Ingredients for a Low Carb diet

[jhondrake]

Some days/mornings of my current diet requires to go very low carb. This is quite tricky on a vegan diet outside protein powders/shakes, so I thought my list of ingredients might come handy for others on similar diets.

Ingredient
protein/carb/fat
High Protein
Seitan
74/14/2

Gluten
21/4/1

Textured soy protein
50/10/1

Nutritional yeast
50/14/3

Hemp protein
45/8/12

Tempeh
19/9/11

Tofu
8/2/5
High Fat
Avocados
2/2/15

walnuts
15/7/65

almonds
21/8/49

peanuts
26/8/49

Peanut Butter
25/14/50
Oils
olive (polyunsaturated)
0/0/100

coconut (saturated)
0/0/100

flaxseed (ω-3 ALA)
0/0/100

microalgae DHA (ω-3)
0/0/100

high oleic sunflower
0/0/100

Note: revised carb content excluding fiber, it's a lot lower!

It's good to add a lot of veggies with fiber and can go a bit crazy with the oils: broccoli, cauliflower, chard, spinach, carrots, sprouts, squash, eggplant (deep fry with bread crumbs, yay!), etc. But watch out 1 tbsp of oil is ~120kcal. Gluten is great to make dough with chard/lettuce/etc and you can bake or deep fry. Or you can make/buy low carb wraps. Coconut oil is good for making deserts and crumbles.

Beans, lentils, and oats have some protein but are relatively very high in carbs.

Edit: Thanks /@personalizedbook for the fixes

 

[personalizedbook]

@jhondrake Often people will look at the 'net carbs' as a measure of the total carb (and glycemic) load of a diet. For example, beans have quite a few carbs, but they also have fiber (which reduces your net carb count) and protein, both of which reduced the glycemic load of the food.

Also, pure oils have 120 calories per tbsp, to be exact. They are almost entirely devoid of nutrients, so it's definitely better to stick with nuts and seeds if you can.

 

[jhondrake]

@personalizedbook Absolutely. And oils don't have fibers either. But it's hard to have so much veggies without some oily dressing

 

[grneyes3]

@jhondrake Any particular reason you're going very low carb? Is it weight loss? Because you should be fine by moderating foods with a high glycemic index (to avoid insulin spikes) and following a caloric deficit.

 

[tonymiller]

@grneyes3 I just began a carb cycle because of the insulin basically to lean out before bulking again. I've never tried it before but my nutritionist's reasoning is to try and get my body used to burning fat more efficiently. We keep the carbs constant, change the protein intake to fit our needs, and fill in the gaps with fat.

 

[jhondrake]

@grneyes3 I've been bulking for some months with carb loading but got a lot of fat too. Then tried something along the lines of Lean Gains and Cheat Mode with OK results. I'm on second week of UD2 and already shedded noticeable fat while keeping muscle.

It's the first I can do both weights and endurance and it seems great so far. This works for me. I've never been able to bulk as vegan before.

BTW beware of advice on bulking by people who did it first as vegetarians. I wish somebody will make a serious study on vegans on the different programs so we can get rid of all the nonsense.

But anyway, do whatever works for you. I'm not advocating anything and my goals are not necessarily your goals.

 

[grneyes3]

@jhondrake You know what? I thought I was in the general Vegan subreddit instead of veganfitness. Makes a lot more sense now. My bad, carry on.

Best of luck with the rest of your cut.

 

[jhondrake]

@grneyes3 no worries