[geoblewis]

I'm trying to cut carbs. I wasn't eating that many to begin with since I was eating mostly Paleo. Most of my carbs came in the form of non-starchy veggies. But I'm in a mid-life, perimenopausal phase and my body does not want to give up another ounce of fat! I struggle with cutting calories, have tried IF, which worked for about 20 lbs, but my body caught on. So I'm cycling through my old bag of tricks and Atkins is what I'm choosing for now.

I am a borderline type 2 diabetic. I've been managing it over five years with diet and exercise. I'm going to have my A1c tested again in three weeks. I'm hoping it goes down again (last time it was 6.1%). I've read somewhere recently that diabetics do better eating carbs in the evening rather than in the morning. I hope this is true, because that's when I'm craving them the most. I mean, I GOT IT BAD tonight! But I already ate all my carbs earlier in the day, when they didn't really mean anything to me.

Have any of you experimented with the time of day you eat carbs?

[dandyrover]

I relate, also a peri borderline diab managing via diet and exercise. Here's what I figured out.

The cravings should go away and if they haven't, 1) make sure you are counting your 20 g net carbs carefully and spacing them out (not at one sitting) and 2) make sure you have more g of fat than protein in your diet, and that is also spaced out per meal.

Protein digests to impact blood sugar like carbs if slower, so if your meal plan is low fat then you could be giving yourself cravings.

[geoblewis]

Thanks Dandy. I thought I was doing okay with fats (never have cut back on those, just went with better sources), but I was just looking at my stats (I track everything lately) and noticed that I was eating more grams of protein than fats. So I'll definitely work on that.

I also noticed that I tend to lump my carbs into one or two meals, so I'll definitely spread those out. Thank you for the guidance!

[AnaBee]

Have any of you experimented with the time of day you eat carbs?

Before I started cutting my carbs to atkins levels, I'd already worked out that breakfast needs to be the lowest carb meal of the day, to avoid cravings. Lunch I tend to be pretty low carb as I usually have tuna and salad veges, so I haven't experimented much with that. For dinner, I could sometimes get away with higher carbs because they'd make me crash about an hour later. I used to use that slump as a good way to get an early night. I also tend to wake up feeling hungover, which cuts the desire to repeat the experience the next day.
I never eat that many carbs at night now (those crashes were when I was eating lots of potatoes which I've now cut) but I still find these lessons useful.