Low Carb

A Month of Low Carb

This low carb challenge runs monthly starting on the 1st of the month. The goal is to eat low carb consistently for the entire month. Stay on track and you will lose inches and feel great!

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If you are new to low carb dieting, you'd have a lot of questions and wonder if this way of eating is right for you. In short, your body burns carbs for energy and by restricting your carb intake, your body taps into stored fat cells for fuel. When your body burns fat cells, your liver produces ketones. Hence, putting you in a ketogenic state. A typical person will stay in ketosis by consuming under 50 grams of carbs a day.

In this group, we will start with 20g Net Carbs for two weeks and then increase each subsequent week until we reach 50g Net Carbs at the end of the month.

• Week 1: 20g Net Carbs
• Week 2: 20g Net Carbs
• Week 3: 30g Net Carbs
• Week 4: 40g Net Carbs
• Week 5: 50g Net Carbs

There are a lot of information on the net that you can peruse. Here are a few articles to get you started:

• Reddit: Keto FAQ
• NIH: Beyond weight loss: a review of the therapeutic uses of very-low-carbohydrate (ketogenic) diets
• NIH: Long-term effects of a ketogenic diet in obese patients

When you are ready to start, take the following steps on tracking your carb consumption:

1. Use this keto calculator to find your ideal carbs, proteins, and fats consumption calculations for a healthy low carb diet. Your body fuels itself with carbs first, then fat - if there are no carbs or fat, then it will tap into protein (muscles). Make sure you are eating enough fat.

You will need to know your fat percentage - either use a pincher (Skinfold Caliper) or a modern scale to find your percentage.
 
The site recommends that you recalculate your ratios every month because the figures will change along with weight loss. You may find it useful to log the new numbers. Here is an easy spreadsheet table example:

Weight	184	180	175
GOALS	11/01/13	12/01/13	01/01/14	02/01/14	03/01/14
Daily Calorie Intake (kcal)	1600	1600	1600
Carbohydrates (16%) (g)	48	45	45
Protein (33%) (g)	98	90	90
Fat (51%) (g)	68	73	73

2. Download or print out a list of allowable foods and drinks that you can eat. There are a lot of food and drink recipes at Atkins, Genaw, and many more on Pinterest boards.

There are meals plans that you can find on the sites like Authority Nutrition. The new Atkins program's phase approach allows plenty of veggies and you can find the Atkins meal plans here and here. If you are not planning to purchase Atkins meals, you can use this combined meal plan from their two. You can also search their recipe search based on the ingredients you have on hand. *Note that Phase 1 of the Atkins program only allows you to consume 20 g carbs. That is really low, so it may not be a good fit for everyone - you may want to stick with the amount you got from the keto calculator.


3. Log your food intake using a diet and exercise journal such as MyFitnessPal, MyPlate, FitDay, and many more to choose from. MyFitnessPal allows you to change the nutrients tracked and meal names, and fitness goals (carbs, protein, and fat amounts gotten from the keto calculator).

Long-term effects of a ketogenic diet in obese patientsLong-term effects of a ketogenic diet in obese patients

Long-term effects of a ketogenic diet in obese patients

Long-term effects of a ketogenic diet in obese patients

 




Feel free to post your questions/comments and photos of your meal on our Facebook group page.

All right, let's do this! I CAN! AND I WILL!

Join the group on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/484225615032113/