Fat Tuesday - Let's talk carbs

[JLN]

I've found that when I limit my carbs I'm better at losing weight. However, I have no idea how to cut out carbs and what to replace with.

Also, what are good carbs? How much should I be eating a day?

I'm trying to lose 50 lbs., so I'm taking this very seriously. I'm eating clean and my daily menu is something like this:

Breakfast: Greek yogurt with strawberries
Snack: Hardboiled egg
Lunch: Salad with romaine lettuce, tomato, mushrooms, sprinkle of parmesan cheese, and homemade dressing
Snack: Luna protein bar
Dinner: Chicken of some sort (tonight is light-baked chicken parmesan) with vegetables or salad
Dessert: Canteloupe or peach

[eliseb0323]

A healthy lower-carb diet would generally be lean protein, (fish, poultry, egg whites), veggies, and perhaps fruits like berries. Some fats like olive oil. Some whole grains if you are so inclined.

Stay away from fatty meats, simple starches like pasta, and sugar.

[SallyJ]

You make really healthy choices, but I think you might be eating way too little food. Do you track your calories?

I use MFP to track my food and set a target protein amount. I use healthy fats to make sure I get enough to calories and then fill in with the right kind of carbs - whole grains and veggies. I target my macros to eat 50% carbs, 25% fat and 25% protein. MFP does all the calculations for me so it's easy to track. I had no idea how to do it before.

[eliseb0323]

Also, from the menu you posted, I would add more protein to your lunch, and ditch the protein bar (lots of sugar/carbs). You may want to cut your fruit to 1 serving per day, if you are really trying to do low carb. I am a fan of LOWER carb, not low carb. You might want to consider a South Beach or Atkins protein bar instead of Luna -- I think the sugar count is lower.

[mimosas]

I would be STARVING after that lunch. I'd add a protein - maybe black beans in the salad? They have some carbs, but I find they don't affect my weight loss much and keep me really full.

[lilmgirl]

Aug 14, 2012 13:04:41 GMT -5 eliseb0323 said:

A healthy lower-carb diet would generally be lean protein, (fish, poultry, egg whites), veggies, and perhaps fruits like berries. Some fats like olive oil. Some whole grains if you are so inclined.

Stay away from fatty meats, simple starches like pasta, and sugar.

This sounds about right to me.

I would even limit the fruit a little more and substitute green veggies or small handful of nuts like almonds. I would have to look up the nutritional info and ingredients on a Luna bar, but I have a suspicion I would cut those out completely.

As far as calories/day, when I'm trying to lose weight, I eat around 1000-1100 including 20 mins of low-intense cardio 3x/week. HR no more than 130 bpm.

[taratru]

Are you tracking your calories at all on sparkpeople? That will give you a breakdown of how much of what you're eating and how many calories.

I think you have too much fruit. Fruit *is* healthy, but it's also sugar, ya know? Sub those with some veggies...peppers are sweet. Replace the Luna bar with something like cheese and almonds or even pita chips and hummus.

Also, that is not very much food. Yes, you'll probably lose weight, but that little bit of food is not sustainable. And you'll probably find you'll be very tired and very cranky. In my experience, cutting out carbs like bread and pasta was a great way for me to limit carbs without going no-carb.

[SallyJ]

Here's the estimate for what you are eating:

Breakfast: Greek yogurt with strawberries - Maybe 200 calories, could be as little as 150
Snack: Hardboiled egg - 80 calories
Lunch: Salad with romaine lettuce, tomato, mushrooms, sprinkle of parmesan cheese, and homemade dressing - Could be as little as 150 calories depending on size of salad. At most 250-300 calories
Snack: Luna protein bar - 240 calories (total guess, but most protein bars are in this range)
Dinner: Chicken of some sort (tonight is light-baked chicken parmesan) with vegetables or salad - 150-350 calories depending on how you cook the chicken
Dessert: Canteloupe or peach 60 cal

Total: 830-1230 calories

This is really way too little food for most people. This is a good calculator to figure out what you should eat: scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator. At the very minimum eat your BMR amount, but target 15% less than TDEE for sustainable weight loss.

[Daria Morgandorffer]

How many calories is that? That seems REALLY low. You're doing a really good job with choices, but I think I'd need more calories than that to maintain my sanity (and my motivation).

[crazytalk]

This book changed my life: www.amazon.com/The-Insulin-Resistance-Diet--Revised-Updated-Fat-Making/dp/0071499849/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344968096&sr=8-1&keywords=insulin+resistance+diet

The Insulin Resistance Diet. My nutritionist recommended it, and I loved the ideas and information in it.

Basically they talk about how for people with insulin resistance (which is like pre- pre- diabetes), we can't handle more than about 30 grams of carbs at a time, and no more often than every 2 hours. Meals should consist of between 15-30 carbs, plus protein & fat, and they talk about how much protein "balances out" the carbohydrates (about 7 grams of protein per 15 grams of carbs). For me, and my metabolism, it makes a huge difference. Another big thing from this book is that you should never go more than 3-4 hours without eating some carbs, so that you don't get a crash / overload kind of situation. I followed this religiously when I was TTC, to help with the PCOS, and it was great in so many ways: energy level, weight loss, and overall health.

A day for me would generally consist of 3 meals at 30 grams of carbs each, then 2 or 3 snacks of about 15 carbs each, all spaced out throughout the day. I snacked on lots of things like nuts / cheese / fruit / yogurt, and just kept that standard balance of it in mind.

Huge fan.

And FWIW, your typical day that you posted makes me hungry just looking at it. I like the above plan because basically nothing is off limits, you just need to watch portion sizes. My nutritionist used to tell me that if I was still hungry, add more protein or low-carb veggies onto a meal.

[copzgirl1171]

I fucking LOVE carbs.

This helps nothing as my ass can attest to.

[Deleted]

Aug 14, 2012 13:36:52 GMT -5 @copzgirl1171 said:

I fucking LOVE carbs.

This helps nothing as my ass can attest to.

Word. Except for me its my hips and thighs.



Jeni - are you hungry? I know people keep bringing it up but I would seriously be starving after that.

[aw]

I'm of the opinion that not all carbs are created equal. Whole grains like barley, spelt, millet, quinoa, etc. can be a good source of nutrition so long as they are properly soaked. And I find that when I eat those real grains (instead of the white, processed stuff) I stay fuller longer.

But for the most part, I ditto what mr+ms said.

[JLN]

Aug 14, 2012 13:20:20 GMT -5 Daria Morgandorffer said:

How many calories is that? That seems REALLY low. You're doing a really good job with choices, but I think I'd need more calories than that to maintain my sanity (and my motivation).

It's about 1200.

[JLN]

Aug 14, 2012 13:39:40 GMT -5 @mrsbecky07 said:

Aug 14, 2012 13:36:52 GMT -5 @copzgirl1171 said:

I fucking LOVE carbs.

This helps nothing as my ass can attest to.

Word. Except for me its my hips and thighs.



Jeni - are you hungry? I know people keep bringing it up but I would seriously be starving after that.

Not really. I spread my meals and snacks out so it seems like I'm always nibbling on something. Plus I drink tons of water.

[Deleted]

jeni, I hopped back on the tracking wagon yesterday. I don't do strictly low carb, so I'm not going to actually suggest you use my menu. But I do try to limit them and eat a lot of protein. Yesterday's food was:

B: Multigrain English muffin, 1 slice cheese, 2 fried eggs, 3 strips bacon, small orange (baseball-sized)
L: 1/2 cup chicken salad, 11 Kashi pita crisps, crudite with hummus
S: Chobani 0% peach yogurt, 1/2 c. fresh pineapple chunks, 1 oz. chopped almonds
D: 1 c. white rice, chicken & veggie stir fry
S: chocolate chunk muffin, 8 oz. milk

Discounting the muffin and milk, that came out to 1811 calories, with 22% of my calories from protein, 40% from fat, and only 38% from carbohydrates.

This was on my first day of being back to tracking. Today's menu is nearly identical, but the goal is to forgo a sweet dessert. I'm actually considering buying some really nice cheese so that I can have some cheese for dessert if I'm hungry after dinner.

Honestly, one of the biggest sources of excess sugar for me is buying the sweetened yogurt, but I just don't like plain yogurt.

FWIW, I think you're off to a good start. It takes time. Generally, you look to replace simple carbs with fats, protein, and vegetables. So add some protein to your salad - chicken, beans, or avocado would be a good start. Instead of a Luna bar, you could have a snack of veggies with full-fat ranch dip or pimento cheese, natural peanut butter with celery, or cucumber-and-goat-cheese sandwiches. Is your breakfast yogurt sweetened? Have you considered switching to a higher fat yogurt to increase its staying power?

[emilyj]

When you cut carbs, you should replace them with lean proteins and healthy fats (ex: avacados, nuts, some cheeses).

I agree with Sally and others - that seems like way too few calories. Are you working out? If you are, then it's definitely not enough. It also doesn't seem like enough protein.

Have you gone through the steps of calculating your BMR? My RD says that you really shouldn't ever eat below what your BMR is (the amount of calories your body needs to exist). So for example, my BMR is about 1591 - so if I ate your menu, it would actually hurt my weight loss efforts.

Finding your BMR and tracking in something like MFP might help you. I actually eat a 'lower' carb ratio - my ratio in MFP is 40% carb/30% protein/30% fat. I know it's not 'low carb' in the low carb purist sense, but I do eat a higher amount of protein grams per day then most people I know. It has been working extremely well for me.

[JLN]

Aug 14, 2012 13:36:52 GMT -5 @copzgirl1171 said:

I fucking LOVE carbs.

This helps nothing as my ass can attest to.

Me too. :-(

[Deleted]

Aug 14, 2012 13:49:32 GMT -5 JLN said:

It's about 1200.

If you have 50 pounds to lose, you should probably be eating more than 1200 calories. CHEESE! ADD CHEESE!

[crazytalk]

majorwife - that's AMAZING, congratulations on that much weight lost. How old is the baby? For some reason, I am having a huge mental block against getting back into eating like that .... when I was pregnant this last time I did it again b/c of my gestational diabetes, but then it was almost a no-brainer. I just had to, no room for error, because of the baby. Now that it's just my health, I'm having a problem doing it. Which for a while was ok, because I was all "yeah I'm making up for such a restrictive pregnancy" .... but the baby's a year & a half now, so ... um .... yeah.

[JLN]

Thank for all the great advice! I'm still playing around with my menu, but I'll sub in some avocado and nuts and take out a fruit. I might also add some chicken or tuna to my lunch salads for more protein. That might explain why I feel more tired in the afternoon.

What should I absolutely stay away from?

[emilyj]

Aug 14, 2012 14:01:36 GMT -5 JLN said:

What should I absolutely stay away from?

Processed crap.

I think your menu looks great - if you add in more healthy fats, veggies and protein, I think you'll be doing really good.

Watch your sugar intake too - even in fruit and milk products. Just because it's 'natural' sugar doesn't mean you should go overboard on it.

[emmybean]

I think there is a huge difference between Limiting carbs and restricting them. I think you are restricting carbs too much, and not eating enough in general.

Here is my basic weekday menu: keep in mind I lift heavy 3 days a week and do fairly intense cardio 2-3 additional days, but have basically ate at about this level through 80+ pounds of weight loss:

Breakfast: steel cut oatmeal with fruit (usually blueberries or dried cranberries) and plain Greek yogurt. Coffee.

Snack: weightlifting days is a fruit smoothie with protein powder, cardio days is a HBE and a piece of fruit. Coffee.

Lunch: green salad with tomatoes, sliced almonds, olives, and lean protein (usually chicken or turkey breast) and olive oil

Snack: cheese and crackers. Or cheese and a piece of fruit

Dinner: lean protein, whole grain, vegetable. Wine.

Snack: fruit or cookie or wine. And wine.

Obviously every one is different, but I really truly believe that excluding carbs to such an extent is foolish in the long term. Balance is what's most important. And eating enough.

[emmybean]

To add to my last post---I took forever in getting it posted, so ITA on upping protein and cutting processed crap including refined sugar (that's one exception to my balance mantra, but I still do sometimes eat processed crap---it's just not an every day thing.). I really do think the processed crap is the worst as part of a regular diet.

ETA: as I read through this thread better I have to say: please do not eat less than 1400 calories a day. PLEASE.

[crazytalk]

MW - omg, 5 weeks. FIVE WEEKS. I am alternately happy for you & feeling all failure'ish. The zombie apocalypse is actually a really good motivator, though especially when I think about the #1 rule. (Cardio.)

I shit you not, I'm picking my ass up and heading to the gym, right this second. (For me, exercise always makes me more conscious of what I'm eating, so it's a good start.)

[emilyj]

Emmy, do you like steel cut oats better than regular oats? I have been eating oats for breakfast several days a week, but have been wondering if I should make the switch to steel cut.

And I agree with Emmy in that carbs are not bad - just choose the better carbs. Complex carbs like brown rice, whole grains, oatmeal (real oatmeal, not instant).

[emmybean]

Aug 14, 2012 14:29:55 GMT -5 emilyj said:

Emmy, do you like steel cut oats better than regular oats? I have been eating oats for breakfast several days a week, but have been wondering if I should make the switch to steel cut.

And I agree with Emmy in that carbs are not bad - just choose the better carbs. Complex carbs like brown rice, whole grains, oatmeal (real oatmeal, not instant).

I go back and forth. The steel cut oats are great but take time to make. TJs has an "quick cook" version that takes 8 minutes that is pretty good, but the crockpot steel cut oats are the best---I need to get back to making those.

ETA: my favorite "regular" oats is McCann's Irish oatmeal. That is my fallback if I don't have time for steel cut.

[Deleted]

I would add in a few healthy grains like others mentioned and cut back on the fruit by 1 serving per day. Also definitely add some protein to your lunch.

Maybe add some nuts or veggies to your morning snack.

[marie427]

Congrats Emmy! I think you have a great menu. I don't eat meat but otherwise, it looks like I eat very similarly. I indulge in A LOT of fruit though - I love fruit. So far, it hasn't been an obstacle in weight maintenance though so I'm sticking with pigging out on fruit.

I agree with everyone else too even though it's like a broken record on the H&F board - Jeni, you definitely need to add more calories to your daily menu.

[Deleted]

Ditto the others that your menu looks good, but I would add lean protein, like chicken, beans, or more cheese to your salad so its more filling.