Low calorie or low carb?

Two things I am often asked is “what is ketosis” or “I am not quite sure what I am doing”.

In a nutshell,  we offer two ways of dieting – low calorie and low carb/ketosis.  It is really important to decide which you are doing as the approach for each is different.

At Billy’s Diet we have 3 types of product:

  • Meal Replacement (MRP) which have 25% of your daily vitamins and most of your minerals. 
  • High Protein Plus (HP+) which have 15% added vitamins but not enough to replace all food although they are very low in calories and carbs. 
  • High Protein (HP) have no added nutrition, other than protein and are often our snack products.

Low-calorie Plan

This plan is simple, and a favourite plan of mine (Billy).  If you eat less calories than your body needs you will lose weight.  It is not our fastest weight loss plan, usually 1-2lbs per week, perhaps more in the first few weeks.  If you have a lot of weight to lose it may be quicker initially and adding some exercise will really help speed things up.  When I am doing our low calorie plan I tend to have 3 packs and 1-2 bags of my crisps and a low calorie meal.

A typical day for me would be 1 HP+ apple & cinnamon porridge made with water  – 90 calories, 1 MRP tikka meal – 146 calories, 1 MRP choc peanut bar – 214 calories, 1 sweet chilli crisps – 119 calories.  Total from packs = 616 calories.  Then I would add 250mls of skimmed milk for coffee – 83 calories.

I  also have a small low calorie evening meal.  Usually the same as my family but tend to avoid major carbs.  So I would have spag bol and have it with a big bowl of veg instead of spaghetti.  Or chilli with cauliflower rice.  Chicken breast with veg is very versatile and low calorie. I eat a lot of chicken like spicy chicken, chicken curry, chicken in gravy, chicken and garlic etc.

In the week I try to stick to 1000 calories per day.  If I am very hungry I may add an extra bag of crisps or have some fruit.  At the weekend, I tend to cook more food and switch to HP+ packs to reduce my calories, I would try to stick to a maximum of 1400 calories per day.

I also drink at least 2.5 litres of water and up to 4 litres, over the day, if I can manage it.

My losses fluctuate from week to week, it is never 2lbs a week, week in week out but over a longer period it evens out.  Expecting a regular loss each week often trips my dieters up, I always say look at the big picture and remember it takes a long time to lose weight!  Persistence and time is what is needed.

If you are looking for faster weight loss, maybe for an occasion or you just want to lose weight in the quickest possible way then you may want to try one of our low carb/ketosis plans.

So what is ketosis?

Basically a “normal” diet will usually consist of around 260g of carbs per day.  If you reduce your carbs to 65g or less per day your body should go into ketosis and burn stored fat for energy. 

There are two types of side effects/signs of ketosis, while getting into ketosis and in ketosis.  Knowing the signs will help you know if you are in ketosis or not.

The first few days are hard.  You may go into carb withdrawal, often called “keto flu”.  You may have headaches, hunger, sugar cravings and more.  It usually lasts 3-5 days and it is a sign you are reducing your carbs enough and drinking lots of water will really help reduce the side effects.

After 3-5 days you should be in ketosis and hopefully you will feel much better! The side effects change and you should notice some of these: decreased hunger, bad breath/ funny taste in your mouth, increased thirst, increased energy, better sleep, clearer thinking, a “buzzed” feeling, decreased cravings, fast weight loss, losing inches over body, a cold to the bones feeling.

You may only get one or 2 of the “in ketosis” side effects.  The lack of hunger mostly stays though, which is a sign that ketosis is still occurring.  

You can read more about ketosis [here]

Our ketosis plans.

Packs & food.  Have 4 packs or 3 packs and one of our snacks for ketosis weight loss.  Our MRP packs have around 14g carbs and 25% added vitamins and the HP+ packs have less carbs (around 3-5g) and slightly less added vitamins at 15%.  If you want to have a lot of additional food or reduce your carbs a lot then the HP+ packs are ideal.

We are often asked what to have and when. Really it is up to you, you can have the packs in any order, any time of the day.

If you are having 3 sachets, a snack and some low carb food, a typical day might be:

Breakfast: MRP chocolate peanut bar (204 calories, 18g of carbs)

Lunch: MRP shake, made water. (140 calories, 14g of carbs)

Evening meal: HP+ Chilli (109calories, 9.2 of carbs), with 100g of veg or salad. (broccoli is 34 calories and 7g of carbs per 100g)

Snacks: HP bar (121 calories, 2.8g of carbs), salad (17 calories, 3.2g of carbs), protein 100g (chicken breast 239 calories, 0.0g of carbs)

100mls of skimmed milk for tea/coffee. (110 calories, 5g of carbs)

Total for the day 974 calories and 59.2g of carbs.

We have many products to choose from and always find for best long term weight having packs and food is the best combination.

Total Food Replacement (TFR).   4 packs per day, 100mls of skimmed milk and NO food.  This plan has been recommended by our dietitian, Sue, and she approves the plan as long as you follow certain rules (see here).

Keto Kick Tea.

KK tea is a world’s first!  A mild tea taken 3 times a day which is proven to increase ketosis weight loss by 30%!  It also reduces the side effects of” keto flu” in the first few day, helps you to get into ketosis quicker, minimise sugar cravings and increase energy.

 I always have the KK tea whichever ketosis plan I follow.  I recently did a trial of 2 week TFR and KK tea and lost 17lbs.  It made keto so much easier.  I believe everyone who is in ketosis should take this tea as well.

Once you have decided whether you want to do a low calorie or a low carb plan please let me know!  It is easy to switch between plans as our products are dual use, for example our MRP shakes can be used as part of a calorie controlled diet and a low carb diet.