For those of you who follow a low-carb diet, how many carbs do you eat for breakfast?

[kkal24 3]

Is under 20g considered "good"? Under 10g? Under 30g?

[Kit 27,391]

It depends on your goals.

 

If you want to be in ketosis, I've heard said around 20g net carbs, though I suspect that can vary a lot between individuals.  if you're serious about this, a ketone meter would actually be your best guide.

 

If for BG control, it depends on how your body is reacting.  I usually stay under 30g total carbs a day.  Some people can have just as good or better control at higher numbers.  So that too will depend upon the individual.

[Carol_42 2,226]

I'm working on losing another 30 lbs. right now.  And I've been on the Keto diet since Feb 18th.  I watch my carbs and BG closely. 

Every day I eat between 2 and 6.5 grams carbs for my AM meal.

CB

[NoraWI 4,809]

Dr. Richard Bernstein's recommendation is 30 grams of carbs per day... 6g for breakfast, and 12g each for lunch and supper. I don't eat breakfast after my coffee with whipping cream and liquid splenda when I first arise between 4 and 5am. But I do have brunch at about 10:30am and consume about 30g of carbohydrate at that time. Yes, that's the total daily Bernstein allowance. I have another 40g for lupper (late lunch/early supper) for a total daily of about 70g. Sometimes I eat more. Seldom less. If I snack, it's pork skins (chicharrones) with zero carbs. Not wonderful but satisfies my need for crunch. Considering the fact that we need to dose insulin according to the amount of carbohydrates we consume, it behooves us to eat as few carbs as we can so as not to use too much. Otherwise, there is the perennial danger of weight gain due to too much insulin. Hard balancing act...

[dowling gram 6,388]

I have about 10 carbs for breakfast but then my meter tells me that I can eat more carbs than others here. You can't go by how many carbs others eat at any time. Every diabetic is different. Does your meter tell you that 20 carbs is good for you? If so then go for it.

[Hammer 18,751]

I eat three hard boiled eggs for breakfast every day.  That amounts to less than 3 carbs for breakfast.  Once I've eaten the eggs, I go down to my family room and pedal my exercise bike for 60 minutes.  It's my opinion that people don't need to eat carbs, since carbs aren't necessary for humans to function.  Sure, my total carb intake per day is about 50, but that's because I eat a large salad every day, and it contains upwards of 30 plus carbs.(mostly from the salad dressing).  Eating the foods that I eat has allowed me to control my BG levels, and yes, I use insulin which also helps me control my BG levels, but eating the foods that I eat, makes it a lot easier to control my BG levels.  If I wanted to, I could eat cake, donuts, pie, whatever, and take the appropriate amount of insulin, but that is not the proper way to use insulin.  It's better to eat fewer carbs and take a lot less insulin, and by doing that, I never have to worry about going too low.  Eating lots of carbs and taking lots of insulin, has the potential of making your BG levels drop to very low levels....that's not good.

[meyery2k 26,074]

I have found that an average of 40g carbs per day allows me to manage my glucose along with exercise.

[macksvicky 17,201]

I'm between 10 to 30 carbs each day. It all depends on what I feel like eating on a given day. Even with the low carbs and a heck of a lot of exercise, I still need a basal insulin to keep from being high in the mornings. So it all boils down to what works for you, most of this basic low carb plan is just a template and you tweak it to fit your particular body.

[Kit 27,391]

I swear either the subject of this thread changed since yesterday or the mobile site truncated things and I totally missed the breakfast portion of the subject.

 

For breakfast I aim for under 5g total.  I am extremely insulin resistant in the mornings and its really a fine line for me between holding off liver dumps and higher numbers because of food.

[LaRue 322]

I watch my net carbs kkal24, which is the grams of carbs minus the grams of fiber.

 

For instance, a medium avocado has 12 carbs, but 9 of them are fiber, so net 3 carbs. I have one almost every day at my breakfast. 

When I first started, I made a list (I used excel) with the foods I commonly eat, and the net carbs, so I didn't have to look it up all the time.

I found it's much easier to control your carbs when I eat nothing that comes from a box. 

 

I try to space my net carbs out evenly over each meal, to have the least effect on my BG.

 

More importantly, 70% or more of my calories come from fat, so I'm not hungry and looking for carbs to eat.

 

BTW, foods like avocados, eggs, cheese are perfect as they have 70% or more fat. 

[macksvicky 17,201]

I swear either the subject of this thread changed since yesterday or the mobile site truncated things and I totally missed the breakfast portion of the subject.

 

For breakfast I aim for under 5g total.  I am extremely insulin resistant in the mornings and its really a fine line for me between holding off liver dumps and higher numbers because of food.

 

I totally missed the breakfast part of the subject myself!

 

I'm with Kit, under 5 carbs for breakfast too, same reason. If I go high in the morning, it's a whole day of having higher numbers than I like to have.

[Kit 27,391]

You are lucky.  A whole small/medium avocado will spike me 30+ points, which is unacceptable.  From my testing, fiber does indeed affect me, though not as much as non fiber carbs.  I still have to take it into account.

 

Be careful on calculating those percentages.  I've noticed recently a lot of sites calculate them based on net carbs and not total carbs and that is incorrect.  Calories come from that subtracted fiber whether or not low carbers want to admit it.

 

And not all cheeses are equal.

 

4% cottage cheese (which is the highest fat I can find) has

Fat - 6g

Carbs - 4g

   Fiber - 0g

Protein - 12g

 

Its about 38% calories from fat, 12% from carbs, and 50% from protein.

 

 

A double cream brie

Fat - 9g

Carbs - 0g

   Fiber - 0g

Protein - 5

 

Which gives us approximately 77% from fat and 23% from protein.

 

Double and triple cream cheeses also taste amazing.  For those not fond of brie, brie is a subset of this class of cheese and there are a number out there with mild and buttery flavors.  So good, so high in calories. 

[stevenal 297]

Those carb numbers sound more like per day values rather than per breakfast values.

 

I don't count, though; to me it doesn't seem sustainable. What I find sustainable is avoidance. Avoid all grain, potatoes, juice, and sweets. Non-avocado fruit is limited to a small handful of berries.  And for anything new, I'll try to get before and after readings. 

[LaRue 322]

Hi Kit. Keep in mind I'm pre-diabetic, not type 2.

 

Re how many carbs for a particular meal, I've got another comment.

 

Lately, I've been experimenting with 16/8 intermittent fasting.

 

I'm trying to figure out how many days a week doing that is optimum for me. I would like to do it 2 days in a row, take a break for a couple days, then do another 2 days. Meaning 2 days of no food for 16 hours, an eating window of 8. For me, it seems so far to work best when I stop eating at 10pm, and make my first meal after 2pm the next day. I'm up for hours after 10pm so it's not like I'm going to bed on a full stomach.

 

I'd like to make my last eating event of the day have little to no carbs, so the benefits of the 16 hour fasting window can kick in sooner. 

 

I plan to fast until 2pm tomorrow. So today my first meal at around noon had a normal level of carbs for me. An avocado, and a little cabbage and tomato. 

Around 4:30 I had some hard cheese. I went swimming from around 6:15 to 7:30pm, Then, for dinner at around 8pm I had a small piece of steak, with 2 low carb vegetables, mushroom and spinach. I didn't eat the full smallish portion of steak, so finished it off maybe 9:30pm. It was probably less than 2 oz.

 

The times I have fasted, hunger wasn't an issue, or rather it was a different type of hunger, that could basically just be put aside as not important. What was interesting was the last time I fasted, toward the end I finally experienced that really clear state of mind. 

[Kit 27,391]

Pre diabetic is type 2 diabetic!

 

The only difference is severity.

[Orlando 10,178]

A couple of observations.

 

Net carbs or total carbs are just guide lines for macro nutrient estimates or guess estimates. Always confirm with what really counts ie measure blood glucose values before and after meals, at least from time to time.

 

Same for total calories, check out your birthday suite weight from time to time and also observe if your clothes are getting a bit tight or a bit too loose.You will know hat to do to make corrections.

 

Calculations based on body weight, lean body mass etc. Just keep it simple, like the Dr Bernstein recommendation where he uses the simple matter of fact, body weight.

[Stl-T2 1,995]

I've only been doing moderately low carb, probably ~90g per day, though almost none before 10 am because of bad DP.  That and 500mg x 2 of metformin was working nicely for me.  Then I tried stopping the metformin and all h*ll broke loose, numbers-wise.  Currently trying to add back the metformin slowly enough to dodge some of the tummy effects and trying to keep a tighter reign on the carbs in the meantime, but doing a sucky job of it.

[art 440]

goal is 100 g per day

 

I'll move off that by 10% and not even notice it.

 

That doesn't count cheating

 

 

Art