carb consumption question - too few?

[liv]

Re: carb consumption question - too few?

That is great. Thanks for letting us know.
Very many people think they have to skimp on carbs to lose weight but it is not necessarily so.

[Aways2Go]

Re: carb consumption question - too few?

Update for anyone on extended and considering moving to OWL 1 - do it!

I am still losing on OWL level 1, slowly but surely... (realistically it isn't that slow, but sometimes it just FEELS that way when you are in a hurry to lose). I am having somewhere around 23 to 27 carbs most days and seem to be averaging around 2 pounds loss per week. Due to my recent schedule, I haven't been exercising like I should and my water intake has been a little low. My calories, although I don't really count them but FITDAY does, generally are falling in the 1600 to 1900 range, occasionally slightly more. I stay full all the time. I keep trying to reduce my intake of cream and cheese but find it hard more due to convenience, not cravings - though allowed, they do seem to stall or slow some people, and I was hitting the limits on them many days. Also still trying to reduce my overall sodium intake.

I find this diet gets EASIER to do over time - I have never said that about any other diet.

I think over the next several weeks, I may skip rung 2 (dairy) for now as I will probably tend towards having too much of them, and move up to rung 3 (nuts) which I will find more easy to control and ration out.

I look forward to getting to rung 4 (berries) and getting that settled, then going back and working out/working on rung 2. Once I get to that point, I truly think I could stay there for months on end with no problems and no huge need to move up to levels 5 and beyond until I get much closer to goal/pre-maintenance.

[mizski]

Re: carb consumption question - too few?

I find this diet gets EASIER to do over time - I have never said that about any other diet.

I agree. I'm not sure it it is the fact that I understand the advice given in a lot of the posts and the book better or that I'm beginning to figure out what works with my body. Maybe both.

I think over the next several weeks, I may skip rung 2 (dairy) for now as I will probably tend towards having too much of them, and move up to rung 3 (nuts) which I will find more easy to control and ration out.

As a suggestion before you skip dairy, maybe look over some of the recipes you like that might have dairy ingredients like milk, ricotta or yogurt. Some of those dairy ingredients are mighty useful especially when you move up to the berry rung.

Just a thought...I was going to skip over the wine rung as I don't really drink wine but then I remembered that I had a lot of recipes that use it that I really wanted to make.

Anyways, whatever you decide, congrats on your continued weight loss!

[Aways2Go]

Re: carb consumption question - too few?

Thanks Mizski! I am actually mini-celebrating today, as I am now down 60 pounds from my highest weight ever and am finally LESS than 100 pounds from my goal.

Granted, I may have to adjust my goal as I get closer to it (it's been so long since I weighed around that much, I don't really know for sure what my goal needs to be, LOL!). I might be happy at 210, or I may find I need to go down to 175 or 180. 20+ years of time and changes in muscularity levels make it hard for me to guess.

Nonetheless, it still pleases me. ;-)

[chauber]

Re: carb consumption question - too few?

When I'm not real hungry I make sure to eat my 1 cup from the "Other" veggie list and a salad. Pumpkin seems to be something that really helps on these days.

I ditto the pumpkin...and I have found that if I eat under 20 grams but have higher carb veggies I lose a little faster. That may be one of those 'it's what my body needs' things.

Good luck!

[Aways2Go]

Re: carb consumption question - too few?

There are, actually, a number of recipes I thought I might be interested in that have a considerable amount of heavy cream as an ingredient. I really do worry about it slowing me, though, and I have been moving along steadily as of late and don't really want to take the risk that having these items a few times a week would interfere with that. For whatever reason, that 270 pound mark now looms large in my brain, and I am very focused on getting below that point in as quick a manner as reasonably possible. Maybe it's because that gets me out of the "morbidly obese" range, which would be a big psychological boost - maybe because I know for absolute certain that when I was in the range of 240s to 260s years and years ago that I was more likely to be referred to as looking "chunky" or big or some other similar term, but not just outright FAT, could buy a lot of clothes right off the rack at most stores and felt good enough to participate in sports, etc, and am hoping that will still be the case when I get there again.

I have decided to take the tactic of not increasing my carbs very much (keeping them at or under 30) and trying some plain nuts every few days. Assuming all goes well, I may then experiment with some dairy at this same carb level before I try berries, or if I am really feeling the need for some fruit, I may go with the berries first. I have lost very well before (when I went to a whole foods diet) eating berries on a near daily basis, so I don't expect any difficulty with them and think I could quickly determine they are not problematic.

I have a long, long haul in OWL so I have plenty of time to try out all sorts of things and all levels of rungs and carbs. I lose just fine on a carb level in the mid 20s, so it seems a good place to experiment with nuts, dairy, and berries. I think I can easily incorporate several servings of any one of these a week without exceeding 30 carbs a day, and that should make it easy to see if it is the foods that slow me without complicating things with increased carb levels also. I plan to work with nuts only for a few weeks, and then if no problems, cut those back again and try either dairy or berries for a few weeks, etc. Hopefully I will find that none of these slow my losses, and then I will know I can have any of those groups and still expect to lose as long as I am at a carb level that lets me lose. I realize this might not work as well once I move on to things like beans or grains since with their higher carb levels it would be a little harder to keep at 25 to 30 carbs a day.

As I said though, I think with a little bit of nuts, berries, and some dairy products here and there, I could stay very happily for a number of months at that OWL level without any great need to keep moving up the ladder. I would like to get to the 240 pound level or below before I start experimenting much with those higher OWL levels and higher carb levels that I can live without for the time being. That will leave me a good 30 pounds or more, I think, that I will still need to lose, which should allow for plenty of time to find my CCLL and try out the last few rungs of foods as I get closer to pre-maintenance and goal.

Thanks for your thoughts!