How does this low-carb diet thing work?

Take a look on Amazon for Michael Pollan’s books on food. They are full of very thoughtful, useful advice. Not faddish, not weird, just good sensible ideas.

Here’s a link

“Yes” to less pasta. That’s a lot of sugar. White bread, sodas, sweets = bleah! “No” to so much meat, “yes” to more veggies, fruits and water.

Oooo, I started on that three days ago! And I can guess who is going to have something negative to say about this. You can lose weight on this but it’s better to think of it as a life style change. The first week or so you should have no carbs at all. This means eggs, cheese, meats, and fish. Also, celery has no carbs, so you can get at least some green veggies the first week… Diet soda, coffee without creamer, water, broth. Stay away from carbs. This helps put your body into Ketosis. you can check with Keto dip sticks if you want, available at your drug store.
After a week at the minimum, you can start adding carbs back into your diet, but you will still lose weight if you keep it under 30 per day. I have several links to various on line stores that allow you to buy low carb breads and other food. Dream Fields pasta is available in stores, it’s delicious and has about 4 – 5 carbs per serving. There are wraps with 4 – 5 carbs each, flax bread with 1 -2 carbs per slice. CHOCOLATE!!!! All kinds of it, recipes galore! Substitute mashed potatoes! If you’re interested, I’ll shoot you the links tomorrow, but you could find them yourself, just google “no carb food, or low carb food.
There are enough delicious tasting, nutritional foods out there that are low carb that you never have to eat bunches of carbs ever again and you can still love what you eat. I’ve made the most delicious ganache already and it tastes just like the inside of a truffle and they have 2 grams each. So you really do get your fix of chocolate, not like crappy pudding, or those fake oreos that don’t satisfy the chocolate craving.
Good luck.

It doesn’t. Cutting carbs entirely isn’t healthy, you’ll merely loose water weight while your body uses the carbs that are stored in your liver, which are bound to water. It’s really not healthy, and will not lead to long-term, meaningful weight loss. It is useful to remove refined carbs and replace them with complex carbs, i.e. get rid of white flour and sugar. Replace them with whole wheat flour and honey or unrefined sugar. “Raw” sugar is the same as normal sugar, no better for you.

@pdworkin I like Pollan’s writing, but some of his books will make you scared to eat anything!

whole wheat pasta or brown rice is better than flour pasta or white rice. if you must have pasta or rice, go for these healthier choices, but make sure you exercise when you carb-load. complex carbs like pasta and rice are good for you only if you burn the sugars during exercise or else it just stores as fat.

@fireinthepriory

Well, I didn’t expect to use this for losing a lot of weight. I mean, I’m just trying to eat better and avoid diabetes (we have it running heavily in the family, which doesn’t help). I am also ramping up exercise and just generally trying to make my body healthier (sleeping normal hours, getting out in the sun, etc). I wasn’t really looking for a full carb removal. More like simple ways to improve the carbs in my diet. Like I said, eating pasta less or eating whole wheat pasta instead.

@Iclamae Oh! I’m sorry, I think I read Trillian’s comment and got mentally off-course from your actual question. In that case, your goals are definitely attainable, and your plans to cut white carbs are dead-on towards that purpose. :)

I’d buy whole grain rice, whole wheat flour (if you bake a lot, just sub half the whole flour for whole wheat, you’ll never notice) and some whole-grain pasta.

“Low carb” doesn’t mean no carbohydrate (even if that were possible). It is simply a way of eating in which one eats fewer starches and sugars, a moderate amount of fats, and lots of green vegetables (this includes a surprisingly large choice of foods). You make up the calories with things like lean meats, fish, eggs (in moderation). My experience with whole-grains has not been good, they invariably make my sugar rise, but you may have better luck.

Sorry, I didn’t read your question all the way through. Cat on my lap. Yeah, even if you’re not trying to lose weight, there are a lot of alternatives out there that don’t deprive you of flavor or nutrition.

For six weeks, i ate nothing but scrambled eggs and cottage cheese. nothing else. its a no carb diet i invented myself. i looked at the foods that contained the least amount of carbohydrates that i could tolerate and scrambled eggs and cottage cheese was it. this combination of food was not that bad for the first week. after that, i hated it and i hate it now. it does work. i lost about 15 pounds in that time period. i cheated one time and added some tomato ketchup.