Zero Carbs.......how??

[Dockyardgill]

Been reading a lot on here about people on extremely low carb diets....someone actually said they were close to zero!
Given that they advice is a healthy diet with a good proportion of fruit and veg, what are you eating as practically everything has carbs??

 

[Kaylz]

I personally don't follow a low carb diet and never will but fish, eggs, chicken, steak, pork, lettuce, cheese, cucumber, double cream, tomato's to name a few contain very little carbs x

 

[Martin Canty]

My trick is not to have any food with a significant number of carbs, I normally just don't eat any bread, rice, pasta, cereal, fruit & starchy vegetables.... Instead I eat a lot of green leafy vegetables.

Prior to DX my diet was very high in carbs, particularly from rice, & I thought I actually ate well.... My choices were predominantly wholegrain with an OK selection of veggies yet here I am, a T2 Diabetic. At DX I was not horribly overweight but at 220lb I could lose some. Following a more mainstream diet I lost about 20-30lb in my first year with BG dropping to OK levels but with the assistance of drugs, beginning 2016 I went LCHF, cut the Glyburide lost another 30lb & am fairly stable at around 160lb, FBG typically around 5 & last A1c 37. Today I feel in the best shape of my life for many years.

Last nights dinner (for 2) was:
Salmon steak in Thai red curry sauce on a bed of Spinach.
The sauce was Red Curry Paste, Coconut Cream, 1 small sliced Shallotte, 1/2 shaved carrot, 1/2 tin of bamboo shoots, 1 cup celery

Breakfast the other day was
Spinach & goat cheese Omelet

Dinner the other day was
Lamb chop with Steamed Brussel Sprouts & tossed in butter & a side salad

 

[DeusXM]

Been reading a lot on here about people on extremely low carb diets....someone actually said they were close to zero!
Given that they advice is a healthy diet with a good proportion of fruit and veg, what are you eating as practically everything has carbs??

Most veg is pretty low carb. For instance, broccoli has 7g of carb per 100g, so you'd be hard pushed to eat it in a quantity that would involve taking in lots of carbs.

Most people on a lower carb diet just have lots of portions of veg instead of fruit. Worth noting that even the most rigorous carb-cutters rarely get zero carbs in a day. The Bernstein diet is one of the lowest carb ones and that still clocks in at 24g a day.

 

[Martin Canty]

Worth noting that even the most rigorous carb-cutters rarely get zero carbs in a day.

I estimate something like 20-40 a day is typical for me unless I go off the reservation..... Sometimes less, sometimes way more (on those days where I treat myself)

 

[Ditto]

Fruit is just sugar really. I don't miss it at all, though when I lose some of this weight I'll start eating it again...slowly and see what spikes. My fave's are peaches and nectarines. Fruit is very sugary and fruit juice is liquid sugar imho. I will be eating strawberries with cream this coming summer. I should have lost a few more pounds by then. I'm trying to stick to Atkins Induction which is no more than 20 carbs a day.

 

[Anthony Stirrat]

I'm trying to stick to 50grm of carbs a day, sometimes I go over. Most of my carbs are porridge at breakfast.

 

[Manda1]

I do eat carbs though significantly less than before as I know I can not sustain a very low carb diet. I just eat to my meter if it spikes my blood sugars I don't eat it.

 

[Mark Parrott]

I probably average around 50-60g carb a day. Get all my nutrients from veg.

 

[Ditto]

I do eat carbs though significantly less than before as I know I can not sustain a very low carb diet. I just eat to my meter if it spikes my blood sugars I don't eat it.

Manda if I can sustain a low carb diet anybody can. I'm a real food addict and was even before it came fashionable. Everybody claims this now, but I was an addict at 9. 😱 Low carb and with a decent amount of fat will keep you satisfied and with any luck, healthy. I had to go all day yesterday without food, from a very early breakfast to 4 or 5 in the afternoon but tum didn't start rumbling till then. Back in the day I'd have been desperate by 11.

 

[Mark Parrott]

I find it sustainable because I can still eat the foods I love. I no longer even like potatoes or pasta.

 

[Drummer]

It is a bit drastic to go so low. On Atkins I lowered my test results to prediabetes levels in just less than three months. I have a salad when I first feel hungry and then dinner with either 5 or 15 gm of carbs as vegetables, and if I have the lower amount I then have berries and cream. If I have the higher amount I might have sugar free jelly, I have a cup of coffee with cream most days, sometimes I have two but not often. I expect to see my numbers continuing to fall as it is perfectly feasible to eat low carb for life. I don't know if doing Atkins will reverse diabetes to the point where I could increase my carbs to 'normal' levels - I wouldn't want to and I doubt anyone would ever get funding for such research.

 

[Northerner]

I do eat carbs though significantly less than before as I know I can not sustain a very low carb diet. I just eat to my meter if it spikes my blood sugars I don't eat it.

And that is the eminently sensible thing to do. There is no point in making life hard for yourself if your body tolerates your food choices well 🙂

 

[LucyLoo]

I do eat carbs though significantly less than before as I know I can not sustain a very low carb diet. I just eat to my meter if it spikes my blood sugars I don't eat it.

Very new to testing but I also eat to my meter at the moment, which has proven to be very interesting!

Many foods that I thought would have been a better option turn out to be the complete opposite....and really spike me 😱 I am discovering new choices though, some of which I really like 🙂

 

[Northerner]

Very new to testing but I also eat to my meter at the moment, which has proven to be very interesting!

Many foods that I thought would have been a better option turn out to be the complete opposite....and really spike me 😱 I am discovering new choices though, some of which I really like 🙂

There's some interesting research going on currently into how our tolerances are affected by our own unique gut bacteria - it was featured a while ago on the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/art...on-weight-and-not-others-and-can-we-change-it

 

[LucyLoo]

There's some interesting research going on currently into how our tolerances are affected by our own unique gut bacteria - it was featured a while ago on the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/art...on-weight-and-not-others-and-can-we-change-it

That makes for very interesting reading Northerner! An example of mine is that if I eat a sandwich with the same filling (ham salad) on a brown/wholemeal roll or barm, it spikes my BG quite a lot more than if I have the same filling inbetween two slices of white bread 😱 At the moment, I'm avoiding bread and pasta as much as possible as these have been my worst spike culprits so far.

 

[Northerner]

That makes for very interesting reading Northerner! An example of mine is that if I eat a sandwich with the same filling (ham salad) on a brown/wholemeal roll or barm, it spikes my BG quite a lot more than if I have the same filling inbetween two slices of white bread 😱 At the moment, I'm avoiding bread and pasta as much as possible as these have been my worst spike culprits so far.

Unfortunately, white bread is usually very highly-processed and can spike your levels worse than table sugar! 😱 I only eat Burgen Soya and Linseed bread these days, and the Lidl protein rolls are supposed to be good (haven't tried those, as no Lidl near me)

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

It is a bit drastic to go so low. On Atkins I lowered my test results to prediabetes levels in just less than three months. I have a salad when I first feel hungry and then dinner with either 5 or 15 gm of carbs as vegetables, and if I have the lower amount I then have berries and cream. If I have the higher amount I might have sugar free jelly, I have a cup of coffee with cream most days, sometimes I have two but not often. I expect to see my numbers continuing to fall as it is perfectly feasible to eat low carb for life. I don't know if doing Atkins will reverse diabetes to the point where I could increase my carbs to 'normal' levels - I wouldn't want to and I doubt anyone would ever get funding for such research.

Great that you have had such success through reducing your carb intake Drummer, I wonder if you would have had similar success with a more gradual reduction 'eating to your meter'? I guess they are just two ways to the same location - finding a diet that suits you and keeps your BG in an acceptable range. I gather that very rapid changes in average BG (e.g. drastically reducing your A1c in a short space of time can be more difficult for the body/fine blood vessels/eyes to cope with, so it's good if you have not had any of that.

Your carb intake does seem punishingly low to me, but if it suits you and you like it then I guess there is less reason for you to change - as long as you aren't tanking your kidneys with tons of protein.

 

[mikeyB]

Just an interesting addendum - this lunchtime, I had scotch broth, and a roll. My BG spiked into the stratosphere. Why? Sarah had picked up the rolls in the shop this morning, and I hadn't noticed they were gluten free. I won't make that mistake again. I might as well have had Victoria Sponge with the soup.

 

[Dave W]

Been reading a lot on here about people on extremely low carb diets....someone actually said they were close to zero!
Given that they advice is a healthy diet with a good proportion of fruit and veg, what are you eating as practically everything has carbs??

I don't count carbs - it's too much bother. I simply avoid them and go for very low carb foods. Fish, meat and fowl, eggs, soft cheeses, plently of green veg, olives and olive oil dressings. No-sugar jellies. Lowest carb fruits.
The book " Carbs and Cals" is quite a good buy as it contains a lot of info about carb contents of foods along with photos of different plate sizes/servings with the associated carb content. However for some really detailed nutritional data on almost 3000 foods, the "Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset (2015)" is invaluable and is what I use most of the time when I need to check up on what I fancy eating. It comes in Excel format which is fine but if you are IT savvy and can import the file to a database it makes searching for any food virtually instantaneous. I think the CoFID data is what food producers use for the nutritional info they put on food packing, so it's pretty reliable.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/composition-of-foods-integrated-dataset-cofid