What do you use your carb allowance on?

#1

Hi everone, I’m curious what you who allow carbs in your keto WOE actually spend your daily carb allowance on? I mostly use it up on nuts, fruits, berries and vegetables, and sometimes I sneak in a square of dark chocolate as well. Oh and shredded coconut. But then I like to keep things as simple as possible, for now. But I’m curious if any of you feel more adventurous in your WOE?

(Pete A) #2

Nuts, berries, vegetables, dark 100% cacao, flax seeds. I have no interest or desire in being adventurous.

#3

Me neither. Flax seeds are great, you can make your own delicious cereal with flax, chia pumpkin seeds and nuts, with mushed berries and shredded coconut on top. I’ll have to try raw cocoa, as I can’t seem to give up my dark chocolate lol.

#4

Nuts, greens (cruciferous and avocados mainly) and some occasional dark chocolate.

(Pete A) #5

I have 4 squares of bakers chocolate during breakfast and a teaspoon of cocoa ($1.84) in my coffee after lunch! EVERY DAY.

Nominal carbs.

#6

I tend to use half my carb allowance up on greens as well, and love love love avocado. It’s sweet and irresistible to me, and delicious with smoked mackarel or bacon, really balances out the saltiness.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #7

Mostly broccoli and cauliflower, occasionally a leafy green salad, and occasionally a handful of nuts. There is a small amount of carbohydrate in the gravy on the meat, as well (and possibly in the cheese sauce on the vegetable), but I consider it not enough to worry about.

#8

In the past: vegs, oily seeds, fruits (all kinds I fancied or had in my garden, it’s a very long list. never saw any point to restrict which kind I eat) - and whatever I fancied and could eat in small enough amounts. If you want to hear about interesting things, I had a wine with a 20% sugar content… It felt pretty rebellious and that’s nice and I needed it anyway. Being rebellious, I mean, not the wine, it quickly became undrinkable.

Nowadays on my rare keto but not carnivore(-ish) days: fruits (all kinds, I don’t think it will ever change), walnut, poppy seed and whatever else I fancy and can eat in moderation. Vegs disappeared except the occasional very tiny amount (10-20g?) when I feel like to have some juicy thing with my fatty meat.

Some carbs go to cocoa but it’s very little nowadays. And it always was negligible carb wise.

On keto, almost all of my carbs are animal carbs but they probably don’t matter. I still try to keep my lactose intake lowish.

#9

I prefer to cook with broccoli too and sometimes cauliflower. Green salad I rarely eat as I’m not a salad person, but both avocado and cucumber are so wonderfully versatile and really work well with salty meat or fish. It hardly has any carbs at all. Today I actually blew my allowance and must, according to my carb count, have gone overboard. I counted 28 total carbohydrates and 10 grams net carbs. Curiously it’s always the seeds that make me go over as I love pumpkin seeds and chia seeds, but as they’re mainly fibre I figure it shouldn’t be a problem.

#10

To me any variation enjoyed in moderation, sounds perfectly healthy. Personally I don’t believe in too much restriction as foods are much more complex than just their carb count, such as green vegetables, fruits, seeds and nuts.

Yesterday and today I went a bit overboard on the carb count, I counted 28 total carbohydrates today but only 10 net grams, and this carb allowance was used up on:

20 almonds
5 brazil nuts
1 tbsp shredded coconut
1 tbsp chia seeds
1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
3 small strawberries
10 slices cucumber
4 broccoli florets
1 square of dark chocolate

#11

That’s definitely true.
And we who can handle basically anything edible in moderation (and can actually eat most such things in moderation), easily have a different attitude than the ones who must be stricter.
I do have my own blacklist but I am more like a flexible one. I prefer stricter but not super strict normal days and more relaxed ones now and then when it’s worth it.
That’s the main thing, is it a good deal to add something? I barely need any carbs for variation itself but just because I CAN stay away from something with some carbs, I may have some good reason still to consume it even if it’s just very little and/or occasional. But I can give up a lot of things without a problem because they aren’t good for me and I don’t need them. It’s quite individual what should go and what doesn’t. And I wish I could choose right every time, I am not there yet but I rarely have regrets. Whenever I see I do it wrong, I get more determined to keep training. It’s when I am determined to be stricter, no force just determination and not eating probably not so great things on a mere whim… And my “bad deal” eating loses power, a little bit at a time. There is a time for strictness and there is a time for a more relaxed but still not reckless/wild approach (for me, at least). Or even indulging my inner rebel if necessary. I can’t just do whatever if I want to evolve, sometimes I need to go strict and keep myself there to see what that is like, it often helps.

#13

Apart from my 1 square of dark chocolate (which I still hang onto) there is no added sugar in anything I eat either. But sure, some days my carb count will be a lot lower than 20, as for carbs I’ll only have a small handful of nuts and a square of chocolate. Other days I’ll be cooking either broccoli or cauliflower to go with my beef, fish or pork. But sometimes when I’m feeling a bit more rebellious I’ll fry up mushrooms and bell peppers, even some onions to go with my meats. But then I wouldn’t be eating nuts, seeds or any fruits on that day. It’s tricky as one doesn’t know how many carbs one can get away with, whether one is insulin sensitive or insulin resistant or somewhere in between. So it’s trial and error mostly and going on gut instinct.

(Ohio ) #14

As an epileptic I don’t live by a carb allowance. Like the OP mentioned. Nuts, seeds, berries, cocoa, beans, rice, kombucha, broccoli kale etc. There’s a lot of unforeseen science with resistance starch. I make Cincinnati Chili (with organ meat) that has carbs from tomatoes, onions, garlic, cayenne, cocoa that never phases me, ever. But all these carbs seem to be self limiting from my experience, and soon enough I gravitate to 100% carnivore.

Added sugar is where I get in trouble.

If I ■■■■ up, my diet shifts towards foods with the highest fiber. On a time scale of 24-48 hours.

(Laurie) #15

I avoid most plant foods. I do eat some tomato sauce though, almost every day. That’s maybe 5 grams of carbs.

The rest of my carbs come in bits here and there, in eggs, ham, liver, yogurt, spices, coffee, etc. Another 5-10 grams per day?

Every night I have one or two cups of hot chocolate, made with hot water and (unsweetened) cocoa powder only. So that’s another couple of carb grams.

My weakness is heavy whipping cream, which I try to resist. When I do buy it, I use lots, and I probably go over my allowance.

(Robin) #17

How true are any of our opinions or experiences?

#18

Good question. I think it’s a portion guesswork, a portion intuition and a portion science. Truth is either stated through so called facts and science, often ruined by bias, and truth is also subjective based on individuals’ experiences. There is not yet much research on the long term effects of either keto or carnivore upon the modern world, regardless of how people lived in the distant past. So I feel one is relying upon individuals’ experiences which again are influenced by unique circumstances. Basically it all boils down to what feels right for each individual.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #19

The quantities involved are usually negligible. Certainly, carnivores don’t worry about them. Our body makes its own glycogen, and store it various places. On a high-carb diet, the muscles turn excess glucose into glycogen, which is then trapped in the muscle until it can be metabolised. On a low-carb diet, the liver stores glycogen to be shared with the muscles when they need explosive power. A little extra glycogen in the diet is not going to upset things.

On the other hand, I’m not sure that this advice has been rigorously studied. It is probably someone’s best guess, and people will need to figure out whether it works for them personally, or not. The long-term carnivores I’m aware of say that because it’s true for them, and it does seem to be true for the majority of people (if not all of them) on a carnivore diet. And the same appears to be true on a keto diet. But individual variation plays a huge role, here.

#20

Yesterday and today I spent some carbs on a catfish spread and sausages. 2-4g per day.
19g carbs was spent on various dairy items and 3-4 on eggs yesterday.
I didn’t feel I “had carbs” but I don’t exactly know when this carb eating feeling comes. Maybe others don’t have it but I always feel if I go too high, I feel well but there is some extra weight in me, not uncomfortable but existing…? Lots of plant carbs surely does the trick, lactose probably doesn’t, very little plant sugars probably do it again but it’s hard to experiment with it.
But when I get ~20g carbs from eggs and (organ) meat (I had that in the past when I depended more on eggs and liver and only sometimes), that feels exactly like when it’s 3g. And even very much lactose (it’s not hard to consume 60g in a few hours if you ask me though I surely wouldn’t do that regularly. at least not nowadays) doesn’t have a really noticeable effect. While a few grams from plants may (very sugary fruit all alone, I am most sensitive to that - but the effect varies wildly so it’s not easy to tell much)…
No idea how others work and what my body actually does, I only have my own experiences and try to eat accordingly.

#21

Hi Shinita. It’s all very individual what makes our bodies feel good. I upped my carb intake to 18 today and thoroughly enjoyed sliced cucumber with a mackarel I had fried in butter for lunch. The rest of my carb allowance went on a few nuts and strawberries and two squares of dark chocolate. I believe my daily chocolate ration adds to the quality of my life lol, well that and green tea. This way I can keep something of my old diet, as I was a mad green tea drinker and dark chocolate eater. Now I just enjoy both in moderation. But I thought meat and dairy such as cheese and cream hardly had any carbs at all? Primarily protein and fat. Today I feasted on chicken thighs for dinner and I didn’t bother having anything with them, they were delicious on their own. But on less lazy days I probably would have prepared something to go with it. I wish I could make a gravy as well as my partner, since I’m not very good at it I tend to omit the gravy. Bacon wrapped chicken provides plenty flavour and some brussels sprouts. Plenty of options. Anyway, food should be fun and enjoyable or it could impact on quality of life. Life is short enough that we don’t make ourselves eat things we don’t like, well luckily the keto WOE has so many delicious and nourishing foods🙂

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #22

You guys got me interested, so I browsed around the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Data Central site. Interestingly, the meats I looked at all said 0 g of carbohydrate per 100 g of meat, except for the cured ham entry. Unfortunately, it’s not clear whether they explicitly measured glycogen content or not. In the case of Vitamin C, the entries for meats always say “not measured,” but glycogen simply isn’t mentioned under the carbohydrates, even when there are sugars listed.