No carb diet? (filler)?

[Anonymous]

My friend and I are doing it and she's really good at sticking to it, but I'm really bad.. How can I keep myself from eating carbs? Or and is it a bad idea?

[xobrowneyedbeauty]

pizza has a ton of carbs if you're eating the crust too. and a no carb diet is bad. not only are you probably missing out on some important nutrients but you're also going to eventually binge and it's going to suck. you should instead try to cut down (not completely cut out) unhealthy carbs. avoid stuff like pasta, white bread, cookies, cakes, etc. you need some whole grains though so stuff like whole grain bread (especially with flax) is really good for you. once a week let yourself have whatever you're craving so that you don't have a really bad binge later. it's really about everything in moderation. too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. right now, though, you should try to mostly eat lean proteins (low fat dairy, chicken cutlets or breasts, fish, eggs from time to time) and fresh fruits and vegetables. the whole grains, like a whole grain sandwich, from time to time is important though too.

[musicbrain5]

What do you typically eat during the day? Your body needs carbs for energy, so you can avoid prolonged ketosis (where the body burns fat instead of carbs for energy). I'm assuming that you're consuming a lot of protein in place of carbs to fill you up during the day too? Maintains a no-carb or even a low carb diet can have a negative effect on your mood and stress levels too. Low carbs makes you stressed.

[Asker]

Like I said up there ^^ XD I'm eating crap like pizza but my friend that is doing it with me has a lot of soups..

[kheserthorpe]

I'm assuming she eats very little protein right now. I wouldn't be all that surprised to hear she currently is gettting 80% or more of her calories from carbs, which is why she's finding switching off them difficult.

[Anonymous]

A no carb diet is very unhealthy. I hope what you mean is a low carb diet. I don't know anyone that claims that eating zero carbs is healthy.

You can try to find substitutions for some of your favorite foods. Instead of chips have pork rinds. Instead of mashed potatoes have mashed cauliflower. You may also be fighting against a sugar addiction, and might just need to suffer through it for a few days. Try to stay as full as possible on low calorie vegetables. If you have a slow cooker, it is easy to toss a little meat in there and plenty of vegetables, and have low carb meals for later.

[Asker]

Ahh, ok! Well I'm actually a vegan so no meat for me XD But yeah I'll do the 'low carb' thing instead of 'no carbs' :D

[Anno_Domini]

I once cut carbs out of my diet completely (not 100% percent of course, because I ate eggs). I literally just ate unprocessed meat and eggs for about 9 months. I lost 40 pounds within the first 2-3 months, and kept it off. I developed hypothyroidism and have been unable to lose weight to save my life since then even with synthroid meds. I'm about 60 pounds heavier now then when I was all-meat... It sucks. The only time I've ever lost weight through exercise was by riding a road bicycle 100+ miles a week. A pickup truck passing me inside the lane ended that, though...

[Asker]

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that! I'm a vegan so meat and egg are off the table!

[dartmaul15]

Really, it's more about when, and how much you eat.
Eating generally healthy 5 times a day, and not too much is MUCH better than followng a no carb diet to the excessive. After all, we've survived for a "couple" thousand years without "food specialists" telling us about diets. And i'd daresay man was generally in better shape before, because we actually got something called excercise, and dind't commit gluttony on a daily basis.

[Asker]

Haha, oh that's true XD I don't have the time/schedule to eat 5 times a day so I have to stick to 3 times. But, yeah you're probably right.. I won't do the 'no carb' thing..

[dartmaul15]

5 is best.
Breakfast, food break at work (arround 11-12), dinner (arround 16.00), early evening meal, late evening meal. Optionally you can swap early evening meal and dinner arround, if you preffer dinners in the evening.
But adjusting it to 4 works fine too. The most important is that you're consistent

[Asker]

Yeah, sounds good. Thanks!

[dartmaul15]

problem. And don't forget that diets alone won't make you loose weight. You still need to have the right "calory in vs calory out" balance

[Asker]

Yeah, thanks again!! :D

[dartmaul15]

no problem. If only more people would realized that fancy diets won't help shit unless they eat regularly, doesn't overeat, and has a calory out that's higher than calory inn.

[Asker]

Yeah, haha! I get how convincing these fancy diets are though.. :/

[dartmaul15]

yeah. They promise all these things, but if you start asking, there's no science at all backing them.
There are videos and stories made/presented by the creators, but we all know how easy they are to fake.
But in the end, what seems too good to be true usually is. Hell, some of the fads have been disregarded as downright dangerous and unhealthy (both because it's unhealthy to eat like it, and because it tricks the user into believing things that simply aren't true)

[Anno_Domini]

It's true we survived without "food specialists"... we also didn't have GMOs, high fructose corn syrup, and tons and tons and tons of refined and artificial sugars in our food back then, either.

[Anno_Domini]

You could lose weight eating at McDonalds, but that won't make you "healthy" :) The quality of the calories matters just as much if not more than the quantity.

[dartmaul15]

@anno_domino and you're suggesting countering that with diets?
The ONLY reason we have that crap is because we buy it. It takes us exactly 1 year to get rid of that crap IF the average user decides that enough is enough. Dieting in't a sollution, dieting is dodging the corruption in the food industry.
Besides, make your meal from scratch! Bake your own bread, buy your meat from the butcher, your potatoes untreated, your veggies from the farm outlet... Do that and the food indusrty will change, because if they don't they go bankrupt (and they don't want that).

As for GMO's; they're not that bad. All you do is forced evolution, so in theory it's perfectly safe if you know exactly what you're doing.

TL:DR. The sollution isn't to go on fancy diets, but to in fact make what you eat from raw matterials! make the food industry change, instead of adapting to their BS

[front2back]

There in no "no carb" diet. Carbs are in just about everything we eat. There's a "low carb" diet, which is what I'm currently practicing. You want to limit the fast absorbing carbs as much as possible, since they are responsible for fat. That means making sugars and crap like pizza go away. Oatmeal is okay though, since it's a slow absorbing carb food.

[Asker]

Oh, thanks!

[dartmaul15]

dude's right. IT's not about not eating carbs, but about eating the RIGHT carbs. Fast carbs (candy, sugar, pizza to some exent) aren't good, but slow carbs (like he mentioned oatmeal) is actualy a crtial part of a healthy diet!

[PhiOmega]

Have a cheat meal once a week, even this you should prefer to be good carbs, and will be extremely beneficial towards weight loss

It sounds like your doing a paleo/primal, but if you mean absolutely no carbs and are doing a completely ketogenic diet u just have to tough through the cravings, just so you kno ketogenic diets are best done for short periods

[Asker]

Thanks!

[PhiOmega]

No problem

[bubbletrouble]

Like what @dartmaul15 said, its about how much you eat. You can eat pizza everyday in theory, as long as it isn't overboard. I went on a diet about 10 years ago to lose ~10 lbs for some tennis camp. I cut out lunch & made sure to take in just 1200 calories everyday. Within 2 months, I was 12 lbs. lighter.

[dartmaul15]

Also, regarding the pizza, may i add one more thing? A CORRECTLY made pizza is actually quite healthy, save for the cheese).
Make the bottom from whole grain, use fresh tomatoes for a homemade tomato sauce, use low fat meat (like chicken, and fillets), and add some salad on the top. Add lots of stuff like pineaple, tomato slices etc as topping. And go gentle with the cheese.
There you got a reasonably healthy pizza that covers a wide variety of nutrition sources. Still, you want to vary what you eat :)

[bubbletrouble]

@dartmaul15, Correct.
However, it seems like the QA would prefer to eat junk. This is something that many people that want to diet don't understand. Moderation is key.
However, yes keeping something as healthy as possible, lean pizza with many veggies or grilled burgers with many veggies on a wheat bun helps tremendously. Not with weight loss but more so on the inside i. e., cleaner kidneys, faster metabolism, working heart.

[dartmaul15]

Agreed there. Mmeat in the correct amounth is in fact a necessity for your body, and low fat meat is (asuming you don't overeat) quite good for you. Make it at home without all the additions provided by the food industry, or at least buy it from the butcher.
in fact, the only reason things are unhealthy is because it contains too much of something. Hell, we even need a certain dose of salts, and glucose in our food! Just make sure you're not getting too much of it, that's the key.

[bubbletrouble]

@dartmaul15, couldn't agree with you more.

[BearsAnswers]

Paleo or ketogenic? There is a pretty big difference between 'low carb' and 'no carb'. Paleo is pretty easy to do, really. Ketogenic is more difficult, you really need to understand the science of food to pull it off safely and properly.

[Tokana]

not a good idea to completely cut carbs.

[Asker]

Oh... :/

[Tokana]

don't ask me why, I figured this out a long time ago. I had severe depression.

[Asker]

Aw man! I hope you're better now?

[Tokana]

better now.. i just carb'd up.

[Asker]

Haha, I'm glad you're better :)

[kheserthorpe]

What -are- you eating? Give us a typical day?

[Asker]

Well.. I eat shit like pizza (it's just so good!!) But my friend that I'm doing it with is eating things like soup..

[kheserthorpe]

You can't live off soup.

I just read you're a vegan. You're not going low carb. It's not happening. Real low carb means you get your calories primarily from meat, with non-starchy vegetables added. The vast majority of vegan protein sources are a mix of protein and carb.

I suspect you have confused extremely low calorie with 'healthy', try to eat nothing, not surprisingly feel hungry, then make impulse food choices. You cannot be successful walking around trying not to eat, you are successful when you have an actual healthy and rational diet plan that you stick to before you get to be really hungry, at which point your self-control will go out the window.

[Asker]

Well, not only soup.. It was the only thing I could think of XD Aha nooo. I am eating (obviously XD) And vegans can go on 'no carb/low carb' diets, however they're a lot more difficult to go on.. And probably a lot more expensive!

[kheserthorpe]

It's just way too restrictive imho. Because it pretty much means no legumes, no dairy, no eggs, no meat... wtf are you eating? You can get vegan protein powder, and I've used it, but I would never want that to be your main staple.

You can't live off non-starchy vegetables alone. Can you live off non-starchy vegetables and nuts? I'm not sure. I wouldn't recommend trying.

I really think you should forget low-carb if you plan to stay vegan. Now you could certainly focus on slow-carbs. But that's different.