The crux of this diet is no carbs though, thats the point, no carbs for energy=ketones made from stored fat for energy which equals loss of fat. If you're concerned about energy I Found myself on the verge running in circles in my living room after a cup of green Tea with 1/3 of a serving of MCTs, and that is after cardio while I am cooling down. MCTs act like carbs but are fats that the body quickly turns into ketones for energy. There is a huge thread on this or the 2nd page about them.
Get em!
NO CAAAAAAAAAAARBS

this is so tru! 20g a day? that's only 80 calories, that's not gonna last you the day! From what I've read the 20g a day is only for your brain as I've read ketones can't fully source the brain with all its energy.

Hmmnn. Interesting. So, if we're supposed to have ZERO carbs, why does the CKD parameters calculator calculate to eat 20g of carbs a day, and how does the protein get used by the body efficiently if there are no carbs?

On the calculator, the DEFALUT value is 20. I believe you can change it. I haven't been on that site in some time, so I may be off.

Personally, when I CKD, my carbs are in the 60's - 80's easily. At 20 I felt like crap. I didn't start having enough energy to get through the day and get to the gym until I bumped up carbs a bit.

Keep in mind that I have close to 200 lbs. LBM ... I am not sure what size person the 20 - 30 grams rule was based on, but it wasn't me.

I still got great fat loss with the slightly elevated carbs, and I still smelled of ketosis. As did all of my hats.

Oh.. I almost forgot----you do know that there are carbs in green tea, right? There are also carbs in eggs, cheese, sour cream, heavy cream, bacon...and even the herbs people use to cook with. ) Many times it's listed as "zero" because the FDA guidelines make it so that if a product has less than a certain percentage, it can list the item as having zero carbs---hence, the whole "hidden carb" formula for Atkids. Hell, even a fatty item like pork rinds has 2g carbs per 12 rinds. Cheese, 1 carb per ounce, eggs..one carb per egg, unless a VERY large egg, then it could be more. I've even seen lean ham with 11g carbs per serving (due to the curing process).

Coffee (all kinds) has carbs 1g per cup, and artificial sweetners, 1g per packet.

Veggies....all of them..carbs.

I know on BFL, on the eating plan, it shows "carbs" as grains and fruit, and veggies are under a whole different category and not counted as carbs at all. But on Atkins----veggies are very much counted as carbs. Some veggies are extremely high, while others are very low (especially after deducting fiber counts from carb gram counts).

Thanks, TrainerDan!

I hear you with the feeling like crapola thing. I think probably the 20g may be for me, but not sure. I do SO MUCH dance practice, teaching, yada-yada, that I do get VERY weak by late afternoon.

I don't know my LBM, but it's NOTHING close to yours!

I suppose I should just go with the flow then and see how I feel, eh?

Do you have any suggestions on what to eat over the carb up session? Is it really just candy? I need to go back over the threads where this is discussed, because I know fructose is a no-no, but I can't remember what is allowed exactly.

I wish my book would hurry up and get here! LOL

Thank you again, TrainerDan. I don't think I could function with less than 20g. As it is, it's making my arms ache to type!

ANd that all adds up the 20g of carbs, thats why you have to try to keep the carbs as close to 0 as you can, cause you will get 1 g hear and half a g there. Green tea has carbs yes, its 100% carbs.....but that 100% only =2 calories. I would get used to trying to keep the amount of carbs to th bare minimum that is possible at least till you get in the swing of the whole routine, the first week I felt like dirt, but now I notice zero energy loss....then again I was pushing 300 pounds before so there wasnt much energy to begin with... hahahaha. Dans a monster, he probably burns 500 calories farting, or turning his head on his massive neck, he's pressing hatchback hondas and squatting buicks, and he only has to get 20 or so more grams than recomended to get the energy he needs. I just think it'd be safer to see how well you react to 20g or less with the energy before just upping it, every little bit can hurt for every different bodytype.

I look at it this way - if you can get into ketosis at 30 grams then go for 30 grams, if you can only handle 20 grams then go for 20 grams, if you really have a hard time getting into ketosis then shoot for 0.


If you can stay in ketosis at 20 grams why would you need to go any lower? I think that would make the diet portion of the program more difficult than it needs to be.

Yeah, I hear ya. But I know from experience I can't go below 20g. I've been doing Atkins for about 6mos now, and most of the time I kept my carbs WAY low, and didn't even move onto OWL until way after I should have. But, I was so totally dysfunctional. All I did was sleep, and brushing my hair made my arms ache horribly. Plus, it's way too scary for me to even think of going zero...too many classes in anatomy & physiology I guess. LOL. The body needs some carbs to function properly. I don't eat or drink extra carbs, and I've counted every carb in eggs, etc. for six months now (atkins is pretty strict about that stuff---inlcluding hidden carbs..like LC bars that say 2g or so is really often around 14g if you do the math).

Gotta run!

yeah i gave up on the LC bars and the LC shakes from Carb Solutions and EAS.

I found that my whey shakes are actually better from a low carb standpoint.

for carb up foods check the sticky thread "carb up foods" and also there is an article that i think was written by Lyle McDonald about the carb up phase, if i an find the link i will post it for you.

Thanks, BigDog. I actually feel like a dufus at the moment---I saw that sticky and it JUST didn't register at the time. Maybe because I was on another quest...still doing BFL and Atkins.

Whey protein----if I'm supposed to keep my protein (according to CKD parameters) at 145g per day, is whey redundant?? I mean, is that a lot of protein? I know it felt like a lot when I first started couting protein grams, but numbers wise I don't know. I guess I was wondering if I can get my protein in, say, 5 meals with small portions (which I seem to be able to do with 145g), is the whey necessary, or is it a matter protein "quality" rather than quantity?

Thanks, BigDog... this gets easier every day (keeping up wise, though 20g carbs rather sux by Thursday!) because of you guys. I don't think I could do any of this without you all.

here is the link to Lyle's article if you havent seen it yet


http://www.thinkmuscle.com/articles...ogenic-diet.htm


The whey protein i get has 22gram protein, 2 grams of fat and 2 grams of carbs per serving.

I use the whey shakes for 2 meals in a day. Generally my day goes breakfast, shake, lunch, shake, supper. I usually have 1.5 servings in the morning and 1 serving in the afternoon. I also add my glutamine powder and flax oil to the morning shake.

So far i havent had any problems with it knocking me out of ketosis.


I also have the advantage that i am trying to put away 234 grams of protein a day. Using the CKD parameters website i customized it for my needs. Basically i use 10 cals/lb per day for the weekdays and i lowered the carb up days to 8 grams/LBM on day one and 5 gram/LBM on day two. When you go thorugh the first page you have the option of changing all the input numbers to better suit your needs.


20 grams of carbs may suck by thursday but within two days you will be slamming anything you can find to meet your MINIMUM carb goal. For me it is 650+ grams. I found out last week that it wasnt as easy as it first sounded. i will be better prepared this week.

good luck, and yes this diet seems intimidating at first but it gets much easier after the first couple weeks

Thanks, BigDog! It is rather itimidating at the moment.

I've not had a chance to look over the sticky on suggested carb foods, but I'm getting ready to do that right now.

The whey may not be for me right now because I'm only taking in 145g protein daily.

As for changing the input information on the CKD parameters calculator, from what I could recall....it just asked for weight, waist size, etc. I put in what I knew and it did the rest. It gave me my LBM and fat mass (embarassing!). My body fat percentage is pretty high right now----yikes! It's a wake up call when body fat counts are delivered in "percentage" form, rather than the scale!! To me, it looks WORSE than what the scale says. Ick.

You have to get in 650g??? Dang! My readout says to take in 556g on day one.

Speaking of the carb up phase---aren't we supposed to do LC/HF M-F, and carb up Sat and Sun? Or am I totally missunderstanding again? Most people, from what I've seen start on Friday and end on sunday sometime... I guess I need to figure out if I have to start tomorrow afternoon, evening, or Saturday..morning??

One day, I'll actually understand all this.

I think that all the soy negative hype is being funded by cattle ranchers and whey producers. Japanese have been eating tofu for years, and they don't seem to be stupid people ?

Just my 2 cents,
Lux

Jalilah...(I like your name)

But anyway..I think we are in the same boat. I've been looking at my CKD readout and I'm thinking how in the world will I Carb-up with 1895 grams carb and 491 grams protein..lol.

And I'm pretty much scared to have any sugar because I haven't had any carvings in over a 2wks.

But after I reread this whole thread..I think I got a better understanding. I remember reading that we could have trace carbs or something like that.. Right now I do 25 easy...I did 14 yesterday..I might just try to do 0 tomorrow.

Best wishes on everything :-)