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How many carbs per day?

You’re thinking of starting a low carb diet, but you’re not sure what low carb is. How many carbs do you get a day on a low carb diet?

It depends.

The Atkins diet will start you very low, only about 20 g per day. You’ll gradually increase that though. South Beach starts you a little higher. Other low carb diets may allow you even more carbs. What really matters is how you feel and whether you’re able to maintain the diet and lose weight.

• You have to eat few enough carbs (and calories) to lose weight.
• The diet can’t be so restrictive that you can’t stick with it.
• You need to feel good. If you don’t, you won’t stick with it.

One other thing; talk to your doctor and see if a low carb diet is right for you. My doctor recommended it to me. You may have health concerns that would make a low carb diet a bad choice for you.

I’d recommend starting to count your carbs and weigh yourself every day. Even when you start watching your carbs, you’re likely to eat more than you should for the first few days. Write down everything you eat and look up the nutritional info to count calories and carbs.

When cooking, calculate the carbs and calories for the whole dish, and then divide it up by how many servings you’re getting from it. This is easier than trying to guess-timate later.

Measure! Don’t guess that you’ve gotten half a cup, or an ounce, or whatever. You’ll almost invariably underestimate the amounts.

Track your carbs, calories and daily weight. You may be able to lose weight when you eat 80 g carbs a day, or 40 g, or 30 g. You won’t know until you keep track and see how your weight loss goes.

I’ve set an initial goal to get down to 40 g a day, but it will probably take a week or so for me to adjust to the different way of eating.  My first few days I hit around 70-80 g. Today is my best yet at 45 g.

In my experience, it takes a while to adjust to such a drastic reduction in carbs. Give yourself some time and shoot for a small daily reduction rather than a drastic one. If you’re low carbing, how many carbs per day do you normally eat?