The FastDay Forum

My diet is pretty much meat, eggs, dairy, veg and salad, and I've never felt better. I have the odd refined carb, such as a slice of cake at a friends this morning, but otherwise stick to the stuff above, and really enjoy my food.

When I was in my dietetics program in college (150 years ago), one of the things we learned in nutritional biochem was that the body does need complex carbs in addition to the soluble & insoluble fiber of veggies & fruit. Whole grains provide B vitamins, glucose necessary for brain function & magnesium, potassium & other vitamins needed for optimum nutrition. NO carbs, would put you into ketosis, where your body breaks down its own muscle to survive causing potential kidney damage, cardiovascular muscle loss & liver stress. So, there is some need for whole grains in limited amounts. Any diet that completely cuts out an entire food group is not sustainable in the long term. That said, as a type 2 diabetic, I am getting used to no refined sugars, white flours & white rice, but on my "nourishment" days, I do enjoy small portions of whole grain breads or pasta, brown rice, quinoa or other whole grains - a Mediterranean approach. I know this is not necessarily the popular viewpoint on the forum, but I felt it was important to express an alternate viewpoint. Everyone will find what works best for them, but what ultimately attracted me to this WoE was the flexibility, lack of deprivation & balance I've found. I guess my most important lesson is to not make this another obsession fueled failure, because I've had too many of those to count.

[quote="I am getting used to no refined sugars, white flours & white rice, but on my "nourishment" days, I do enjoy small portions of whole grain breads or pasta, brown rice, quinoa or other whole grains - a Mediterranean approach. I know this is not necessarily the popular viewpoint on the forum, but I felt it was important to express an alternate viewpoint. Everyone will find what works best for them, but what ultimately attracted me to this WoE was the flexibility, lack of deprivation & balance I've found. I guess my most important lesson is to not make this another obsession fueled failure, because I've had too many of those to count.[/quote]

I couldn't agree with you more - I used to eat FAR more carbs than now and like some on here I find I don't feel great if I have more of the grain type carbs (was on holiday last week and ate less low carb than usual ie some bread) and my tummy was upset most of the week and only now is it getting back to normal (on my usual diet of lean protein, loads of veggies and good fats). BUT I (personally) don't want not to eat carbs at all - I have cut out the refined sort and I feel good but I don't feel the need to put myself into ketosis either. Horses for courses I say and I don't subscribe to the 'all carbs are evil' theory. I think over indulgence in refined carbs and sugar is what is making a lot of the world too fat, but what's wrong with eating fruit and veg (all of which have carbs in) because they have other nutrients in them. But that's just my point of view!

Sue.Q wrote: :heart: I've reduced my intake of carbs and my cravings are also reduced veggies are carbs but and I do use all veg + salads to bulk up every meal I now eat.
So you're unlikely to do a day with no carbs and what you're proposing seems fine to me maybe @rawkaren or @FatDog will pop in to tell you differently because I'm a novice at this LCHF enter the experts.

Hey @sue.q, been away for a few hours and here you are happy dancing. Brilliant avatar

FatDog wrote:

AnnahMetuka wrote: Thank you Auriga, I just wander if there is any possible harm in eliminating carbs altogether?

None at all @AnnahMetuka... the body has absolutely no need for carbs - unlike fats and proteins - some of which are essential.

BUT - veggies (some fruits even, eek!) have very useful nutrients and fibre in them other than carbs, so you'd be very ill advised to eliminate ALL carbs, as you'd be knocking out the veggies and the good stuff in them.

If you meant just "refined / processed carbs", then you're fine - you can dump the lot!!!

@PennyForthem's example is really inspiring / impressive! The festive season has wreaked havoc on my carb intake, and consequently my weight, and it's only just now getting back to sensible.

All the best, FatDog

I'm with @fatdog. We all need veggies and some fruits and they are carbs. Also from a practical point of view, (and speaking as a low carber), it's extremely challenging to train hard without glycogen. The trick is just to have enough to make sure you can work out hard. Apology if someone has already said this - its a fast thread and I have only just checked in (and can't keep up with you all!)

Absolutely no argument that foods containing carbs also have other very useful things (as I said above). The less processed they are the more likely they are to have more "useful things" to "compensate" for the carbs (IMHO).

But I do take issue with this:

MLCDz wrote: NO carbs, would put you into ketosis, where your body breaks down its own muscle to survive causing potential kidney damage, cardiovascular muscle loss & liver stress. So, there is some need for whole grains in limited amounts. .

because it's not quite right.

Firstly, I'm usually in ketosis but I eat carbs (aiming for <20g on repair days and <50g on non-repair), these come from veggies and legumes - there is absolutely no need for grains. I'm *not* saying that one shouldn't have grains, just that they're not needed - anything they have in them can be gained from other sources. Your suggestion that grain is essential implies that the diets of all those gluten free folk are going to be nutritionally deficient, which simply isn't the case.

Secondly, ketosis does *not* intrinsically lead to muscle break-down / kidney damage / cardiovascular muscle loss / liver stress. Starvation does, but ketosis does not.

In ketosis the sources of energy are a) what you eat and then b) your *fat* if you've eaten less than you need. Thus, unless you're eating waaaay too little and are a virtual skeleton, you'll not usually go anywhere near breaking down muscle for energy.

Check out the literature - I'm pretty certain that there's no evidence for what you're suggesting *except in exceptional / pathological circumstances* (FatDog is happy to eat her basket if she's got this wrong).

Just for example, the kidney damage trope comes from reports of folk *with existing kidney damage* doing very high protein diets - which is obviously not a good idea. A very low-carb diet does not require a high protein intake *at all* - a fairly common low carb break-down is 5 to 15% of one's energy from carb, 15% or less from protein, with the remains from fat.

Hi FatDog,
As I said, my clinicals were a long time ago. So, you opened my eyes & I did a little looking around & am happy to thank you for taking me to school on this subject. This article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2716748/ is the first one I read & has me wondering what a typical 2000 cal/day menu would look like w/ 70-80% fat. Really interesting, so ignore my previous post & apologies for any misinformation.

Well done @FatDog, I saw this and was too busy to reply. You are absolutely right, ketosis is not harmful unless you have diabetes. This is why it has been misunderstood all these years, because nutritional ketosis is very different from diabetic ketosis. In severely uncontrolled type 1 diabetes, ketone bodies are produced in massive quantities, and are associated with ketoacidosis. In this life-threatening complication of diabetes mellitus, the acids 3-hydroxybutyric acid and acetoacetic acid are produced rapidly, causing high concentrations of protons, which overwhelm the body's acid-base buffering system. However, during very low carbohydrate intake, the regulated and controlled production of ketone bodies causes a harmless physiological state known as dietary ketosis. In ketosis, the blood pH remains buffered within normal limits.
Ketones have lots of really good effects in the body. The brain runs even better on ketones than it does on glucose and in fact inducing ketosis through diet has historically been used to control epilepsy and even today is effective where drugs are not.
This article explains it all: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2129159/

I have had to start counting my calories on feed days in order to restrict myself to no more than my TDEE. This is the only way I can prevent myself from completely overeating and blowing the point of fasting.

I'm not totally inflexible about it. I look to get a reasonable calorie deficit for the week, and that's what I aim for. Fasting two days will get me there, or fasting 1 day a week and cutting about 400 calories per day from my TDEE. Last week a friend was coming for a long weekend, so I got all of my calorie deficit out of the way with two fast days, and then ate to my TDEE the other days. I also wear a Fitbit, which tells me how many calories I've burned that day, so I really do know what my TDEE is based on my activity, weight, age and height.

Thank you rawkaren, FatDog, Caroline, Tracieknits and the other for your replies
I now understand better the issue of carbs, and the difference between 'good carbs' vs 'bad carbs'.
A lot of knowledge and good will here, in this forum...
As it seems that for me the only possible way to stick to this woe is to minimize carbs on non- fast days, and taking in consideration what I have just learent about good and bad carbs- I'll stick to a low (good only)carb food - on n/fast days , and hope this will solve my broblem of overeating on non fasting days.
I really appreciate your taking time to answer and advise.

Minumonline wrote: My diet is pretty much meat, eggs, dairy, veg and salad, and I've never felt better. I have the odd refined carb, such as a slice of cake at a friends this morning, but otherwise stick to the stuff above, and really enjoy my food.

We seem to be diet sisters under our skin along with the others who have a similar list of foods in their diet. I have cut back massively on refined carb intake and although I feel good on it I have to say that it has had no impact on my weight whatsoever.

Ballerina x