The FastDay Forum

My eating window has just closed on 1692 cals, 29g carb, 111g fat, 77g protein today.
Taking my eye off the calories to concentrate on the carbs I was shocked how high the cals had reached :0@
I may have a milky hot chocolate later to help with sleep to add on to this ...
Still, it's a steep learning curve innit!

I'm closing on 2010 cals, 29g carbs, 52g fat and 118g protein.

So I should ease up on the meat, which would fix the over protein, and going over TDEE.

But it was a yummy, yummy day

B: Eggs, bacon, toms, mushrooms
L: Harissa chicken and dressed salad
S: Crackling
D: Veg curry with hard boiled eggs and pork tikka
1/2 bottle of red.

Totalled about 65 - 70g carbs today, and about 1100 calories - day after a fast day
And yes I did have that Waitrose mini mince pie that I passed over yesterday

[wildmissus]

I'm with you @izzy.

My main aim at the moment is to make better choices - for lunch today I had my usual soup but instead of bread followed by a packet of crisps and a bar of chocolate I had it with cheese and a handful of almonds.

For my tea tonight I had an omelette with bacon, onions and emmental, yum and no potato wedges! I followed it with a small piece of christmas cake (because I'm not going to waste it).

If I can make small changes and it works for me then fine but if it doesn't work then there are further changes I can make.

To the people who have been doing this before a couple questions -

1. Is it better to low carb or low GI? Having read a bit about both they do conflict a bit - there are foods that have quite a lot of carb but low GI, ie. they don't cause the insulin levels to spike.

2. Lunchtime ideas please. I am a soupaholic. What can I have to replace the solid food (bread or crackers) I normally have with it?

Thanks

I had a great day yesterday - Total calories came in around 700 and carbs about 70gm.

I am so pleased with both these figures, I am going to do it all again today.

And the scales are coming down, down, down!!

cheers Maggie

I've decided I'm not going to even try and count how many grams of carb, fat, protein or calories come to that and relying on my common sense to just reduce the obvious baddies like white carbs while upping my intake of good fats. I don't want to become obsessive about my diet and feel I'm doing ok maintaining on my current 16:8 regime.
Today I've eaten the following, a fairly good example of my regular WOE.
B..None, don't eat before lunch but had 2 mugs of tea with milk and 1 coffee
L ..Big bowl of homemade leek and potato soup, veg sautéed in coconut oil. No bread.
S...Persimmon chopped up with Greek yogurt.
D.. Hairy Bikers' Spanish Style Chicken with loads of peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic, couple of new potatoes served with cabbage.
S..I'm an evening snacker so will probably have some blueberries with more Greek yogurt at about 9 pm with a cup of tea.

[carorees]

To the people who have been doing this before a couple questions -

1. Is it better to low carb or low GI? Having read a bit about both they do conflict a bit - there are foods that have quite a lot of carb but low GI, ie. they don't cause the insulin levels to spike.

2. Lunchtime ideas please. I am a soupaholic. What can I have to replace the solid food (bread or crackers) I normally have with it?

Thanks

The "standard" response would be that low glycaemic load is most important because GL takes account of the total carb content. However, I think that if the total load is low, a small insulin spike won't do much harm as long as it doesn't trigger carb cravings.

This website by Patrick Holford who promotes a low GL diet, which has worked really well for my cousin who has type 2 diabetes, has done good ideas for low GL foods: https://www.patrickholford.com/topic/low-gl
He suggests oatcakes or rye bread instead of bread.

Fast day today, and a liquid fast at that. Except for the tablespoon of peas and the sausage I pinched off hubbies plate when he had finished. Very naughty of me. It hasn't spiked the hinger pangs though, so I'm wondering if there is a level of carb's or calories you need to reach (each person being different of course) to trigger the hunger.

Instead of a sandwich I use a large lettuce leaf, or I make a tortilla type roll with it. One of my favourites is a large lettuce leaf, smeared with cream cheese, slices of red and yellow pepper and a BIG grind of black pepper. Roll up like a tortilla (or pancake) and enjoy.

I had a big wobble today. Came in at 75g carbs and just over 1020 cals.
Had a most delicious lentil salad tonight. It won over a pasta bake!

Hi @Maggiee
Sounding brighter today also sounds as if you've got your head in gear that's brilliant even counting carbs WOW that's brilliant and a big step further than me coz I'm still guesstimating keep the good work up girl we can do this everyone's on your case and ready to help you as you struggle we've all had similar
"down" spells and here to help

♥aren't we fellow members !!!!!♥

@julieathome I like your idea of the lettuce rolled up, might try it with some leg ham, cream cheese, red pepper for my lunch today.

Many thanks, cheers Maggie

I'm going to have do this slowly like rawkaren suggested. I'm not even used to counting calories, let alone carbs and I think I will get confused if I try to do it all at the same time. I am so afraid of not eating enough of the right things and at the moment I am really unable to let go of the 'fat is bad thing' that I have 'known' is 'right' for years! It is so ingrained that I'm not sure I can get over it. So...... For now I am going to continue with what I had been doing which is not eating any bread, pasta, rice or potatoes during the week and little if any at weekends. I am sure that in time the low carb thing will come to me. Meanwhile, I will be in the tent/teepee/marquee watching and learning. Been a good day in here. Thanks all

@Sue.q - I feel so much better this morning, thank you for your kind words and support.

Have a great evening as I have my second coffee for the morning - we have a beautiful fine sunny morning here with the promise of a warm day.

cheers Maggie

Ditto @Wendy Darling and well said @izzy. I am going slowly after having researched my changes. Agree with @rawkaren wheat is going to be removed from across my diet.

Then a review.

Also diet will be sugar reduced, will have to work at my sweet tooth though it is showing signs already. As well a reread of our fabulous@FatDog thread for recipes which I salivated over, want to actually make them as my body is saying low carb vegetarian but my juicy steak spirit could be fed at times

Off to gym

I'd like to join please

I looked over MFP and my food is made up of upto 40% carbs, still even though I avoid eating breads, pasta, rice etc. It was quite a surprise to see my average carb intake is about 150 grams.

So I'm not quite sure how to do this a for example, on my fast days (I do a juice fast), I use apples, carrots, tomatoes , radish, kale, spinach, celery ... all of these have huge amounts of carbs; even half a cucumber is showing as 3g, a lemon 5g, a cup of kale 7g.

I know greens are good for you, I could cut down the amount of apple and carrot and increase the cucumber/kale etc but its still going to add up

I need to re-think this and keep a closer eye on it

Hi @jeninboston, I think you'll find that that is the problem with juicing - one is essentially squishing out the "sugar water" and leaving the fibre behind so one a) tends to juice *lots* of veggies / fruit and thus bump up the carb / calories and b) lose lots of the good stuff in the lumpy bits left behind.

Personally, whenever I see a juicer I'm tempted to vandalise it as I think they're eeeevil

Get a decent blender (as close to Vitamix as you can afford) and use the whole fruit / vegetable, that way your calories and carbs won't skyrocket, along with your food bill. I'm not a wholefood freak, but genuinely believe the more *whole* your fruits / veggies are when you consume them, the better: i.e. eat that bloomin' apple, don't juice it, likewise dunk that broccoli floret in some humous, for goodness sake. I do, however, understand that there are times when it's easier to take the short-cut, though I find myself doing it less and less now.

I've a £15 charity store effort (Cuisinart soup maker, retailed at about £160) and the "smoothies" aren't silken, but they more than do. I believe that Lakeland do reasonable beasties, and there's a thread somewhere on here about Vitamix-a-likes.