not linger. My body fat is 13.7%, higher than I’d like but considered healthy. That should mean my fat cells have little resistance to adding to fat stores when necessary. I do 2 hours of exercise activity daily that consumes around 1100 calories above my 1700 calories RMR. That should mean glucose from digestion is rapidly absorbed by muscle and other organs. Nearly all the carbs I eat come from non starchy vegetables so carbs should be entering the blood stream slower than processed carbs that digest faster.

The main reason I allow the extra carbs is to make my big daily salad more palitable, less diet fatigue. I believe/hope the exercise activity more than compensates for the extra carbs.

#6

Such a menu has a possibility to be keto… Probably with a little amount of strawberries.

If very low-carb is a problem but it’s already a better diet with very little processed stuff and less carbs, it’s probably healthier for you, maybe you can go lower later. It’s quite individual but if I lower my carbs, it’s always better (unless I start to eat some bad stuff, of course but why would do that?). I always eat high-fat, though but I am quite sure low-carb would be the absolutely worst diet for me. You should feel what works for you, of course it can be different in the very beginning, it’s new and maybe shocking…
If you don’t know if you feel right on very low-carb, you didn’t even try as carbs always add up, plan better, tell us what exactly you eat and it has how many carbs as recipes are very different… We surely will have ideas. But if you focus on animal products without overdoing lactose, that part is extremely low-carb and a small amount of carbier things still fits.

It’s not about percentages, more like grams and for me, carbs vs our personal ketosis carb limit, at least if my goal is merely ketosis. My personal ketosis carb limit is higher, it seems but I still like to have 5-10g because it has huge benefits over 30-40g :wink: But it took time, I started with low-carb.

#7

Protein is not something you want to fill in as an afterthought, and it shouldn’t be based on some percentage of caloric intake. Your proteins need should be based on your lean body mass. Consistently getting too little protein means the body has to get it from elsewhere. That typically means breaking down muscle tissue.

I see keto as a simple concept – “Minimal carbs. Adequate proteins. Fats as needed (for satiety).”

There are no essential carbs. And, as with proteins, the body can get fats from another source. If someone is trying to lose weight, that other is the targeted source – stored body fat.

You should be targeting grams of carbs, proteins, and fats, not calories, even though the sum will be the calories. But the proteins macro is a lower limit, while the carbs and fats macros are upper limits that don’t need to be reached.

In the end, the fats macro is about satiation. Any way of eating that leaves you constantly hungry and deprived is not going to be sustainable. For me, the beauty of keto is that once I was fat adapted, I was no longer ravenously hungry all the time. Before keto, carbs and insulin were always creating a false sense of hunger.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #8

If you eat more than a small amount of carbohydrate in a day, the resulting surge in your blood sugar causes your pancreas to secrete insulin to get the excess glucose out of your bloodstream, where it causes damage. Insulin does this in two ways: it shunts the extra glucose into your muscles to be metabolised, and into your fat cells to be stored as fat. Not only does a chronically elevated insulin level cause us to store and retain fat, it also causes damage to other systems in the body.

This is why the goal of a ketogenic diet is to eat as little carbohydrate as we can manage. If we keep our carb intake below a certain level, the resulting level of blood glucose is low enough to avoid triggering a large secretion of insulin, and when insulin goes down and stays low for most of the day, then the extra fat stored in our fat cells becomes able to leave those fat cells and get metabolised. After a period of adaptation, our muscles get really good at metabolising fat instead of glucose, and this helps our body shed its excess stored fat.

There are three macronutrients: carbohydrate, protein, and fat. Of these, carbohydrate causes the most significant secretion of insulin, which is why we try to avoid it as much as possible. Protein causes a certain amount of insulin to be secreted, but not as much as carbohydrate, and on a low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet, the insulin secreted is matched by the secretion of another hormone, called glucagon, which helps the body stay in ketosis. Fat, surprisingly, has almost no effect on insulin secretion, which makes it a “safe” source of calories. The fat we eat gets metabolised by the body, and since our insulin level stays low, our body can also metabolise some of our excess stored fat as well.

So, in sum, the point is to avoid triggering insulin secretion by limiting carbohydrate. And the threshold is a certain amount of carbohydrate eaten, not a certain percentage of calories eaten as carbohydrate. This is why we suggest a limit of 20 g/day of carbohydrate, and not a percentage of calories.

(Elaine) #9

Thankyou very helpful I think I am doing ok as I drink very little alcohol. I need to back off and let my husband find his own way with this diet change as his carbs are mostly alcohol and discussions of reducing intake usually lead to unpleasantness. It takes a bit of getting my head around it as I did try to eat five a day fruit or veg and loved overnight oats with fruit, but I think I can have it occasionally. I’m not giving up I want to get my cholesterol down and lose a stone :crossed_fingers:

(Jasna Nicolson) #10

Salads are really palatable when you add plenty of fat and a little protein. Don’t be afraid of olive oil, smoked salmon, lashings of chopped olives even a sprinkling of cheese or nuts - lower in carbs than starchy vegetables will get your carbs down (as compared to starchy veg).
I was really surprised how LITTLE carb the non starchy green vegetables have in them.

Also don’t buy the ‘needing carbs for energy’ hype.
It has nothing to do with calories in vs calories out exercising. The damage is done because the carbs cause your liver to release insulin and insulin blocks your body from burning fat for hours. If you release insulin every few hours your body will never learn to get into fat burning mode because your liver and muscle tissues store sugar which your body will use in preference to fat.

(charlie3) #11

My daily salad is 24 oz of non starchy vegetables, whole tomato, whole avecado, 2 HB eggs, dressing with about 1.75 tbls olive oil, 1100 calories. I eat it in two sessions, the only carbs for the day. There is no cheese or nuts in the house, too binge worthy. I think it’s taken most of 2 years to get truely fat adapted and all the walking and airbike time were a necessary part. These days it seems like my body is so hardened to go to stored fat that hunger signals are always muted. Two years ago I could have a panic attack over waiting until noon to eat.

(Elaine) #12

I do like a salad but beef or mushroom stroganoff is gorgeous with crispy kale too

(Bunny) #13

I like this quote from the web:

“…The goal of losing weight is to reduce fat stores while preserving, or even adding, lean tissue — what we refer to as muscle. …” …More