I am new here and I have a lot of questions. I hope you all can help me.

Let me tell you what my diet is and to tell you the truth I made it up myself after having lots of trouble staying full on all other diets.
Here is a typical day:

Morning: I always have cereal: Shredded Wheat with Raisins (1/2 a standard soup bowl) with skim milk just to cover the cereal so probably a cup or so??

Mid Morning: I usually eat a fruit or two fruits depending on hunger either an orange, or an apple, or a banana, or a nectarine

Lunch: I usually make cooked food like cut up a chix breast and cook it with olive oil, onion, garlic and a vegetable like cabbage or green beans. I also cook three or four veges together with olive oil or coconut oil and eat a soup bowl of it. Also a fresh salad (cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots with lemon juice and salt). three fourths of my lunch is the vegetables cooked and the salad and 1/4th of it is the cooked chix. I eat no rice or pasta. Sometimes I eat a small round whole wheat pita with my food.

between lunch and dinner: also fruit or a mix of almonds and raisins

dinner: Usually two boiled eggs with a whole wheat pita or tuna on the pita


I walk every other day 4 kilometers and I do stretching and leg exercises and stomach crunches the days that I do not walk.

This is the only diet that i have been able to stay on - I have been on it for four months and I truly don't consider it a diet but a life change.

But my question: Is this considered a lowcarb diet? Have I cut out all carbs? How do I know what all the carbs are so that I can stay away from them?

I have been reading the boards and you guys seem to know exactly how many carbs you are eating. How do you count carbs? Is it by serving or what?

I have actually been 160 pounds for about three weeks and have been unable to budge. Could I be eating too little? too much?

Let me tell you I don't know anything about counting calories and every time I try to educate myself on the subject by reading I feel so uninterested and so turned off to having to count calories that I don't want to educate myself about it. So I stop in my tracks. How important is counting calories?

Thanks for all your help.

I wouldn't call this a low-carb diet, but if it's working for you then you can call it whatever you want! Looks like your carbs are coming from the following sources: Shredded wheat, raisins, milk, fruit (bananas and apples are especially high in carbs), carrots, pitas and nuts. The other veggies are perfectly acceptable as long as you're not eating tons. Depending on the low-carb plan you read up on, some of them allow fruit and some restrict it until you've been on the plan for a while. If you're interested in the Atkins plan specifically, I would recommend visiting www.atkins.com and reading up on the four phases of the plan. There is a ton of information on that site that can guide you in the right direction if you want to try a low-carb diet.

But like I said, if this is working for you and you feel healthy, I see no reason to give it up if you don't want to. It looks like a reasonably healthy diet to me.

I think you should either go to the Atkins website or read Dr Atkins New Diet Revolution. You're not even close to an low carb plan. Sorry to be so blunt. If it works, so be it.

Cheers!

BrewWa

Not at all. Your menu sounds like a low fat, restricted calorie plan, to me. I'd hazard that 60-70% of your daily calories are coming from carbs in one form or another.

What is a carb? Anything that isn't a protein or a fat, basically. Fruits, vegetables, breads, cereals, legumes. They are all pretty much carbs. Are they all to be avoided? Not by any means. All carbs are not created equal. Some are good and some are not so good. The more refined a food the less nutritional value you'll find in it - 100% whole wheat would be a better choice over white bread. Brown rice would be a better choice over instant white rice. Berries would be a better choice over pineapple. Why? Because not all carbs are going to effect blood sugar levels the same way - some cause more insulin to be released than others. Choosing carbs that have minimal impact on blood sugar helps with fat loss and it helps keep you from experiencing extreme hunger when blood sugar plumets after a carby meal.

I see from your profile that you have read Atkins, you might then remember that the food choices in Dr. A's plan do not include much fruit, milk or breads at first. There are other plans out there, however, that do. You can see some of them and what they entail by clicking on the link in the right hand margin "which LC plan is right for me?".

How do we count carbs? We use carb counters - lists of foods with carb content indicated. There is one on this site under "Low Carb Tools" (atop every page), some of us also use a site called Fitday (www.fitday.com) where we can keep track of calories / carbs / protein and fat. After a while you get used to how many carbs are in certain foods and many don't even bother counting those anymore.

Is it necessary to count calories? No, absoultely not. Many find they can get by just fine w/o ever having to count. Others do it every once in a while to see just what they are eating, in case fine tuning is necessary. And still others do it daily, just because they perfer it that way.

What strikes me the most from your menu is the lack of protein - next to nothing at breakfast, the most important time for it, Nothing at lunch and a minimal amount at dinner. Simply adding protein to all your meals would be a big step to helping your body build tissue and stay healthy.

Nat

Oh wow, I didn't know I was that far off...its been a very long time since I read the Atkins book.

Now I am starting to wonder what it is that I have lost. Ok, so I will start by going to atkins.com. I really wish I still had the atkins book but I gave it to my sister and now I live overseas.

by the way, I have to mention that I am breastfeeding but I have had no trouble with my milk supply.

so, as I take a long breath, I truly feel lost but I think lcarbing is the way to go.

I will write back when I have a better idea of a low carb diet and I actually start doing it.

Good for you...be sure to update us on your new plan!

Be sure to research what Atkins says about post-pregnancy. I know there are some different rules for pregnant women and I bet some of them extend to the breastfeeding stage.

How you eat your carbs (like fruit) can also be very important. If I do have something that has higher carbs (like berries), I always try to eat them with a protein source, like cheese. That helps keep your insulin under control better and you won't feel as hungry as quickly.